The world commemorates start of WWII as its greatest tragedy |’RIA Novosti’ newswire

September 1, 1939, few people could imagine that World War II would last six years and become the bloodiest war of the 20th century.

The reasons for the war have already been discussed at length, but the debates have resumed now that several East European countries are trying to shift part of the blame for unleashing WWII onto the Soviet Union.

Naturally, the main target for their criticism is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed on August 23, 1939. Critics say the pact allowed Hitler to start the war barely a week after it was signed.(via The world commemorates start of WWII as its greatest tragedy – ‘RIA Novosti’ newswire).

After decades of Allied propaganda, linked here is a Russian version. The demonization of Hitler (not that he needed help), and the Soviet Union by the Western Allies has not helped the cause of history. The interesting aspect which this writer brings out is how all the Western courted Hitler – how the West looked away, as Hitler started marauding his neighbours.

Much like the world looks away when it comes to Israel today. Or the demonization of Iran!

RBI to buy 200 tonnes of IMF gold

RBI’s decision to shore up its gold reserves needs to be seen in the context of other central banks across the globe increasing their gold reserves. Among them are the central banks of China, Russia and a few countries in the European Union.

In the last one year, China has increased its gold holdings, by weight, by 75.69%, Russia by 18.78%, the Philippines by 18.50% and Mexico by 108.91%.

Compared with this, India’s central bank did not add anything to its gold reserves in the last one year, according to Bloomberg data. (via RBI to buy 200 tonnes of IMF gold – Home – livemint.com).

Two years ago …

2ndlook had estimated that the Chinese could possibly (and they have)  increase their monetary gold reserves. On April 24th, 2009, Bloomberg reported that China had increased

its (gold) reserves by 454 tons to 1,054 tons through domestic purchases and refining scrap metal, Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency today. China, the world’s biggest gold producer, has increased its holdings before, Hu said in the interview carried on the administration Web Site. They rose from 394 tons to 500 tons in 2001 and to 600 tons in 2003. The U.S. has the world’s biggest gold holdings at 8,134 tons, followed by Germany with 3,413 tons, World Gold Council data show. France has 2,487 tons and Italy 2,452 tons, while the IMF has 3,217 tons, according to the council.

Another report, from Market Watch, a WSJ web publication added,

The increase makes China the world’s fifth-largest holder of gold, just ahead of Switzerland, and among the six nations plus the International Monetary Fund that have reserves of more than 1,000 metric tons. Although Hu did not elaborate on where China had sourced the additional bullion, her comments were interpreted as meaning they came from domestic sources and may included refining of scrap metal.  Traders also say the gold was accumulated systematically over a number of years. Last year China ranked as the world’s largest gold producer with 12.2% of world output, equivalent to 288 metric tons. The U.S. ranked second with a 9.9% share, or 234 metric tons.

What are the future plans of the Chinese? A report quotes an analyst

China should increase its gold reserve from 600 tons to about 2,500 tons in a short term and to 3,000 tons in a long term to cope with the versatile exchange rate risks, said Teng Tai, an economist of China Galaxy Securities Company.

Exactly …

This really does not mean much – except that it may keep gold prices on boil. Whether a currency is backed by 5% or a 10% gold reserve makes no material difference, especially in this era of rampant use of (not just by the US of A) “a technology, called a printing press” as an economic tool. For long term economic stability, gold needs to be in the hands of individuals – and not Governments.

Why India

Since China is a significant gold producer by itself, it may not get a shot at buying IMF gold. India has negligible domestic gold production -and was possibly therefore given preference by the IMF. Of course, preference may have been given to RBI’s purchase, given its ‘responsible’ and ‘mature’ behaviour during the current Great Recession.

What does RBI’s gold purchase mean

RBI’s gold purchase means two things.

The Indian Government which has had a rather low percentage of gold holdings as their currency reserves will now bolster these reserves. Even after this purchase, Indian official reserves, will only be the ninth largest in the world in absolute terms.

On average, countries hold about 12.6% of their reserves in gold, up from 9.9% a year ago. Some of this represents an increase in gold holdings, but another driver of the increased proportion is the rise in the value of gold. (from India propels gold to new high.)

The overhanging threat of open market sales by the IMF, speculated by many and discounted by 2ndlook, now stands neutralized. This will be a kicker to gold prices in the short term.

The ideal thing …

Sell gold to individuals. Governments should not have such large holdings of gold. Gold in the hands of Governments is the prime cause of war. Gold holding should be widely dispersed, as widely as possible, amongst individuals – like the Indian gold possession model. No national government, in the new financial architecture should be allowed to have more than 250 tons of gold – to progressively reduce to 50 tons.

Fat in the wrong place

Will India be different?

The generally accepted view is that the government runs a bloated bureaucracy. Its current employee strength is 3.32 million. But over 80 per cent of this number is accounted for by specific service departments: posts, central police forces and the railways. Logically, these should not be counted as part of a “bureaucracy”, which as a consequence stands reduced to a relatively modest 600,000. Since the overwhelming majority of even that consists of clerical and support staff, the operational part of the government is quite simply too small. (via Fat in the wrong place).

The good news!

2ndlook has been consistently saying that the Indian Government is NOT fiscally expanding – as percentage of GDP. In terms of employee numbers, like this post (linked above) shows, it has shrunk. As more Indians have moved away from the brink of survival, they have come to depend less on public health care and public food grain distribution.

It wuz jes poor service

Critics may carp that the those who have moved away, have done so due to the ‘poor’ service levels at Governmental health care and public food-grain centres. What the carpers forget is that there is a decrease in total demand for such centres or any vocal activism to improve the ‘free’ system. Quite unlike the citadel of the welfare state – the West.

Indians see a decreasing role for the State in the future – in spite of the best efforts of the State to increase its role. And a ‘progressive’ lobby, like the writer of the post (linked above), who would like the Government to have a better ‘teeth-to-tail’ ratio.

The Indian State meets its colonial cousin

Under the garb of ‘growth’ and ‘progress’ the Indian Government has launched new mega projects to expand its footprint. For instance, the NREGA and Unique Identification Database Authority of India (UIDAI; headed by by Nandan Nilekani of Infosys fame).Will the Indian Government sheds it colonial baggage and Western leanings and go for an Indic model?

So, what will it be, India! The world’s first (and only?) lean Government – or a bloated Western style ‘Welfare State”?

A dollar devaluation by another name

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday there was substantial support among the Group of 20 nations for creating a new framework to tackle global economic imbalances … Analysts said the United States’ drive to agree a roadmap for a more balanced global economy could meet resistance from China which is unlikely to agree reforms that would threaten its growth … A document outlining the US position ahead of the September 24-25 summit said big exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings … The euro hit a one-year high against a sliding dollar ahead of a federal reserve meeting and the G20 talks on rebalancing, a process which is likely to require a weaker dollar.

Like Quicktake has pointed out in earlier posts, the US has alternated between an overvalued currency to gain ownership over large sections of world economy – and now with a devalued dollar, it seeks to gain an upper hand in merchandise exports. The three main points that one needs to understand are: -

One – It reduces the real value of US debt. The Chinese, the Rest of BRICS and the Others need to be paid a lot less in the future. (as pointed out earlier in various posts linked here.) Two – It makes US exports artificially competitive. (as pointed out earlier in linked posts). Three – The US competitiveness will be anchored to assets purchased with over-valued dollars.

	US	Germany	Japan	China	ASEAN	India
Labour	High cost	High cost	High cost	Low cost	Med. cost	Low
Welfare Burden	High	Very high	High	Low	Low	Low
Entrepreneurship	Medium	Medium	Low	Low	Low	High
Domestic market	Large	Medium	Medium	Medium	Small	Large
Raw materials	High ownership	Low-medium	Low-medium	Medium	Medium	Medium

What the US is proposing is that the Chinese Yuan must become ‘stronger’ – and the dollar must become weaker. This will mean a real reduction in US debt – and a subsidy for US exports. Of course, a devaluation has never helped any regime in the long run – but in the short run it reduces imports and increases exports. But is a ‘fix’ that the patient begins to row dependant on!

Is that the US is wanting to do to itself?

Related Quicktakes

Toward a robust globalisation

Fitch cuts Russian debt rating, sparks memories of ‘98 crash- Internation…

Leadership in the Developing World

U.S. Leads World In Foreign Weapons Sales – Report – NYTimes.com

Citing a congressional study released on Friday, the Times said the United States was involved in 68.4 percent of the global sales of arms.

U.S. weapons sales jumped nearly 50 percent in 2008 despite the global economic recession to $37.8 billion from $25.4 billion the year before.

The jump defied worldwide trends as global arms sales fell 7.6 percent to $55.2 billion in 2008, the report said. Global weapons agreements were at their lowest level since 2005. (via U.S. Leads World In Foreign Weapons Sales – Report – NYTimes.com).

Can you stop me ...

US in the Post WW2 world

In South East Asia from 1950-1975, Israel from the 1960 onwards and now in Iraq, Afghanistan, the US has been the in the middle of most expensive conflicts (measured in terms of lives lost) in post WW2 world.

This model of international relations is something that needs to change. The poor in this world has not become much safer, seen more democratic or significantly more richer. What justification does this policy have – apart from “I have muscles and can you stop me from flexing them” logic?

Gold – a non-military solution

As I see it, there are two simple solutions. One – everyone who disagrees with (or even if  you are worried about the economic consequences of) the US foreign policy should go out and buy gold. This will surely trigger a collapse of the US dollar. Just a 100,000 people buying a 100gm of of gold in the next 1 year will trigger the dollar collapse.

Drill for oil

The second solution will need more time and will need co-operation foron the BRIC Governments. The BRIC Governments must go out and drill oil wells all over the developing world. The collapse in oil prices will remove the petro-dollar funding of the US and simultaneously eliminate /reduce the trade deficit of the developing world.

Election funding, India-Pakistan jigsaw mash up

Army Chief Mirza Aslam Baig had advised the ISI in September 1990 that it should give logistic support to transfer of funds from the business community in Karachi to the IJI during the 1988 election, the report stated.

Durrani said in the affidavit that he opened several bank accounts in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Quetta, the daily reported. A man from Karachi called Younus Habib had deposited Rs140 million in one of the accounts in Karachi. Some of the amount had been transferred to the accounts in Quetta and Rawalpindi and the rest to a special fund, according to the report.

According to the affidavit, submitted before the apex court on July 24, 1994, former caretaker PM Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi received Rs 5 million, former Sindh Chief Minister Jam Sadiq Rs 5 million, former Prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo Rs 2.5 million, Nawaz Sharif Rs 3.5 million, the Jamaat-e-Islami Rs 5 million, and Lt Gen Rafaqat Rs 5.6 million for managing the media campaign. There were many other names on the affidavit. (via Nawaz, others got money from ISI: Pak ex-CJ).

Power, pelf and wealth

Bribes to politicians are neither unique or a monopoly to Pakistan. Funding of power struggles is a part of polity – and is more a problem of the structuring election funding, rather than the moral fibre of politicians.

The Lodis from Afghanistan, petty horse traders, regained India from West Asian invaders. The Lodis could do this, by reducing the cost of raising an army. Being horse traders, they access to low cost horses, essential for a large cavalry-based armed forces of the time.

The Afghan Lodis ended the short 200 year stint in Delhi by the frequently defeated West-Asian invaders. Western historians have painted the Lodis as Islamic conquerors – without differentiating between Indian-Muslim rulers and West Asian Muslim rulers. Afghanistan was last ruled by the rulers of Punjab – Maharaja Ranjit Singh, till about 1830s.

This brings to mind two things.

Political funding in the West

All political systems must necessarily create a system for funding access to power. ‘Modern’ democracies have no systemic channel for funding. Those who follow the ‘system’ – are left behind by those who break it.

The Roosevelt family fortune was built on opium ‘trade’ with China. The Kennedy families fortune was built on initially bootlegging (smuggling alcohol) and Wall Street shenanigans (sold all his shares just before  the Wall Street Crash) and Hollywood capers (Alexander Pantages affaire). In each case, he turned legal – and started a alcoholic-beverage distribution company (Somerset Importers), SEC Chairman, Ambassador to Britain.

He ensured his son, JFK, became the only and ever, Catholic President of the USA. Behind Robert Kennedy’s appointment appointments as SEC head and Ambassador to Britain, was FDR – whose own family fortune was made by marrying rich and opium ‘trade’. Takes one to know one.

The much whispered and well-known funding of political parties by the Reliance Group or the well-oiled PR machine of the Tatas in India are another example.

Funding of Elections

A simple expedient would be to set up a tax-payer funded corpus, for each Parliamentary, State Legislature and local Government constituency – which would get proportionately divided between the top 5-7 candidates, based on votes polled – subject to a ‘clean’ record.

Based on a 500 (central Government), 5000 (state legislature) and 50,000 (local Government) constituencies, and a corpus of Rs.5000 crores each for Central /State /Local Government politicians, to be distributed every five years, would immediately clean up Indian politics and bring in a whole new breed of politicians. The annual cost of such funding will be Rs.3000 crores at current cost – which is far lower than the estimated ‘bribes’ that Indian politicians presumably collect.

To believe that a nation can depend on a constant supply of Tilaks, Boses, Gandhis, Vinoba Bhaves, et al is niether real nor possible.

Can Pakistani business clean up Pakistan

The other thing is the use of Pakistani business interests to clean up Pakistan. Mahbub Al Haq made a famous 22 families in Pakistan speech – which detailed how some 22 families in Pakistan control the Pakistani economy. India can provide a huge market, opportunity and growth to Pakistani businesses.

Is there a coherent anti-terrorism strategy? Is Indian diplomacy engaged with this segment of Pakistan – to find ways to clean up Pakistan. Are Indian banks, consortium-members that fund Pakistani businesses – which are on a “White’ list?

Or Indian diplomacy too busy engaging with the Unca Sam and the West?

The bubble you know

A Chinese bubble has been deflated. Too bad it’s the wrong one. The main Shanghai stock market index has fallen 23% from its peak at the beginning of August, reversing half of the run-up that started early in 2009. That’s a welcome correction, but it doesn’t mean a return to normality, or address the bigger bubble round the corner.

Shares were driven up by a belief in China’s recovery – and by a rush of liquidity. The fall occurred because both were gently dampened. Politicians have warned that economic recovery isn’t a done deal. Monetary authorities drained some liquidity from the market, curbed certain kinds of lending and asked banks to show restraint. (via The bubble you know).

Look ma, "Green shoots"

The long and short

The US economy is going to take some time to recover – a long time. Green shoots versus Brown Weeds is the kind of empty debate which covers the complete lack of visibility on the probable outcome that economists have.

The Japanese have finally decided to sack the LDP – after more than 50 years. The Japanese do not expect any major recovery or growth to happen for the next few years.

Europe is in the boondocks – and is unlikely to come out out of this soon. Their most feasible European option is a greater role for public sector – which the Europeans seem to have embraced in a bear hug.

The BRICs of global economy

Which leaves the BRIC countries. Russia is too dependent on high raw material prices – which need greater demand from the world economy to make a difference. Russia feeds on high growth rates – but cannot be the reason for growth of the global economy.

Ditto for Brazil. Which leaves the world with India and China. Let us first take the Chinese case first.

How ln can this model work

Biting the bullet

Most economists believe that to kill the Beast of Great Recession, the world is left with one, single  magic bullet – China. This being the only bullet in the chamber, makes everyone very nervous, keeps everyone busy, reading Chinese tea leaves with great care.

There is overall consensus that the Chinese growth figures need to be ‘tempered’ – and significantly. The fears seems to be in two areas: -

1. Overstated growth rates.

“The Chinese government is one of the few governments in the world that knows its GDP numbers three years in advance,” Marc Faber told CNBC. Combine this with the other preoccupation where “China is desperately trying to figure out how to withdraw its funds from the dollar without driving it down — not an easy feat.”

2. Understated bad loans by banks.

an astonishing $300 billion vanishing act … the amount of bad debt the top three banks offloaded in the early 2000s. Back then, the People’s Bank created four asset management companies to scrub away the dirt from two decades of policy-driven lending. There was a big catch. The AMCs bought the loans for up to 100 per cent of face value, while recoveries were in the 20-30 per cent range. That means the top three lenders’ Rmb1.2 trillion of AMC bonds, which start to mature this year, are likely to be almost worthless. In theory, the Ministry of Finance is ultimately on the hook, but it is unlikely to make good for the banks. The amount due to all three is roughly one-sixth of China’s fiscal revenues for 2008. (from If in doubt, rub it out BY John Foley /  August 29, 2009, 0:03 IST).

Housing makes up roughly a quarter of investment spending, which is in turn 40% of gross domestic product. The differences between China’s big cities make a bubble harder to spot. But record bids for land are cause for concern, as is falling affordability in big cities. Meanwhile, stagnant residential rents suggest speculation, not demand for somewhere to live, is pushing up house prices. A burst real estate bubble could be fiendishly tricky to clear up. While stock markets clear in a day, property gluts can take months – if they clear at all. ( from The bubble you know by John Foley, Septemeber 1st, 2009, 01:33 IST).

Everything is made in China

Both these severely strain the economic outlook and the banking sector. This may lead to, what the WSJ.COM says, a situation, where “China in the medium term will face just the overcapacity and bad debt that many observers feared already existed.”

But some of these observations and scare stories are exaggerations – and need to be read with the caveat that the dominant Western media portrays all competitors in a similar manner.

What about the Indian economy

That pretty much leaves India as the sole candidate. India cannot absorb the kind of imports that are required to make a difference to the global economy. Or boost exports to the rest of the world – to create consumer led growth. World Bank estimates are that India will grow faster than China by 2010. So, no go!

A plan for Indian businesses

What this means is that India needs to do: -

1. Not bank on any kind of global recovery soon.

2. And island itself – by ensuring that any kind of global mayhem, counter-party risks do not hit Indian banks, corporates, exporters, et al. This may need some strong alliances on export guarantees and credit enhancement by importers for exports from India.

The Indian Government, may not take any major initiative in this regard, but it is the Indian businessmen, who should and must understand this situation – and take the necessary precautions, actions, insurance, guarantees, due diligence, comfort letters – the entire gamut.

Indian Mosaic and the Western Melting Pot

The US Melting Pot

“However, India’s nation-building process differed markedly from the classic 19th-century European model. European nations flattened diversities. We now know that at the time of the French Revolution, only 10-12 % of France spoke French. Over the next 100 years, public schools and conscription armies turned “peasants into Frenchmen”. France simply did not allow diversities to flourish. Everyone came to speak French.

Under Gandhi, India consciously embraced diversities. Even though Gandhi thought that Hindustani — a combination of Hindi and Urdu — might become India’s lingua franca, the idea that India would be a multilingual nation soon took control of his political thinking. And the notion of embracing diversities was quickly extended to religions and castes.

Experience told Gandhi that most Indians had at least two or three identities. They were Bengali and Indian, Tamil and Indian, Hindu and Indian, Muslim and Indian. To push either fragment too far was to go against the requirements of Indian nation-building. Building a classic European style nation was simply not a practical option.

Thus was born the Congress model of politics, which was indistinguishable from nation-building. Today, we call this the “mosaic” model of nationalism, as opposed to the “melting pot” model. The latter term is often used for the US, but recent scholarship makes it clear that France is the biggest melting pot in the world.” (via No place for extremes in the Indian mosaic – Special Report – Sunday TOI – NEWS – The Times of India).

Ashutosh Varshney, in the article linked above, makes the distinction between ‘mosaic’ and ‘melting pot’ very well. Looking deeper, one, however needs to qualify his thesis.

Lowest diversity vs.Biggest talk

The West today has the lowest levels of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity – and persecutes whatever little is left, like the Roma Gypsies for example. Would critics like to mention any other country, where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you like to suggest France instead?

The US melting pot

The language conundrum

India, has 15 official languages.

No other countries even had the courage to think of that. Various US state governments outlawed all languages – except English.

It was only in 1923, was this finally set aside after the matter reached the US Supreme Court (read Meyer vs Nebraska). The USA gathered some courage to start timidly with more than English only after seeing India’s success with 15 languages. Switzerland has only four. Sri Lanka’s Sinhalas do not want to accept Sri Lankan Tamils as full and equal citizens – hence the 20 year old civil war.

In the thrall of One

The Western concept of nation building requires the cornerstones of Desert Bloc – One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festivals. This tyranny of the ‘One’ is the root of most problems in the world. From this ‘Oneness’, we get the ‘One’ Currency, ‘One’ Language logic  – a fallacious syllogism. Once you accept ‘One’, you will accept all others.

Before finished saying M

While Ashutosh Varshney makes the distinction between ‘mosaic’ and ‘melting pot’ very well, he misses the beat, completely, by crediting Gandhiji for this Indic construct! When he says, “Under Gandhi, India consciously embraced diversities” is he implying that before Gandhiji, India was a mono-bloc society. Was it under the thrall of ‘One’? Would Gandhiji have become a Mahatma in India, if tried the ‘melting pot’ strategy?

I think not!

He would have been rejected, rubbished and trashed before he could have said M – of mosaic, melting pot or Mahatma.

Manick Sarkar - does magic with cartoons also

Sunita Narain proposes more Government

Dilbert knows all ...

we bought samples of leading brands available in the market and analysed content for the toxin. What we found was staggeringly high levels of lead in virtually all samples we checked. India does not have a mandatory standard for regulating lead in paints. We only have a voluntary code laid down by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which specifies that lead content should be 1,000 parts per million (ppm). Our tests found that the biggest and best companies had lead levels 180 times the voluntary standard.

But we were not surprised, as I said. After all, the government has not set standards to phase out lead in this daily-use product. Something most governments had done some 20 years ago. In the US, lead had been termed the number one environmental threat to the health of children. But it was a non-issue for the industry in India. We were angry at this indifference and decided to write to all major paint companies asking them about their plans to phase out lead. We expected little response. But this time we were really surprised.

Two of the major companies — Asian Paints and Nerolac — wrote back saying that they were planning to get rid of lead. They promised that this would happen soon, within a few months. So, instead of immediately releasing our report, we thought we should wait: To recheck and to validate if the companies kept the promise they had made to us. Some months later we went to the market and picked samples of the same companies.

Our analysis found a change. Of the big five, three companies had no lead in their product. Asian Paints and Nerolac had indeed cleaned up. Berger and Shalimar still had lead in the samples we tested. Both are big companies and neither have any excuses. The fact is that companies have the technology to phase out lead. (via Sunita Narain: New coat of paint).

Failed agency, failed agenda, failed model

Much as I like Sunita Narain’s work, her reading of this situation is wrong.

Unlike her fault-finding, this was good news. For three reasons.

1. Three out of the five biggest companies voluntarily agreed and reduced lead content – at a significant cost to their own bottom-lines. Without a sword over their head or legal threats hanging over them. Just a gentle pointer did the trick. That is good news. This is possibly why Indians trust their companies more than the Rest of the World.

2. The Government has voluntary codes – which are NOT enforced. Unlike the US. We should do more of this – and not less, Ms.Sunita Narain. Bigger Government, with greater enforcement agenda is a bad idea – and no good can ever come out of it.

EPA does nothing about environment and justice does nothing to do with justice

For you to call for greater Government activism is simply more bad news. The American model is faulty, expensive and prone to abuse. Why copy a failed model?

3. Ms.Narain – Maybe, your organization can franchise a ‘प’ (Prakriti) logo – for all companies that voluntarily adhere to the highest global standards. And that will again be good news.

Let us take away the regulatory load (which will soon become overload) from the Government and move towards self-regulation.

I think it is time you took a 2ndlook.

Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda

I have been surprised by the number of reasonable Indians who have come to accept the proposition, advanced by equally reasonable but perhaps nationalistically-motivated Americans, that the acceptance of internationally-mandated restrictions on carbon emissions by India is in its own national interest. Some have even come to argue that India should actively seek a climate change treaty at the Copenhagen conference in December 2009.

If the big and largely rich emitters of today were to take mitigation in the immediate future seriously, they could achieve emission cuts commensurate with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) without denying the poor in India (and Africa) the prospects of a humane existence. With abject poverty eliminated and electricity and water provided to all, India could join the mitigation effort by 2040. (via India and climate change talks).

Acquisitive Indian companies making US nervous?

What if

The entire global warming debate is just a facade to keep up demand for oil from India and China. The opposition to coal fired power plants is to stop India and China from reducing the growth in oil consumption.

After all practically all of British GDP today is declining North Sea oil and British Petroleum. Apart from Chinese money, the other source of liquidity, which keeps the US afloat is petro-dollars. And, remember, US future is so closely linked to Arctic oil. If India and China were to reduce their reliance on oil, leading to a price collapse, the biggest losers will be the Anglo Saxon bloc.

Makes one think!

India’s pharma exports

Three things…

First, many of the regulatory bodies are actually a US-Euro Club – to fool the world, with token actions and steps to demonstrate inclusion and fairness to the developing world.

And second, these token actions divert the attention of the developing world. For instance, World Bank list of banned entities were significantly, from two sectors - Software and Pharma. These are the two sectors where the US still has a lead – and the Indians are its biggest challengers. Generic pharma firms from India have become world beaters - and the Indian software companies have built up US$50 billion a year business, in less than 10 years. These 50 billion dollars have come out of (arguably) US pockets.

At least, the actions against Wipro and Nestor Pharma were pathetic excuses to ban a business – and no third party arbiter will uphold these actions.

Third, on January 9, Standard & Poor’s announced that Greece, Spain and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, indicating that a Euro-zone country could default. The cost of the US bailout is likely to exceed US$3 trillion. Current US budget deficit is likely to break all records and estimates.

Not so long ago …

In 1999, an employee of an auto-components manufacturer, Autolite, was arrested in France for trademarks and copyright infringement – based on a complaint by the car manufacturer PSA Puegeot Citroen. The French police, on similar complaints, arrested two other nationals, a Belgian and a Taiwanese woman also.

The Belgian was of course granted bail – and the Indian and the Taiwanese were denied bail - ‘The lawyers representing the Indian businessman offerred to deposit his passport and the sum of 100,000 French Francs claimed by Peugeot in the custody of the court as bailbond, pending the trial of the case on November 12′.

French court procedures took nearly 1 month and the Indian executive was finally granted bail after being in prison for 1 month. After two years of appeals and expensive litigation, the complaint was found to be without any merit – and dismissed.

When the North Pole greens over

More recently …

A shipment of medicines destined for Brazil, from India, was detained at Rotterdam. The Dutch Customs used a complaint from a local Dutch company, to detain this shipment, based on local patent laws. After a few months of ‘negotiations’, the shipment was sent back to India. An expert writes, what

‘EU is doing is using Council Regulation (EC) No. 1383/2003 to impound drugs that are suspected of violating patents registered in member-countries even if these are simply in transit. The regulations permit customs to hold these goods for a minimum of 10 working days while informing the patent holder of the seizure. The patent holder then applies to a civil court to initiate legal proceedings in order to prove that infringement has taken place.’

Whats the Quicktake

These seem like offensive actions from the EU and the US – to undermine their competitors and to bolster Euro-US businesses. It makes me doubt the Satyam saga. To carry the conspiracy theory thread forward, was there a Merrill Lynch-Ramlinga Raju ‘deal’?

'demmed' Indian cows

Modern day protectionism, huh?

This also furthers the importance of having non-Western bodies, which are sponsored by the Third World, which will regulate and govern international laws. To depend on the West, is to further dig the hole that the Third World finds itself in.

And in case you forget, remember that for some time Indian cows were blamed for global warming!