Mamata, Mulayam ensure Pranab gets Sonia nod (Sunday Guardian)

MADHAV NALAPAT  New Delhi | 17th Jun

Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee address a press conference on Wednesday in New Delhi. PTI une 13, 2012 was not a good day for the Congress party. And although the principals are tight-lipped, those tracking such developments as part of their duties have presented (what they claim to be) a complete picture of the events of that day. (According to these sources) Sonia Gandhi did not at any stage favour Pranab Mukherjee as the next President of India. She shared Rajiv Gandhi's diffidence about the political maestro from Bengal, which is why she chose his former subordinate, Manmohan Singh to be the Prime Minister in 2004 in preference to Mukherjee. That choice foretold the present crisis within the UPA, where Mukherjee-style persuasion was abandoned in favour of manipulation and fiat by a small coterie around Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. A school of politics that Congress allies have finally found the courage to challenge. "Sonia mentioned the Finance Minister's name only in the expectation that it would be shot down by the Trinamool Congress and by other parties that her managers have been in contact with, thus leaving her free to revert to her favoured choice, Vice-President Hamid Ansari," according to these sources. They added that "Sonia liked the charm of the Ansaris, as she is very influenced by genteel behaviour". Besides, the VP's performance in quashing debate on the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha on 30 December 2011 showed that he could be relied upon to stick to the script given to him by Congress managers. However, Sonia did not "anticipate the opposition to Ansari's name that she encountered in the UPA," opposition not unrelated to the Vice-President's role in the 30 December RS debate. Sonia knew in advance that Mamata Banerjee would be hostile to Mukherjee's candidature, given the abuse that the Finance Minister's followers have been spewing on the West Bengal Chief Minister recently. A favour repaid with interest by TMC leaders, who routinely call the Finance Minister "Delhi's ambassador to Bengal", when not permitting themselves still more vituperative epithets. Her refusal to make the FM's son Abhijit a minister in the state Cabinet could not, also, have helped to improve relations between the two. "The feud is personal and has gone on for decades," a source mentioned. According to these sources, the fact that Sonia Gandhi mentioned Hamid Ansari's name as a possible alternative to Mukherjee was to ensure that a consensus get formed on choosing the VP's name over that of Mukherjee. Instead, this gave Mamata the signal that she was waiting for, which was that Sonia was not serious about Pranab's candidature. "This made Mamata believe that there would not be serious consequences were she to put forward the other names that she had already discussed with Mulayam Singh Yadav". And why was the SP supremo willing to play by the same script as Mamata? He had been given information from within the CBI that the agency was preparing to chargesheet him in the disproportionate assets case in a few weeks' time. If that was what the Congress was planning for him, the SP chief would teach the party and its imperious leader a lesson. The 13 June impromptu press conference of Mamata and Mulayam was "the moment of truth for Pranab Mukherjee", who realised that his party president's backing for him was just verbiage. After watching the TMC and SP chiefs reel off the names of Kalam, Manmohan and Somnath, a furious Mukherjee summoned Sonia Gandhi's Political Secretary Ahmed Patel and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V. Narayanasamy to his residence. When they arrived, he switched on the television, which was tuned to a Bengali channel where TMC leaders were making sarcastic references to him, and told Patel that he would be submitting his resignation from the Union Cabinet the next morning. He would not tolerate such a public humiliation. He was not a Manmohan Singh to meekly accept any barb thrown at him. The Finance Minister was particularly cut up about being bracketed by Sonia with Hamid Ansari, a person whom he saw as "another Manmohan Singh, a lightweight from the bureaucracy". He asked Ahmed Patel why Sonia had no second name in mind when she proposed Manmohan Singh as PM in 2004 and Pratibha Patil as President of India in 2007. "Why was I alone given this honour?" he asked sarcastically. All efforts by Ahmed Patel and Narayanasamy at pacifying the Finance Minister failed. A few minutes before midnight, Ahmed Patel telephonically briefed Sonia Gandhi on the developments. She said that she would sleep on the matter. Next morning, after a few more consultations with Patel and with a senior official whom she trusted, Sonia reached the conclusion that a resignation by Pranab Mukherjee would pull the government apart. In weeks, she was planning to announce that Rahul Gandhi would take over as working president of the party. She could not allow such a crisis to develop before the heir's takeover of his inheritance. Reluctantly, Sonia finally reversed herself and threw her support firmly behind Mukherjee, making sure that this was announced publicly. Given his acceptability within the political spectrum, Pranab Mukherjee would almost certainly be the next President of India. Unlike F.A. Ahmed, V.V. Giri or Pratibha Patil, he would not be a yesperson of the Nehru family but a Head of State with very much a mind of his own.

Why Deng Xiaoping can defeat Panetta (PO)

M D Nalapat

Although from the same stale Clinton stable as are so many other of that era’s retreads in the promised “new look” Obama administration, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has an unusual intellect. Although China is his focus, yet the man himself is almost Chinese in his ability to look into the future and frame policies that may seem quixotic now, but which will get validated years down the road. Unlike Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is intellectually a European masquerading as an American, the former Director CIA sees the emerging weakness of the US in retaining its top dog status vis-a-vis a rising China. 

Only dominance in Asia, or at least the perception that Washington is still the dominant power in the subcontinent, will enable US corporate to continue to get the advantages that they enjoy, especially in oil-rich Arab States such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and now Iraq and Libya. In each of these States, it is geopolitical rather than commercial logic which has ensured that an overwhelming proportion of ownership in petro-product reserves and their exploitation has gone to NATO-based oil companies. Although US strategists frequently say that their country no longer depends on Arab oil for more than 13% of US energy needs, the fact is that their financial institutions still need the massive deposits of Arab cash that are parked there. Also, NATO-based companies such as BP use the Arab countries as cash cows to fund their lavish expenditures on themselves and on their home countries.

Although they are envied because of the immense oil wealth that Almighty has bestowed on certain Arab states, in reality they are to be pitied, for the fact that for all these decades, these countries have not been able to use their oil wealth in order to ensure an education system that prepares their teeming young for the 21st century. Traditional learning is still given priority over modern knowledge, while the spread of the English language is much lower than in India or even in Sri Lanka or Pakistan. Worse, the elite in these Arab countries have become as much addicted to super-expensive luxury brands from the NATO countries as are their counterparts in East Asia.

Many spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on buying branded handbags, shoes, watches and clothes, besides of course fancy automobiles. Added to the huge increases in expenditure on weapons sourced from the NATO bloc, this means that money that ought to have been spent on improving overall education and performance standards gets wasted on trifles and on equipment that is there only for show. In case of any actual conflict, it will after all be NATO rather than the Arab militaries themselves that rush to the frontline.

For NATO, countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are ideal partners, giving immense commercial advantage and totally outsourcing their security to the NATO bloc. It would be a dream come true if countries to the east of the GCC were to follow a similar trajectory, of dependence on the alliance. Indeed, several South, Southeast and East Asian countries were at one time locked in a military alliance with NATO, though constructs such as SEATO. It is Panetta’s ambition to bring back this golden age, and once more ensure that countries in the region outsource their defense and security to the entire NATO alliance, including its complement of European countries that were once colonial powers, and which even today regard it as their right to interfere with military might in remote corners of the globe, especially where they scent economic advantage.

Today, after the collapse of international confidence in its institutions and in its integrity, NATO has become dependent on military superiority in order for its corporates to gain or retain the concessions that they have enjoyed for generations in Asia. What Defense Secretary Panetta seeks to do is to have India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other states go the way of the GCC and enter into profitable ( for the NATO powers) alliances with Washingtonand its European partners.

Just as NATO’s Infowar teams are using the “Iran bogey” in order to scare GCC countries into purchasing mire weapons from them, they are playing up the “china threat” in order to ensure a steady increase in arms sales to other parts of Asia. Among its successes is India, where the NATO-leaning Sonia Gandhi-led UPA has already made the country dependent on NATO countries such as France and the US for crucial defense needs, ignoring its own private industry. These arms sales have given NATO a powerful lever in India, strong enough to ensure that Delhi has abandoned its policy of neutrality and now openly backs NATO on issues such as Iran,Libya and now Syria. In this, the Sonia-controlled government (nominally led by the inoffensive and ineffective Manmohan Singh) has moved away from the more robust policies of the other two partners in the Russia-India-China trio of great powers. Both Beijing and Moscow now regard Delhi as being as much a camp follower of NATO as Seoul or Tokyo.

However, despite this, Washington and the rest of NATO are unlikely to succeed in their efforts at crafting a military alliance between NATO and key Asian states that is based on fear of China. The reason for this is economic. In the 1960s,1970s and the 1980s,and even the 1990s, it was impossible for an Asian economy to prosper unless it were strategically close to the US. Even China entered upon its high-growth trajectory as a de facto ally of Washington against (then Communist-ruled) Moscow. However, the situation changed by the first decade of the 21st century. Now, unless Asian economies are friendly with China, they cannot grow rapidly. This holds true even for Japan and South Korea, both of whom depend on China for much of their prosperity. In that sense, China has replaced the US as the power with which an alliance is vital, if economic prosperity is to be maintained.

The obsessive focus on domestic procurement and the profligacy of the George W Bush years has made the US less than the partner it was in earlier times. Consequently, the Panetta dream of inserting NATO into not just West Asia (where it is already dominant) but in South and Southeast Asia as well will fail. The economies of these parts of Asia have too much to lose by joining in a bloc that targets China. 

There is, of course ,the possibility that elements in the Chinese Communist Party may pay heed to the rantings of some of their citizens on the internet and adopt a harsh, US-style policy towards countries in the region. Such bloggers are those who watch too many Hollywood movies. They have distanced themselves from the Chinese tradition of harmony and adopted the NATO tradition of Force First. Hopefully ,the Chinese leadership will ignore such NATO-style voices and continue with Deng Xiaoping’s policy of seeking reconciliation and harmony.

Should Beijing continue on the Deng course, NATO will fail in its mission of getting more countries in Asia to outsource their security to the alliance, by playing up one threat or the other.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=160252

No repeat of Sykes-Picot in Mideast chaos (Global Times)

By M.D. Nalapat

June 14, 2012

On May 16, 1916, in the middle of World War I, Paris and London approved a secret agreement to dismember the Ottoman Empire and divide the Middle East between themselves.

The Sykes-Picot agreement set new boundaries for many countries in the region, and began a period of direct control of the Middle East that the West has sought to perpetuate to the present.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US and Iraq's former colonial master, the UK, NATO has been transparent in its desire to once again exercise direct control over the countries in the region. The few regimes that are opposed to NATO hegemony are being faced with a concerted effort by NATO and its regional backers to overthrow them.

After Iraq, it was the turn of Libya, followed by Syria. Next will be Iran. I believe the casualties in Libya were much higher than the official figures claimed by the coalition. Libya has become a madhouse of tribal and religious conflicts, and a country where competing mafias have sliced up the country, united only by their subservience to the commercial interests of their creator and benefactor, NATO.

Even the so-called peace mission to Syria has as its deputy head a diplomat from France, the main player in the 2011 regime change in Tripoli and a country that is actively pressing for military intervention in Syria. Only UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with his complete confidence in NATO member states, believes that Jean-Marie Guehenno will play a "neutral" role in Syria.

NATO is also encouraging Turkey to believe that it can regain the status it enjoyed during the Ottoman Empire, thereby provoking Ankara into a hyper-active stance in support of NATO's regime change operations.

As for Qatar and Saudi Arabia, they are so blinded by their hatred for the anti-monarchist and Shia regime of Bashar al-Assad that they are willing to join hands with NATO in destabilizing a fellow Arab government, oblivious to the fact that someday, they themselves could get exposed to the same medicine.

Unlike Libya, Syria is not in an isolated corner. An intensification of the NATO-sponsored civil war in that country, which is pitting Salafists and Wahhabis against Shia, Druze, moderate Sunnis and Christians, would set off sectarian unrest in the entire region.

If this has not happened so far, the credit must go to Russia and China, which have thus far succeeded in blocking NATO from direct military intervention. The alliance needs to know that 2012 is not 1916, and that their ongoing efforts at repeating the Sykes-Picot agreement will lead to disaster.

The author is director and professor of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in India.


http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/715023.shtml

Western remedies toxic to Asian economies (China Daily)

By M. D. Nalapat

From the time it was set up nearly 70 years ago, the International Monetary Fund has been controlled by Western Europe in partnership with the United States. Even today, long after Asia has overtaken all other continents as the global engine of growth, its focus remains Europe.

The present Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, is trying to persuade Asian economies to surrender the savings of their peoples so that the IMF can continue to funnel the bulk of its funds into Europe, despite the risk of bankruptcy if Greece leaves the eurozone, to be followed by Spain, Portugal and Ireland and possibly Italy and France.

Even though the Western countries were bad global citizens and created the conditions that led to the 2008 financial crash, they will not admit their fault and are not prepared to suffer the pain resulting from their actions. Instead, they seek to make the poorer economies, such as China, India and Brazil, suffer.

Until Brazil and other South American countries understood the folly of accepting advice from the IMF and the World Bank, they suffered immense economic hardships from the 1970s onwards as a result of implementing the wrong economic policies. The prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank were geared towards the benefit of Western Europe, North America and Australia.

Today, commodity prices have reached dizzying heights because speculators based in the US and the European Union control and manipulate the commodity market, squeezing as much profit as they can for themselves, no matter what the consequences. The same reckless disregard for the welfare of anyone else is manifest in Western countries' massive contribution to global warming, although of course, they want the people of India and China to make sacrifices in order to rectify a situation for which they are culpable.

Sadly, despite the evidence of their mismanagement of not only their own economies, but also the world economy, people, from Asia in particular, continue to have a fascination for the advice that they get from West, especially the US. The elite families send their children to study in institutions in these countries, and these young and impressionable people return with a blind belief in the efficacy of economic remedies that benefit the West, but which are toxic to their own countries.

In both India and China, the influence of such "Western-educated returnees" is substantial, especially in the field of financial management. The consequence has been that the two giants of Asia have followed the same basket of policies.

These policies include very steep rates of interest as well as severe restrictions on money supply by the monetary agencies. The belief is that such policies will curb inflation. However, inflation has not abated in the least, despite the sharp rise in interest rates and curbs on lending. What has suffered is output, and consequently growth in employment. It is the same fund managers who cheer the very low interest rates in the US, Europe and Japan that call the loudest for China and India to keep interest rates high. Yet to do so would damage the economies of the two Asian countries, thereby ensuring that Western countries do not have to face severe competition from either. Hence it's a right move that the Chinese central bank cut the main interest rates on Thursday.

The West's economic playbooks say that China and India are "overheating" because their rates of economic growth are close to double digits. Yet poor economies, such as China and India, need a much higher rate of growth than rich Western countries, because of their low levels of per capita consumption and their need to raise the living standards of hundreds of millions of people.

In China and India, inflation is caused by the hidden play of commodity speculators, and both countries need to go before the UN to criminalize such activity. They need to ensure that enterprises, especially those in the small and medium sector, have access to bank funds at low interest rates. The present policies benefit the banks while harming the overall interests of India and China

The remedies that are suggested by the developed world are toxic for poorer countries. India and China need to avoid the trap that South America fell into during the 1970s, when the continent suffered huge economic pain because it blindly followed false advice. What is needed is for Beijing and New Delhi to concentrate on domestic economic growth, hopefully in cooperation with each other.

The author is vice-chair of Manipal Advanced Research Group, and UNESCO peace chair and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University, India.

(China Daily 06/11/2012 page 9)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-06/11/content_15491850.htm

Save the other states from Mamata’s Cuban economics (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/m-d-nalapat

It’s time for Rahul Gandhi to tell Mamata Banerjee that she is welcome to block change in Bengal, but will not be allowed to veto it in the whole of India.

Mamata Banerjee leads a protest march against petrol price hike in Kolkata last month. PTI ahatma Gandhi worked tirelessly to ensure that the people of India followed his example and lived in poverty, although of course, not in Birla House or the other stately homes that the Father of the Nation chose as his temporary residences. Not for him the passion for wealth that motivates so many "servants of the people" during these sleazy times. A particular politician in India is known to wear a sari on only a single occasion, putting it away once worn rather than perhaps gifting it to the more needy. This would imply that the lady must need to acquire around 500 saris each year, not a large amount for a person who regularly travels by chartered jet. In her zeal to give cheer to sari merchants, the lady differs from the Mahatma, who possessed only a few changes of clothes, and these homespun. Scanning the horizon for political leaders who emulate the Mahatma in his (absence of) needs, one comes across only Mamata Banerjee and A.K. Antony. The current Defence Minister does not, however, entirely share the Paschim Banga CM's penchant for ensuring that the entire country sink into the poverty that characterises her state. Especially since 2009, the merest hint of a tantrum from Mamata Banerjee can paralyse Manmohan Singh into silence. Initiative after initiative has been cold-storaged because of the lady. In the process, not only Paschim Banga (whose people clearly prefer to live by the teachings of the Mahatma, else why would they have chosen Mamata?) but the rest of the country as well is being deprived of the opportunity to decide on whether they would like to join Didi in her Cuban-style economics or go in a different direction, perhaps marching to the beat introduced in China in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping. Rather than pretend that he is a pensioner rather than the Head of Government, Manmohan Singh ought to introduce economic reforms with the caveat that it is up to individual state governments whether or not to implement them. If Mamata is allergic to foreign-brand retail, perhaps Nitish Kumar or even Prithviraj Chavan may not be. Why should these two be denied the choice, simply because the Trinamool Congress supremo wants the nation to stick to Gandhian economic doctrine religiously? Although the idea may sound daft, there may exist a few people in India who would like to do their shopping in a more ordered environment than that provided by the kirana stores frequented by Didi during the days when she was just an MP. In a few years, it will become clear whether the Paschim Banga CM was right or the CM, Gujarat, who is busily welcoming foreign enterprises into his state. Should Mamata find that international department stores add to the economy rather than subtract from it, hopefully the lady will change course. Not that there were not strong reasons for her sabotage of Singur and Nandigram. Think how many extra votes the Left Front would have got, had these two mega projects proceeded smoothly to become operational. Despite the fact that both the Heir Apparent as well as his closest associate seem to be too terrified of Mamma to respond to this columnist's emails asking for a meeting, his soft corner for Rahul persists, warmed by memories of the (then) young lad strolling around his father's home office in the 1980s. Instead of believing that voters in India are too stupid to understand the opportunism behind his one night stays in miscellaneous huts, Rahul needs to mobilise his soporific party machinery into agitating for economic reform. While it is too much to expect Manmohan Singh to show the energy to challenge Didi at this age, the Congress party's favoured choice for PM needs to tell Mamata that while she is welcome to block change in Bengal, she will not be allowed to veto it in the whole of India. Give the states the freedom to decide to what extent they are willing to embrace reform, and all of a sudden, the clouds that have blocked growth will begin to dissipate. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/save-the-other-states-from-mamatas-cuban-economics

Will Putin fall into Medvedev trap? (PO)

By M D Nalapat


If Vladimir Putin is much less popular in Russia than he was five years ago, the reason vests in the fact that he took the advice of EU-oriented advisors that he should quit the Presidency after two terms, rather than take legal steps to remove such a US-style restriction.

The Kremlin in Moscow is full of individuals who have outsourced their opinions to the West European powers, especially Germany, a country that Russians - and Chinese - seem to admire inordinately. Even the ceremonial procession of vehicles taking the newly-elected President of Russia for his swearing-in ceremony comprises of German automobiles, not Russian. What message does the fact that Russian leaders prefer German cars to their own send? That Russian products are inferior to those of West Europe.

Since the time when Mikhail Gorbachev took office as General Secretary nearly three decades ago, Russians have relied heavily on advice from West Europe and the US, almost always with disastrous consequences. However, this has not stopped them from their continued fealty towards views that in fact weaken them, while professing to help the country It was no secret that the NATO powers wanted Putin out of the government, hence the nudge given to their acolytes in Moscow to persuade the then President of Russia to step down from the Presidency rather than get the laws changed to run for office a third time.

The fact is that an unbroken Putin presidency was as necessary for Russia as an unbroken Franklin Delano Roosevelt presidency was for the US during 1933-44,the year when it became clear that Germany would lose World War II because of the pounding that it was getting from the Soviet Union. By appointing the pro-NATO Medvedev as his successor, rather than a nationalist such as himself, Vladimir Putin began to suffer a loss of respect within the Russian people.

The Medvedev presidency was marked by President Medvedev’s effort to please West Europe and the US, by tailoring his policies to win their approval, exactly the way Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin did. It was fortunate for Russia that Putin disappointed NATO by becoming Prime Minister under Medvedev, else the new Russian President would have brought the country to the same pitiable state as it was under Yeltsin. If Libya is bleeding today, and has become a haven for Al-Qaeda and lesser extremists, much of the fault lies with Medvedev, who once again obeyed the call of the NATO powers by supporting the UNSC resolution that was used by NATO to force through violent regime change in Libya. Putin appears to have a strong fascination for the dour Medvedev, for he has once again ignored the latter’s partiality towards NATO and appointed him Prime Minister. By not getting a PM more in tune with his own ethos and goals, Vladimir Putin has handicapped himself in his third term as President of Russia, unless he brushes aside the PM and takes direct charge of the government. That Putin may have learnt his lesson in trusting Medvedev during 2008-12 seems clear from the Russian strongman’s refusal to bend before NATO and allow the UNSC to pass a Libya-style resolution that would give an excuse for NATO to launch a military campaign to oust Bashar Assad in Damascus.

The tenor and direction of the newly-inauguarated Russian Head of State’s discussions with President Hu Jintao of China indicate that the efforts of Medvedev to get the Kremlin to toe the US-EU line may not be working any more.

Unlike his predecessor Jiang Zemin, who was as obsessed with West Europe and the US as Gorbachev was, Hu Jintao has braved the ire of NATO member-states by forging close ties with countries in South America, Asia and Africa. By the time Hu’s successor completes his first five years in office by 2017, China would have displaced both the US as well as the EU in being the most influential voice in all these three continents.

However, President Putin has a formidable task ahead of him. Moscow is filled with bureaucrats and “experts” who sing from copybooks provided by NATO, and they can be expected to try and persuade him to adopt the Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Medvedev policy of appeasement of NATO, despite the fact that all such a policy has brought Moscow is disaster. In the years ahead, Prime Minister Medvedev may emerge as a rallying point for all the forces encouraged from outside to oppose Putin, who may therefore step aside in 2017 and allow Medvedev to once again be President.

Unless Putin places a firewall between Medvedev and himself, he is likely to find the going much rougher than it was during his first two terms in 2000-08.Well-wishers of the dauntless and gifted Russian people will hope that Vladimir Putin will not once again fall into the Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Medvedev trap created for him by NATO’s many admirers in official Moscow. 
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=159137

China leaves India behind, heads towards first world (Sunday Guardian)

ROOTS OF POWER MADHAV NALAPAT www.sunday-guardian.com/profile/m-d-nalapat

Eastern China airliner sits on the tarmac as an Air China plane takes off at Beijing Capital Airport. REUTERS visit to China is always a humbling experience. Unlike Terminal 3 at — what else? — Indira Gandhi International Airport, there are no carpets concealing the floors of Beijing Capital Airport. Why planners of the Delhi facility wanted carpets is a mystery. Already they are looking dusty, and the smell of mould is creeping into the atmosphere. Within a few years, the odour will be overpowering, as will be the dust. Of course, there is a silver lining. Hospitals catering to respiratory diseases will see a sharp rise in their custom, as passengers spend hour after hour waiting for flights that seem never to take off, either because the pilot is in a bad mood that day or for some other cause. Of course, carpets are not the only useless — indeed, destructive — extravagance in a facility that has become not the best in the world, but the most expensive. Even the toilet facilities come from fancy locations such as Germany. Clearly, those in charge at IGIA Terminal 3 are used to their bottoms resting on the seats of German-made cars, hence their obsession to boost employment in that country at the expense of local suppliers. Thirty years ago, China was as dysfunctional as India is to the present day. While Mao Zedong unified his country and transferred some of his confidence in it to the rest of the populace, he was as weak in economics as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been. It was only after Deng Xiaoping took charge of economic policy in 1979 that China began its climb to the top. Today, to compare India to China would be even more fatuous than comparing India with Pakistan. Our northern neighbour is so far ahead that it is not even visible in the distance. Our administrators pride themselves on being the "steel frame". A better word for their effect on the country would be straitjacket. Either because of an absence of courage or of character, officials in India have connived with politicians in creating webs of graft that are choking the economy as surely as weeds destroy a lake. These lines are being written in the business class cabin of the high-speed train going from Tianjin to Shanghai. Because the seats are fully reclinable, this columnist was able to catch up on sleep lost in the Delhi to Beijing flight, which departed from IGIA at 3.25 a.m. The train itself proceeds smoothly to Shanghai at a speed of more than 300 kilometres and hour, many times more than the fastest in India. Of course, the Chinese cannot savour the theatrical brilliance of Mamata Banerjee or Lalu Yadav the way we fortunate citizens of the world's most regulated democracy can on our television screens. Their political fare is much duller, comprising episodes where suited men with broad smiles go to various public locations and thereby demonstrate their immense love for the common man. Although the UGC may not know much about originality in research — and in fact would be horrified at such subversion of the system — its babus are masters at conjuring up numerous mechanical milestones. These days, doctorates get turned out with the frequency of Ford cars during the time when old Henry was still around in Detroit. Interesting ideas are spurned in favour of rehashes of tomes written elsewhere, with exactly the degree of copycat prose needed to escape computer traps for plagiarism. Research in India's university sector is as barren as the Gobi desert, and the UGC seems happy to keep it that way. Unfortunately, the Chinese disagree. From the time Hu Jintao took charge as General Secretary a decade ago, there has been an emphasis on R&D, so that while in 2002, China was where India is today, importing almost all its high-end technologies, these days the country is self-sufficient in most. Tianjin is an example of how far China has leapt ahead of India. Although more than 150 kilometres away from Beijing, the city is reached by train in a half-hour. Its two universities, Tianjin and Nankai, are working at excellence, as are other universities in China. In the 1980s, almost all were worse than their top 20 Indian counterparts. These days, even middle-rank universities have left Indian ones far behind, another great achievement of the UGC and its babudom. It has an international airport and a huge port, where several ships, including cruise liners, regularly call. Comparing Tianjin with the squalor of Gurgaon, where taxes disappear into the pockets of officials and politicians, is an exercise in raising blood pressure to dangerous levels. If China can do it, why not India? Why not indeed? Look at our officials, look at their political masters, and the answer will become clear. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/china-leaves-india-behind-heads-towards-first-world