Category: India

Falling in line: An Indian editor works at Chinese media

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By Shastri Ramachandaran

Working as a journalist in China’s newspapers can be an eye-opening and engaging experience, revealing unsuspected potential and unforeseen possibilities. Such work, more often than not, is with the state media. To make the most of the situation, it is necessary to leave behind a lifetime’s misconceptions and prejudices.

My life as an expatriate journalist in Beijing began with China Daily (CD) – the country’s oldest English daily brought out by a department of the Information Ministry. The Editor in Chief (EiC) is said to enjoy the rank of Vice Premier, with all the powers of that office, barring the one that allows issue of visas.Read More »

Pakistan’s schizophrenia

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By Jonathan Power

Pakistan is a country that seems sometimes to be on the verge of collapse- a scenario that frightens the US, Europe, India, Russia, China and the countries of the Middle East. All fear that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal might fall into the hands of Taliban militants.

Pakistan’s political and religious problems are rather like a Russian doll. You open one doll and there is another inside and so it goes on until the smallest doll is revealed six dolls later. Moreover, in Pakistan each doll has its complications and contradictions. Sometimes this makes the country’s policies hard to read.

Self-interest is usually the aim of every state. Yet Pakistan seems to be continuously shooting itself in the foot. Read More »

Third World poverty is falling fast

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By Jonathan Power

We all know the clichés: Is the glass half full or half empty? Is the light in the tunnel the train coming towards you? But this time the new World Bank figures for the decrease in Third World poverty are absolutely clear. The glass is filling up. The train is not going to crash into us. The doomsayers from Malthus in 1798 to Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” to the Club of Rome to some of the activists at World Trade meetings and to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation which in a quite recent mistake it now admits to, reported that the number of hungry people soared from 875 million in 2005 to one billion in 2009, have been proved to be wrong.Read More »

India uphill or downhill?

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By Jonathan Power

When the distinguished foreign policy expert, former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, told me a couple of years ago that he worried about the stability of India I thought he was way off track. Living in Calcutta at the time, democracy seemed to be thriving and both the state of West Bengal and most of the country were very clearly developing fast.

But that was before the crises of the last year. One major financial scandal has followed another. Read More »

India is unwilling to be drawn into US-China conflicts

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By Shastri Ramachandaran

Deputy Chief of the People’s Liberation Army Ma Xiaotian’s visit to New Delhi for Sino-Indian defence dialogues today is an affirmation that neither country will allow periodic irritants to derail bilateral talks.

Ma’s visit shows a resolve on the part of the two countries to ensure that differences do not become an obstacle to keep up communication by sticking to scheduled exchanges. There is a realization in both capitals that any rift between the two neighbors would be exploited by powerful forces which are unhappy with the growing cooperation and trade links between the Asian giants. Read More »

India set to take lead on abolishing nuclear weapons

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By Shastri Ramachandaran*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The Government of India appears to be in right earnest about taking the lead in pursuing universal disarmament. The renewed vigour – for reviving the climate and conditions wherein the basic ideas and objectives of nuclear disarmament can be advanced – is evident in a series of engagements being lined up to carry forward former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Action Plan (RGAP) for a nuclear-weapons-free world order.Read More »

Will China attack India again, and is India ready?

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By Shastri Ramachandaran

During my time in Beijing, the days on which India appeared in China’s English dailies or TV were few and far between. Even bilateral exchanges, ministerial visits and official cultural events didn’t make the kind of splash it does in India.

India figures prominently in the Chinese media when the state, party or government wants to send messages without the official stamp. In contrast, there’s much more of China in the Indian media, which is more preoccupied — obsessed even — with China.Read More »