China Slave Labor
Prison slaves - Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - Al Jazeera English
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Prison slaves - Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - Al Jazeera English
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Hear the White Tiger growl
Hear the White Tiger growl
Narain D Batra
| May 6, 2012, 06.10AM IST
From the Sunday Times of India
When you see a child standing on a garbage dump looking for something retrievable, competing with dogs, cranes and vultures, you wonder where the storied economic growth has been going. With food and oil prices going up, the government sounds ingenuous when it trumpets gross domestic product without making sure that the benefits of economic growth are distributed equitably.
Even if one accepts the Planning Commission's recently released poverty metrics that 29.8% of India's 1.21 billion people live below the poverty line, it still means about 360 million people presently live in poverty, a shockingly high number that includes-let's not forget- millions of children of rural farm workers, city casual workers, adivasis, dalits and Muslims. Neither welfare programs, nor a quotas system will be totally effective for poverty reduction on a sustainable basis even when 8-9 % economic growth is regained. How many five-year plans will it take to lift these invisible people above the officially declared poverty survival level? The government alone cannot fight poverty-partly because it is incompetent; but more so because it lacks sympathetic imagination.
Corporate India has been growing at a phenomenal rate since the liberalization of economy and must contribute its might toward poverty reduction . With economic power comes wider social responsibility and corporate India cannot keep itself aloof from the travails of the common people.
Corporate giants cannot afford to be content feeding only their shareholders' bellies, especially when most global corporations in the US and Europe have accepted that their social responsibility goes beyond profitmaking. Today hardly anyone pays heed to what Chicago economist Milton Friedman erroneously argued in 1970: "The social responsibility of business is to its profits." Democratic marketplace capitalism is the last best hope of India but it cannot survive on greed.
A few years ago, H Lee Scott Jr, former chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, said, "People's expectations of us-and of corporations in general changed.... It is clear that today people look at Wal-Mart as a solution. And we want to be seen that way. We want to act that way." With more than $421 billion revenue in 2011 and two million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart has earned notoriety for buying cheap wherever it can; nonetheless, it boasts of always selling at low prices. A few years ago, the retailer was perceived as one of the worst global exploiters . But today with its avowed mission of protecting the environment and an affordable $4 prescription drug plan, its image has improved along with its profits.
That's how corporate India should be adjudged-albeit making global mergers-and-acquisitions of mega steel mills or bringing Jaguar/Land Rover to India and thus fulfilling the fantasy of the elite about India becoming a superpower is not a bad idea at all. Corporate India will flourish more by sharing the burden of poverty. Sustainable growth, affordable healthcare and poverty reduction are the chief concerns of India, which corporate leadership too must accept. There is fortune to be made at the base of the pyramid, the late management guru CK Prahalad used to say. I see million-fold brainpower awaiting development.
Corporate social responsibility is a form of business-to-people savoir-faire , social adeptness to win the hearts and minds of the people. Some corporations use their social responsibility activities as a means of building social capital, which comes handy when they are hit with crises.
According to an Oxford Said School of Business report, corporate social responsibility"penetration in India is relatively high with over 80 percent corporations administering some kind of corporate social responsibility program." But unfortunately these scattershot goodwill philanthropic efforts have no visible impact on the invisible people.
Corporate India must develop new business models that enable companies to join hands with local communities and civil society in creating opportunities for inclusive, sustainable growth- growth that generates jobs and enriches human capital.
Civil society can spawn transformative changes by focusing on the poverty-reduction activities of Indian companies. Constant information flows and the software to manage them have increased the ability of civil society to uncover corruption and inequities in decision-making by governments as well as corporations, and identify left-behind disadvantaged groups. Smart use of IT by civil society could impact corporate governance and the politics of economic inclusion.
As political and economic power devolves, India's everyman with his video cellphone will watch corporate India hungrily for social justice. Somewhere, there prowls Arvind Adiga's ferocious beast, The White Tiger. Does corporate India hear the growl? I do.
The writer teaches communication and corporate diplomacy at Norwich University, US
Saturday, February 18, 2012
On slippery ground, but India needs both Israel & Iran
Times of India
Iran is India's biggest diplomatic challenge today. The Chabahar Port in Iran along with a very strategic railway link offers India direct access to Afghanistan and the energy-rich Central Asia. But the allegations made by Israel that a recent bomb attack on one of its diplomats in Delhi was perpetrated by Iran sympathizers, adds to the problems in a already- complicated relationship.
As a responsible Indian Ocean power, India must help resolve an international crisis, particularly in the Middle East where it has heavily invested, especially in human capital. Six million Indians living in the region send home more than $40 billion annually.
That said, India and Israel too have growing relations in several fields crucial for economic development, including defence technology, agriculture, R&D and tourism. India must be a safe place for Israelis to visit and do business.
Trade, investment, and diplomatic influence are highly correlated, and India needs to be innovative and aggressive. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Chicago late January, quickly followed by foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai's Washington trip, the India-European Union summit in Delhi to expedite broad-based trade and investment, and ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Iran on energy issues highlight the urgency of economic diplomacy to serve India's long-term national interests.
Addressing the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mukherjee urged his audience of some top business leaders to "contribute to our collective prosperity," especially when India has embarked on colossal infrastructure building projects that will require one trillion dollar investment during the next five years.
Mukherjee touted India's "calibrated approach" to capital account convertibility; the success of external commercial borrowings policy in maintaining external debt at sustainable levels; the robustness of India's banking sector; diversified export markets; and the robustness of the financial sector due to optimal regulatory mechanism. Financially, India stands like a rock.
With the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and other similar projects in mind, Mukherjee explained the government's manufacturing policy to create 100 million jobs in the next decade by establishing special zones with world-class urban centres, to make Indian industry globally competitive. This will be done by instituting a supportive framework to facilitate business, including availability of skills, technology, finance, and "compliance based on self-regulation," with minimal government intervention. Mukherjee came as close as he could to promise that India will be as business-friendly as China.
While courting American investors, Mukherjee did not hesitate to assert India's position on two vital issues - Obama's outsourcing policy and Iran sanctions. Obama's plan to limit outsourcing through tax incentives is counterproductive and will hurt both India and America. Of course, the best way for Indian IT industry to combat the looming outsourcing "protectionism" threat is to offer products and services so compelling that corporate America cannot refuse.
On India-Iran trade relations, Mukherjee was unequivocally frank: "It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically, because among the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economies, Iran is an important country." Buying Iran oil does not mean that India condones Iran's nuclear ambitions other than for peaceful purposes. Maintaining stability in the Middle East to enable an uninterrupted flow of energy is a global challenge.
Later, on his visit to Washington DC, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai told his audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that, "while Iran has rights to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it must also fulfill its international obligations as a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT." India's voting record on Iran in IAEA is unambiguous.
But Mathai also focused on Iran's geopolitical importance to India. Iran, apart from providing India with 12 % of its oil needs, worth $11 billion annually, also enables access to Central Asia including Afghanistan whose long-term stability and prosperity is vital to India; as it is to the US especially when it plans to withdraw its combat forces in 2014.
India's forthcoming trade negotiations with Iran should have twofold aims - first, to negotiate the oil deal at best prices entirely in rupee terms. Rupee oil trade agreement will boost Indian exports to Iran. Besides, it will open up opportunities for other countries to do trade in rupee, further stimulating Indian exports. Although Indian economy is based on domestic consumption, international trade generates tremendous diplomatic leverage and influence - see what China is doing with its massive trade surplus and foreign currency reserves.
Second, India should use the opportunity to persuade Iran to resume negotiations regarding its nuclear programme since it claims its programme to be peaceful. In fact, during the recently concluded India-EU free trade talks, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pressed India to use its leverage with Iran to return to the negotiating table.
India needs to make a large and meaningful diplomatic gesture for international cooperation without compromising its economic interests.
The writer is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University
That said, India and Israel too have growing relations in several fields crucial for economic development, including defence technology, agriculture, R&D and tourism. India must be a safe place for Israelis to visit and do business.
Trade, investment, and diplomatic influence are highly correlated, and India needs to be innovative and aggressive. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Chicago late January, quickly followed by foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai's Washington trip, the India-European Union summit in Delhi to expedite broad-based trade and investment, and ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Iran on energy issues highlight the urgency of economic diplomacy to serve India's long-term national interests.
Addressing the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mukherjee urged his audience of some top business leaders to "contribute to our collective prosperity," especially when India has embarked on colossal infrastructure building projects that will require one trillion dollar investment during the next five years.
Mukherjee touted India's "calibrated approach" to capital account convertibility; the success of external commercial borrowings policy in maintaining external debt at sustainable levels; the robustness of India's banking sector; diversified export markets; and the robustness of the financial sector due to optimal regulatory mechanism. Financially, India stands like a rock.
With the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and other similar projects in mind, Mukherjee explained the government's manufacturing policy to create 100 million jobs in the next decade by establishing special zones with world-class urban centres, to make Indian industry globally competitive. This will be done by instituting a supportive framework to facilitate business, including availability of skills, technology, finance, and "compliance based on self-regulation," with minimal government intervention. Mukherjee came as close as he could to promise that India will be as business-friendly as China.
While courting American investors, Mukherjee did not hesitate to assert India's position on two vital issues - Obama's outsourcing policy and Iran sanctions. Obama's plan to limit outsourcing through tax incentives is counterproductive and will hurt both India and America. Of course, the best way for Indian IT industry to combat the looming outsourcing "protectionism" threat is to offer products and services so compelling that corporate America cannot refuse.
On India-Iran trade relations, Mukherjee was unequivocally frank: "It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically, because among the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economies, Iran is an important country." Buying Iran oil does not mean that India condones Iran's nuclear ambitions other than for peaceful purposes. Maintaining stability in the Middle East to enable an uninterrupted flow of energy is a global challenge.
Later, on his visit to Washington DC, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai told his audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that, "while Iran has rights to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it must also fulfill its international obligations as a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT." India's voting record on Iran in IAEA is unambiguous.
But Mathai also focused on Iran's geopolitical importance to India. Iran, apart from providing India with 12 % of its oil needs, worth $11 billion annually, also enables access to Central Asia including Afghanistan whose long-term stability and prosperity is vital to India; as it is to the US especially when it plans to withdraw its combat forces in 2014.
India's forthcoming trade negotiations with Iran should have twofold aims - first, to negotiate the oil deal at best prices entirely in rupee terms. Rupee oil trade agreement will boost Indian exports to Iran. Besides, it will open up opportunities for other countries to do trade in rupee, further stimulating Indian exports. Although Indian economy is based on domestic consumption, international trade generates tremendous diplomatic leverage and influence - see what China is doing with its massive trade surplus and foreign currency reserves.
Second, India should use the opportunity to persuade Iran to resume negotiations regarding its nuclear programme since it claims its programme to be peaceful. In fact, during the recently concluded India-EU free trade talks, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pressed India to use its leverage with Iran to return to the negotiating table.
India needs to make a large and meaningful diplomatic gesture for international cooperation without compromising its economic interests.
The writer is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Telepresence
“The 'Arab Spring' had its technological genesis in Silicon Valley-generated social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. But the same networking technology enables American jobs to be done by anybody anywhere. And so Arab authoritarian regimes see their bloody streets as nothing but an American conspiracy while many American politicians blame the continuous loss of American jobs on the rising tide of digital civilization…”
Read more …
Times of India
25 January 2012
Topics
Globalization
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