China’s Renminbi Is Approved by I.M.F. as a Main World Currency
HONG KONG — The Chinese renminbi was anointed as one of the world’s elite currencies on Monday, a milestone decision by the International Monetary Fund that underscores the country’s rising financial and economic heft.
The move will help pave the way for broader use of the renminbi in trade and finance, securing China’s standing as a global economic power. Just four other currencies — the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen — have the I.M.F. designation.
But the path to the I.M.F. decision, a bumpy process that stretches back years, also introduced new uncertainty into China’s economy and financial system.
To meet the I.M.F. requirements, China was forced to give up some of its tight control over the currency, culminating in the abrupt devaluation of the renminbi that shook global markets in August. The changes could inject fresh volatility into the country, at a time when its economy is already slowing.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/busin ... 87722&_r=0
The Choice Facing China as Its Currency Becomes More Global
There is surely some clinking of Champagne glasses, or perhaps a Chinese celebratory equivalent, taking place in the hallways of China’s finance ministry and central bank. Those officials will now be the proud guardians of a “global reserve currency,” after a long-sought decision Monday by the International Monetary Fund.
But they will soon find that the step raises more questions than it answers about China’s role among nations and that the hardest decisions lie ahead. Being a world financial hegemon comes with meaningful costs, in addition to benefits.
The direct implications of the I.M.F. decision are narrow. The renminbi (also known as the yuan) will join the dollar, euro, yen and pound in an elite group of currencies. But if you’re not a reserve manager for some national treasury, seeking to build emergency savings to buffer the vicissitudes of global finance, the direct impact of China’s inclusion in “special drawing rights” is limited.
The big question for the future is whether this is akin to what happened about a century ago, when the United States dollar was gradually supplanting the British pound as the predominant currency for global trade and finance. This development was a crucial piece of the nation’s rise to superpower status. Conversely, China’s leaders in the years ahead could decide that being a world financial hegemon carries too many costs, in which case the renminbi will be more like the British pound or Japanese yen — important currencies, certainly, but not so important as to create continuing political and economic burdens on their nations.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/upsho ... d=71987722
ASIA
Singapore’s Artistic Experiment
Singapore — Wandering through the spectacular new National Gallery here, it’s easy to discern Singapore’s urge not just to showcase the best of its art, but to educate its visitors. Among the exhibitions are a solo show of works by Tang Da Wu and a lavish display of paintings by Chua Ek Kay, hugely important local artists who remain little known outside Southeast Asia. Then there is an entire floor dedicated to an exhibition titled “Siapa Nama Kamu?” (“What Is Your Name?”), which traces the history and identity of Singapore from its origins as a British colony to a modern cosmopolitan city-state.
Just as revealing, though, of the gallery’s educational mission — and of the tension between Singapore’s past and future — are the numerous warnings to visitors of “potentially sensitive content.” These labels are applied, particularly in the contemporary collection wings, to anything dealing with race and religion to nudity, sexual content and “alternative social norms.”
As it pushes to become the global center for Southeast Asian art, this island republic is being forced to test the boundaries of its conservative society and rethink its much-admired educational system. Having successfully tackled the high levels of illiteracy it had in the 1960s, Singapore now heads the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s global schools rankings (by comparison, the United States languishes at 28th). The education system here scores particularly high in science and math, but faces criticism for its rigidity and lack of creativity.
With this in mind, Singapore has stepped up efforts over the last decade to become the regional hub for art, with major events like the Singapore Biennale and the International Festival of the Arts jostling for space on the cultural calendar. Just last month was the annual Art Stage, Singapore’s version of the high-end contemporary fair Art Basel, which matches influential international galleries with the growing number of wealthy collectors in the region.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opini ... d=71987722
Singapore — Wandering through the spectacular new National Gallery here, it’s easy to discern Singapore’s urge not just to showcase the best of its art, but to educate its visitors. Among the exhibitions are a solo show of works by Tang Da Wu and a lavish display of paintings by Chua Ek Kay, hugely important local artists who remain little known outside Southeast Asia. Then there is an entire floor dedicated to an exhibition titled “Siapa Nama Kamu?” (“What Is Your Name?”), which traces the history and identity of Singapore from its origins as a British colony to a modern cosmopolitan city-state.
Just as revealing, though, of the gallery’s educational mission — and of the tension between Singapore’s past and future — are the numerous warnings to visitors of “potentially sensitive content.” These labels are applied, particularly in the contemporary collection wings, to anything dealing with race and religion to nudity, sexual content and “alternative social norms.”
As it pushes to become the global center for Southeast Asian art, this island republic is being forced to test the boundaries of its conservative society and rethink its much-admired educational system. Having successfully tackled the high levels of illiteracy it had in the 1960s, Singapore now heads the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s global schools rankings (by comparison, the United States languishes at 28th). The education system here scores particularly high in science and math, but faces criticism for its rigidity and lack of creativity.
With this in mind, Singapore has stepped up efforts over the last decade to become the regional hub for art, with major events like the Singapore Biennale and the International Festival of the Arts jostling for space on the cultural calendar. Just last month was the annual Art Stage, Singapore’s version of the high-end contemporary fair Art Basel, which matches influential international galleries with the growing number of wealthy collectors in the region.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opini ... d=71987722
India to Change Its Decades-Old Reliance on Female Sterilization
MAHENDRAGARH, India — This is what family planning in India often looks like: Women in their 20s, mostly farmers’ wives, gather at dawn on the stairs of a district hospital. Hours later, a surgeon arrives. His time is short. He asks the women to sit in a row on the floor of the operating room and then, in operations lasting a few minutes apiece, uses a laparoscope to sever their fallopian tubes, ensuring they will never again bear a child.
For decades, India has relied on female sterilization as its primary mode of contraception, funding about four million tubal ligations every year, more than any other country. This year, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a major step toward modernizing that system, introducing injectable contraceptives free of charge in government facilities. The World Health Organization recommends their use without restriction for women of childbearing age.
New birth control options have long been advocated by international organizations, among them the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They say Indian women — often worn out, anemic and at higher risk of death because they bear children young and often — urgently need methods to delay or space pregnancies.
.....
Research has shown that, globally, 30 percent of maternal deaths and 10 percent of child deaths could be prevented if women spaced their pregnancies two years apart.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/world ... 87722&_r=0
MAHENDRAGARH, India — This is what family planning in India often looks like: Women in their 20s, mostly farmers’ wives, gather at dawn on the stairs of a district hospital. Hours later, a surgeon arrives. His time is short. He asks the women to sit in a row on the floor of the operating room and then, in operations lasting a few minutes apiece, uses a laparoscope to sever their fallopian tubes, ensuring they will never again bear a child.
For decades, India has relied on female sterilization as its primary mode of contraception, funding about four million tubal ligations every year, more than any other country. This year, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a major step toward modernizing that system, introducing injectable contraceptives free of charge in government facilities. The World Health Organization recommends their use without restriction for women of childbearing age.
New birth control options have long been advocated by international organizations, among them the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They say Indian women — often worn out, anemic and at higher risk of death because they bear children young and often — urgently need methods to delay or space pregnancies.
.....
Research has shown that, globally, 30 percent of maternal deaths and 10 percent of child deaths could be prevented if women spaced their pregnancies two years apart.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/world ... 87722&_r=0
India’s Literary Festivals Multiply Amid Anxiety Over Free Expression
****AKF India is one of the sponsors for the festival****
JAIPUR, India — Literary notables including Margaret Atwood, Aleksandar Hemon and Thomas Piketty came to this northern city toward the end of January, appearing before large crowds at the Diggi Palace, an 18th-century complex temporarily filled with tents, food kiosks and bookstores. Some 330,000 people showed up, breaking the attendance record and once again making the Jaipur Literature Festival the largest event of its kind in the world.
The event began nine years ago, and its increasing size is a reminder of the seemingly limitless growth of literary festivals in India. Close to 100 populate the land; not long ago, the concept was virtually unknown here. They have sprouted in cities large and small, in the Himalayas and at beach spots, with some dedicated to specific genres like crime writing or children’s literature.
As the festivals have blossomed, they have also turned into something more than strictly literary: a mixture of the public square and the television studio, or forums where India talks to itself. “What tends to happen is that the tamasha, or spectacle, is a large part of the festival,” said Aakar Patel, a prominent writer and columnist, using the Urdu and Hindi word. “We have sessions that are deeply political, and they are colored very strongly by emotion and feeling and the politics and divisions of our time.”
Photo
The novelist Margaret Atwood addressing the Jaipur festival.Credit Rohit Jain Paras/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The final session at this year’s Jaipur festival was a debate on freedom of expression, a subject of anxiety among Indian liberals and thus an almost inevitable theme at literary events here. (The subject is especially pertinent to this festival because Salman Rushdie pulled out of attending in 2012 amid reports that he had been physically threatened over his authorship of “The Satanic Verses,” a 1988 novel that angered many Muslims and is still banned in India.)
One of the panelists at this closing session was Anupam Kher, a popular actor and vocal supporter of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, whose government has been faulted for failing to protect free speech. Mr. Kher’s presence led to scenes rarely seen at a literature festival: The language frequently descended into something less than parliamentary, and Mr. Kher found himself booed and cheered in equal measure.
Increasingly, literature festivals in India are being thrust into wider culture wars. In November, Vikram Sampath, director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, resigned just a few days before it was to begin after participating writers threatened to boycott the proceedings. They were angry that Mr. Sampath had criticized dozens of writers who had returned awards to India’s national academy of letters to protest what they saw as a rising climate of intolerance on Mr. Modi’s watch.
At the closing session in Jaipur, Mr. Kher’s supporters chanted Mr. Modi’s name as other speakers tried to talk. Conversely, Mr. Kher was roundly booed in December at a festival in Mumbai for suggesting the audience had been paid to heckle him.
William Dalrymple, a historian and co-founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival, defended the decision to invite Mr. Kher.
“Liberal folks can’t just talk to themselves all the time, “ he said. “You need two different points of view.” He suggested that the problem was a shortage of genuine conservative intellectuals in India, saying that thinkers in the country overwhelmingly tended to be from the left.
Mr. Dalrymple is a pivotal figure in the mushrooming of literature festivals in India: He started the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2007. For the first edition, he managed a literary coup of sorts, persuading Mr. Rushdie to attend.
“It was Salman’s first appearance in a public event in India since the fatwa,” Mr. Dalrymple said, referring to a 1989 call for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran, over “The Satanic Verses.” “And suddenly there was a lot of buzz in Delhi.”
Over four days at the 2007 festival, the crowds increased from about 100 to 2,000, he said. “From that point onwards, it just grew and grew.”
The extraordinary success of the Jaipur Literature Festival was soon felt, leading new events to crop up each year. Media conglomerates and large corporations like The Hindu newspaper in Chennai and the multinational Tata Group in Mumbai led the charge, sponsoring festivals in their traditional home bases. There were offbeat events, too, like the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival, founded in 2012 to honor that grand old man of Indian literature, who died two years later at 99.
Mr. Patel remembers attending a literature festival for the first time in 2011 and being struck by the size of the crowds. The event was in Mumbai and organized by The Times of India, the country’s largest English-language daily newspaper.
Mr. Dalrymple noted that India has a centuries-old tradition of public performances of literature. He cited the poets who recited to large audiences in the ancient Sangam period in southern India and the mushaira, a kind of poetry symposium common in the medieval Mughal era.
“There was something very deep we were tapping into,” he said.
Despite a rapidly expanding middle class and growing levels of disposable income, Indian cities can boast of only a smattering of high-quality live events. “In Hong Kong or Paris or even the smaller cities in the West, there are many things you can go to and be part of — you could go to theater or live music,” Mr. Patel said. “We don’t have enough of that in India.”
The festivals have therefore stepped into a vacuum. They are less costly than staging high-profile concerts, which have high licensing and tax costs, for example, and corporate sponsorships are easy to come by. Most festivals are between the cooler months of October and February. The Jaipur Literature Festival now has outposts in Boulder, Colo., and in London, a rare Indian cultural pastime to be exported to the West.
Mr. Patel, the columnist, who is a speaker at several festivals each year, said he expected the scene to expand. “I can’t think of a literature festival that hasn’t succeeded,” he said. “They all find sponsors, they all come back year after year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/books ... d=71987722
****AKF India is one of the sponsors for the festival****
JAIPUR, India — Literary notables including Margaret Atwood, Aleksandar Hemon and Thomas Piketty came to this northern city toward the end of January, appearing before large crowds at the Diggi Palace, an 18th-century complex temporarily filled with tents, food kiosks and bookstores. Some 330,000 people showed up, breaking the attendance record and once again making the Jaipur Literature Festival the largest event of its kind in the world.
The event began nine years ago, and its increasing size is a reminder of the seemingly limitless growth of literary festivals in India. Close to 100 populate the land; not long ago, the concept was virtually unknown here. They have sprouted in cities large and small, in the Himalayas and at beach spots, with some dedicated to specific genres like crime writing or children’s literature.
As the festivals have blossomed, they have also turned into something more than strictly literary: a mixture of the public square and the television studio, or forums where India talks to itself. “What tends to happen is that the tamasha, or spectacle, is a large part of the festival,” said Aakar Patel, a prominent writer and columnist, using the Urdu and Hindi word. “We have sessions that are deeply political, and they are colored very strongly by emotion and feeling and the politics and divisions of our time.”
Photo
The novelist Margaret Atwood addressing the Jaipur festival.Credit Rohit Jain Paras/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The final session at this year’s Jaipur festival was a debate on freedom of expression, a subject of anxiety among Indian liberals and thus an almost inevitable theme at literary events here. (The subject is especially pertinent to this festival because Salman Rushdie pulled out of attending in 2012 amid reports that he had been physically threatened over his authorship of “The Satanic Verses,” a 1988 novel that angered many Muslims and is still banned in India.)
One of the panelists at this closing session was Anupam Kher, a popular actor and vocal supporter of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, whose government has been faulted for failing to protect free speech. Mr. Kher’s presence led to scenes rarely seen at a literature festival: The language frequently descended into something less than parliamentary, and Mr. Kher found himself booed and cheered in equal measure.
Increasingly, literature festivals in India are being thrust into wider culture wars. In November, Vikram Sampath, director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, resigned just a few days before it was to begin after participating writers threatened to boycott the proceedings. They were angry that Mr. Sampath had criticized dozens of writers who had returned awards to India’s national academy of letters to protest what they saw as a rising climate of intolerance on Mr. Modi’s watch.
At the closing session in Jaipur, Mr. Kher’s supporters chanted Mr. Modi’s name as other speakers tried to talk. Conversely, Mr. Kher was roundly booed in December at a festival in Mumbai for suggesting the audience had been paid to heckle him.
William Dalrymple, a historian and co-founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival, defended the decision to invite Mr. Kher.
“Liberal folks can’t just talk to themselves all the time, “ he said. “You need two different points of view.” He suggested that the problem was a shortage of genuine conservative intellectuals in India, saying that thinkers in the country overwhelmingly tended to be from the left.
Mr. Dalrymple is a pivotal figure in the mushrooming of literature festivals in India: He started the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2007. For the first edition, he managed a literary coup of sorts, persuading Mr. Rushdie to attend.
“It was Salman’s first appearance in a public event in India since the fatwa,” Mr. Dalrymple said, referring to a 1989 call for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran, over “The Satanic Verses.” “And suddenly there was a lot of buzz in Delhi.”
Over four days at the 2007 festival, the crowds increased from about 100 to 2,000, he said. “From that point onwards, it just grew and grew.”
The extraordinary success of the Jaipur Literature Festival was soon felt, leading new events to crop up each year. Media conglomerates and large corporations like The Hindu newspaper in Chennai and the multinational Tata Group in Mumbai led the charge, sponsoring festivals in their traditional home bases. There were offbeat events, too, like the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival, founded in 2012 to honor that grand old man of Indian literature, who died two years later at 99.
Mr. Patel remembers attending a literature festival for the first time in 2011 and being struck by the size of the crowds. The event was in Mumbai and organized by The Times of India, the country’s largest English-language daily newspaper.
Mr. Dalrymple noted that India has a centuries-old tradition of public performances of literature. He cited the poets who recited to large audiences in the ancient Sangam period in southern India and the mushaira, a kind of poetry symposium common in the medieval Mughal era.
“There was something very deep we were tapping into,” he said.
Despite a rapidly expanding middle class and growing levels of disposable income, Indian cities can boast of only a smattering of high-quality live events. “In Hong Kong or Paris or even the smaller cities in the West, there are many things you can go to and be part of — you could go to theater or live music,” Mr. Patel said. “We don’t have enough of that in India.”
The festivals have therefore stepped into a vacuum. They are less costly than staging high-profile concerts, which have high licensing and tax costs, for example, and corporate sponsorships are easy to come by. Most festivals are between the cooler months of October and February. The Jaipur Literature Festival now has outposts in Boulder, Colo., and in London, a rare Indian cultural pastime to be exported to the West.
Mr. Patel, the columnist, who is a speaker at several festivals each year, said he expected the scene to expand. “I can’t think of a literature festival that hasn’t succeeded,” he said. “They all find sponsors, they all come back year after year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/books ... d=71987722
Sex-change surgery: India's new line in budget medical tourism
Extract:
The $3 billion industry is expected to more than double in size by 2020, a report published last year from the Confederation of Indian Industry says.
More than 250,000 patients -- seeking everything from hip replacements to facelifts -- are travelling to India annually, according to US-based consulting firm Patients Beyond Borders.
The number pales in comparison to Thailand which draws up to two million patients a year, but the firm's CEO Josef Woodman was confident India would become a future leader in the niche area of gender affirmation surgeries.
"I think in another three to five years. It takes time," Woodman told AFP of the surgeries, performed by less than a dozen Indian surgeons mostly in Delhi and Mumbai.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellnes ... lsignoutmd
Extract:
The $3 billion industry is expected to more than double in size by 2020, a report published last year from the Confederation of Indian Industry says.
More than 250,000 patients -- seeking everything from hip replacements to facelifts -- are travelling to India annually, according to US-based consulting firm Patients Beyond Borders.
The number pales in comparison to Thailand which draws up to two million patients a year, but the firm's CEO Josef Woodman was confident India would become a future leader in the niche area of gender affirmation surgeries.
"I think in another three to five years. It takes time," Woodman told AFP of the surgeries, performed by less than a dozen Indian surgeons mostly in Delhi and Mumbai.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/wellnes ... lsignoutmd
Decapitated Churches in China’s Christian Heartland
Extract:
The campaign has been limited to Zhejiang Province, home to one of China’s largest and most vibrant Christian populations. But people familiar with the government’s deliberations say the removal of crosses here has set the stage for a new, nationwide effort to more strictly regulate spiritual life in China, reflecting the tighter control of society favored by President Xi Jinping.
Photo
In an image from video, a Catholic church’s cross was toppled by a government worker in Zhejiang Province last year. Over the past two years, officials and residents said, the authorities have had crosses from 1,200 to 1,700 churches torn down.Credit Didi Tang/Associated Press
In a major speech on religious policy last month, Mr. Xi urged the ruling Communist Party to “resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means,” and he warned that religions in China must “Sinicize,” or become Chinese. The instructions reflect the government’s longstanding fear that Christianity could undermine the party’s authority. Many human rights lawyers in China are Christians, and many dissidents have said they are influenced by the idea that rights are God-given.
In recent decades, the party had tolerated a religious renaissance in China, allowing most Chinese to worship as they chose and even encouraging the construction of churches, mosques and temples, despite regular crackdowns on unregistered congregations and banned spiritual groups such as Falun Gong.
Hundreds of millions of people have embraced the nation’s major faiths: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity. There are now about 60 million Christians in China. Many attend churches registered with the government, but at least half worship in unregistered churches, often with local authorities looking the other way.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world ... d=45305309
Extract:
The campaign has been limited to Zhejiang Province, home to one of China’s largest and most vibrant Christian populations. But people familiar with the government’s deliberations say the removal of crosses here has set the stage for a new, nationwide effort to more strictly regulate spiritual life in China, reflecting the tighter control of society favored by President Xi Jinping.
Photo
In an image from video, a Catholic church’s cross was toppled by a government worker in Zhejiang Province last year. Over the past two years, officials and residents said, the authorities have had crosses from 1,200 to 1,700 churches torn down.Credit Didi Tang/Associated Press
In a major speech on religious policy last month, Mr. Xi urged the ruling Communist Party to “resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means,” and he warned that religions in China must “Sinicize,” or become Chinese. The instructions reflect the government’s longstanding fear that Christianity could undermine the party’s authority. Many human rights lawyers in China are Christians, and many dissidents have said they are influenced by the idea that rights are God-given.
In recent decades, the party had tolerated a religious renaissance in China, allowing most Chinese to worship as they chose and even encouraging the construction of churches, mosques and temples, despite regular crackdowns on unregistered congregations and banned spiritual groups such as Falun Gong.
Hundreds of millions of people have embraced the nation’s major faiths: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity. There are now about 60 million Christians in China. Many attend churches registered with the government, but at least half worship in unregistered churches, often with local authorities looking the other way.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world ... d=45305309
China's Science Revolution
China is super-sizing science.
From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space - China’s scientific ambitions are immense.
Just a few decades ago the nation barely featured in the world science rankings. Now, in terms of research spending and the number of scientific papers published, it stands only behind the US.
But despite this rapid progress, China faces a number of challenges.
Here are five key science projects that illustrate its enormous strengths, as well as some of its weaknesses, and may help answer the question whether China can become a global leader in research.
More...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... eab6466362
China is super-sizing science.
From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space - China’s scientific ambitions are immense.
Just a few decades ago the nation barely featured in the world science rankings. Now, in terms of research spending and the number of scientific papers published, it stands only behind the US.
But despite this rapid progress, China faces a number of challenges.
Here are five key science projects that illustrate its enormous strengths, as well as some of its weaknesses, and may help answer the question whether China can become a global leader in research.
More...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... eab6466362
China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech
HONG KONG — Snapchat and Kik, the messaging services, use bar codes that look like drunken checkerboards to connect people and share information with a snap of their smartphone cameras. Facebook is working on adding the ability to hail rides and make payments within its Messenger app. Facebook and Twitter have begun live-streaming video.
All of these developments have something in common: The technology was first popularized in China.
WeChat and Alipay, two Chinese apps, have long used the bar-codelike symbols — called QR codes — to let people pay for purchases and transfer money. Both let users hail a taxi or order a pizza without switching to another app. The video-streaming service YY.com has for years made online stars of young Chinese people posing, chatting and singing in front of video cameras at home.
Silicon Valley has long been the world’s tech capital: It birthed social networking and iPhones and spread those tech products across the globe. The rap on China has been that it always followed in the Valley’s footsteps as government censorship abetted the rise of local versions of Google, YouTube and Twitter.
But China’s tech industry — particularly its mobile businesses — has in some ways pulled ahead of the United States. Some Western tech companies, even the behemoths, are turning to Chinese firms for ideas.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/techn ... d=71987722
HONG KONG — Snapchat and Kik, the messaging services, use bar codes that look like drunken checkerboards to connect people and share information with a snap of their smartphone cameras. Facebook is working on adding the ability to hail rides and make payments within its Messenger app. Facebook and Twitter have begun live-streaming video.
All of these developments have something in common: The technology was first popularized in China.
WeChat and Alipay, two Chinese apps, have long used the bar-codelike symbols — called QR codes — to let people pay for purchases and transfer money. Both let users hail a taxi or order a pizza without switching to another app. The video-streaming service YY.com has for years made online stars of young Chinese people posing, chatting and singing in front of video cameras at home.
Silicon Valley has long been the world’s tech capital: It birthed social networking and iPhones and spread those tech products across the globe. The rap on China has been that it always followed in the Valley’s footsteps as government censorship abetted the rise of local versions of Google, YouTube and Twitter.
But China’s tech industry — particularly its mobile businesses — has in some ways pulled ahead of the United States. Some Western tech companies, even the behemoths, are turning to Chinese firms for ideas.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/techn ... d=71987722
Venture Communism: How China Is Building a Start-Up Boom
Extract:
For much of China’s long economic boom, young people flocked to manufacturing zones for jobs making bluejeans or iPhones. But today China is trying to move beyond just being the world’s factory floor. Policy makers want the next generation to find better-paying work in modern offices, creating the ideas, technologies and jobs to feed the country’s future growth.
Premier Li Keqiang frequently calls for “mass entrepreneurship.” In March at the National People’s Congress, he bragged that 12,000 new companies were founded each day in 2015.
The entrepreneurial embrace comes with lots of financial support. Across the country, officials are creating investment funds, providing cash subsidies and building incubators.
“Without these kinds of subsidies, you only rely on private money, and you wouldn’t see so many technology start-ups happening today,” said Ning Tao, a partner at Innovation Works, a venture capital fund in Beijing. “Without quantity, you cannot have quality.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/busin ... 87722&_r=0
******
China Heads West: Beijing's New Silk Road to Europe
China is building new roads, railroads and pipelines from Central Asia to Europe in an effort to build new connections to the rest of the world. The results may be good for the Chinese -- but less so for the other countries involved.
More...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... referrrer=
Extract:
For much of China’s long economic boom, young people flocked to manufacturing zones for jobs making bluejeans or iPhones. But today China is trying to move beyond just being the world’s factory floor. Policy makers want the next generation to find better-paying work in modern offices, creating the ideas, technologies and jobs to feed the country’s future growth.
Premier Li Keqiang frequently calls for “mass entrepreneurship.” In March at the National People’s Congress, he bragged that 12,000 new companies were founded each day in 2015.
The entrepreneurial embrace comes with lots of financial support. Across the country, officials are creating investment funds, providing cash subsidies and building incubators.
“Without these kinds of subsidies, you only rely on private money, and you wouldn’t see so many technology start-ups happening today,” said Ning Tao, a partner at Innovation Works, a venture capital fund in Beijing. “Without quantity, you cannot have quality.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/busin ... 87722&_r=0
******
China Heads West: Beijing's New Silk Road to Europe
China is building new roads, railroads and pipelines from Central Asia to Europe in an effort to build new connections to the rest of the world. The results may be good for the Chinese -- but less so for the other countries involved.
More...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... referrrer=
33 giant Chinese infrastructure projects that are reshaping the world
A huge change is underway in China.
Over the next 10 years, the country plans to move 250 million people - the equivalent of Indonesia's entire population - into the country's rapidly-growing megacities.
To accommodate that enormous migration, the country has invested billions of dollars in massive infrastructure projects. Some are already complete, while others are still in the works.
From highways that span the continent, to the largest wind power base in the world, to enormous airports, to new cities in the desert, China is showing what it really means to do big things.
Robert Johnson and Vivian Giang contributed to an earlier version of this story.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
A huge change is underway in China.
Over the next 10 years, the country plans to move 250 million people - the equivalent of Indonesia's entire population - into the country's rapidly-growing megacities.
To accommodate that enormous migration, the country has invested billions of dollars in massive infrastructure projects. Some are already complete, while others are still in the works.
From highways that span the continent, to the largest wind power base in the world, to enormous airports, to new cities in the desert, China is showing what it really means to do big things.
Robert Johnson and Vivian Giang contributed to an earlier version of this story.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/technolo ... ailsignout
China's richest man, with ambitions to match
Wang Jianlin says his Dalian Wanda Group is building a chain of theme parks to become the world's largest tourism company. Wanda also controls theater chain AMC and movie producer Legendary Entertainment. Photo: Reuters
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... ailsignout
Wang Jianlin says his Dalian Wanda Group is building a chain of theme parks to become the world's largest tourism company. Wanda also controls theater chain AMC and movie producer Legendary Entertainment. Photo: Reuters
VIDEO:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstori ... ailsignout
India’s Eternal Inequality
NEW DELHI — It is one thing to have a theoretical knowledge of caste. It is quite another to see it in action. A few months ago, I was given a small, relatively benign glimpse into how this idea of spiritual purity actually affects people’s lives in India.
I was in Varanasi, India’s most sacred city, conducting research for a book about Brahmins, the priestly caste at the top of the Hindu hierarchy. I was speaking at length to a young student who, like his Brahmin ancestors, was steeped in the study of Sanskrit and the Veda. One day, we drove together to the village where he came from. Our driver on this five-hour journey was a voluble man from the neighboring state of Bihar. Along the way, the driver, the student and I chatted amicably, but as we neared the Brahmin village, our dynamics swiftly changed.
My father was Muslim, and since religion in India is patrilineal, my presence in the Brahmin household should have been an unspeakable defilement. But it wasn’t. I belong to India’s English-speaking upper class and, in the eyes of my host, I was exempt from the rules of caste. As we approached the village, he did make one small adjustment: He stopped calling me by my conspicuously Muslim name, and rechristened me Nitish, a Hindu name.
The visit was going well. But, as evening fell, and we finished dinner with my Brahmin host and his parents, a terrific tension came over the household. Unbeknown to me, the family had made an extraordinary exception: They had allowed the driver, who was of a peasant caste called Yadav, lower in the hierarchy, to eat with us, in their house, using their plates. But now there was something they absolutely could not do.
“I can wash your plate,” my host whispered to me. Then, gesturing to the driver, he said: “But I cannot wash his. If people in the village find out, it will become difficult for us.” By the rules of caste, a vessel that has come into contact with the saliva of another person is contaminated. At that point, it cannot be handled by someone whose status is higher than that of the eater. My host wanted me to make this clear to the driver.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/opini ... ef=opinion
NEW DELHI — It is one thing to have a theoretical knowledge of caste. It is quite another to see it in action. A few months ago, I was given a small, relatively benign glimpse into how this idea of spiritual purity actually affects people’s lives in India.
I was in Varanasi, India’s most sacred city, conducting research for a book about Brahmins, the priestly caste at the top of the Hindu hierarchy. I was speaking at length to a young student who, like his Brahmin ancestors, was steeped in the study of Sanskrit and the Veda. One day, we drove together to the village where he came from. Our driver on this five-hour journey was a voluble man from the neighboring state of Bihar. Along the way, the driver, the student and I chatted amicably, but as we neared the Brahmin village, our dynamics swiftly changed.
My father was Muslim, and since religion in India is patrilineal, my presence in the Brahmin household should have been an unspeakable defilement. But it wasn’t. I belong to India’s English-speaking upper class and, in the eyes of my host, I was exempt from the rules of caste. As we approached the village, he did make one small adjustment: He stopped calling me by my conspicuously Muslim name, and rechristened me Nitish, a Hindu name.
The visit was going well. But, as evening fell, and we finished dinner with my Brahmin host and his parents, a terrific tension came over the household. Unbeknown to me, the family had made an extraordinary exception: They had allowed the driver, who was of a peasant caste called Yadav, lower in the hierarchy, to eat with us, in their house, using their plates. But now there was something they absolutely could not do.
“I can wash your plate,” my host whispered to me. Then, gesturing to the driver, he said: “But I cannot wash his. If people in the village find out, it will become difficult for us.” By the rules of caste, a vessel that has come into contact with the saliva of another person is contaminated. At that point, it cannot be handled by someone whose status is higher than that of the eater. My host wanted me to make this clear to the driver.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/opini ... ef=opinion
300 Million Children Breathe Highly Toxic Air, Unicef Reports
MUMBAI, India — About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem.
The vast majority of these children, about 220 million, live in South Asia, in places where air pollution is at least six times the level that the World Health Organization considers safe, Unicef said.
The agency said the children faced serious health risks as a result.
“Children are uniquely vulnerable because their lungs are still developing,” said Nicholas Rees, the author of the report.
“Early exposure to toxic air has lifelong consequences for them,” he said.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world ... d=71987722
MUMBAI, India — About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem.
The vast majority of these children, about 220 million, live in South Asia, in places where air pollution is at least six times the level that the World Health Organization considers safe, Unicef said.
The agency said the children faced serious health risks as a result.
“Children are uniquely vulnerable because their lungs are still developing,” said Nicholas Rees, the author of the report.
“Early exposure to toxic air has lifelong consequences for them,” he said.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world ... d=71987722
Delhi Closes Over 1,800 Schools in Response to Dangerous Smog
NEW DELHI — For the first time ever, more than 1,800 public primary schools in India’s capital will close on Saturday to protect children from exposure to dangerous levels of air pollution, the authorities said on Friday.
The decision affects more than a million children.
A thick, acrid smog has settled over the capital over the past week, a combination of smoke from burning crops in surrounding agricultural states, fireworks on the Hindu festival of Diwali, dust and vehicle emissions.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/world ... -smog.html
NEW DELHI — For the first time ever, more than 1,800 public primary schools in India’s capital will close on Saturday to protect children from exposure to dangerous levels of air pollution, the authorities said on Friday.
The decision affects more than a million children.
A thick, acrid smog has settled over the capital over the past week, a combination of smoke from burning crops in surrounding agricultural states, fireworks on the Hindu festival of Diwali, dust and vehicle emissions.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/world ... -smog.html
India grapples with the effects of withdrawing 86% of cash in circulation
A crackdown on India’s black economy makes life harder for everyone
A NEW strain of trickle-down economics has been spawned by the decision, on November 8th, to withdraw the bulk of India’s banknotes by the end of this year. As holders of now-useless 500-and 1,000-rupee ($15) notes rushed to deposit them or part-exchange them for new notes, an e-commerce site offered helpers, at 90 rupees an hour, to queue outside banks in order to save the well-off the bother.
Elsewhere, a chronic shortage of banknotes in a cash-dominated economy has left most trades depressed. Seven out of ten kiranas (family-owned grocers) have suffered a decline in business, according to a survey by Nielsen, a consultancy. Supply chains, in which wholesalers and truckers deal mostly in cash, have fractured. Some 20-40% less farm produce reached markets in the days after the reform. City folk admit to hoarding the 100-rupee note, the largest of the old notes to remain legal tender. Taxi drivers refuse to break the new 2,000-rupee note. Road-tolls have been suspended until at least November 24th, to prevent queues. Beggars have disappeared from parts of Delhi; no one has spare change.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is gambling that this temporary pain will be worth it. His goal is to flush out “black money”, stores of wealth that bypass the tax system, finance election campaigns and grease the wheels of high-level corruption. An enforced swap of high-value notes, say the reform’s boosters, acts as a tax on holders of illicit wealth. The element of surprise is disruptive but without it, there would be time for black-money holders to launder their funds by purchasing gold, foreign currency or property. A tight deadline makes it hard for holders of large stashes of notes to swap or deposit them without alerting the tax authorities.
This swiftness comes with a cost. Aside from cases where hyperinflation has rendered a currency worthless, such swaps generally take place over long periods to avoid disrupting commerce. GDP growth might be as much as two percentage points lower this quarter and next before returning to normal as the money stock is replenished, reckons Pranjul Bhandari of HSBC, a bank. Much depends on how quickly new cash can be swapped for old. It has not been a smooth process so far. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which issues notes, waited for six days before setting up a task force to ensure ATMs could dispense the new 2,000-rupee note. Only a quarter of ATMs in four big cities were full on November 21st, according to Goldman Sachs.
Yet there are signs that the reform is nudging Indians out of cash and into bank deposits and plastic, where money can be tracked. In the fortnight after the announcement, bank deposits were up by 5.1trn rupees, thanks to an influx of old notes and restrictions on withdrawals of new ones. PayTM, a provider of digital wallets, reported a surge in transactions.
Despite the distress, and the raucous protests, the reform seems to have widespread support. Bashing the rich is popular even if the poor are inconvenienced. Some may also hope it will bring new state benefits for the poor and make housing more affordable. Indian real estate is so expensive in part because it is a store of illicit funds. In theory, whatever black money cannot be laundered will be worthless, yielding a gain for government’s finances and perhaps ultimately for poorer Indians. But such a boost cannot be relied upon. The RBI has not yet formally said that old notes will be cancelled for good, says Ashish Gupta of Credit Suisse, and it may be loth to do so. No central bank likes to say it no longer stands behind the paper it issues.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-a ... /8206181/n
A crackdown on India’s black economy makes life harder for everyone
A NEW strain of trickle-down economics has been spawned by the decision, on November 8th, to withdraw the bulk of India’s banknotes by the end of this year. As holders of now-useless 500-and 1,000-rupee ($15) notes rushed to deposit them or part-exchange them for new notes, an e-commerce site offered helpers, at 90 rupees an hour, to queue outside banks in order to save the well-off the bother.
Elsewhere, a chronic shortage of banknotes in a cash-dominated economy has left most trades depressed. Seven out of ten kiranas (family-owned grocers) have suffered a decline in business, according to a survey by Nielsen, a consultancy. Supply chains, in which wholesalers and truckers deal mostly in cash, have fractured. Some 20-40% less farm produce reached markets in the days after the reform. City folk admit to hoarding the 100-rupee note, the largest of the old notes to remain legal tender. Taxi drivers refuse to break the new 2,000-rupee note. Road-tolls have been suspended until at least November 24th, to prevent queues. Beggars have disappeared from parts of Delhi; no one has spare change.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is gambling that this temporary pain will be worth it. His goal is to flush out “black money”, stores of wealth that bypass the tax system, finance election campaigns and grease the wheels of high-level corruption. An enforced swap of high-value notes, say the reform’s boosters, acts as a tax on holders of illicit wealth. The element of surprise is disruptive but without it, there would be time for black-money holders to launder their funds by purchasing gold, foreign currency or property. A tight deadline makes it hard for holders of large stashes of notes to swap or deposit them without alerting the tax authorities.
This swiftness comes with a cost. Aside from cases where hyperinflation has rendered a currency worthless, such swaps generally take place over long periods to avoid disrupting commerce. GDP growth might be as much as two percentage points lower this quarter and next before returning to normal as the money stock is replenished, reckons Pranjul Bhandari of HSBC, a bank. Much depends on how quickly new cash can be swapped for old. It has not been a smooth process so far. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which issues notes, waited for six days before setting up a task force to ensure ATMs could dispense the new 2,000-rupee note. Only a quarter of ATMs in four big cities were full on November 21st, according to Goldman Sachs.
Yet there are signs that the reform is nudging Indians out of cash and into bank deposits and plastic, where money can be tracked. In the fortnight after the announcement, bank deposits were up by 5.1trn rupees, thanks to an influx of old notes and restrictions on withdrawals of new ones. PayTM, a provider of digital wallets, reported a surge in transactions.
Despite the distress, and the raucous protests, the reform seems to have widespread support. Bashing the rich is popular even if the poor are inconvenienced. Some may also hope it will bring new state benefits for the poor and make housing more affordable. Indian real estate is so expensive in part because it is a store of illicit funds. In theory, whatever black money cannot be laundered will be worthless, yielding a gain for government’s finances and perhaps ultimately for poorer Indians. But such a boost cannot be relied upon. The RBI has not yet formally said that old notes will be cancelled for good, says Ashish Gupta of Credit Suisse, and it may be loth to do so. No central bank likes to say it no longer stands behind the paper it issues.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-a ... /8206181/n
India’s currency reform was botched in execution
Narendra Modi needs to take measures to mitigate the damage his rupee reform has done
INDIA is not the first country to introduce abrupt, drastic reform of its currency. But the precedents—including Burma in 1987, the former Soviet Union in 1991 and North Korea in 2009—are not encouraging. Burma erupted in revolt, the Soviet Union disintegrated and North Koreans went hungry. All the more reason for Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to prepare the ground before the surprise announcement on November 8th that he would withdraw the two highest-denomination banknotes (the 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee, worth about $7.30 and $14.60). Yet he did not and the result is a bungle that, even if it does achieve its stated aims, will cause unnecessary harm.
Shops stopped accepting the old notes at once. Holders have until the end of the year to deposit them in banks or swap them, either for smaller-denomination notes or for new 500- and 2,000-rupee ones. That 86.4% by value of the cash in circulation is suddenly no longer legal tender has already caused predictable and needless hardship. It is too late—and politically unthinkable—to start again (ses article), but Mr Modi should do more to limit the damage; and he should abandon the flawed leadership style that caused the mess.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... /8258163/n
Narendra Modi needs to take measures to mitigate the damage his rupee reform has done
INDIA is not the first country to introduce abrupt, drastic reform of its currency. But the precedents—including Burma in 1987, the former Soviet Union in 1991 and North Korea in 2009—are not encouraging. Burma erupted in revolt, the Soviet Union disintegrated and North Koreans went hungry. All the more reason for Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to prepare the ground before the surprise announcement on November 8th that he would withdraw the two highest-denomination banknotes (the 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee, worth about $7.30 and $14.60). Yet he did not and the result is a bungle that, even if it does achieve its stated aims, will cause unnecessary harm.
Shops stopped accepting the old notes at once. Holders have until the end of the year to deposit them in banks or swap them, either for smaller-denomination notes or for new 500- and 2,000-rupee ones. That 86.4% by value of the cash in circulation is suddenly no longer legal tender has already caused predictable and needless hardship. It is too late—and politically unthinkable—to start again (ses article), but Mr Modi should do more to limit the damage; and he should abandon the flawed leadership style that caused the mess.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... /8258163/n
India- the future superpower is reclaiming- by Karolina Goswami
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijvVHdF ... pp=desktop
Published on Oct 23, 2016
A fine documentary by Karolina Goswami in her very own and famous style which talks about Indian economy in depth.India, a country which was once colonized and looted by the British has bounced back and today India's companies like Tata are buying and taking over the top British brands like Jaguar,Range rover and Tetley. India, a country which is misrepresented by the world media who only show the poverty of India need a lesson here. Karolina Goswami has shown the modern side of India in a beautiful way in her documentary. A must watch and wait until the end of the video when it gets really emotional.
To read the whole article on Indian economy by Karolina Goswami visit her website-
http://www.indiaindetails.com/index.p...
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijvVHdF ... pp=desktop
Published on Oct 23, 2016
A fine documentary by Karolina Goswami in her very own and famous style which talks about Indian economy in depth.India, a country which was once colonized and looted by the British has bounced back and today India's companies like Tata are buying and taking over the top British brands like Jaguar,Range rover and Tetley. India, a country which is misrepresented by the world media who only show the poverty of India need a lesson here. Karolina Goswami has shown the modern side of India in a beautiful way in her documentary. A must watch and wait until the end of the video when it gets really emotional.
To read the whole article on Indian economy by Karolina Goswami visit her website-
http://www.indiaindetails.com/index.p...
China to achieve Mars landing by 2020
Outlining their deep space exploration goals, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said that the country plans to send out their first Mars probe by 2020 and target a landing on the dark side of the moon by 2018.
CNSA deputy chief Wu Yanhua said at a press conference, “Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world.”
According to Yanhua, the CNSA is presently focusing on sending robotic missions to earth’s natural satellite, including the first soft landing on the moon’s dark side. He also said that there are two Mars missions in the pipeline – the first being an orbiting and roving missions while the second would include collection of soil samples from the planet.
Wu also said that the CNSA has increased cooperation with other space agencies from all around the world, except NASA as per the prohibitions set by the U.S. Congress in 2011.
(Pictured above) Concept portrayal of China's Mars rover and lander.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sci ... out#page=5
Outlining their deep space exploration goals, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said that the country plans to send out their first Mars probe by 2020 and target a landing on the dark side of the moon by 2018.
CNSA deputy chief Wu Yanhua said at a press conference, “Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world.”
According to Yanhua, the CNSA is presently focusing on sending robotic missions to earth’s natural satellite, including the first soft landing on the moon’s dark side. He also said that there are two Mars missions in the pipeline – the first being an orbiting and roving missions while the second would include collection of soil samples from the planet.
Wu also said that the CNSA has increased cooperation with other space agencies from all around the world, except NASA as per the prohibitions set by the U.S. Congress in 2011.
(Pictured above) Concept portrayal of China's Mars rover and lander.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sci ... out#page=5
China’s Intelligent Weaponry Gets Smarter
Robert O. Work, the veteran defense official retained as deputy secretary by President Trump, calls them his “A.I. dudes.” The breezy moniker belies their serious task: The dudes have been a kitchen cabinet of sorts, and have advised Mr. Work as he has sought to reshape warfare by bringing artificial intelligence to the battlefield.
Last spring, he asked, “O.K., you guys are the smartest guys in A.I., right?”
No, the dudes told him, “the smartest guys are at Facebook and Google,” Mr. Work recalled in an interview.
Now, increasingly, they’re also in China. The United States no longer has a strategic monopoly on the technology, which is widely seen as the key factor in the next generation of warfare.
The Pentagon’s plan to bring A.I. to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field. And that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in artificial intelligence among Chinese companies.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/tech ... 87722&_r=0
Robert O. Work, the veteran defense official retained as deputy secretary by President Trump, calls them his “A.I. dudes.” The breezy moniker belies their serious task: The dudes have been a kitchen cabinet of sorts, and have advised Mr. Work as he has sought to reshape warfare by bringing artificial intelligence to the battlefield.
Last spring, he asked, “O.K., you guys are the smartest guys in A.I., right?”
No, the dudes told him, “the smartest guys are at Facebook and Google,” Mr. Work recalled in an interview.
Now, increasingly, they’re also in China. The United States no longer has a strategic monopoly on the technology, which is widely seen as the key factor in the next generation of warfare.
The Pentagon’s plan to bring A.I. to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field. And that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in artificial intelligence among Chinese companies.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/tech ... 87722&_r=0
India’s Air Pollution Rivals China’s as World’s Deadliest
NEW DELHI — India’s rapidly worsening air pollution is causing about 1.1 million people to die prematurely each year and is now surpassing China’s as the deadliest in the world, a new study of global air pollution shows.
The number of premature deaths in China caused by dangerous air particles, known as PM2.5, has stabilized globally in recent years but has risen sharply in India, according to the report, issued jointly on Tuesday by the Health Effects Institute, a Boston research institute focused on the health impacts of air pollution, and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, a population health research center in Seattle.
India has registered an alarming increase of nearly 50 percent in premature deaths from particulate matter between 1990 and 2015, the report says.
“You can almost think of this as the perfect storm for India,” said Michael Brauer, a professor of environment and health relationships at the University of British Columbia and an author of the study, in a telephone interview. He cited the confluence of rapid industrialization, population growth and an aging populace in India that is more susceptible to air pollution.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/worl ... d=45305309
NEW DELHI — India’s rapidly worsening air pollution is causing about 1.1 million people to die prematurely each year and is now surpassing China’s as the deadliest in the world, a new study of global air pollution shows.
The number of premature deaths in China caused by dangerous air particles, known as PM2.5, has stabilized globally in recent years but has risen sharply in India, according to the report, issued jointly on Tuesday by the Health Effects Institute, a Boston research institute focused on the health impacts of air pollution, and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, a population health research center in Seattle.
India has registered an alarming increase of nearly 50 percent in premature deaths from particulate matter between 1990 and 2015, the report says.
“You can almost think of this as the perfect storm for India,” said Michael Brauer, a professor of environment and health relationships at the University of British Columbia and an author of the study, in a telephone interview. He cited the confluence of rapid industrialization, population growth and an aging populace in India that is more susceptible to air pollution.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/worl ... d=45305309
Major Christian Charity Is Closing India Operations Amid a Crackdown
NEW DELHI — India’s crackdown on foreign aid will claim its most prominent casualty this month, as a Colorado-based Christian charity that is one of India’s biggest donors closes its operations here after 48 years, informing tens of thousands of children that they will no longer receive meals, medical care or tuition payments.
The shutdown of the charity, Compassion International, on suspicion of engaging in religious conversion, comes as India, a rising economic power with a swelling spirit of nationalism, curtails the flow of foreign money to activities it deems “detrimental to the national interest.”
More than 11,000 nongovernmental organizations have lost their licenses to accept foreign funds since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Major Western funders — among them George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy — have been barred from transferring funds without permission from Indian security officials.
But few have been as vocal about their struggle as Compassion International, which solicits donations through its $38-a-month “sponsor a child” program and distributes them through church-affiliated service centers. It has repeatedly ranked as India’s largest single foreign donor, transferring around $45 million a year.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/worl ... d=71987722
NEW DELHI — India’s crackdown on foreign aid will claim its most prominent casualty this month, as a Colorado-based Christian charity that is one of India’s biggest donors closes its operations here after 48 years, informing tens of thousands of children that they will no longer receive meals, medical care or tuition payments.
The shutdown of the charity, Compassion International, on suspicion of engaging in religious conversion, comes as India, a rising economic power with a swelling spirit of nationalism, curtails the flow of foreign money to activities it deems “detrimental to the national interest.”
More than 11,000 nongovernmental organizations have lost their licenses to accept foreign funds since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Major Western funders — among them George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy — have been barred from transferring funds without permission from Indian security officials.
But few have been as vocal about their struggle as Compassion International, which solicits donations through its $38-a-month “sponsor a child” program and distributes them through church-affiliated service centers. It has repeatedly ranked as India’s largest single foreign donor, transferring around $45 million a year.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/worl ... d=71987722
Do you trust Modi with your data?
India’s biometric identity scheme should not be compulsory
The BJP government should listen to people’s qualms about snooping
WHAT would Gandhi have made of Aadhaar, the ambitious scheme to provide each of India’s 1.3bn residents with a unique, biometrically verifiable identification? There is much that might have impressed the great pacifist. Before Aadhaar’s launch in 2010, many Indians had no proof of identity that could be recognised across the sprawling, multilingual country; now 99% of adults do. A cheap, simple and accurate way to know who is who, it helps the state channel services, such as subsidies, to those who really need them, thwarting corruption and saving billions. Linked to bank accounts and mobile phones, the unique 12-digit numbers can be used for swift, easy transfers of money. In time, they should help hundreds of millions of Indians enter the formal, modern economy.
Yet Gandhi might also have been alarmed. After all, he cut his political teeth resisting a scheme to impose identity passes on unwilling Indians. That was over a century ago, in South Africa. Aadhaar could scarcely be further removed in intent from colonial racism: it is designed to include and unite, not exclude. Still, many Indians worry that a programme billed as voluntary is increasingly, with little public debate, being made mandatory. This puts the whole project, and all its benefits, at risk of being struck down by the courts. And the government’s high-handed dismissal of concerns about its methods is stoking fears that it might misuse the data it has collected.
In recent months the government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, has made access to a dozen government programmes contingent on possession of an Aadhaar card (see article). In March it sneakily inserted into a fast-tracked budget bill a rule that requires taxpayers to link their tax number with Aadhaar. There is talk of adding such things as school lunches and the purchase of airline tickets to this list. In answer to a question in parliament about whether the state was, in effect, forcing citizens into the Aadhaar scheme, the reply from India’s minister of finance was blunt: “Yes, we are.”
This would appear to contradict India’s Supreme Court. Its judges have yet to rule on a score of petitions aimed at stopping Aadhaar, but in the past two years the court has issued several statements asserting that the identity scheme should be voluntary—or at any rate that it should remain so until the court decides otherwise. Until it issues a binding opinion, the danger lingers that a pile of important government schemes could in future find themselves dangling in legal limbo.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... na/23215/n
India’s biometric identity scheme should not be compulsory
The BJP government should listen to people’s qualms about snooping
WHAT would Gandhi have made of Aadhaar, the ambitious scheme to provide each of India’s 1.3bn residents with a unique, biometrically verifiable identification? There is much that might have impressed the great pacifist. Before Aadhaar’s launch in 2010, many Indians had no proof of identity that could be recognised across the sprawling, multilingual country; now 99% of adults do. A cheap, simple and accurate way to know who is who, it helps the state channel services, such as subsidies, to those who really need them, thwarting corruption and saving billions. Linked to bank accounts and mobile phones, the unique 12-digit numbers can be used for swift, easy transfers of money. In time, they should help hundreds of millions of Indians enter the formal, modern economy.
Yet Gandhi might also have been alarmed. After all, he cut his political teeth resisting a scheme to impose identity passes on unwilling Indians. That was over a century ago, in South Africa. Aadhaar could scarcely be further removed in intent from colonial racism: it is designed to include and unite, not exclude. Still, many Indians worry that a programme billed as voluntary is increasingly, with little public debate, being made mandatory. This puts the whole project, and all its benefits, at risk of being struck down by the courts. And the government’s high-handed dismissal of concerns about its methods is stoking fears that it might misuse the data it has collected.
In recent months the government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, has made access to a dozen government programmes contingent on possession of an Aadhaar card (see article). In March it sneakily inserted into a fast-tracked budget bill a rule that requires taxpayers to link their tax number with Aadhaar. There is talk of adding such things as school lunches and the purchase of airline tickets to this list. In answer to a question in parliament about whether the state was, in effect, forcing citizens into the Aadhaar scheme, the reply from India’s minister of finance was blunt: “Yes, we are.”
This would appear to contradict India’s Supreme Court. Its judges have yet to rule on a score of petitions aimed at stopping Aadhaar, but in the past two years the court has issued several statements asserting that the identity scheme should be voluntary—or at any rate that it should remain so until the court decides otherwise. Until it issues a binding opinion, the danger lingers that a pile of important government schemes could in future find themselves dangling in legal limbo.
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http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... na/23215/n
How liquor shops are getting around India’s latest booze ban
A new rule prohibits the sale of alcohol within 500m of a highway
IT WAS the classic shot-chaser combination. First India’s Supreme Court upheld a recent decision barring retail sales of alcohol within 500m of a state or national highway. Then it extended the ruling to hotels, restaurants, bars and pubs. Employing the indisputable logic of bar arguments, the judgment is aimed at curbing drunk-driving. However it will also hit a third of India’s booze shops, affecting 1m jobs and annual sales of about $10bn. But wily Indian entrepreneurs are already devising ways around the ban. How are they doing it?
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
A new rule prohibits the sale of alcohol within 500m of a highway
IT WAS the classic shot-chaser combination. First India’s Supreme Court upheld a recent decision barring retail sales of alcohol within 500m of a state or national highway. Then it extended the ruling to hotels, restaurants, bars and pubs. Employing the indisputable logic of bar arguments, the judgment is aimed at curbing drunk-driving. However it will also hit a third of India’s booze shops, affecting 1m jobs and annual sales of about $10bn. But wily Indian entrepreneurs are already devising ways around the ban. How are they doing it?
More...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
Is China the World’s New Colonial Power?
The rising superpower has built up enormous holdings in poor, resource-rich African countries — but its business partners there aren’t always thrilled.
Excerpt:
China’s relationship with Africa goes back to the 1960s, when Chairman Mao Zedong promoted solidarity with the developing world — “Ya Fei La,” as he called it, using the first syllables for Asia, Africa and Latin America. Though it was poor and mired in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, China won new allies in Africa by finishing, in 1976, a 1,156-mile railroad through the bush from Tanzania to Zambia. Aid continued to trickle in, but there were no other big projects for nearly 30 years, as China focused on building up its domestic economy, following its leader Deng Xiaoping’s prescription to “hide your strength and bide your time.” That ended in the 2000s, when Beijing, recognizing the need for foreign resources and allies to fuel its economic growth, exhorted the nation’s companies to “go out” into the world.
Today, if you take the red-eye flight from Shanghai to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, chances are you’ll be seated among Chinese workers heading to a construction site in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a cotton-processing plant in Mozambique, a telecom project in Nigeria. China’s trade with African nations has increased fortyfold in the past 20 years. The workers and migrants carrying out China’s global vision are now so ubiquitous in Africa — as many as a million of them, according to one estimate — that when my wife and I wandered into a Hunanese restaurant in Addis, the red-faced workers devouring twice-cooked pork blurted out: “Ah, laowai laile!” “Foreigners have come!” It seemed rude to point out that they were foreigners, too.
China’s advances have come as the West seems to be retreating. United States engagement in Asia, Africa and Latin America declined after the Cold War, when the regions served as proxies for superpower rivalries. China’s rise and the wars in the Middle East also pulled away resources and attention. And now, with Washington raising doubts about global agreements on issues like free trade and climate change, Beijing has more leverage to push its own initiatives and show its capacity for global leadership. President Trump’s disdain for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has already made Beijing’s trade proposals, which exclude the United States, more appealing. “In certain parts of the world, the relative inattention of the Trump administration is definitely creating an opening for China to fill,” says David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University and author of the 2013 book “China Goes Global.” But “China remains very much a partial power — and only offers other countries an economic relationship.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/maga ... d=45305309
The rising superpower has built up enormous holdings in poor, resource-rich African countries — but its business partners there aren’t always thrilled.
Excerpt:
China’s relationship with Africa goes back to the 1960s, when Chairman Mao Zedong promoted solidarity with the developing world — “Ya Fei La,” as he called it, using the first syllables for Asia, Africa and Latin America. Though it was poor and mired in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, China won new allies in Africa by finishing, in 1976, a 1,156-mile railroad through the bush from Tanzania to Zambia. Aid continued to trickle in, but there were no other big projects for nearly 30 years, as China focused on building up its domestic economy, following its leader Deng Xiaoping’s prescription to “hide your strength and bide your time.” That ended in the 2000s, when Beijing, recognizing the need for foreign resources and allies to fuel its economic growth, exhorted the nation’s companies to “go out” into the world.
Today, if you take the red-eye flight from Shanghai to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, chances are you’ll be seated among Chinese workers heading to a construction site in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, a cotton-processing plant in Mozambique, a telecom project in Nigeria. China’s trade with African nations has increased fortyfold in the past 20 years. The workers and migrants carrying out China’s global vision are now so ubiquitous in Africa — as many as a million of them, according to one estimate — that when my wife and I wandered into a Hunanese restaurant in Addis, the red-faced workers devouring twice-cooked pork blurted out: “Ah, laowai laile!” “Foreigners have come!” It seemed rude to point out that they were foreigners, too.
China’s advances have come as the West seems to be retreating. United States engagement in Asia, Africa and Latin America declined after the Cold War, when the regions served as proxies for superpower rivalries. China’s rise and the wars in the Middle East also pulled away resources and attention. And now, with Washington raising doubts about global agreements on issues like free trade and climate change, Beijing has more leverage to push its own initiatives and show its capacity for global leadership. President Trump’s disdain for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has already made Beijing’s trade proposals, which exclude the United States, more appealing. “In certain parts of the world, the relative inattention of the Trump administration is definitely creating an opening for China to fill,” says David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University and author of the 2013 book “China Goes Global.” But “China remains very much a partial power — and only offers other countries an economic relationship.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/maga ... d=45305309
A Robot Revolution, This Time in China
ANGZHOU, China — Even a decade ago, car manufacturing in China was still a fairly low-tech, labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers in a factory, earning little more than $1 an hour, performed highly repetitive tasks, while just a handful of industrial robots dotted factory floors.
No longer.
At Ford’s newest car assembly plant in Hangzhou in east-central China, at least 650 robots, resembling huge, white-necked vultures, bob and weave to assemble the steel structures of utility vehicles and midsize sedans. Workers in blue uniforms and helmets still do some of the welding, but much of the process has been automated.
The state-of-the-art factory exemplifies the vast transformation that has taken place across manufacturing in China. General Motors opened a similarly ultra-modern Cadillac factory in the eastern suburbs of Shanghai, as well as one in Wuhan. Other automakers are also pouring billions of dollars into China, now the world’s largest auto market.
Robots are critical to China’s economic ambitions, as Chinese companies look to move up the manufacturing chain. The Ford assembly plant is across the street from a robot-producing factory owned by Kuka, the big German manufacturer of industrial robots that a Chinese company bought last summer.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/busi ... d=71987722
ANGZHOU, China — Even a decade ago, car manufacturing in China was still a fairly low-tech, labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers in a factory, earning little more than $1 an hour, performed highly repetitive tasks, while just a handful of industrial robots dotted factory floors.
No longer.
At Ford’s newest car assembly plant in Hangzhou in east-central China, at least 650 robots, resembling huge, white-necked vultures, bob and weave to assemble the steel structures of utility vehicles and midsize sedans. Workers in blue uniforms and helmets still do some of the welding, but much of the process has been automated.
The state-of-the-art factory exemplifies the vast transformation that has taken place across manufacturing in China. General Motors opened a similarly ultra-modern Cadillac factory in the eastern suburbs of Shanghai, as well as one in Wuhan. Other automakers are also pouring billions of dollars into China, now the world’s largest auto market.
Robots are critical to China’s economic ambitions, as Chinese companies look to move up the manufacturing chain. The Ford assembly plant is across the street from a robot-producing factory owned by Kuka, the big German manufacturer of industrial robots that a Chinese company bought last summer.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/busi ... d=71987722
The Economist explains
What is China’s belt and road initiative?
The many motivations behind Xi Jinping’s key foreign policy
OVER the weekend Xi Jinping welcomed 28 heads of state and government to Beijing for a coming-out party, which continues today, to celebrate the “belt and road” initiative, his most ambitious foreign policy. Launched in 2013 as “one belt, one road”, it involves China underwriting billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in countries along the old Silk Road linking it with Europe. The ambition is immense. China is spending roughly $150bn a year in the 68 countries that have signed up to the scheme. The summit meeting (called a forum) has attracted the largest number of foreign dignitaries to Beijing since the Olympic Games in 2008. Yet few European leaders are showing up. For the most part they have ignored the implications of China’s initiative. What are those implications and is the West right to be sanguine?
More....
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
What is China’s belt and road initiative?
The many motivations behind Xi Jinping’s key foreign policy
OVER the weekend Xi Jinping welcomed 28 heads of state and government to Beijing for a coming-out party, which continues today, to celebrate the “belt and road” initiative, his most ambitious foreign policy. Launched in 2013 as “one belt, one road”, it involves China underwriting billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in countries along the old Silk Road linking it with Europe. The ambition is immense. China is spending roughly $150bn a year in the 68 countries that have signed up to the scheme. The summit meeting (called a forum) has attracted the largest number of foreign dignitaries to Beijing since the Olympic Games in 2008. Yet few European leaders are showing up. For the most part they have ignored the implications of China’s initiative. What are those implications and is the West right to be sanguine?
More....
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... lydispatch
What Killed Half a Million Indians?
Tuberculosis has killed many more Indians in a year than decades of insurgencies and incidents of sectarian violence. Of the 10.4 million people in the world who had TB in 2015, three million were Indians. Across the globe, 1.8 million patients died from TB in 2015, and almost half a million of them died in India. A staggering number of Indians — over 400 million — are estimated to be infected with TB.
An airborne disease, TB knows no borders. Its impact on India’s economy, an engine of global financial growth, affects wallets worldwide. TB patients miss three to four months of work and often even more. Not being able to work for such long periods leaves a person’s family impoverished and leaves the economy limping.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/opin ... dline&te=1
Tuberculosis has killed many more Indians in a year than decades of insurgencies and incidents of sectarian violence. Of the 10.4 million people in the world who had TB in 2015, three million were Indians. Across the globe, 1.8 million patients died from TB in 2015, and almost half a million of them died in India. A staggering number of Indians — over 400 million — are estimated to be infected with TB.
An airborne disease, TB knows no borders. Its impact on India’s economy, an engine of global financial growth, affects wallets worldwide. TB patients miss three to four months of work and often even more. Not being able to work for such long periods leaves a person’s family impoverished and leaves the economy limping.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/opin ... dline&te=1
India’s Turn Toward Intolerance
Narendra Modi’s landslide victory as prime minister of India in 2014 was borne on his promises to unleash his country’s economic potential and build a bright future while he played down the Hindu nationalist roots of his Bharatiya Janata Party.
But, under Mr. Modi’s leadership, growth has slowed, jobs have not materialized, and what has actually been unleashed is virulent intolerance that threatens the foundation of the secular nation envisioned by its founders.
Since Mr. Modi took office, there has been an alarming rise in mob attacks against people accused of eating beef or abusing cows, an animal held sacred to Hindus. Most of those killed have been Muslims. Mr. Modi spoke out against the killings only last month, not long after his government banned the sale of cows for slaughter, a move suspended by India’s Supreme Court. The ban, enforcing cultural stigma, would have fallen hardest on Muslims and low-caste Hindus traditionally engaged in the meat and leather industry.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/opin ... dline&te=1
Narendra Modi’s landslide victory as prime minister of India in 2014 was borne on his promises to unleash his country’s economic potential and build a bright future while he played down the Hindu nationalist roots of his Bharatiya Janata Party.
But, under Mr. Modi’s leadership, growth has slowed, jobs have not materialized, and what has actually been unleashed is virulent intolerance that threatens the foundation of the secular nation envisioned by its founders.
Since Mr. Modi took office, there has been an alarming rise in mob attacks against people accused of eating beef or abusing cows, an animal held sacred to Hindus. Most of those killed have been Muslims. Mr. Modi spoke out against the killings only last month, not long after his government banned the sale of cows for slaughter, a move suspended by India’s Supreme Court. The ban, enforcing cultural stigma, would have fallen hardest on Muslims and low-caste Hindus traditionally engaged in the meat and leather industry.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/opin ... dline&te=1
South-East Asia: Richer, but poorer
The ten countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations grew at an annual rate of 5% over the past five years. The region’s 625m-odd people are growing richer and better educated; they will live longer and healthier lives than their parents. This is cheering. Politically, however, things are going the other way. Across the region democratic institutions are becoming weaker, writes our outgoing South-East Asia correspondent :
https://www.economist.com/news/asia/217 ... lydispatch
South-East Asia’s future looks prosperous but illiberal
Democracy is losing ground even as the region grows richer
The ten countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations grew at an annual rate of 5% over the past five years. The region’s 625m-odd people are growing richer and better educated; they will live longer and healthier lives than their parents. This is cheering. Politically, however, things are going the other way. Across the region democratic institutions are becoming weaker, writes our outgoing South-East Asia correspondent :
https://www.economist.com/news/asia/217 ... lydispatch
South-East Asia’s future looks prosperous but illiberal
Democracy is losing ground even as the region grows richer
How to Fix India’s Sex-Selection Problem
There are too many men in India today. Over the course of several decades, 300,000 to 700,000 female fetuses were selectively aborted in India each year. Today there are about 50 million more men than women in the country. While selective abortion of female fetuses accounts for most of the excess of men, another reason for the disparity in the population is that some people are believed to kill female infants, and some girls die because of medical or nutritional neglect. This oversupply of men is harming women and girls.
Starting in the 1980s, the desire of some parents to have a son and at the same time have fewer children than past generations met with the widespread availability of ultrasound machines. Sonograms were used to detect the future sex of fetuses, and many women aborted fetuses that were predicted to be female.
More
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/opin ... dline&te=1
There are too many men in India today. Over the course of several decades, 300,000 to 700,000 female fetuses were selectively aborted in India each year. Today there are about 50 million more men than women in the country. While selective abortion of female fetuses accounts for most of the excess of men, another reason for the disparity in the population is that some people are believed to kill female infants, and some girls die because of medical or nutritional neglect. This oversupply of men is harming women and girls.
Starting in the 1980s, the desire of some parents to have a son and at the same time have fewer children than past generations met with the widespread availability of ultrasound machines. Sonograms were used to detect the future sex of fetuses, and many women aborted fetuses that were predicted to be female.
More
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/opin ... dline&te=1