Obama, FDI, Manmohan Singh and lies

For U.S. President Barack Obama there could be nothing more cheering. The ‘underachiever’ now goes to the presidential polls with a lot of confidence — India’s decision to open up FDI in multi-brand retail comes as a shot in the arm for the beleaguered American economy and will obviously boost his poll prospects. 

Mr. Obama certainly knows what is good for the U.S. economy; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also knows what is in America’s interest. Mr. Obama, for instance, wanted to stop outsourcing to protect U.S. jobs. No amount of persuasion from India changed his mind. Similarly, knowing how important FDI in retail is for him, he had pitched for a new wave of economic reforms. It was surprising to see Mr. Obama telling India what is good for us.

Aided and abetted by TIME magazine and credit rating agencies like Standard&Poor’s, Fitch and Moody’s, India finally buckled under global pressure. What is little known is that India was also under a G-20 obligation to remove all hurdles to the growth of multi-brand retail.

But is FDI in retail really good for India? Will it improve rural infrastructure, reduce wastage of agricultural produce, and enable farmers to get a better price for their crops? While a lot has been said and written about the virtues of big retail, let me make an attempt to answer some of the big claims. 

Agriculture: The Prime Minister has repeatedly projected FDI in retail as a boon for agriculture. Unfortunately, this is not true. Even in the U.S., big retail has not helped farmers — it is federal support that makes agriculture profitable. In its last Farm Bill in 2008, the U.S. made a provision of $307 billion for agriculture for the next five years.

Where is the justification for such massive support if big retail was providing farmers better prices? And let us not forget, despite these subsidies studies have shown that one farmer in Europe quits agriculture every minute.

The second argument is that big retail will squeeze out middleman and therefore provide a better price to farmers. This is again not borne by facts. In the U.S., some studies have shown that the net income of farmers has come down from 70 per cent in the early 20th century to less than four per cent in 2005.

This is because big retail actually brings in a new battery of middlemen — quality controller, standardiser, certification agency, processor, packaging consultants etc. It is these middlemen who walk away with the profits and the farmer is left to survive on the subsidy dole.

Monopolistic power enables these companies to go in for predatory pricing. Empirical studies have shown that consumer prices in supermarkets in Latin America, Africa and Asia have remained higher than the open market by 20 to 30 per cent.

And finally, the argument that multi-brand retail will provide adequate scientific storage and thereby save millions of tonnes of food grains from rotting. I don’t know where in the world big retail has provided backend grain storage facilities?

FDI is already allowed in storage, and no investment has come in. Let it also be known that even the 30-per-cent local sourcing clause for single-brand retail has already been challenged and quietly put in cold storage by the Ministry of Commerce. 

Employment: The Indian retail market is estimated to be around $400 billion with more than 12 million retailers employing 40 million people. Ironically, Wal-Mart’s turnover is also around $420 billion, but it employs only 2.1 million people. If Wal-Mart can achieve the same turnover with hardly a fraction of the workforce employed by the Indian retail sector, how do we expect big retail to create jobs? It is the Indian retail sector which is a much bigger employer, and big retail will only destroy millions of livelihoods

State government’s prerogative: Very cleverly, the Central government has allowed the State governments the final say in allowing FDI in retail. This may to some extent pacify those State governments opposed to big retail. However, the industry is upbeat and knows well that as per international trade norms, member countries have to provide national treatment. Being a signatory to Bilateral Investment promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPAs), India has to provide national treatment to the investors. Agreements with more than 70 countries have already been signed. State governments will, therefore, have to open up for big retail. Industries will use the legal option to force the States to comply.

And more importantly, let us look at how the virus of big retail spreads, even if the promise is to keep it confined to major cities. Recently, a New York Times expose showed how Wal-Mart had captured nearly 50 per cent of Mexico’s retail market in 10 years. What is important here is that as per the NYT disclosure “the Mexican subsidiary of Wal-Mart, which opened 431 stores in 2011, had paid bribes and an internal enquiry into the matter has been suppressed at corporate headquarters in Arkansas”.

In India, we are aware that Wal-Mart alone had spent Rs.52 crore in two years to lobby, as per a disclosure statement made in the U.S. It has certainly paid off.

Devinder Sharma in Ground Reality and The Hindu

Obama, Manmohan Singh and the innocence of Muslims

Of all the comments made on the dirty film, the comment made by Vaiko stands tall. He has said உலகெங்கும் வாழும் அனைத்து மக்களின் நெஞ்சிலும் நெருப்பை கொட்டிவிட்ட சி‌னிமா (A film which has showered fire in the hearts of all throughout the world). He is right. Even Hillary Clinton has expressed her anguish and has condemned the film. Who is Hillary? She is not a Muslim. She is just a politician. One can imagine the toxicity of the film by her anguish.

The film reminds me of another mischievious, outrageous book written by Salman Rushdie. When The Satanic Verses was released in late eighties, similar reactions were seen throughout the world. The Indian Government acted swiftly then and promptly banned the book. But now it is not the case. It has not yet banned the movie. It has not yet blocked the URLs from the web.

How to vent our feelings? How to condemn this ugly, dirty and vulgar film? How to condemn this wretched movie?

Should we target the US embassies worldwide? Should we demonstrate in front of the embassies of USA? Is it the only way? I think we Indians are blessed with another option too. We could go in procession to the Raj Bhavans in the State capitals and submit a memorundum to the Governors there. We live in an age when there is not an iota of a difference between the Indian Government and Obama's government. What is the big deal there. The Manmohan Goverment has opened up the retail trade to American companies in the name of economic reforms. This move clearly demonstrates the slavery attitude of the UPA government.


உலகெங்கும் வாழும் அனைத்து மக்களின் நெஞ்சிலும் நெருப்பை கொட்டிவிட்ட சி‌னிமா என்று வைகோ சொல்லியிருப்பது மிக்க பொருத்தம்.
எண்பதுகளில் சல்மான் ருஷ்டியின் சாத்தானியக் கவிதைகளை விடவும் அதிகமான பாதிப்பை அமெரிக்கப் படம் செய்துவிட்டுள்ளதகத் தோன்றுகிறது. இந்திய அரசாங்கம் அந்தப் புத்தகத்தை  உடனடியாக தடைச் செய்துவிட்டது. ஆனால் அமெரிக்கப் படம் இன்று வரை தடை செய்யப்படவில்லை.

இந்த அழுக்குப் படத்துக்கு எதிரான நம்முடைய உணர்வுகளை எப்படி வெளிப்படுத்துவது? இந்த கேடுகெட்ட படத்தை எப்படி தான் கண்டிப்பது?

அமெரிக்கத் தூதரங்களுக்கு முன் ஆர்ப்பாட்டம் செய்வதுதான் ஒரே வழியா? ராஜ் பவன் வரை ஊர்வலமாகச் சென்று ஆளுநரிடம் கோரிக்கை மனு தரலாமே? இன்றையக் காலத்தில் இந்திய அரசுக்கும் ஒபாமாவின் அரசுக்கும் என்ன பெரிய வித்தியாசம் இருக்கிறது? சில்லறை வணிகத்திலும் அந்நிய முதலீட்டை FDI  அனுமதித்துள்ள மன்மோகன் அரசு ஒபாமாவின் கூலியாளாகத் தானேச் செயல்பட்டுக் கொண்டிருக்கிறது? 

Throw a shoe at Obama's betrayal

At 4:17pm GMT on Sunday, I threw a shoe at my television screen, aimed at US President Barack Obama, precisely at the moment he began to explain that the reference in his Thursday speech at the State Department to the 1967 borders was in accordance with the Israeli interpretation of these borders.

Not that I was thrilled with that speech either but it was at least as meaningless as his previous speeches on the topic. But at 4:17 he said there will be “no return to the borders of June 4, 1967” and the thousands who attended the AIPAC convention cheered wildly. Annexation of Israeli settlement blocs built illegally in the occupied West Bank and the creation of a small Palestinian bantustan in the spaces in between was the essence of Obama’s real vision for peace.

It was a soft shoe and all it did was to bounce off the screen. Being such a harmless weapon it was also directed at my Palestinian friends who since Friday explained, publicly, how unusual and important was Obama’s speech at the State Department.

It is tough enough to know that in the White House sits someone who betrayed not only the Palestinians, but all the oppressed people in the world and in the US he promised to engage and represent.

But I have turned on my TV set and moved to Puerta del Sol in Madrid — there where thousands of young people were reformulating the powerful message that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo and which was also heard on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day and in London’s Trafalgar Square during recent student demonstrations.

It was a call of defiance against such political discourse and its poisonous effects. Yes, they say in Madrid as they did on Palestine’s borders, our lives are ruled and affected by smug, cynical and indifferent Western politicians who hold immense power to maintain the unjust world for years to come, but we have had enough of this and will resist it.

Ilan Pappe in Counter currents. More Here

Americans at it again : Obama arm-twists Manmohan Singh

The Americans know that turning the screws on non-resident Indian accounts in Indian banks is a pressure tactic that the Manmohan Singh government will not be able to stand up to. India now ranks at the top of countries which have impressive foreign exchange reserves, but those reserves will significantly evaporate if American actions to curb alleged tax dodging by their citizens of Indian origin were to force Indian Americans to pull out their deposits from such accounts which constitute the bulk of India’s foreign currency holdings. 

The same applies to NRI stock holdings in Indian companies. In other words, the Obama administration has the wherewithal to turn India’s impressive foreign exchange reserves into hot money that can evaporate and push India back to the 1990s, when it virtually begged for foreign currency.

But it need not come to that. Indeed, it will not, given the nature and composition of the Indian power structure. The Americans have known for some time now that Indian Americans have considerable influence on their system. But the way NRIs in America were mobilized — first by the National Democratic Alliance government to thwart sanctions against the 1998 nuclear tests and then by the United Progressive Alliance government in support of the nuclear deal — has convinced Washington that NRI power is a double-edged sword: that it is a force which can be used to influence New Delhi as well.

Powerful Indian politicians and senior civil servants have their children, siblings and a variety of other friends and relatives in the US who have NRI accounts in Indian banks which are now under the scanner of Obama’s IRS.

Those who hold the levers of power in New Delhi and state capitals are not going to stand by and let the threat of prosecution — as in Dahake’s case — hang over the heads of their family members or cause them to lose sleep. That is how the Americans will secure orders for at least a significant share of the 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft, the biggest military aviation deal in history. That is how the Americans will secure other import orders and significant concessions from New Delhi.

If these orders and concessions are forthcoming, the threat to India’s foreign exchange reserves through withdrawal of hot money through the prosecution of NRIs in US courts will evaporate. In any case, the Americans will have proved that they can decisively influence the making or unmaking of India despite the illusion in New Delhi and Mumbai that India is a rising global power.

K P Nayar in The Telegraph. More Here

The fall of America

Consider that the last time the United States won a major war was 1945 - Korea was a stalemate, Vietnam a defeat; the first Gulf War failed to topple Saddam Hussein; Afghanistan and Iraq have become prolonged quagmires. Total victory has become alien to us.

A small example of how far we have fallen, how pampered and coddled we have become, was the decision by the NFL this week to postpone the game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings in Philadelphia. Football players are supposed to be the closest thing Americans have to modern Roman gladiators. The game exemplifies the rugged individualism and grit at the heart of the American character. The reason for the delay: Philadelphia was expecting 11 inches of snow. By comparison with historical Northeast winters, this was a minor storm - something previous generations simply shoveled and plowed through as they got on with their daily lives.

If 11 inches of snow brings America’s gladiators to a halt, it is clear we have lost our resilience.
This is evident, too, in the kinds of leaders we elect. Conventional wisdom holds that Mr. Obama is the antithesis of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Mr. Obama is a liberal Democrat. Mr. Bush was a conservative Republican. Mr. Obama is a cosmopolitan internationalist, while Mr. Bush was a unilateralist cowboy. In fact, they have much more in common than either the left or the right would like to admit. Mr. Obama is simply continuing -and intensifying - many of the disastrous Bush policies.

The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche claimed “God is dead.” Nietzsche’s point was that the loss of faith would constitute our civilization’s seminal cultural reality. The passing of the Christian West signifies the end not only of a worldview, but of a character type - one based on honor, family, self-help, blood-and-soil patriotism, personal responsibility and a God-centered moral order. Self-indulgence and self-expression have filled the vacuum. Life is no longer about sacrifice and duty; it’s about maximizing pleasure and self-fulfillment.

Most Americans can no longer endure pain. This is why unemployment benefits keep being extended. This is why nearly every industry is “too big to fail.” It is the inevitable consequence of statism: the transformation of freeborn and productive citizens into de facto serfs who look to Uncle Sam for handouts. Decades of liberalism have led to the servile state.

In the 2000s, as we became soft, self-indulgent and mired in foreign interventions, a new great power emerged: an ultranationalist China. During the past decade, Beijing became the world’s No. 1 manufacturer and automaker, premier exporting nation and No. 2 economy. China is engaged in a massive military buildup and menaces its neighbors. It owns much of our public debt. It is to America what we once were to Great Britain: the rising force in the world.

All civilizations rise and fall. Ancient Greece, Persia, Rome, medieval Europe, the great Italian city-states, the Ottoman Empire, the vast European empires - the past is littered with the corpses of once unparalleled and dominant powers that are now a distant memory. So too has America passed its zenith.

Jeffrey T Kuhner in The WashingtonTimes. More Here. 

Obama is behaving like Bush : Iranian minister

Speaking on the second day of the International Institute for Strategic Studies Regional Security Summit at the Ritz-Carlton Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki blamed the American presence in the region for its instability.

“They bombed Afghanistan (after 9/11) and then became so arrogant that they did not even feel the need to take the permission of the United Nations to bomb Iraq. They killed hundreds of innocent people in Iraq — people who had committed no crime,” he said in Farsi.

He accused the US of spreading lies and deception, citing the recent WikiLeaks controversy, and claimed that Iran was a friend to all Arab and Muslim countries in the region. “We are happy when Saudi Arabia flourishes. We are happy to note that Bahrain has become an important center of international banking. Why should we not be happy? These are our Muslim brothers,” he said while driving his point home.

It is the foreign intervention that is to blame for all the ills afflicting the region, he said. “It has been proven that foreign intervention creates unhealthy rivalries between neighbors. It is the presence of foreign powers in our region that is the immediate cause for regional divisions and strife.”

He denied claims that Iran was building a nuclear weapon and claimed the Americans were spreading lies.
“We are not. And let me clarify that throughout our 700 years of history and culture we have not used force against any of our Arab neighbors ... We cannot even think of it because our neighbors are Muslims.”

He said Muslim countries must not submit to pressures by outsiders that divide them and create instability and create divisions among friends in the region. “In the region it has been proven that foreign intervention creates unhealthy rivalries between neighbors.”

Iranian nuclear power, he said, will benefit the entire Muslim world. “Muslims must be happy to see other Muslims becoming powerful ... Our power is your power, and your power is ours,” he told the high-powered gathering. “We must not allow the Western media to tell us what to think of each other.”

According to him, things have not changed under US President Barack Obama. “We see the same policies are in motion that were started by (George W.) Bush. The American people had given Obama the mandate to stop the wars. He did not do so and was therefore punished in recent elections,” said Mottaki.

He said Iran is fully aware of the dangers of building nuclear weapons. “A nuclear bomb does only one thing: it destroys everything. Why will we go for such a weapon? Look at our history and show one instance where we have used force? We never sought weapons of mass destruction. Even when we were attacked by chemical weapons in the 1980s we did not think of building such weapons. These chemical weapons were by the way supplied by the American and European governments to Iraq.”

As recently as Thursday, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency restated that Iran was not fulfilling its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is signatory. The UN imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran in June for its continued noncompliance with the international watchdog group.

“It has been six months since they introduced the sanctions, and if they need more time in order to see if these sanctions worked they can wait a longer time. The sanctions have no impact on us,” the 57-year-old Iranian career diplomat maintained.


From Siraj Wahab's report in Arab News. More Here.

Barack Hussain Obama, Golden Temple and Islam

When Barack Hussain Obama made history, a considerable number of Muslims were overwhelmed with joy. They felt that there would be "Muslimness" in Obama. They had all kinds of fancy hopes because of that "Hussain" in his name. Atlast, we could have a US President who is TRUE, HONEST, JUST and full of COMPASSION, they hoped fervently. As these are the noble traits ingrained in MUSLIMS, Obama too would nourish and cherish such traits they hoped. 

But, Obama proved to be a damb squib. Now here comes the news that he is facing compulsion from all quarters to downplay his "Hussain" card! 

The following is the report in Indian Express:

Indian officials were informally told that Obama wearing a headscarf to visit the Golden Temple may convey an image of him appearing to be a Muslim. This is one misinterpretation Obama’s advisors did not want at any cost, given the political sensitivities over this issue in the US.
As a result, a final decision on whether Obama would visit the Golden Temple was always kept pending. An American official is said to have explained at one of the pre-visit meetings that each day Obama has to remind the US that he should not be mistaken for a Muslim just because his middle name is Hussain. For this reason, considerable thought was being given to what Obama could wear without offending Sikh sentiments.


From a report in Indian Express. More Here