The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from India.
For more visit:
https://christiannews.net/2018/11/26/hindu-extremist-mob-tries-to-burn-pastor-alive-in-odisha-state-india/
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Tag Archives: India
Government report provides important opportunity to rethink Australia’s relationship with India
AAP/Ella Pellegrini
Craig Jeffrey, University of Melbourne
By 2060, India may be the world’s largest economy. It will certainly be the world’s most populous country. At that point, Australians will ask, “What did we do in the 2020s to build a relationship with this superpower?” They may also ask: “How did economic cooperation with India benefit both countries in the early 21st century?”
The federal government’s report, An India Economic Strategy to 2035, was launched last week in Brisbane. Written by University of Queensland Chancellor Peter Varghese, it is an excellent basis for reflecting on these questions and the wider issue of Australia-India cooperation.
The strategy identifies numerous sectors – health, education, and tourism, for example – that can help enhance economic cooperation, and in which Australia has some comparative advantage. It also specifies ten Indian states as targets for collaboration based on their economic heft, commitment to reform, and relevance to the sectors in which Australia has competitive advantages.
Importantly, the strategy is ambitious. It sets itself the goal by 2035 to lift India into Australia’s top three export markets. It intends for India to become “the third largest destination in Asia for Australian outward investment”, and for it to be brought “into the inner circle of Australia’s strategic partnerships.”
Read more:
Why it’s the right time for Australia and India to collaborate on higher education
The strategy emphasises two areas that need attention in order to meet these objectives. First, Australia needs to leverage the strengths of the Indian diaspora, which now numbers about 455,000.
The rapid growth of the Indian diaspora population can be a spur to economic cooperation. The Indian population in places like Silicon Valley drive the IT and biotech booms in India and the US. Canada is highly adept in enrolling its Indian diaspora in projects of national and international development.
Second, Australia needs to build more knowledge of India and support organisations that work on the bilateral relationship. While Australia made a pivot towards China in the last quarter of the 20th century, businesses, governments, and the public developed comparatively little knowledge about India.
The emphasis on China led to a neglect of India in education, media, and the policy sphere. There is a need to rebuild public understanding of India and the institutions that can activate this understanding to achieve lasting impact. Culture and arts will be very important here, both as a sector and enabler – points implicit in the strategy.
Varghese says we need to move beyond constantly drawing comparisons between India and China. “India is not the next China,” he writes. India is a distinct opportunity for engagement that merits discussion in its own terms.
The base from which Australia is working with respect to cooperation is certainly different: Australian exports to India are less than a sixth of those to China.
Two further issues will be crucial for the strategy’s successful implementation. The first concerns the relationship between growth and wellbeing. It is clear that the India Economic Strategy imagines enhanced cooperation not as a basis for economic growth as such, but also higher standards of living.
There is a need to reflect carefully here. We must think not only about spurring growth in the Australian and Indian economies, but also ensuring that growth is meaningful in four ways: that it addresses social and economic inequalities, creates jobs, is environmentally sustainable, and fosters opportunities to lead fulfilling social and cultural lives.
This is where the comparison between India and China is important. Since 2000, India’s economic growth has been not much more than half as effective at lifting people out of poverty as China’s economic growth. This means that for every 1% growth in Gross Democratic Product in China nearly twice as many people are elevated out of income poverty as in India. This partly reflects the depth of social inequalities in India.
Read more:
Australia and India: some way to go yet
In the context of rising concern over inequality in Australia as well, the key question is: How can international economic cooperation create growth that reduces inequalities, generates jobs, and protects the environment in the countries concerned? It is a question that puts Australia and India on the same side of the table.
A second issue concerns the term “navigation”, which is in the title of the strategy. As the Danish anthropologist Professor Henrik Vigh has pointed out, navigation is a great metaphor. It connotes plotting and re-plotting a course on a moving plane. The complexity of that plane in this case calls to mind the six degrees of motion of a boat: pitch, roll, yaw, sway, heave, and surge. The strategy’s recommendations and ideas are excellent, and can be re-calibrated as India and Australia pitch, heave, and yaw.
The India Economic Strategy is an exciting document written with confidence and ambition. It provides a foundation for reflecting on economic cooperation and striving for meaningful growth.
Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
India: Persecution News Update
India: Persecution News Update
The links below are to articles reporting on the persecution of Christians in India. The most recent are at the top.
For more visit:
– http://www.bpnews.net/50626/solace-amid-persecution-for-indias-christian-minority
– https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2018/03/india-baptism-service-halted-by-hindu-mob-claiming-forced-conversions/
– https://morningstarnews.org/2018/03/hindu-extremists-turn-tribal-animist-villagers-christians-india/
– https://christiannews.net/2018/03/27/hindu-extremists-turn-tribal-animist-villagers-against-christians-in-india/
– http://www.persecution.org/2018/03/22/exponential-increase-attacks-christians-telangana-india/
It would cost you 20 cents more per T-shirt to pay an Indian worker a living wage
Shutterstock
Murray Ross Hall, The University of Queensland and Thomas Wiedmann, UNSW
If we really care about protecting the people who make the things we wear and use, we need to raise wages for workers in supply chains to above the poverty line. Our research shows that this only requires a 20 cent increase in the Australian retail price for a T-shirt made in India.
This small increase can lift wages by up to 225% in India, closing the living wage gap for the most vulnerable workers in the supply chain, such as cotton farmers. The living wage gap is the difference between a living wage and current wages.
Read more: Explainer: what exactly is a living wage?
The living wage is the income required for a decent standard of living for a worker and their family. It lifts the worker above the poverty line and is defined by the costs to meet basic needs such as food and shelter. It also limits the number of working hours per week required to meet these needs.
A living wage has long been advocated as a way to support vulnerable and exploited workers. About 42% of all workers globally are in insecure jobs and have no social protections, 29% remain in moderate to extreme poverty and about 25 million people are in slavery.
Many of the goods we now buy are part of global supply chains. Since the 1980s the production of labour-intensive products such as textiles and footwear has shifted to countries with low-cost labour.
Cost-cutting often impacts those with the weakest bargaining position, such as cotton farmers – cotton prices have been on a downward trend over the past decade. Without realising it, our demand for low prices can cause vulnerable workers in other countries to work for less than a living wage.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UuMlS/9/
Our research calculated the living wage gaps in India, broken down by region, gender, skill and type of employment. For instance, female workers on cotton farms in Gujarat earn 207% below the living wage. Casual female workers in Haryana have a living wage gap of about 34%.
It would take on average a 15 cent price increase on T-shirts in Australia to close the living wage gap for cotton workers in India. Adding another five cents would close the living wage gap for Indian textile workers, and also account for the increase in agent fees, which are a percentage of the production costs.
The living wage gap may be larger or smaller on particular farms or factories, but a 20 cent increase on average would be sufficient to lift all Indian workers in the garment supply chain out of poverty.
Read more: Why the fashion industry keeps failing to fix labour exploitation
How we can raise the living wage
The cost to close the living wage gap in developing countries is small because wages for workers in these countries make up only a fraction of the retail price charged in countries like Australia.
Our work shows it costs about A$5.30 to produce a T-shirt in a country like India and ship it to Australia. The remaining costs embedded in a A$25 T-shirt come from warehousing, distribution and retail costs within Australia itself.
As a result, a 20 cent increase represents a less than 1% increase in the Australian retail price. It would cost only another 40 cents to cover the cost of greenhouse gas abatement. This means an ethically made T-shirt would only cost 2.5% more than current prices.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/dSGy3/1/
A roadblock to implementing living wages is simply knowing the source of materials. Only about 7% of fashion companies in Australia know where all of their cotton comes from. Unless an Australian retailer specifies the source of cotton, the decision is made by the overseas textile contractor, often based on price.
Another challenge is that we need an accepted method for calculating and auditing the payment of living wages in the supply chain. The retailer needs to know how much the cotton farmer should be paid and have a system to check it has been done.
Over the past four years consumer pressure has pushed fashion companies to understand their supply chains and to consider paying living wages, but there is still a long way to go.
Read more: What businesses can do to stamp out slavery in their supply chains
In 2012 a group of the world’s largest ethical trade organisations formed the Global Living Wage Coalition.
This organisation has developed a manual for measuring the living wage and requiring? living wages to be paid to their producers. The producers are audited along the supply chain and in return can advertise their compliance with ethical standards. Shoppers will soon be able to look for a label – similar to the Fairtrade symbol – to know that living wages have been paid throughout the supply chain.
The famous economist John Maynard Keynes argued that consumers are not entitled to a discount at the expense of the basic needs of workers. In fact, we only need to pay a small amount more to provide a living wage and make a big difference to the world’s poorest workers.
Murray Ross Hall, PhD Candidate, School of Earth and Environmental Science, The University of Queensland and Thomas Wiedmann, Associate Professor, UNSW
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
India: Persecution News Update
The links below are to articles reporting on persecution news from India (the most recent are at the top).
For more visit:
– https://www.christiantoday.com/article/new.indian.anti.conversion.law.draws.christian.protests/114259.htm
– http://www.persecution.org/2017/09/20/jharkhands-state-governor-in-india-approves-anti-forced-conversion-law-despite-opposition/
– http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Catholic-college-closed-down-in-Madhya-Pradesh.-Bishop-of-Sagar:-They-want-to-drive-out-Christians-41829.html
– http://www.persecution.org/2017/09/18/despite-persecution-in-india-i-will-live-for-him-alone/
– http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-india-warn-spiraling-hatred-letter-pm-modi-photo-hindus-burning-cross-199451/
– http://indianexpress.com/article/india/jharkhand-guv-approves-freedom-of-religion-bill-land-act-bjp-welcomes-move/
India: Persecution News Update
The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from India.
India: Persecution News Update
The links below are to articles reporting on persecution news from India (the most recent are at the top).
For more visit:
– https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170914/jsp/frontpage/story_173065.jsp
– http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/why-jharkhand-s-anti-conversion-bill-is-against-constitution-and-not-necessary/story-FIhGsnxuqIItvniVAoiLQO.html
– http://www.persecution.org/2017/09/09/more-christians-in-indias-chhattisgarh-state-displaced-following-threats-from-hindu-radicals/
– http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Karnataka,-two-Pentecostal-Christians-arrested-for-forced-conversions-41713.html
China-India border dispute a grim sign for stability in Asia
Reuters/Danish Siddiqui
Nick Bisley, La Trobe University
Conflict was almost baked into Asia’s post-1945 international order. Taiwan’s contested status following the communist victory in China’s civil war, and the division of the Korean Peninsula are only the most obvious and volatile of Asia’s military hotspots.
Yet one of the region’s most striking features was the way in which, from the 1970s, it was able to foster a remarkably stable international environment in spite of the visible flashpoints in almost all corners of the region. The growth and prosperity enjoyed by so many people would not have been possible had the countries of the region not worked out how to manage their often vast differences.
That period of stability is coming to an end. Asia’s great powers are increasingly jostling with one another for influence, and as they do the region’s old wounds open up again.
The high altitude military stand-off between India and China at the Doklam Plateau, near the tri-border of Bhutan, India and China, is an acute example of how these old problems have been reinvigorated by Asia’s geopolitical flux.
India and China share a border in excess of 3,000 kilometres in length, much of which is disputed by the two behemoths. This has long been a source of friction, including a short and nasty war in 1962 that India lost in humiliating fashion. Most of these have occurred in India’s north on the Chinese side of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Doklam stand-off is notable because it is in the north-east of the country. It started on June 16 when Chinese PLA engineers began work to extend a road that is within territory that is disputed between Bhutan and China, but in which Beijing has been operating freely since at least 2005. The work appeared to be an effort to extend the road closer to India’s border.
In response, Indian military forces crossed the border on June 18 into what it regards as Bhutan – a country with whom Delhi has an agreement to guide its foreign policy – and prevented the road from being constructed.
Beijing’s response to the deployment of Indian forces has been incandescent rage. This is in stark contrast to previous cross-border tensions and standoffs, when China has generally approached the matter with a degree of caution and calm, in public at any rate.
The fulmination is the result of China’s belief that the PLA is operating on sovereign Chinese territory and that India has intervened in its affairs for strategic advantage. This is a particularly neuralgic issue for the PRC.
Since then, both sides have mobilised their forces with at least 100 soldiers on either side eyeballing one another, while India has moved thousands more into close supporting positions.
The public rhetoric on either side is hardening. China has carried out military drills and declared that it is easier “to move a mountain than to shake the PLA”. Foreign Minister Wang Yi bluntly stated that the standoff was entirely India’s fault, and that the troops had to get out of China.
India in turn has accused China of reneging on its agreement not to change the status quo and has rallied international support by using the standoff as another example of China acting as a disruptive force.
Neither disputes the basic facts – China was building a road towards India’s border, while India does not deny contesting PLA forces beyond its own borders – so what motivated their risk-taking?
Delhi’s reasoning is slightly easier to discern. India is at a military disadvantage in most of the border disputes with China. This area is one in which Delhi has the upper hand. It believes China was taking preparatory steps to negate that advantage.
India is also acutely aware that the tri-border area is very close to the Siliguri Corridor, the narrow strip of land that physically connects India to its eastern states that lie between Bangladesh, China and Burma. Defending the corridor is a first order priority for India.
China’s claims that it was merely road building in its own land are disingenuous. It knows that the territory is in dispute with Bhutan and is acutely aware of Indian sensitivities. This was not just a bit of civil engineering, nor was it a case of a rogue PLA unit operating without central clearance.
Many think that China’s move is punishing India for its tilt to Washington and its criticism of the Belt and Road Initiative. The timing was unmistakably intended to embarrass Modi.
It was not by accident that the incident was timed so that it would cast a shadow over the prime minister’s participation in the G20 summit and a meeting with Xi Jinping. It also signalled that, contrary to his strong-man persona, Modi is not able to control the country’s borders and core interests.
Some also see the effort as an attempt to wedge Bhutan. Beijing has been courting Thimpu in the way it has successfully cultivated other South Asian countries such as Sri Lanka. This appears to be a fairly Machiavellian means of pushing another of India’s close partners into the China column.
MIT’s Taylor Fravel, an expert on China’s border disputes, has argued that while China probably did intend to push some strategic agenda, it probably miscalculated the strength of India’s response.
There has been far too much hyperbole about the prospects of this leading to a nuclear war – that is extremely unlikely – but it is also unlikely that this will end in a quickly negotiated diplomatic settlement of the kind that has resolved previous border stand-offs.
Both have positioned themselves in ways that will make backing down quickly very difficult. This crucial bilateral relationship is now at a low ebb, and as the standoff is likely to drag on for a long time, a frosty Sino-India relationship looks set to remain in place.
When we think of difficult great power relationships in Asia, US-China and Japan-China ties tend to predominate. But the crisis in the difficult terrain of the Doklam Plateau reminds us not only that India is an Asian great power, but that the tenor of its relations with China is of crucial strategic significance.
Equally, the tension is a sign of Asia’s new contested and complex geopolitics. This is a world in which American influence is marginal – not just because US Asia policy is on autopilot – and one in which old and long running animosities have been revived by the combustible blend of ambition and wealth.
How Doklam is resolved will tell us a good deal about the extent to which Asia’s great powers can accommodate one another’s interests and recreate the stability of the past. The prospects do not look good.
Nick Bisley, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia and Professor of International Relations, La Trobe University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Smart or dumb? The real impact of India’s proposal to build 100 smart cities
from www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND
Hugh Byrd, University of Lincoln
In 2014, the new Indian government declared its intention to achieve 100 smart cities.
In promoting this objective, it gave the example of a large development in the island city of Mumbai, Bhendi Bazaar. There, 3-5 storey housing would be replaced with towers of between 40 to 60 storeys to increase density. This has come to be known as “vertical with a vengeance”.
We have obtained details of the proposed project from the developer and the municipal authorities. Using an extended urban metabolism model, which measures the impacts of the built environment, we have assessed its overall impact. We determined how the flows of materials and energy will change as a result of the redevelopment.
Our research shows that the proposal is neither smart nor sustainable.
Measuring impacts
The Indian government clearly defined what they meant with “smart”. Over half of the 11 objectives were environmental and main components of the metabolism of a city. These include adequate water and sanitation, assured electricity, efficient transport, reduced air pollution and resource depletion, and sustainability.
We collected data from various primary and secondary sources. This included physical surveys during site visits, local government agencies, non-governmental organisations, the construction industry and research.
We then made three-dimensional models of the existing and proposed developments to establish morphological changes, including building heights, street widths, parking provision, roof areas, open space, landscaping and other aspects of built form.
Demographic changes (population density, total population) were based on census data, the developer’s calculations and an assessment of available space. Such information about the magnitude of the development and the associated population changes allowed us to analyse the additional resources required as well as the environmental impact.
from shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND
Flow-on effects of high-rise housing
In order to compare the environmental impact of the new development with the existing housing, it is useful to measure it in terms of changes per capita or unit of floor area.
The redevelopment of Bhendi Bazaar would result in a population increase of about 25%. Our research indicates that metabolism does not increase linearly (on a per capita basis) with density, but accelerates instead.
Water consumption and waste water production per capita is likely to increase by 155%, largely because of the potential for more appliances and bathrooms in the towers. Rainwater harvesting, a compulsory requirement, is likely to reduce to less than half (45%) as the roof catchment area of towers is smaller than that of the existing housing.
Residential electricity consumption per capita is predicted to increase by 30%. In commercial and retail spaces, electricity use will more than double per unit of floor area (226% increase). This is primarily because of the increased requirement for air conditioning in the towers, but also because of the need for more lighting, ventilation pumping and lifts in the common areas and basements.
Carbon dioxide emissions more than double as electricity consumption increases, resulting in a 43% increase in per capita emissions. However, emissions from transport increase by 176% per capita because the development leads to more private car ownership, with 3,000 car spaces where there were none before.
All this is happening is a city that already rations water to a few hours per day and where electricity blackouts are common because of insufficient supply. Only about 20% of sewage is treated. The rest discharges into the Arabian Sea. Landfill sites have already outlived their carrying capacity.
Verticality and vulnerability
The quest to make cities smart and liveable has been promoted alongside increased population densities and urban compaction. We argue that this planning goal is reaching a point where resources are inadequate for the functioning of a city.
Case studies such as Bhendi Bazaar provide an example of plans for increased density and urban regeneration. However, they do not offer an answer to the challenge of limited infrastructure to support the resource requirements of such developments.
The results of our research indicate significant adverse impacts on the environment. They show that the metabolism increases at a greater rate than the population grows. On this basis, this proposed development for Mumbai, or the other 99 cities, should not be called smart or sustainable.
With policies that aim to prevent urban sprawl, cities will inevitably grow vertically. But with high-rise housing comes dependence on centralised flows of energy, water supplies and waste disposal. Dependency in turn leads to vulnerability and insecurity.
Suburbia offers some buffer. Water and power can be collected from individual roofs and food produced in individual gardens. However, we argue that vertical urban form on this scale offers little resilience.
Hugh Byrd, Professor of Architecture, University of Lincoln
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
