JEWS ARE FREE AT LAST AND INDEPENDENT. WHY DO WE ENSLAVE OURSELVES AND GROVEL BEFORE THE NATIONS
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http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/21/new-york-times-india-clinton-climate-nuclear-opinions-contributors-sumit-ganguly.html
FORBES.COM
Hillary, India And ’The New York Times’
Sumit Ganguly, 07.21.09, 12:34 PM EDT
The secretary of state addresses a U.S. ally.
The condescension of The New York Times’ July 17 editorial hectoring India to assume a greater burden of responsibility in addressing global emissions received a fitting reply from the Indian Minister of State for Environments and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, at a ceremony heralding a "green building" on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Ramesh, an articulate and thoughtful member of the ruling coalition, bluntly stated that India was not about to sacrifice much-needed economic growth to meet American expectations on global climate change targets. A chastened Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was forced to concede that the U.S. would not try to induce India to meet specific goals at the cost of growth.
Similarly, the tired rant of The New York Times that India was not doing enough on the nonproliferation front also received an appropriate rebuff. Secretary Clinton, no doubt to the dismay of the nonproliferation zealots in her party (and on the Times editorial board), announced that the U.S. had selected two sites for locating American nuclear power plants. Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department had also announced that it would begin negotiations with India in Vienna over the question of the reprocessing of spent fuel.
Nor did the Times’ gratuitous advice that India urgently renews a dialogue with Pakistan find much resonance within the secretary’s official remit. She did ritualistically invoke the significance of resuming discussions with Pakistan. However, the symbolism of her stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the site of the vicious attack by Pakistan-based terrorists last November, was not lost on multiple audiences in India.
Most importantly, despite the Times’ jejune harangue that India was engaged in an arms race with Pakistan, the secretary and her entourage found ways to reach an agreement with India on the vexed issue of end-user agreements on weapons sales. Now two major American aerospace firms, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have both been vying for the largest, single Indian defense contract involving some 126 multi-role combat aircraft, will be able to compete without any hindrance.
The New York Times’ editors tend to refract all their analyses of Indian defense acquisitions through the utterly anachronistic Cold War prism of Indo-Pakistani relations. They appear to be congenitally incapable of recognizing that India’s principal and long-term security concern is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan but the militarily and economically robust People’s Republic of China.
In a related vein, the U.S., after lengthy negotiations, will now also permit India’s space program to purchase and use key American components in its launches. This agreement removes yet another barrier to critical technology transfers. Access to such technologies could give India’s civilian and military space efforts a significant boost.
Despite these achievements, the long-troubled relationship is not out of the woods. One of the most important differences remains in the realm of global trade negotiations. The U.S., faced with a well-organized domestic farm lobby, is loath to trim agricultural subsidies, and India, fearful of the fraught conditions of its own rural population, remains hesitant to open its domestic markets. Yet the differences may not be as wide as they appeared in the last Doha Round and with some deft diplomacy on both sides, progress can be achieved.
Simultaneously, the U.S. business community has a legitimate concern about India’s lack of meaningful progress over the past five years in terms of dismantling barriers to foreign investment and competition. For example, progress in opening up India’s vast retail sector to foreign investment still remains stymied, in part because of the opposition of large Indian business houses who fear that such competition would place them at a significant disadvantage. Now that the principal partner of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance has a comfortable 206 seats in parliament, perhaps it may prove more willing to grasp this particular nettle.
These issues notwithstanding, the secretary’s achievements during her first official visit to India--though discomfiting to those who insist on viewing India solely through the myopic lenses of nonproliferation--show that the Indo-U.S. relationship is on a firmer course than many commentators had been inclined to believe.
Such concerns, at one level, were understandable. The Obama administration has yet to match the lofty rhetoric of the Bush administration when it comes to spelling out a vision for Indo-U.S. relations. Furthermore, some of its earlier choices, notably an ill-advised focus on the Kashmir dispute, may have caused understandable misgivings in New Delhi.
With Secretary Clinton having spent five intense days in India, one can only hope that the Obama administration will now see India in all its facets and appreciate its growing importance to the U.S. The secretary, during her visit, invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a state visit in November of this year. One can only hope that The New York Times’ editorial board will not be as liberal in dispensing its patronizing advice as his visit nears.
Sumit Ganguly is a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574301221048374500.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
OPINION ASIA
JULY 21, 2009, 12:50 P.M. ET
Listening to India
President Obama bills himself on the world stage as an empathetic guy, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a veteran of a famous “listening tour” of her own. Let’s hope the Administration was paying attention to India’s environment minister when he told Mrs. Clinton a thing or two about climate policy Sunday .
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Jairam Ramesh told Mrs. Clinton in a closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his remarks distributed after the session. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”
Mr. Ramesh was simply repeating the widespread consensus in India that it’s irresponsible to sacrifice economic growth benefiting hundreds of millions of mostly poor people for the sake of environmental absolutism. India’s per capita GDP is around $1,000. While its mostly state-owned energy industry is grossly inefficient and the country could benefit from less wasteful energy usage, emissions caps are the wrong way to go. Caps would send prices on energy and other goods higher, not to mention the longer-term damage to economic growth. China conveyed similar concerns at the Group of Eight meeting in Italy earlier this month.
Mr. Ramesh’s remarks point to another cost India could bear even if New Delhi resists imposing its own emissions caps: the cost of protectionist measures imposed by developed countries to shield their businesses from the costs of their own national emissions targets. The cap and tax bill recently passed by the U.S. House is explicit in proposing tariffs on goods from countries that don’t follow the developed world’s anticarbon line.
Instead Mr. Ramesh repeated New Delhi’s longstanding call for developed countries to finance the import of expensive green technologies, which would in theory help India reduce emissions without incurring as many out-of-pocket costs. At the same time, India has rejected any calls for legally binding emissions targets.
If this concept sounds familiar, it should. President George W. Bush proposed such a framework almost exactly four years ago. The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate brought together the U.S., India, China and four other countries to find ways to spread green technologies. Environmentalists derided it at the time, partly because it didn’t set mandatory emissions reductions and partly because Mr. Bush had proposed it. It has since dropped off the radar screen, although it’s still in operation.
Call it a more honest form of environmentalism. The Indian government recognizes the public would never be willing to shoulder the costs of emissions controls, and that it’s unfair to ask millions of poor people to try. Mr. Bush understood that the developed world can best help developing countries green themselves up by supporting freer trade in environmentally friendly technologies. It’s a stark contrast to climate politics in today’s Washington, where Democrats try to push cap-and-trade through Congress before anyone notices the costs while special interests slip in protectionist carbon tariffs.
There is still serious scientific debate about the causes, effects and possible solutions for climate change. But if President Obama is determined to tackle the issue anyway, he could do worse than listen to what Mr. Ramesh said.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0721/p08s01-comv.html
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Clinton helps Obama rope in India as potential ally
The successes during her trip expand the president’s vision for a multipolar world.
By the Monitor’s Editorial Board
from the July 21, 2009 edition
Recasting the world according to the vision of Barack Obama may not always be easy for his secretary of State and erstwhile political rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. But her recent three-day visit to India shows the former first lady can dutifully deliver results that point to an Obama-style global order.
The president (and thus Ms. Clinton) sees India as one of a few major or emerging powers that are well shy of being US allies but nonetheless might work more closely with the US – as the sole global superpower. He wants to share the burden of uplifting humanity and keeping the peace as he prefers to focus on his heavy domestic agenda.
By and large, the Clinton visit revealed an India ready to deepen ties with the US – far more so than with, say, China or Russia, and in similar measure to fellow democracies like Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia.
What does such closeness look like?
Clinton won deals on selling US nuclear power-plant equipment to India as well as high-tech military equipment that can be tracked for its end use. She also made some progress in bringing India closer to abiding by international rules on nuclear weapons known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India won regular, high-level, multi-ministerial strategic talks with the US that will expand on the Bush administration’s stronger military ties with this South Asian giant. And in a sign of Mr. Obama’s global agenda to look beyond traditional American allies, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign leader to receive an official red-carpet state visit to the Obama White House.
If Obama is true to his vision, he won’t wait too long to travel to India after Mr. Singh’s November visit. That gesture would help cement a partnership long overdue between the world’s two largest democracies.
On the vital issues of climate change and a possible bilateral free-trade agreement, however, India and the Obama administration remain far apart. India does not want international attempts at curbing global warming to slow its economy. And it wants to protect its farmers from inexpensive US agricultural exports.
And while India enjoys new US attention, it remains vigilant against any American meddling in its touchy ties with Pakistan, especially over the issues of Kashmir and Afghanistan. India is rightly worried that Pakistan’s recent attempts to crack down on terrorists will extend only to those militants not interested in attacking India. Memories are still raw over last year’s massive killings in Mumbai (Bombay) by a group of Pakistani gunmen.
Still, India remains pivotal to Obama’s attempt to stabilize Afghanistan, while India welcomes the US as a balancing force in its regional competition with China. These are the building blocks of an emerging and potentially enduring strategic relationship.
The US and India need to work particularly hard at raising American understanding of India – beyond such cultural encounters as the film "Slumdog Millionaire." The two countries have never had an intense experience of each other, such as the US wars – hot and cold – with Japan, China, Russia, and Germany.
Clinton, who visited India in 1995 as first lady in a high-profile trip, is well poised to expand the necessary people exchanges between the two countries. In that role, she is an asset for Obama as he enlists India and other powers to help him find more help in running the world.
FORBES.COM
Hillary, India And ’The New York Times’
Sumit Ganguly, 07.21.09, 12:34 PM EDT
The secretary of state addresses a U.S. ally.
The condescension of The New York Times’ July 17 editorial hectoring India to assume a greater burden of responsibility in addressing global emissions received a fitting reply from the Indian Minister of State for Environments and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, at a ceremony heralding a "green building" on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Ramesh, an articulate and thoughtful member of the ruling coalition, bluntly stated that India was not about to sacrifice much-needed economic growth to meet American expectations on global climate change targets. A chastened Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was forced to concede that the U.S. would not try to induce India to meet specific goals at the cost of growth.
Similarly, the tired rant of The New York Times that India was not doing enough on the nonproliferation front also received an appropriate rebuff. Secretary Clinton, no doubt to the dismay of the nonproliferation zealots in her party (and on the Times editorial board), announced that the U.S. had selected two sites for locating American nuclear power plants. Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department had also announced that it would begin negotiations with India in Vienna over the question of the reprocessing of spent fuel.
Nor did the Times’ gratuitous advice that India urgently renews a dialogue with Pakistan find much resonance within the secretary’s official remit. She did ritualistically invoke the significance of resuming discussions with Pakistan. However, the symbolism of her stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the site of the vicious attack by Pakistan-based terrorists last November, was not lost on multiple audiences in India.
Most importantly, despite the Times’ jejune harangue that India was engaged in an arms race with Pakistan, the secretary and her entourage found ways to reach an agreement with India on the vexed issue of end-user agreements on weapons sales. Now two major American aerospace firms, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have both been vying for the largest, single Indian defense contract involving some 126 multi-role combat aircraft, will be able to compete without any hindrance.
The New York Times’ editors tend to refract all their analyses of Indian defense acquisitions through the utterly anachronistic Cold War prism of Indo-Pakistani relations. They appear to be congenitally incapable of recognizing that India’s principal and long-term security concern is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan but the militarily and economically robust People’s Republic of China.
In a related vein, the U.S., after lengthy negotiations, will now also permit India’s space program to purchase and use key American components in its launches. This agreement removes yet another barrier to critical technology transfers. Access to such technologies could give India’s civilian and military space efforts a significant boost.
Despite these achievements, the long-troubled relationship is not out of the woods. One of the most important differences remains in the realm of global trade negotiations. The U.S., faced with a well-organized domestic farm lobby, is loath to trim agricultural subsidies, and India, fearful of the fraught conditions of its own rural population, remains hesitant to open its domestic markets. Yet the differences may not be as wide as they appeared in the last Doha Round and with some deft diplomacy on both sides, progress can be achieved.
Simultaneously, the U.S. business community has a legitimate concern about India’s lack of meaningful progress over the past five years in terms of dismantling barriers to foreign investment and competition. For example, progress in opening up India’s vast retail sector to foreign investment still remains stymied, in part because of the opposition of large Indian business houses who fear that such competition would place them at a significant disadvantage. Now that the principal partner of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance has a comfortable 206 seats in parliament, perhaps it may prove more willing to grasp this particular nettle.
These issues notwithstanding, the secretary’s achievements during her first official visit to India--though discomfiting to those who insist on viewing India solely through the myopic lenses of nonproliferation--show that the Indo-U.S. relationship is on a firmer course than many commentators had been inclined to believe.
Such concerns, at one level, were understandable. The Obama administration has yet to match the lofty rhetoric of the Bush administration when it comes to spelling out a vision for Indo-U.S. relations. Furthermore, some of its earlier choices, notably an ill-advised focus on the Kashmir dispute, may have caused understandable misgivings in New Delhi.
With Secretary Clinton having spent five intense days in India, one can only hope that the Obama administration will now see India in all its facets and appreciate its growing importance to the U.S. The secretary, during her visit, invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a state visit in November of this year. One can only hope that The New York Times’ editorial board will not be as liberal in dispensing its patronizing advice as his visit nears.
Sumit Ganguly is a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574301221048374500.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
OPINION ASIA
JULY 21, 2009, 12:50 P.M. ET
Listening to India
President Obama bills himself on the world stage as an empathetic guy, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a veteran of a famous “listening tour” of her own. Let’s hope the Administration was paying attention to India’s environment minister when he told Mrs. Clinton a thing or two about climate policy Sunday .
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Jairam Ramesh told Mrs. Clinton in a closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his remarks distributed after the session. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”
Mr. Ramesh was simply repeating the widespread consensus in India that it’s irresponsible to sacrifice economic growth benefiting hundreds of millions of mostly poor people for the sake of environmental absolutism. India’s per capita GDP is around $1,000. While its mostly state-owned energy industry is grossly inefficient and the country could benefit from less wasteful energy usage, emissions caps are the wrong way to go. Caps would send prices on energy and other goods higher, not to mention the longer-term damage to economic growth. China conveyed similar concerns at the Group of Eight meeting in Italy earlier this month.
Mr. Ramesh’s remarks point to another cost India could bear even if New Delhi resists imposing its own emissions caps: the cost of protectionist measures imposed by developed countries to shield their businesses from the costs of their own national emissions targets. The cap and tax bill recently passed by the U.S. House is explicit in proposing tariffs on goods from countries that don’t follow the developed world’s anticarbon line.
Instead Mr. Ramesh repeated New Delhi’s longstanding call for developed countries to finance the import of expensive green technologies, which would in theory help India reduce emissions without incurring as many out-of-pocket costs. At the same time, India has rejected any calls for legally binding emissions targets.
If this concept sounds familiar, it should. President George W. Bush proposed such a framework almost exactly four years ago. The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate brought together the U.S., India, China and four other countries to find ways to spread green technologies. Environmentalists derided it at the time, partly because it didn’t set mandatory emissions reductions and partly because Mr. Bush had proposed it. It has since dropped off the radar screen, although it’s still in operation.
Call it a more honest form of environmentalism. The Indian government recognizes the public would never be willing to shoulder the costs of emissions controls, and that it’s unfair to ask millions of poor people to try. Mr. Bush understood that the developed world can best help developing countries green themselves up by supporting freer trade in environmentally friendly technologies. It’s a stark contrast to climate politics in today’s Washington, where Democrats try to push cap-and-trade through Congress before anyone notices the costs while special interests slip in protectionist carbon tariffs.
There is still serious scientific debate about the causes, effects and possible solutions for climate change. But if President Obama is determined to tackle the issue anyway, he could do worse than listen to what Mr. Ramesh said.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0721/p08s01-comv.html
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Clinton helps Obama rope in India as potential ally
The successes during her trip expand the president’s vision for a multipolar world.
By the Monitor’s Editorial Board
from the July 21, 2009 edition
Recasting the world according to the vision of Barack Obama may not always be easy for his secretary of State and erstwhile political rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. But her recent three-day visit to India shows the former first lady can dutifully deliver results that point to an Obama-style global order.
The president (and thus Ms. Clinton) sees India as one of a few major or emerging powers that are well shy of being US allies but nonetheless might work more closely with the US – as the sole global superpower. He wants to share the burden of uplifting humanity and keeping the peace as he prefers to focus on his heavy domestic agenda.
By and large, the Clinton visit revealed an India ready to deepen ties with the US – far more so than with, say, China or Russia, and in similar measure to fellow democracies like Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia.
What does such closeness look like?
Clinton won deals on selling US nuclear power-plant equipment to India as well as high-tech military equipment that can be tracked for its end use. She also made some progress in bringing India closer to abiding by international rules on nuclear weapons known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India won regular, high-level, multi-ministerial strategic talks with the US that will expand on the Bush administration’s stronger military ties with this South Asian giant. And in a sign of Mr. Obama’s global agenda to look beyond traditional American allies, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign leader to receive an official red-carpet state visit to the Obama White House.
If Obama is true to his vision, he won’t wait too long to travel to India after Mr. Singh’s November visit. That gesture would help cement a partnership long overdue between the world’s two largest democracies.
On the vital issues of climate change and a possible bilateral free-trade agreement, however, India and the Obama administration remain far apart. India does not want international attempts at curbing global warming to slow its economy. And it wants to protect its farmers from inexpensive US agricultural exports.
And while India enjoys new US attention, it remains vigilant against any American meddling in its touchy ties with Pakistan, especially over the issues of Kashmir and Afghanistan. India is rightly worried that Pakistan’s recent attempts to crack down on terrorists will extend only to those militants not interested in attacking India. Memories are still raw over last year’s massive killings in Mumbai (Bombay) by a group of Pakistani gunmen.
Still, India remains pivotal to Obama’s attempt to stabilize Afghanistan, while India welcomes the US as a balancing force in its regional competition with China. These are the building blocks of an emerging and potentially enduring strategic relationship.
The US and India need to work particularly hard at raising American understanding of India – beyond such cultural encounters as the film "Slumdog Millionaire." The two countries have never had an intense experience of each other, such as the US wars – hot and cold – with Japan, China, Russia, and Germany.
Clinton, who visited India in 1995 as first lady in a high-profile trip, is well poised to expand the necessary people exchanges between the two countries. In that role, she is an asset for Obama as he enlists India and other powers to help him find more help in running the world.
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