LyrArc Article Gist
Prime minister Manmohan Singh moves forward with moves to open up the retail sector to foreign investment and other steps to attract foreign investors. In a televised address he appeals to Indians to support his government's efforts to reduce the deficit by increasing diesel prices, placing caps on cooking gas subsidies, and open up the retail sector to foreign investment. Singh's coalition will survive with a parliamentary majority after the withdrawal of a party based in W. Bengal state led by Mamta Banerjee, by getting the support of a party based in Uttar Pradesh state led by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Singh tells Indians: "we are at a point where we can reverse the slowdown in our growth. We need a revival in investor confidence domestically and globally.'' Earlier efforts to open up the retail sector to foreign investment failed because of Banerjee. Singh also warned Indians of the problems Europe is facing and the need for strong action to prevent a similar situation happening in India. India's political picture has changed since the days of Nehru and Indira Gandhi as no single party has support in all parts of the country, and federal governments in New Delhi are based on coalitions led by Congress party or the BJP party. Singh is known for his market opening moves as finance minister in a Congress led government in the early 1990's. Political strains and corruption scandals have weakened Singh's government in 2011-2012 leading to the lack of clear policies on the deficit and foreign investment, a situation Singh seeks to firmly correct. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Peter Hessler was a teacher in Sichuan province of China before living in Tibet and writing this article for The Atlantic.  It gives some insights into both the thinking of Chinese people and Tibetan people and the changes happening around them. Inevitably changes would have come to Tibet from outside or without China's takeover of Tibet in 1950, would have come in some other form, as it has in neighboring Nepal, Afghanistan, says Hessler, without some of the loss of some of the positive aspects of culture and of Buddhism.  Even in India feudal system of zamindars prevailed in villages into the late British period and the early Nehru period but has gradually disappeared over time, so that change has potential over time to happen, and comes inevitably.  Here he shows- the immigrants from Sichuan province, over 120 million people in the province, and part of a floating population of migrant workers in China, looking for jobs or economic opportunity, and some taking up life at the high Himalayan altitudes for 2-3 years or even 8 year terms. The belief Hessler says among Sichuan immigrants that high altitude was bad for the lungs over long periods and shortened life. The lack of women with a disproportionate number of men making the journey to start a new life in Tibet, the hardships, the enterprising nature of Sichuan immigrants in the shops and retail that Tibetans lacked the enterprising skills to do, the difficulties living with two cultures side by side, the lack of any incentive to learn the local language. The feelings of Tibetan people that they are somehow losing their culture and identity. The sense among immigrants that this is not their first choice of place but somehow would have to do till they go back and find someone to marry during brief trips back home to Sichuan. There is something timeless about this essay, as changes unfold, no one unambiguous trend, a more complex situation.  China's sense that the west has violated its sovereignty under the British and foreign powers in the nineteenth century. The feeling that somehow Tibet is part of this sense of China regaining what it had lost to the foreign powers. Without the realization that Tibet has served as a gift of nature, a given mountainous buffer that helped two Asian civilizations prosper in the Ganges and Yangtse river valleys, thousands of miles apart. And both having the similar experience with the British and foreign powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and both recovering modernizing at the same pace.    The sense China has, says Hessler, that it is about China's sovereignty following a Qing dynasty entry into Lhasa in 1792, even though the Qing saw Tibet as a buffer state running its own affairs separating it from the British Empire on the other side of the Himalayas. Very little contact between China and Tibet for centuries simply because using yaks and mules it would take several months from northern China to Tibet crossing mountain ranges at 15,000 feet. The British saw this as a buffer state in the same way as happened also with the Mughals in the 15th to 18th century, and the Empires between the 11th and 15th century in India.  Because opium was shipped from Bengal under British colonial rule causing great poverty in India against the will of the Indian people, the same sense of violation of sovereignty existed in exactly the same way in the perception of foreign powers in India, so that the notion of violation of one's self respect being shared was serving no useful purpose in this context between China and India.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Efforts to reverse declining investor sentiment in India.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Indian government's chief economic advisor, Kaushik Basu, says the opening up of India's retail sector would have benefitted everyone including middle traders. This would happen because the retail sector would go through a vast expansion creating room for more players even though the per unit margin from products would go down. Experts say the infusion of new technologies and investment in India's supply chain and cold storage setup would help reduce food prices and inflation. Basu made the comments at the launching of the New Oxford Companion to Economics in India in Feb 2012. Basu is co-editor and it has contributions from Ratan Tata, Pranab Mukherjee, and Nandan Nilekhani.

LyrArc Article Gist
India's ruling Congres party suffered losses in the two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. In Uttar Pradesh, the socialist Samajwadi party gained an absolute majority of 224 seats in the 403 seat assembly. The Bahujan Samaj party of Kumari Mayawati lost its majority winning only 80 seats, the BJP won 47 seats and the Congress won only 28 seats. Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party campaigned heavily in the state and the results show that his campaign against Mayawati did not result in Congress gaining enough seats to form a coalition government with the Samajwadi party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav has held the position of chief minister three times before, and campaigned for greater rights for lower castes and for a quota in education and jobs for Muslims. His other campaign promises included increasing electricity production, and improving the business climate. In the Punjab state, the Shiromani Akali Dal party won 56 of 117 seats, with the Congress getting 46 seats. National elections will be held in 2014, and the results reflect a repudiation of the Congress party after corruption scandals, slower economic growth, and lack of clear policy direction....

LyrArc Article Gist
A Pew Research Center poll before April elections shows 70% of Indians dissatisfied with conditions in the country. 63% of those polled say they prefer the opposition BJP party to lead the next government, compared to 19% for the ruling Congress party. More significant was the favorable view of Narendra Modi by 78% of those polled, with only 16% holding an unfavorable view of Modi, the chief minister of the state of Gujarat which has seen fast growth rates. The Congress party has been hurt by a series of corruption scandals, weak leadership and poor management of the economy as growth slowed in 2012-2013.