TOI2010 ⁽⁵⁾

Read full article Abstract: The recent electoral victory of chief minister Nitish Kumar, who successfully placed Bihar on a high-growth trajectory, and the decisive defeat of Lalu Prasad, who presented himself as the champion of the underprivileged though without supporting evidence, offer an opportunity to probe more deeply the underlying change in voter attitude. A good starting point for this investigation is the landmark parliamentary election of 2004 in which the favoured Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance suffered a surprising defeat. The press widely attributed this defeat to an "anti-incumbency" factor arising out of the "India Shining" policies of the BJP that neglected the rural poor. This explanation was inconsistent with the twin facts that rural poverty had indeed declined and there was no urban-rural divide in the voting pattern.

Read full article Abstract: India has joined the US in "China bashing", calling upon the latter to revalue its currency. According to the Financial Times (April 22, 2010), India's Reserve Bank governor spoke ahead of a meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks of the G20 in Washington, joining with Brazil, to make a forceful case for a stronger renminbi (also called yuan). This is a mistake. For some time now, the US Congress and some Washington think tanks have aggressively sought to turn the bilateral exchange rate issue between the US and China into a multilateral issue. They have done this by asserting that the undervaluation of the Chinese currency hurts not just the US but Asia and others as well.

Read full article Abstract: Opposition to the foreign universities Bill, some of it originating even from within the Congress, is a sad affair for the nation. Few arguments against this much-needed and long-neglected reform stand up to close scrutiny. Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education, defined as the number of students enrolled in colleges and universities as a per cent of the total college-age population, stood at eight in China and 10 in India in 2000. By 2007, the ratio had shot up to 22 in China but crawled up barely to 13 in India. Seen differently, GER in secondary education in India was 57 in 2007. Even assuming that only half of these students actually graduate, our colleges and universities are seriously short of space.

Read full article Abstract: Lagging employment recovery and continuing high levels of unemployment have marked the macroeconomic scenario in the United States. So, it is natural that the United States, which chaired the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, would use its privileged position as the host to invite the US secretary of labour, a well-known union activist, to convene a meeting of the employment and labour ministers on the jobs situation prior to the next G-20 heads of state meeting in Canada. The macroeconomic aspects of the labour situation are indeed a proper focus of such a meeting. But the Pittsburgh declaration goes further and urges the G-20 countries not to "disregard or weaken internationally recognised labour standards" and to "implement policies consistent with ILO fundamental principles and rights at work".

Read full article Abstract: India-China comparisons often take 1980 or a later year as the starting point. But a balanced understanding of the relative achievements of the two countries requires a look at prior decades as well. Chairman Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, establishing the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the sole authority. Approximately around the same time, India opted for a democratic regime under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. While most Indians have a good idea of what democracy delivered to them between 1950 and 1980, they perhaps know far less about China. Today, it is commonplace to argue that the Chinese economy is performing better because authoritarianism allows its government to be more effective. But few observers care to record the gigantic failures of the same authoritarianism in the early decades.