Month: October 2019

Corruption/Bribery worse in 3rd world Countries?

This was an argument that I have been having with friends on FB.
Is bribery/corruption worse in third world countries compared to the west.

My contention has been that corruption has been legalized in the west, so cannot be prosecuted.   So when corrupt third worlders deposit money in Swiss banks or get “Investor” citizenship which country is more corrupt.

In contrast, in third world bribery/corruption is illegal.  There will be a show and dance and some low level officials will go to prison.

So a few days back made this comment of FB

Let me know when they claw back all the money from the Sackler’s and send them to prison for life. They are responsible for huge amounts of Opioid deaths.

The West has bribed willing corrupt officials in the third world to set over priced deals for over half a century.

They west met their nexus in China. Want to do business, technology transfer. In their greed for short term profits, multinational gave as bribes the family jewels , the  intellectual wealth. Much of that intellectual wealth had been developed by tax payer money, eg Investments by US govt in Paolo Alto. Now that intellectual wealth is being used by the Chinese. The multinationals CEO’s have taken their money off the table.

Trump is trying to claw back some of the intellectual wealth by tariffs etc. Too little, much much too late.

Then I see this article by Max Stroller  (via Naked Capitalism links )

Excerpts  (not in order)

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations didn’t notice these problems, because they lacked the wisdom to listen to engineers and people who actually work for a living. They didn’t understand that workers who blocked Chinese buyers looking at vital machine tools had savvy and integrity that they themselves lacked.

Still, this was too little too late. The episode was by any metric catastrophic; the Chinese government got missile making machine tools in return for a promise they didn’t honor, which should have been a massive scandal, borderline treason. But ultimately it wasn’t a scandal, because Republicans, leading globalization thinkers, and Clinton Democrats decided that transferring missile technology to China didn’t matter.

The Clinton framework gutted the ability of U.S. policymakers to protect industrial power, and empowered Wall Street and foreign officials to force the U.S. to export its industrial base abroad, in particular to China. The radicalism of the choice was in the intertwining of the U.S. industrial base with an autocratic strategic competitor. During the Cold War, we had never relied on the USSR for key inputs, and basically didn’t trade with them. Now, we would deeply integrate our technology and manufacturing with an enemy (and yes, the Chinese leaders saw and currently still see us as enemies).

Article 370 Revocation Through the Eyes of an Indian-American Immigrant – Part II

In the first part of this article Article 370 Revocation Through the Eyes of an Indian-American Immigrant – Part I I provided a historical, geographic and demographic context to the Kashmir conflict. In this part I provide contemporary political context and speculate on what the future might hold for J&K.

I was a teenager in North-Central India (Uttar Pradesh) when the Kashmir Valley exploded into the national consciousness as a full-blown armed insurgency and secessionist movement in 1989-90. India at that time had state-controlled TV media and most adverse news out of J&K was suppressed. However, we had all heard about Islamic terror groups targeting Hindus. Many of these Hindus trickled into refugee camps in and around New Delhi which was a city I often visited to see relatives, so people had begun to be familiar with the scale of the violence against Hindus despite the attempts of state-controlled media to conceal it.

India’s Rationale for Preventing Kashmir’s Secession

In general, the attitude of most Indians since the late 1980s and early 1990s when the conflict became radicalized has been to hold on to the Kashmir Valley by any means necessary. There is a simple rationale for that position. Around 20% of the population of India is not Hindu (with religious minorities being broken up roughly in 70%/10%/10%/10% proportions of Muslim/Christian/Sikh/Other) and there are close to 200 million Muslims in India in a country of 1,400 million people. Indians have always been proud of having a secular Constitution and State, uniquely so in South Asia. India is the most ethnically and religiously diverse nation in the world bar none. Each and every resident of J&K has always been a full-fledged citizen of India. So, it is a hard pill for any Indian to swallow that 7 million Muslims in the Kashmir Valley feel that they cannot be equal citizens of India and must secede to Pakistan. It would raise questions about the unity of India and its tradition of religious and ethnic diversity. It would also put a question mark against the nearly 200 million Muslims in the rest of India. Consequently, almost all Indians feel an emotional and visceral reaction against allowing even just the overwhelmingly Muslim majority Kashmir Valley region of J&K to secede. India has Muslims in positions of power and influence in every field, ranging from Government to Sports and Entertainment. Some of the biggest Indian movie stars are Muslim minorities. Every Muslim of J&K had more than equal citizenship in secular India. There was simply no reason for a secession movement other than religious fascism.

Most Indians are united on Kashmir policy, regardless of political affiliation. Even If Modi lost the next election in 2024 and even if a Communist government was in power, there is very little chance that their actual policy on J&K would differ very much other than in public rhetoric. That is because a religion-based secession would be disastrous to India’s identity. Continue reading Article 370 Revocation Through the Eyes of an Indian-American Immigrant – Part II

Article 370 Revocation Through the Eyes of an Indian-American Immigrant – Part I

On August 5, 2019 the Modi-led BJP government in India surprised most political observers by announcing its decision to revoke Article 370, a section of the Indian Constitution that had granted a special status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) which allowed it significant autonomy from the federal government in India. This bold move sought to put an end to a lingering uncertainty and stalemate over the status of Indian-held J&K for nearly 72 years. Certain basic facts about the origins of this conflict are poorly understood by Western journalists and I dare say many Indians and Pakistanis themselves and bear repeating.

Laying My Cards On the Table

As an Indian-American who has now been living in the US for 25 years, I have gone through a cycle familiar to many a first-generation immigrant. I spent the first few years in America reacting to feelings of cultural disorientation in my new home by seeking to consciously renew my Indian identity and intensifying the emotional connection with the idealized homeland. Then in the middle act there was  a period of beginning to feel more and more at ease in America, being able to view events in India with a greater sense of objectivity and less defensiveness, and then finally in the third and final act, a legal and emotional break with India by applying for US citizenship, an act which culminates in surrender of one’s Indian passport and renunciation of Indian citizenship.

During the first act of the three Act play above, it was a period marked by hyper-sensitivity to US and Western media coverage of India. I found the coverage offensive and lacking in any nuance. Overwhelmingly the coverage was critical and unflattering and coming across such examples was guaranteed to quicken the pulse, set the temple throbbing and unleash feelings of anger and rage. As one entered the second act, these symptoms declined in their intensity and usually I would decide to skim or even ignore reporting on India, which would inevitably be lacking in insight and empathy. Now well into the third and final act of the cycle above, it saddens me that the reporting on India continues to be low quality and lacking in insight and rigor. A quarter century later, nothing has really changed, even as India is undoubtedly transformed as a nation in the 25 years since I left the Matrabhumi (motherland).

When discussing controversial topics, I believe an author must be honest about their intellectual beliefs, predispositions and biases. I intentionally used the evocative term “Matrabhumi” to indicate that although I now see myself as an American first, and am legally not an Indian citizen anymore, the country of my birth continues to have an emotional resonance for me. As I have lived in America, I have come to appreciate how unique India is. There is simply no country that can compare when it comes to the extraordinary ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of India. The only comparable global peer is America. Both of these countries serve as an example to the world and indeed an inspiration of how to weave a national identity out of more than the raw soil of tangible markers such as ethnicity, but from the intangibles of shared values, feelings and aspirations.  I was born a Hindu and see myself as a Hindu today despite my complete lack of religious observance of any kind, and in fact my agnosticism. All of the above is to say in a somewhat long-winded fashion that I come to my views on the Kashmir conflict with a certain backdrop and world view, and readers are free to discount my views on that basis if they so wish. Continue reading Article 370 Revocation Through the Eyes of an Indian-American Immigrant – Part I

Saint Greta, Virgin and Guevara

A pair of DoubleQuotes and a whole bunch of the questions the two of them raise – also posted at Zenpundit
.

DoubleQuote I: St Greta, Virgin and Guevara:

Questions:

  • Is either meme valid?
  • including its implications?
  • Are those implications obscure to you?
  • Can both sets of implications be valid at once?
  • Could both memes be irrelevant?
  • misleading?
  • Are they in conflict?
  • counterpoint?
  • harmony?
  • Do you have a preference for one meme over the other?
  • What’s your opinion of the other meme?

    • .
    **
    .
    DoubleQuote II: St Greta and St Malala:

    Each of these young women is addressing the United Nations, Malala asking for universal education, Greta for immediate action on climate change.

    Questions::

  • Is there urgent need for universal education?
  • Is there universal need for action on climate change?
  • is Malala Yousafzai a sort of saint?
  • Is Greta Thunberg a sort of saint?
  • Does either one set your teeth on edge?
  • Why do I even have to ask that question?

    • .

    23andMe says Bangladeshis are more Bengali than West Bengalis!

    As some of you may know 23andMe updated its South Asian ancestry panel. On the whole, I’ll give it a thumbs up, but, you need to be aware of the way they’re framing things. For example, pretty much every Bangladeshi has more “Bengali” ancestry than people from West Bengal.

    The profile above on the left is mine. On the right is a friend whose background is West Bengali, of the Kayastha caste. Basically, 23andMe seems to be taking the East Asian enriched ancestry of Bangladeshi Bengalis as more diagnostic of being Bengali.

    Now, compare me to a Bengali Brahmin (on the right):

    So in all likelihood, Tagore’s ancestry composition would result in not so much “Bengali”….

    Kashmir, Analysis by Dr Hamid Husain

    From our regular contributor and well respected Military historian Dr Hamid Husain

    Following was outcome of exchanges with some informed individuals from both sides of the border about Kashmir.  I was educated & enlightened. It is just a glimpse on my part about possible scenarios.  It is first of a two part; second part deals with the legal aspect of the issue as Constitution bench of Indian Supreme Court has taken up the case.

    “Borders are scratched across the hearts of men

    By strangers with a calm, judicial pen

     And when the borders bleed we watch with dread

    The lines of ink along the map turn red”

                                                                   Marya Mannes

    Regards,

    Hamid

    Paradise Lost – Kashmir at Crossroads

    Hamid Hussain

    “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent; but it takes a touch of genius and lots of courage to move something in the opposite direction.”    Albert Einstein

    On 05 August 2019, newly elected government of India announced change in Kashmir status. President issued an order under Article 370 superseding a previous Presidential Order of 1954 thus removing restrictions on application of Constitution of India in the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).  This also removed Article 35 A that gave special status to residents of J&K. In addition, J&K was divided into two Union territories with separation of Ladakh.

    Currently, three countries control parts of the territory that was once princely state of Kashmir during the Raj.  Indian Controlled Kashmir (ICK) is fifty five percent of the territory, Pakistan Controlled Kashmir (PCK) is thirty five percent and Chinese Controlled Kashmir (CCK) is fifteen percent. There is no conflict at Indian-Chinese border in Kashmir called Line of Actual Control (LAC) and there has been no border incident in the last fifty years.  I recall the only incident of military history several years ago when tempers escalated at that border, the soldiers simply threw stones at each other. The story of Line of Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan is totally different.

    Kashmir is more of an ideological element between two countries.  Both sides have a psychological entanglement where the raison d’etre of both countries is linked with it.  India views continued control of Kashmir as vindication of its stand that Hindus and Muslims are not two separate nations and that is why a Muslim majority state is part of Indian union.  Pakistan contests this narrative and see India’s control of Kashmir as challenging the very idea of Pakistan based on ‘two nation theory’.  Both sides are intelligent enough to recognize the old dictum that ‘possession is the nine-tenth of the law’. Rhetoric aside, in real politic, both countries are fully aware that LOC is now a de facto border, and no one can force a military solution of the problem.  When there is an interlude of peace between two countries, public opinion is in favor of compromise.  However, with every crisis, jingoism runs supreme on both sides of the border.

    India

    ‘Nationhood is rooted in rites of violence we all prefer to forget’.  Quoted in Karl Meyer & Shareen B. Brysac’s King Makers

    India’s recent efforts to remove special status of Kashmir is to fully integrate the state in Indian union with the hope that this will end separatism in ICK.  Unique circumstances of Kashmir at the time of partition in 1947 necessitated a compromise.  Article 270 of Indian constitution gave Kashmir a special status where Indian constitution was exempted from the state in governance of the state.  In the last seventy years, 94 of the 97 entries of the Union List and 260 of the 395 articles of the constitution were extended to Kashmir.  Ironically, it was all done through Article 370 as this was the only ‘tunnel’ through which center could act in Kashmir.  The result is that in practical terms Article 370 had ceased to provide any special concessions to Kashmiris.  More important is Article 35 A that was inserted by a Presidential Order in 1954 as a compromise between Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Kashmiri leader Shaikh Abdullah.  This clause gave the authority to state government to define ‘permanent resident of the state’.  A Dogra rule era law of 1927 that prohibited acquisition of land in Kashmir by an outsider was incorporated in Constitution of J& K in 1956 that closed the door for acquisition of land by outsiders. Now only a permanent resident of the state was eligible for land acquisition, government jobs and scholarship in state educational institutions. Article 370 was a psychological and 35 A practical anchor of special status of Kashmir. Continue reading Kashmir, Analysis by Dr Hamid Husain

    Hindutva need a Tariq Ramadan (without the rape allegations!)

    Before his career was destroyed by multiple allegations of rape and sexual abuse, the philosopher and Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan was an intellectual superstar who spanned the world of conservative Islam and Western academia. If you read a book like Western Muslims and the Future of Islam you see why: Ramadan could operate the language of the West on the terrain of Western secular philosophy, despite promoting a traditionalist view of Islam. Ramadan was a conservative European Muslim, but one fluent in the traditions of Continental philosophy.

    In an even more academic manner, the conservative Protestant philosopher Alvin Plantinga forces the secular analytic tradition to take him somewhat seriously, rather than dismiss him out of hand as a third-rate apologist. You may remain skeptical of the ontological argument for the existence of God (I do remain unconvinced), but when Plantinga deploys modal logic and extents Norman Malcolm’s arguments, you can’t say that he hasn’t put some thought into the matter.

    On the whole, I remain unconvinced by the argument that all Hindu nationalists are somehow genocidal Nazis* (just like I don’t think all conservative Muslims are jihadis).  But, I do think that one of the problems that Hindu nationalists face is the lack of voices who can articulate a vision that is uncompromising, but also fluent in the lexical currency and the rhetorical style of the West.

    To be entirely frank, running this weblog, and engaging Hindu nationalists on Twitter has brought home to me how parochial many Indians and Hindus remain in their concerns and their broader vision. That is fine insofar as India as a nation of over one billion. It is a world in and of itself. But if conservative Hindus do want to be taken seriously by the outside world, they need to start being able to present themselves in a manner that is both intelligible and persuasive, as opposed to engaging in blusters for the amen choir.

    * I am now becoming convinced that non-Western social and political movements are too often connected to Western ones that add no value to the discussion.

    Brown Pundits