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Archive for category INDIA-HO– — USE BUILT ON SAND AND COW DUNG

Upright Opinion Byline: In India Rupee Goes Down: Rape Goes Up!

 

India-The-Story-You-Never-Wanted-to-Hear 

 

While the incidence of rape and sexual violence is soaring in India, the rupee is falling steeply. From 54 rupees per dollar in May this year it has dipped to Rs.65 to date. There is a likelihood of its further plunge in the coming days if not arrested by effective measures. Let us deal with rape situation first.

India seems to be caught up between two mammoth crises. One is the moral meltdown and the other is the economic downturn. The societies do suffer from setbacks. But it also devolves upon the leadership to overcome such ugly monstrosities and put a halt to those setbacks in a competing world. India has been neck and neck with China in economic growth.

The economic debacle has lowered Indian ranking to 60, as mentioned in the annual Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, released by Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF). It is distressing for India because it is 31 points lower than her regional rival China.

Statistically every 20 minute a rape of a female takes place in India. Recently there has been a spate of agonizing and atrocious rape incidents in India. Doing masturbation in front of women in public places is a common spectacle. The gang rape by five males of a 23-year old medical student on December 16 last year in a bus is the most outrageous incident that shook the entire India and the world beyond. As a result of that brutal attack she died two weeks later.

Now as recent as August 22 another horrific rape of a photojournalist was committed in Mumbai. One can imagine how sinister and ugly the situation is getting in the largest democracy of the world.

The story of Rose Chasm a Chicago university student who stayed in India for studies is nerve shattering. In her article, “India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear” viewed by over a million people, she shares her account of personally “experiencing repeated sexual harassment and the way travelers and local women folks were s were exposed to this insidious epidemic in India” Some extracts of her poignant article titled,India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear “are reproduced hereunder:

“For three months I lived this way, in a traveler’s heaven and a woman’s hell. I was stalked, groped, masturbated at; and yet I had adventures beyond my imagination.”

“This is the story you don’t want to hear when you ask me about India. But this is the story you need. There was no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day stared with such entitlement at my body.”

“When people ask me about my experience studying abroad in India, I always face the same dilemma. How does one convey the contradiction that over the past few months has torn my life apart, and convey it in a single succinct sentence?”

Let me quote another observation from a report published in AP and penned by Nirmala George. She writes,

“Rapes in India remain drastically under-reported. In many cases, families do not report rapes due to the stigma that follows the victim and her family. In other instances, families may decide not to report a rape out of frustration with the long delays in court and harassment at the hands of the police. Police themselves are reluctant to register cases of rape and domestic violence in order to keep down crime figures or to elicit a bribe from the victim.”

In a fiendish propensity for raping underage and very young children of late, several cases have been reported in the Indian press. One such horrific incident was of a four years old girl raped on April 17. She died in hospital nearly two weeks after she was raped and found unconscious at a farm. One can also reckon how other countless rape incidents remain unnoticed particularly in villages and dense urban areas where a pall of aloofness and fear of stigma deters the victims from disclosures.

In a recent report, the “Asian Center for Human Rights” cited statistics in which it showed that 48,338 child rape cases were reported in India between 2001 and 2011. The report said that the number of cases rose from 2,113 in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011.

ABC’s South Asia correspondent Michael Edwards in his August 20 article paints a dismal picture of the dwindling state of Indian economy. He quotes Mark Colvin as commenting that, “One of the world’s biggest economies is heading towards a crisis. India’s currency, the rupee, has crashed to record lows and its stock market is experiencing serious falls. To add to India’s problems, capital is also flowing out of the country at what economists describe as dangerous levels. Analysts argue that investor frustration at the slow pace of economic reform is a major part of the problem. Others point to a lack of political leadership.”

In his most objective analysis of the fledgling Indian economy, Arvind Subramanian in his article published by New York Times on August 30 writes that, “Growth has slowed to 4.4 percent a year; the rupee is in free fall, resulting in higher prices for imported goods; and the specter of a potential crisis, brought on by rising inflation and crippling budget deficits, looms.”

He apportions the blame for this crippling economic downturn to, “The current government, which took office in 2004, has made two fundamental errors. First, it assumed that growth was on autopilot and failed to address serious structural problems. Second, flush with revenues, it began major redistribution programs, neglecting their consequences: higher fiscal and trade deficits.”

India is the second most populous country after China. Its present population of 1.21 billion is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2025, surpassing China. Correspondingly the socio-economic challenges would also exacerbate with the growth of population. If far reaching strategies are not evolved to forestall the population growth or create additional resources, there is going to be complete mayhem in India.

India is beset with a plethora of ethnic and racial mosaic. It is also bedeviled with draconian caste system that somehow hinders an even handed socio economic uplift. The dillats or untouchables and also the religious minorities remain marginalized. India is a secular society by constitution but practically the people go by their religious obligations. That is why one can witness cows, apes and occasionally elephant in Indian streets.

The round wheel on the Indian flag, the three animal faced emblem and otherwise the displays of Indian sacred weapon Shiva’s Trishool (three spears) are manifestations of preponderance for Hinduism. Like Pakistan and other religious dominated country, there is a predominant section of population that comprises die-hard and fanatic Hindu extremists. They protest vehemently and even go on rampage against the minorities particularly Muslims in case of a dispute such as Babri mosque.

India is certainly advancing comically but it still falls short of eradicating rampant poverty and raising the quality of life as China has done. China being a one party system can enforce her decisions effectively. India being a democracy has to seek consensus for watershed decisions.

The infrastructure in India has markedly improved over the years but still one can see the slums and ghettos in big cities. It would take a great deal of efforts and time for India to put on the grab of a veritable modern state.

Like other third world countries in India to there is endemic corruption and manipulation of state funds by the influential sections and misuse of power for personal gains at every level from top to bottom.

India is also plagued by a multitude of separatist movements. That challenge is the most formidable because it fractures and at least poses a grave danger to the Indian territorial integrity. Moreover it puts enormous financial burden on the Indian economy. No one could forebode how long it would take India to bridle, tame or overcome insurgencies for separation from the Indian federation.

The cardinal issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan on one hand and Tibet with China on the other are, interminable deflections that would continue to bog down India till these are resolved.   Once these territorial disputes are resolved India would be free to divert the funds now being spent on these issues to development and reconstruction.

The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat

 

 

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How India got its funk

How India got its funk

 

India’s economy is in its tightest spot since 1991. Now, as then, the answer is to be bold


The Economist, Aug 24th 2013
 

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IN MAY America’s Federal Reserve hinted that it would soon start to reduce its vast purchases of Treasury bonds. As global investors adjusted to a world without ultra-cheap money, there has been a great sucking of funds from emerging markets. Currencies and shares have tumbled, from Brazil to Indonesia, but one country has been particularly badly hit.

Not so long ago India was celebrated as an economic miracle. In 2008 Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, said growth of 8-9% was India’s new cruising speed. He even predicted the end of the “chronic poverty, ignorance and disease, which has been the fate of millions of our countrymen for centuries”. Today he admits the outlook is difficult. The rupee has tumbled by 13% in three months. The stockmarket is down by a quarter in dollar terms. Borrowing rates are at levels last seen after Lehman Brothers’ demise. Bank shares have sunk.

On August 14th jumpy officials tightened capital controls in an attempt to stop locals taking money out of the country (see article

 

). That scared foreign investors, who worry that India may freeze their funds too. The risk now is of a credit crunch and a self-fulfilling panic that pushes the rupee down much further, fuelling inflation. Policymakers recognise that the country is in its tightest spot since the balance-of-payments crisis of 1991.


How to lose friends and alienate people

India’s troubles are caused partly by global forces beyond its control. But they are also the consequence of a deadly complacency that has led the country to miss a great opportunity.

  

During the 2003-08 boom, when reforms would have been relatively easy to introduce, the government failed to liberalise markets for labour, energy and land. Infrastructure was not improved enough. Graft and red tape got worse.

  

Private companies have slashed investment. Growth has slowed to 4-5%, half the rate during the boom. Inflation, at 10%, is worse than in any other big economy. Tycoons who used to cheer India’s rise as a superpower now warn of civil unrest.


As well as undermining 1.2 billion people’s hopes of prosperity, failure to reform dragged down the rupee. Restrictive labour laws and weak infrastructure make it hard for Indian firms to export. Inflation has led people to import gold to protect their savings. Both factors have swollen the current-account deficit, which must be financed by foreign capital. Add in the foreign debt that must be rolled over, and India needs to attract $250 billion in the next year, more than any other vulnerable emerging economy.

A year ago the new finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, tried to kick-start the economy. He has attempted to push key reforms, clear bottlenecks and help foreign investors. But he has lukewarm support within his own party and faces obstructionist opposition. Obstacles to growth, such as fuel shortages for power plants, remain. Foreign firms find nothing has changed. Meanwhile, bad debts have risen at state-run banks: 10-12% of their loans are dud. With an election due by May 2014, some fear that the Congress-led government will now take a more populist tack. A costly plan to subsidise food hints at this.

Stopping the rot

To prevent a slide into crisis, the government needs first to stop making things worse. Those capital controls backfired, yet the urge to tinker runs deep: on August 19th officials slapped duties on televisions lugged in through airports. The authorities must accept that 2013 is not 1991. Then the state nearly bankrupted itself trying to defend a pegged exchange rate. Now the rupee floats, and the state has no foreign debt to speak of. A weaker currency will break some firms with foreign loans, but poses no direct threat to the government’s solvency.

And so the Reserve Bank of India must let the rupee find its own level. The currency has not yet wildly overshot estimates of fundamental value. Raghuram Rajan, the central bank’s incoming head, should aim to control inflation, not micromanage one of the world’s most traded currencies.

Second, the government must get its finances in order. The budget deficit has been as high as 10% of GDP in recent years. This year the government must hold down its deficit (including those of individual states) to 7% of GDP. It is already cutting fuel subsidies, and—notwithstanding the pressures in the run-up to an election—should do so faster.

This is not enough to fix the government’s finances, though. Only 3% of Indians pay income tax, so the government’s tax take is puny. A proposed tax on goods and services, known as GST, would drag more of the economy into the net. It is stuck in endless cross-party talks. If the government can rally itself before the election to push for one long-term reform, this is the one it should go for.

Last, the government, with the central bank, should force the zombie public-sector banks to recapitalise. In 2009 America did “stress tests” to repair its banks. India should follow. Injecting funds into banks would widen the deficit, but the surge in confidence would be worth it.

  

There are glimmers of hope: exports picked up in July, narrowing the trade gap. But India faces a difficult year, with jittery global markets and an election to boot. Even if it scrapes past the election without a full-blown financial crisis, the next government must do much, much more to change India. 

 
Over the coming decade tens of millions of young people will have to find jobs where none currently exists. Generating the growth to create them will mean radical deregulation of protected sectors (of which retail is only the most obvious); breaking up state monopolies, from coal to railways; reforming restrictive labour laws; and overhauling India’s infrastructure of roads, ports and power.

The calamity of 1991 led to liberalising reforms that ended decades of stagnation and allowed a spurt of fast growth. This latest brush with disaster could produce a positive legacy, too, but only if it persuades voters and the next government of the importance of a new round of reforms that deal with the economy’s flaws and unleash its mighty potential.

 
Courtesy: Maqsood Kayani

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