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Books on India
REPUBLICAN REFERENCE
Area (sq.km)
3,287,590
Population
1,049,700,118
Capital
New Delhi
Currency
Irdian Rupee (INR)
President
Abdul Kalam
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Update No: 034 - (30/11/06)
INDIA and CHINA'S JOINT PARTNERSHIP
While India definitely scored high points with regard to America on the
nuclear deal, it is trying to maintain a similar record in terms of its
relationship with China. President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
had cordial, open and constructive talks focusing on their bilateral relations
and cooperation on regional and multilateral issues. The Joint Declaration
reached by India and China is a culmination of all peace talks. The Declaration
puts in place a ten pronged strategy to intensify cooperation in all areas and
to give greater content to India and China's strategic partnership. The two
governments have agreed to hold regular summit level meetings and intensify high
level exchanges in addition to strengthening institutional linkages and
mechanisms facilitating inter-ministerial dialogue. Additional Consulates
General will be opened in each country, one in Kolkata for China and one in
Guangzhou for India, to facilitate growing interaction in trade and tourism. We
are happy that the long pending issue of the property of the Indian Consulate in
Shanghai has been resolved. Comprehensive economic and commercial engagement
between India and China will receive highest priority. There will be an endeavor
to raise the volume of bilateral trade to 40 billion dollars by 2010 and
encourage two way investment flows. Also, a Joint Task Force has been
established to expedite its study of the feasibility and benefits of the India
China Regional Trading Arrangement and is expected to submit its report by
October 2007. It has been decided to boost trans- border connectivity and
cooperation. A major initiative in science and technology has also been launched
which will involve a further launching of several joint projects. Cooperation in
the field of civilian nuclear energy will be promoted. All these provisions in
the Joint Declaration signed by the two countries conveys India's effort to not
just build strong relations with the United States, but focus on cooperating
with powerful neighbors in its backyard such as China. China too recognizes the
need to forge stronger ties with India owing to India's booming economic
potential.
A QUESTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The largest pro-India political party in Kashmir has suspended talks with
the government of India, citing human rights abuses by security forces in the
Indian-controlled portion of the restive region. This phenomenon is not new and
goes back to the beginning the late 1980s when insurgency began in Kashmir and
when the army was called in to maintain law and order. National Conference
leader Omar Abdullah said his party would not continue peace talks until the
government addressed allegations of human rights abuses. Kashmiris have
regularly accused Indian forces of battling Islamic insurgents in the region and
beating and killing innocent civilians. Last month, international Human Rights
Watch said Kashmiri civilians were targeted both by Indian security forces and
militants. The government security forces insist they don' t intentionally
target civilians. While they routinely investigate such allegations, they rarely
prosecute those involved in the deaths. Meanwhile, suspected rebels shot and
killed one policeman after dragging him out of his home in a village south of
Srinagar, the capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Separatist rebels often
target civilians whom they suspect to be helping police. Nearly a dozen rebel
groups have been fighting since 1989, seeking independence for the two-thirds of
Kashmir held by India or for its merger with Pakistan. More than 68,000 people,
most of them civilians, have been killed on both sides of the conflict. The
National Conference, which used to be the area's governing party, backs India's
rule of the region. What is particularly problematic with the issue of human
rights abuses by security forces in Kashmir, is that the government does not
have a clear policy on this, and has remained quite complacent in punishing
those within the armed forces who are responsible for misusing their power.
Moreover, the government needs to separate the army's role in maintenance of law
and order from its method of responding to terrorists, because there has been a
fine line between dealing with the terrorists and the common people; an argument
that allows the security forces to get away with such atrocities.
INDIA AND PAKISTAN
India and Pakistan have held extensive talks on terrorism and rival claims
to the Himalayan region of Kashmir, raising hopes for progress on two issues
that have long divided the nuclear-armed neighbors. Indian Foreign Secretary
Shiv Shanker Menon and his Pakistani counterpart, Riaz Mohammed Khan, discussed
a range of issues this month, including steps the two nations have taken to
build mutual confidence since they began talks nearly three years ago. Both
countries are examining a way to implement a proposed anti-terror mechanism that
the two countries have agreed to set up. The meeting marked the resumption of a
dialogue that India suspended after the Mumbai bombings in July, soon after
which New Delhi blamed the attack on the Pakistan intelligence service and a
Pakistan-based militant group; allegations that Islamabad denies.
THE NUCLEAR DEAL
According to a recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle by Robert
Collier, lawmakers in Washington are recognizing that India is assuming a major
strategic role economically and diplomatically, and the United States has little
choice but to treat it as a soon-to-be-equal power. The U.S. Senate's approval
of a plan for U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation elevated India to the level of
major U.S. ally. It also marked the fruition of a long standing debate over the
merits of the nuclear deal with India. The vote has also showed the power that
the Indian community exercises within the United States and the effectiveness of
the India lobby. There still remain some who are skeptical of the Indo-US
nuclear deal. Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat from North Dakota, said that by
rewarding India with sensitive technology despite its development of long-range
nuclear weapons, the United States will weaken its position against nuclear
proliferation by other nations, including Iran and North Korea. The debate in
the Senate "largely ignored a couple decades of work on the
nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and that it was mostly about friendship with
India, making India a counterweight to China, and the strategic and economic
calculations that come with that." Indian American leaders are calling the
Senate's 85-12 vote the most significant step in recent years toward bringing
the U.S.-India relationship into a tight embrace after decades of frostiness.
The vote approved an agreement signed in March by President Bush and Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to allow India to buy nuclear fuel and technology from
the United States despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. The House passed a somewhat different bill over the summer, and the two
versions must be reconciled and approved again by both chambers of Congress
before it takes effect. What appears interesting is whether or not this deal
would have gone through had the Republicans maintained their majority in the
Senate before the mid-term elections. A change in the composition of the Senate
with the Democrats taking majority could possibly signal the fact that the
Democrats have always been more favorable to dealings with India. However, this
remains a question that has not been addressed in the last few weeks. If the
democrats are more inclined to support India on nuclear issues, then we might
find an even stronger partnership between India and the United States if the
Democrats win the presidential elections in 2008.
ECONOMY and BUSINESS
Morgan Stanley sees India's FDI rising to US$10 billion, or 1 per cent of
GDP by 2008, with the flows mostly targeting low capital services and
manufacturing for the domestic market, rather than factories for exports like
many in China. Since the start of 2002, the Pakistan market has risen 741%,
topping the 297% gain for India's Sensex. Still, Pakistan stocks only trade at
about 10.6 times forecast profits, while Indian stocks trade at 20 times
earnings. Pakistan, has an economy that grew by 6.6% in the financial year that
ended in June, a rate that the government expects will rise to 7% this year.
Liberal rules on foreign investment are luring overseas players, with foreign
investors pouring US$307 million into the market since July 1. Pakistan's
biggest listed firm, Oil and Gas Development Co., is planning the US$1.4 billion
sale of global depository receipts (GDRs) and local shares in December. The
Karachi 100 index is up 12 per cent this year on daily turnover that exceeds
US$400 million, making it more active than markets such as Thailand, Indonesia,
and Malaysia. Money from the Middle East, and increasingly Singapore and
elsewhere in East Asia, has been helping drive growth, with infrastructure,
energy, financial services and makers of consumer goods such as motorcycles seen
as attractive plays.
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