These are just a few of the many Bharatiya scientific acheivements and inventions

These are just a few of the many indian scientific acheivements and inventions:

-Modern numerical system and the first use of zero

-Bhaskaracharya’s book Lilavathi is regarded as the first book on modern arithmetic

-As early as the 4th C. BC, Kautilya’s Arthashastra had a section outlining the processes for metal extraction and alloying

-By the 12th century, construction engineers were using iron girders and beams on a scale unknown in any other part of the world

-Particle/atomic theory mentioned in vedic scripture from atleast 2500 years ago

-by the 16th century, the heaviest guns in the world were being cast in India

-Aryabhatta’s expositions on astronomy in 499, moreover, gave calculations of the solar year and the shape and movement of astral bodies with remarkable accuracy.

-Bhaskaracharya, calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun, 365.258756484 days

And I’ll leave you with a few quotes

“We owe a lot to the Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.” – Albert Einstein

“India is the cradle of the human race, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Most valuable and the most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.” – Mark Twain

“If I were to look over the whole world to find out a country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow – in some part a very paradise on earth – I should point to India.” – Max Muller

“India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings” – Will Durant(In ‘The Story of Civilization’)

I think its naive to call ancient India “unsucessful” or powerless.

Introduction to Sri Chanakya Niti-Shastra

Introduction to Sri Chanakya Niti-Shastra:
The Political Ethics of Chanakya Pandit

About 2,300 years ago the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great invaded the Indian sub-continent. His offensive upon the land’s patchwork of small Hindu empires proved to be highly successful due to the disunity of the petty rulers. It was Chanakya Pandit who, feeling deeply distressed at heart, searched for and discovered a qualified leader in the person of Chandragupta Maurya. Although a mere dasi-putra, that is, a son of a maidservant by the Magadha King Nanda, Chandragupta was highly intelligent, courageous and physically powerful. Chanakya cared little that by birth he should not have dared to approach the throne. A man of acute discretion, Chanakya desired only that a ruler of extraordinary capabilities be raised to the exalted post of King of Magadha so that the offensive launched by the Yavanas (Greeks) could be repressed.

It is said that Chanakya had been personally offended by King Nanda and that this powerful brahmana had vowed to keep his long sikha unknotted until he saw to the demise of the contemptuous ruler and his drunken princes. True to his oath, it was only after Chanakya Pandit engineered a swift death for the degraded and worthless rulers of the Nanda dynasty that this great brahmana was able to again tie up his tuft of hair. There are several versions relating the exact way that Chanakya had set about eliminating the Nandas, and it appears historians have found it difficult to separate fact from folk legend as regards to certain specific details.

After the Nanda downfall, it became easy for Chandragupta to win the support of the Magadha citizens, who responded warmly to their new heroic and handsome young ruler. Kings of neighbouring states rallied under Chandragupta’s suzerainty and the last of the Greeks headed by Alexander’s general Seleucus were defeated.

With the dual obstacles of the Nandas and Alexander’s troops out of the way, Chanakya Pandit used every political device and intrigue to unite the greater portion of the Indian sub-continent. Under the Prime ministership of Chanakya, King Chandragupta Maurya conquered all the lands up to Iran in the North west and down to the extremities of Karnataka or Mysore state in the South. It was by his wits alone that this skinny and ill-clad brahmana directed the formation of the greatest Indian empire ever before seen in history (i.e. since the beginning of Kali-yuga). Thus the indigenous Vedic culture of the sacred land of Bharata was protected and the spiritual practices of the Hindus could go on unhampered.

Although many great savants of the science of niti such as Brihaspati, Shukracharya, Bhartrihari and Vishnusharma have echoed many of these instructions in their own celebrated works, it is perhaps the way that Chanakya applied his teachings of niti-shastra that has made him stand out as a significant historical figure. The great Pandit teaches us that lofty ideals can become a certain reality if we intelligently work towards achieving our goal in a determined, progressive and practical manner.

Dr. R. Shamashastry, the translator of the English version of Kautilya’s Artha-Shastra, quotes a prediction from the Vishnu Purana fourth canto, twenty-fourth chapter, regarding the appearance of Chanakya Pandit. This prediction, incidentally, was scribed fifty centuries ago, nearly 2,700 years before this political heavyweight and man of destiny was to appear. The prediction informs us: “(First) Mahapadma then his sons – only nine in number – will be the lords of the earth for a hundred years. A brahmana named Kautilya will slay these Nandas. On their death, the Mauryas will enjoy the earth. Kautilya himself will install Chandragupta on the throne. His son will be Bindusara and his son will be Ashokavardhana.” Similar prophecies are also repeated in the Bhagavata, Vayu and Matsya Puranas.
In presenting this work I have traced out and referred to two old English versions of Chanakya Niti-shastra published at the close of the last century. However, these apparently were translated by mere scholars (not devotees) who seem to have missed many subtleties of Chanakya’s vast wit and wisdom. Another unedited and unpublished manuscript Chanakya Niti-shastra with both English translation and Latinised transliteration produced by the Vrindavana ISKCON Centre was also referred to. It was however the learned Vaishnava pandit and Sanskrit scholar Sri V. Badarayana Murthy, of the South Indian Madhva School, who helped me see the depth and import of these verses from the original Devanagari.

I have been told that our blessed spiritual master His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had expressed a desire that Sri Chanakya Niti-shastra be properly translated into English. It is hoped that our present rendering will be at least useful if not instructive to the reader. Let us examine now in a few words on the science of niti, or common sense, from the pen of Srila Bhaktivinoda, the great 19th century devotee-pioneer of the worldwide propagation of Lord Chaitanya ’s divine message.

Taking the two words “common sense” right up to their highest level, he has written:

Man’s glory is in common sense,
Dictating us the grace,
That man is made to live and love
The beauteous Heaven’s embrace.

In other words, the real goal of niti, indeed the goal of life, is to realise one’s eternal position of Krishna consciousness. The Bhagavad-gita confirms Srila Bhaktivinode’s view in the final line of its last sloka: dhruva nitir matir mama. A translation of that full verse runs: “(Sanjaya said) Wherever there is Krishna the master of all mystics, and wherever there is Arjuna the supreme archer, there will also be opulence, victory, extraordinary power and morality (niti). That is My opinion.”

Miles Davis (Patita Pavana dasa)
Makara Sankranti Day
Pausa Shukla Navami
14th January 1981
Lucknow, India

Pakistan Marriages are made in Hell

Paki Marriages Made in Hell

At an Islamabad women’s refuge, with an address cloaked in secrecy and a perimeter guarded by barbed wire, 21-year-old Sharzia – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – broke down in tears as she described the horror of her forced marriage.

It was to a man she had never met, who physically and mentally abused her almost from the very outset. On her leg is a 10-cm (4-in) scar, an indelible reminder of the day he attacked her with a broken clay pot.

In her mind are the tortuous memories of a two-year ‘marriage’ in which she was threatened repeatedly with death. Once, as she suffered an asthma attack, her husband even took away her inhaler.

Then, as she gasped for breath, he threatened to chop up her body and feed it to the dogs roaming outside. Having broken her body, he was trying to crush her spirit.

Born and raised in Britain, Sharzia was brought to Pakistan by her parents two years ago, mistakenly thinking she was attending a relative’s wedding. But it soon became clear that she, too, was being married off.

Though self-confessedly rebellious by nature – something which her father found difficult to cope with – Sharzia was willing to go though with an arranged marriage, and was therefore prepared to accept that her parents would choose her husband.

But on the night of the wedding, as the celebrations started, she started to harbour doubts. “Just before I went on stage I was given a photo of him – and that’s when I got really upset,” she told me.

“He wasn’t my age, he was a lot, lot older and I didn’t want to marry him. I was happy with an arranged marriage, but I didn’t want to marry him.”

“I started crying,” she continued. “I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to get married to this man. I wanted to jump off stage and run away. But I couldn’t for my father’s dignity and my father’s pride.”

An arranged marriage had become a forced marriage.

“Within a few days, he started knocking me around,” she says, “simply because I wouldn’t sleep with him. He hurt my leg, bust my lip, he smashed a clay ornament into my head.

“I really thought at this point, I wasn’t going to live. He just started pulling my hair, knocking me around, throwing me around. I couldn’t take it.”

Despite repeated protestations, Sharzia was told she would have to remain with her husband.

One day, when she pleaded with her father as they were driving in the car, he threatened to crash the vehicle, killing them both.

“My father used to say it was my fault because I had done so many bad things in my life, made my parents so unhappy by putting them through so much grief and stress.”

Court action

Last month, Sharzia was rescued by a team from the British High Commission, which managed to identify the house where she was being kept a virtual prisoner and arranged to pick her up.

She waited until all the male members of the household were asleep and then managed to escape.

This year alone the British High Commission in Islamabad has dealt with almost 100 cases of forced marriage – a 20% increase over 2003. The majority involved women, but in 20 instances young men were the victims.

Often British officials manage to secure the release of victims through negotiation with the families or local authorities. When that fails, they have sometimes had to mount court action.

In many instances, British Asian families wanted to reinforce Muslim cultural values by sending their daughters back to Pakistan to get married.

Often, though, the prime motivation is money – since Pakistani men who marry British Asian women are entitled to UK visas, the passport to better-paid work and a higher standard of living.

It is not uncommon for fathers to sell-off their daughters, such is the demand for ill-gotten visas.

As part of an effort to help young people coerced into relationships, British ministers are currently considering whether to criminalise forced marriages.

Other plans include raising the minimum age at which a foreigner can enter the UK as a spouse from 16 to 18.

When Sharzia packed her bag to go back to Britain, it took a matter of seconds.

She has a few clothes, a mobile phone and virtually no money. Sometime in the future, she hopes to reunite with her parents but right now she is scathing towards them because they were the authors of her grief.

“They weren’t there for me,” she says, sobbing. “I know their hearts are in the right place. When I needed them most, they weren’t there for me.”

Naxals, India's enemy within

Naxals, India’s enemy within – Kanchan Gupta

The attack on a provincial armed constabulary convoy by Naxalites in Chandauli district of eastern Uttar Pradesh on November 20 has not only come as a grim reminder that left-wing extremism is alive and kicking in rural India, but also as a kick in the face of lotus-eaters who now formulate policy in the ministry of home affairs.

Last Saturday’s incident has demonstrated, though not for the first time, that Naxalites — variously referred to as Maoists and Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries — are loathe to scale back their criminal activities, despite the peace overtures by the UPA government in New Delhi and its affiliate Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, which is one of the affected states.

On the contrary, mocking at the effete dispensation that now prevails, the Naxalites have struck back with greater ferocity and matching cruelty. All 17 security personnel who were travelling in the truck that was blown up by an improvised explosive device on Saturday in Chandauli were injured in the explosion; 15 of them were later shot dead at point blank range.

The People’s War Group, based in Andhra Pradesh, and the Maoist Communist Centre, based in Bihar and Jharkhand, have claimed responsibility for the Chandauli slaughter. The previous day, they attacked a forest office in the area and killed two officials.

The same ministry of home affairs which has been actively involved in pandering to Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh has responded to the killings in Uttar Pradesh with a ’stern’ warning: ‘The challenge posed by armed activities of Naxalites shall be met firmly.’ For the killers responsible for Saturday’s dastardly massacre, the statement is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Indeed, the successive placatory steps taken by the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, with the approval of the UPA government in New Delhi, have allowed the Naxalites to regroup and revitalise their ranks. The halting of police action against Naxalites, inviting the Naxalites for talks (which they attended with arms and then returned to their bases without a by-your-leave) and the lifting of the ban on the PWG have not contributed towards ending the crime of left-extremism, but in conveying the impression that the state is now eager to mollycoddle criminals.

On the eve of the talks, which were projected as a major breakthrough, a Naxalite leader was quoted as saying: ‘By going to the talks, we are not declaring any ceasefire… Talks are a part of our tactical line. Naxalism is not a problem, it is a solution.’ If Chandauli is any indication, it indicates towards left-extremists pushing ahead with their ’solution’ with renewed vigour, perhaps not in Andhra Pradesh in the immediate future, but definitely in the other States along what is fast turning into the ‘Red Corridor.’

Starting from Andhra Pradesh, the ‘Red Corridor’ runs through eastern Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar. It links the ‘liberated zones’ of India with the Maoist held territories of Nepal. The ‘Red Corridor’ unites the left-extremists of India with their comrades in Nepal. It covers 155 districts in India, that is nearly a quarter of our national territory.

The ‘Red Corridor’ makes nonsense of any official claim, made either by state governments or the Union government, that security agencies are battling the Naxalites with full force. Its expansion at a rapid pace betrays the fact that our security agencies and their political patrons are both clueless and lacking in courage to tackle India’s enemy within.

So we have a situation that can only be defined as a serious threat to internal security. Not only are lives periled, but development is affected. As K P S Gill, who has battled many insurgencies, leading his men from the front, recently commented, it does not make sense to build roads and bridges which cannot be used for fear of death at the hands of Naxalites.

Nor does it make sense to pretend that Naxalites pose a ‘law and order problem.’ The threat from Naxalites is much more than that — they pose a challenge to India’s democratic polity and rule of law; they pose an ideological threat that questions the legitimacy of the Indian State.

Seen from the perspective of internal security, the Naxalites are fast turning into India’s ‘Fifth Columnists,’ more than willing to join hands with external forces that have been trying to undermine India’s territorial integrity and rend its social fabric. They are today’s Trojan forces.

The Naxal movement that we see today is a far cry and far removed from the Naxal movement that was born in the 1960s in Naxalbari, a remote area of West Bengal. What we saw then was the splintering of the Communists into radicals and moderates; what we are seeing now is abusing the barrel of the gun for furthering negative power politics.

In the east, India’s Naxalites have teamed up with Nepal’s Maoists to create disaffection among people of Nepalese origin who have been living for generations in Darjeeling and Dooars in West Bengal and in lower Sikkim. The purpose is to engineer a movement for ’self-determination’ which could unleash violence on a wide scale and much worse than what was witnessed during the Gorkhaland agitation.

India’s intelligence agencies have evidence to prove that Naxalites are being used by Pakistan’s ISI for drug-trafficking and pumping fake currency notes. In return, the ISI is providing the Naxalites with sophisticated weaponry and the know-how for making and using improvised explosive devices. Seized weapons and ammunition bear witness to this evidence.

Impossible and illogical as it may appear, there is also the very real possibility of the Islamic fundamentalist right and the Marxist-Leninist fundamentalist left joining hands, united by the purpose of subverting the Indian state. Soon after the arrest of Maulana Naseeruddin, one of the prime accused in the murder of Gujarat’s former home minister Haren Pandya, Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh came out in support of the Dasargah-e-Jehad-e-Shahadat’s demand for the unconditional release of the accused.

Naxalite leader Ramakrishna circulated a letter among media, demanding the suspension of police officers who permitted the arrest, filing of a criminal case against Gujarat police and a public apology. He also wanted the Naxalite-friendly Congress State government to issue a blanket order banning the police from entering Muslim houses or areas without permission.

Ironically, most of the states where Naxalite violence is on the rise is ruled by parties or alliances that are members or supporters of the UPA government in New Delhi. And, unlike the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, which now increasingly appears to be repaying a debt of gratitude for electoral support to the Naxalites, the other state governments are unwilling to seek accommodation with the far left or grants socio-political legitimacy to those who reject the very tenets of democracy and repudiate the supremacy of the Constitution of India.

Yet, for reasons best known to the Union home minister and the UPA, not a finger is being wagged at the killers for their outrageous and gory violence in which they continue to indulge with increasing impunity. Source : RSS.org

Rediff News

China, Brazil and India knock on G8 door

China, Brazil and India knock on G8 door
By Mario Osava and Thalif Deen

SAO PAULO – China, Brazil and India, three major players in the developing world, may be invited to join the ranks of the world’s most powerful group of nations, the Group of Eight (G8), according to diplomatic sources.

Although no formal decision has been reached, there are strong indications the three developing nations are potential candidates to join the privileged group. “It is only a matter of time,” a Third World diplomat told IPS. “And it is also a matter of political reality.”

Asked if there was any truth to the speculation, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told IPS: “I haven’t seen anything specific.” But he agreed that such a move would signal a broadening of political power throughout the world: “I think it is the recognition that you cannot attempt [to rule the world] – not the G8, nor a G11 or G12 could do that either, because those things have to be dealt with institutionally.”

“Let’s just say, even to tackle the tasks that will be discussed institutionally, you can no longer gather the seven richest countries, or eight counting Russia [which is an important country not for its gross national product but for other reasons]; you cannot just have those countries decide,” he said.

Also, added Amorim, today’s world is very complex and what happens in China, India or Brazil will have an impact on rich nations. If the three countries are invited, he said, “it is not to do us a favor, or recognize our importance, but it is because it is important for themselves.”

If offered membership, the three nations will follow in the footsteps of Russia, which accepted a formal invitation to join the then Group of Seven (G7) in June 2002.

The original seven, described as the world’s most industrialized nations, were the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. When the G7 extended the invitation to Russia, it was considered a personal victory for President Vladimir Putin. Although his nation had taken part in several G7 meetings, it was not a full-fledged member.

Although there is no official word as to when China, India and Brazil would be invited to join the G8, diplomatic sources predict that it is likely to happen in 2006, when Russia will host the G8 summit.

India and Brazil are also strong contenders – along with Germany and Japan – for three new veto-wielding permanent seats in the 15-member United Nations Security Council. China is already one of five permanent members – in the company of the US, Britain, France and Russia.

The proposed UN move, according to several diplomats, would dramatically change the political and economic equation on the international scene.

The possible expansion of the G8 to G11 is also being viewed as a bold diplomatic maneuver by Washington and the European Union (EU) to neutralize the growing clout of the G20 developing nations, a bloc dominated by China, India and Brazil.

The three countries are also an integral part of the 132-strong Group of 77, alongside some of the poorest of the world’s poor, including Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia, Chad and Liberia. If invited to join the G8, the three nations may be forced to leave the G77, the largest single grouping at the UN and the collective voice of the developing world.

In 1994, Mexico became the first developing nation to exit the G77 when it joined the rich nations’ club, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It was followed by South Korea in 1997. Last month, two other members, Cyprus and Malta, were forced to leave the group after they became members of the EU.

Strangely, China – a country that may soon have the world’s fourth largest economy, behind the US, Japan and Germany – is still a member of the G77. It has also long been tipped to join the G8, because of its tremendous economic clout.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan himself is ambivalent about China and whether it should be deemed a developing or a developed country. At a press conference last week for the meeting of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Annan said: “In fact, the group that is here sees China as a developing country and part of them.” But, he added, there are countries that will debate that. “And there are countries that see China very much as part of the developing world and China does have lessons for the rest of the members.”

America's losing war on goods piracy

America’s losing war on goods piracy
By Alan Boyd

SYDNEY – Washington has finally admitted what every backstreet counterfeiter in Asia has known for years: It is losing the war against the pirating of goods because no one has been taking the threat seriously enough.

A damning study by the US justice department has called for sweeping changes in investigation procedures, closer cooperation among the various enforcement agencies, and a regulatory shakeup that could lead to prosecutors being posted abroad. A six-month task force was set up in response to what the department termed an increase in “the scale, scope, and sophistication of international theft and counterfeiting”, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe.

“Given the simplicity of disseminating millions of copies of stolen software, music, video and other products and programs around the globe with a single computer click, and the inconsistent enforcement of existing laws worldwide, it is imperative that intellectual property rights be reaffirmed and vigorously protected,” the study concluded.

Critics of the US approach, found predominantly among the consumer multinationals that are the chief targets of goods piracy, have long charged that Washington relies too heavily on detection in an industry that knows no boundaries. Intellectual property theft costs manufacturers worldwide an estimated US$500 billion annually, or 7% of all international trade. Yet the US was able to seize goods worth only $64 million at its borders in the first half of this year, and $94 million in the whole of 2003.

One reason enforcement efforts are not working in the US is that there are too many enforcers. According to congressional testimony last month, almost a dozen government agencies have some jurisdiction over intellectual property rights, and they don’t always get along. Four of them – the justice department, commerce department, homeland security department and the US Trade Representative (USTR) – agreed this month to cooperate more closely through a Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP). But few believe they will succeed.

A similar initiative in 1999 that led to the creation of the inter-agency National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council (NIPLECC) was in effect stillborn because of internecine turf battles. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the congressional investigative body, testified during last month’s hearing that the NIPLECC “has struggled to find a clear mission, has undertaken few activities, and is generally viewed as having little impact”.

Loren Yeager, GAO’s director of international affairs and trade, said US efforts to strengthen foreign protection of intellectual property were being frustrated because other policy objectives, including the fight against terrorism, often took priority. Another problem is that some foreign countries “lack the political will to enforce anti-piracy laws because doing so might hurt their economic interests”, or are dissuaded by market realities such as price differences between legitimate and counterfeit goods.

The anti-terror battle may bring new impetus to the faltering campaign as enforcement agencies now acknowledge that the two threats have become interwoven because extremists are being tracked through their other illicit activities, including counterfeiting. STOP’s mandate differs from other strategies in that it will be proactive, using methodology borrowed from money-laundering probes and covert intelligence activities to target the earnings of traders of counterfeit goods and build up criminal profiles.

As with the smuggling of narcotics and weaponry, goods will be examined at source before they are shipped. They will then be audited on arrival to ensure that the importers are authorized distributors. At a legal level, the alliance wants to employ wire-tapping against suspects, foster closer cooperation with police and judicial authorities in other countries, bring more pressure on these countries during trade negotiations, and streamline extradition procedures so that counterfeiters can be tried by US courts.

Similar recommendations were issued by the justice department task force, with the added suggestion that federal prosecutors be posted at the US consulate in Hong Kong and its embassy in Budapest to coordinate enforcement efforts. “The message to the pirates and counterfeiters is simple,” said US trade representative Robert B Zoellick at the launch of STOP. “We will do everything we can to make their life miserable.”

But there are imposing legal obstacles to overcome, not least from the failure of US lawmakers to endorse international criminal statutes that would assist in the extradition and prosecution of suspects. Attorney General John Ashcroft noted in the justice department study that although Washington had signed the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, neither had been ratified by the Senate.

There are relatively few extradition treaties between the US and the leading Asian suppliers of counterfeit goods such as China, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan, leaving US agencies reliant solely on domestic criminal codes. Similarly, most Asian governments have reacted coolly to the suggestion that they allow pre-shipment cargo checks as part of counter-terrorism efforts, with only Singapore, Japan and Thailand buckling to diplomatic pressure.

In most cases, trade negotiations will remain the key weapon for getting foreign authorities on board, though it is debatable how effective these have been in influencing behavior down at the marketplace. India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea are listed on the USTR’s “Priority Watch List” for countries that could attract retaliatory measures unless they do more to stem the production of illicit goods. China, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam are being monitored for lower categories of abuse.

South Korea, the most recent addition to the Priority list, could lose access to some US markets unless it beefs up regulatory systems and enforcement procedures. The USTR said this week it might take evidence of China’s infringements to the World Trade Organization (WTO). But given the economic and strategic realities of both relationships, the agency will first have to deal with its occasional alliance partners in the commerce and state departments, which work to different agendas.

South Korea is a close security ally and the sixth largest export market for US firms, with two-way trade in goods of more than $58 billion in 2002. China, the fourth largest trade partner, had two-way transactions worth $147 billion in the same year. Diplomats say that USTR successes have often been used as an excuse for easing the screws once concessions have been secured. China was allowed into the WTO after signing an intellectual property rights pact in 1995, but its progress has since been patchy.

As technology cuts out the middleman and brings piracy right into the living room, some believe Washington should be focusing on issues closer home, such as the failure of legitimate manufacturers to install adequate technical safeguards for their products. Only the movie industry, with the evolution of tamper-proof DVDs (digital video discs), is credited with making a concerted effort to shut the pirates out. An estimated 600,000 films are downloaded illegally each day in the US, but this pales in comparison with losses elsewhere. Sales of recorded music in the US market have fallen by nearly 14% since 1999, largely because of the rise of online file-sharing programs such as Napster. In comparison to the music industry’s estimated $30 billion in annual losses, the direct copying of movies amounts to a modest $3 billion annually. Neither figure includes Internet piracy losses, due to the difficulty in getting reliable data.

“Certainly, there is a feeling that some consumer electronics manufacturers should be doing more to make their products difficult to copy before they exit the factory, such as using code insertions or other technological barriers,” said a diplomat. “What we all worry about is that the available technologies are out-sprinting the detection capability. Can you image the impact of having 200 million Chinese households with high-speed Internet downloading from audio file-sharing sites?”

India's great global takeover game

India’s great global takeover game
By Raju Bist

MUMBAI – Think of the merger and acquisition (M&A) game and immediately a number of American or European companies come to mind. But as of late, a quiet metamorphosis is taking place in Asia as Indian companies buy up their rivals and capacities abroad.

Indian firms took over more than 75 international companies last year. Among the most-publicized deals, Tata Motors, part of Tata Group, India’s oldest industrial conglomerate, bought South Korean company Daewoo’s truck plant in that country. Reliance Infocomm, belonging to India’s largest privately held business house, Reliance Group, took over Flag International, a major telecom network, for US$211 million. The deal gives Reliance access to 50,000 kilometers of fiber optic network worldwide. Software giant Wipro Ltd has acquired US-based consulting company Nerve Wire for $18.7 million even as its contemporary, Infosys Technologies, snapped up Australian software firm Expert Information Services Pty Ltd for $23 million.

Meanwhile Sundram Fasteners Ltd, an auto ancillary manufacturer based in south India, has acquired Dana Splicer Europe, the British arm of a global multinational corporation (MNC) that supplies leading automotive giants like Volvo and Scania. Pharma major Ranbaxy has purchased RPG Aventis, the French generic wing of multinational Aventis. Cadilla Healthcare has bought the formulations business of another French company, Alpharma. Mahindra Group has picked up a majority stake in California-based technology consulting and services firm Bristlecone. And Hindalco, a flagship company of the $6 billion Aditya Birla Group, has acquired two copper mines in Australia for $68 million.

In fact, the global ambitions of Indian industrial houses are best illustrated by Aditya Birla Group, which has a presence in 18 countries and overseas revenue of $1.8 billion (excluding exports of $900 million), which amounts to 30% of its total sales. The group employs 12,000 people in 20 countries. Their manufacturing activities span carbon black, tire cord, viscose staple fiber, metals and chemicals.

“Earlier, global operations for an Indian company meant plain exports. But now the definition has been expanded to denote assembly and manufacture in foreign shores,” says Tushar Jadhav, a member of the managing committee at the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce and Industry. According to information released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, last year Indian companies invested $1 billion towards marketing, production, acquisition, and even research and development abroad. Stretching back the period to 2001-2003, they acquired 120 foreign firms worth $1.6 billion.

It began with acquisitions in the information technology and related services sector. But now, the net has been spread far and wide to cover other industries too. In pharmaceuticals, Wockhardt has bought C P Pharma of the United Kingdom for $10.85 million. Tata Tea has taken over Tetley of the UK, the world’s biggest tea bag maker, for $430 million. In the process, it has become the world’s second largest tea company.

Bharat Forge, which hammers out forgings in the west Indian city of Pune, has acquired German firm Carl Dan Peddinghaus Gmbh for $28 million. A supplier to companies like BMW, Audi and Volkswagen, Carl Dan boasts of sales of Rs 6.5 billion ($144.5 million. And there’s also Amtek Auto, which acquired the UK-based GWK group. A well-known manufacturer of auto components, GWK has a turnover of more than $200 million.

Like Sundram, Bharat Forge and Amtek, a number of other Indian auto component manufacturers are in acquisition mode. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is G G Automotive Gears, a Rs 250 million company that is in negotiations to acquire an 80-year-old US company that manufactures high-precision custom gears and planetary gears.

There are two main reasons for this predatory mood. Having established a domestic presence, the component makers are now looking for an international presence. Second, having improved their productivity, quality and reliability, Indian companies feel more confident about spreading their wings abroad.

Various other factors are being attributed to this Indian penchant for the takeover game in all sectors. An upswing in manufacturing is one of them. According to T N Ninan, editor of financial newspaper Business Standard, there is no shortage of Indian companies that have slashed costs, improved productivity, mastered technology and invested in marketing. He cites specific examples to illustrate this renaissance in the manufacturing sector in India, such as the case of Kalyani Forge, which has slashed costs by 30% over the last five years. Similarly, SRF, Asia’s largest manufacturer of tirecords, has substantially cut its manufacturing costs.

Along with lower costs, there has been a marked improvement in the quality of output. And in the vanguard of companies that are waving the quality flag high is Sundram Fasteners Ltd (SFL), established in 1966 as a part of TVS Group. SFL, the largest Indian manufacturer of high tensile fasteners in India, is better known as the principal supplier of radiator caps to General Motors (GM), North America. SFL became a GM vendor in the mid-nineties. Since 1996, it has been regularly been winning GM’s “Supplier of the Year” award. It is on the urging of GM that SFL set up its China operations in May 2004 in Hainan province.

A presence abroad means easier access to new markets. This explains why TVS Group has also set up a motorcycle plant in China, Aditya Birla Group has bought up mining companies in Australia and Tata Steel has floated a subsidiary in South Africa. To illustrate further, Asian Paints, India’s largest paint company and one of the best-run companies in Asia, acquired Berger International late last year. This single move increased Asian Paints’ footprint across the globe to as many as 22 countries, stretching from the Caribbean in the West to Singapore in the East.

A changing perception about India has also helped. India is no longer a backward,Third World country in the minds of many international bankers and businessmen and this positive attitude has translated directly into a growing confidence in the Indian community to take bigger steps westwards. Helping boost the image are favorable opinions of leading international financial institutions (FI). A recent report by Goldman Sachs, for example, predicts that India will be the third biggest economy by 2050, just behind China and the US, in that order. The FI assumes that over the next five decades, the Indian gross domestic product will rise by 6% annually. This reads very well when compared to the US (1.7%).

But perhaps the biggest facilitators for Indian businessmen are the more flexible norms and terms announced by the Indian government. Late last year, then finance minister Jaswant Singh had announced that companies with a proven track record would be allowed to make acquisitions abroad in non-related areas as well as their major fields. In addition, the minister had also raised the annual ceiling of $100 million on pre-payment of external commercial borrowings. In January 2004, the government removed the $100 million cap on foreign investment by Indian companies and raised it to the net worth of the companies. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has also stipulated that local companies can raise external commercial borrowings for overseas direct investments in their joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries, including for mergers and acquisitions overseas.

R Ravimohan, managing director and chief executive officer of Crisil, vouches for this new openness, having been party to a recent takeover when his credit rating firm acquired Economatters of the UK. “The environment now is very favorable,” he has said. “It was amazing to both Crisil and the British negotiators that the RBI and the government have made our regulations so conducive to overseas acquisitions. The process was so simple that we took legal counsel to ensure that we were indeed fully compliant.”

As a direct result of such liberal regulations, Indian companies, including branches of multinationals, are now becoming more adventurous in their business forays. Thus, Alfa Laval India is examining the possibility of forming joint ventures with its Swedish parent outside India. The Indian government had announced some time back that domestic companies can invest up to 25% of their net worth in listed foreign companies which have at least a 10% stake in any listed Indian company. Alfa Laval India, which has plants in three locations, is taking this step to better utilize its reserves.

In the UK alone, Indian firms have about 440 investments/joint ventures, with India being the eighth largest investor. Last year, the top 92 Indian-American owned companies in the US generated business of $2.2 billion and provided full time employment to about 19,000 in 2002. There are 1,441 Indian companies operating in Singapore. Of these more than 450 are technology enterprises.

Having ventured abroad, some Indian companies are already leaders in their fields. Essel Propack is the world’s largest laminated tube manufacturer with a presence in 11 countries and a global marketing share of 25%. Moser Baer is the world’s second largest manufacturer of blank compact discs. Hindustan Inks has the world’s largest single stream fully integrated ink plant of 100,000 tons per annum capacity and 100%-owned subsidiaries in the US and Austria. Aditya Birla Group is the world’s largest producer of viscose staple fiber.

A spin-off of Indian companies taking the acquisition route for further growth is the trend of other corporates setting up greenfield ventures abroad. Mahindra & Mahindra is producing 10,000 tractors annually at its US subsidiary. The automotive giant is now planning similar forays in Indonesia, China, Russia and South Africa. Electrosteel Castings is setting up a finishing facility for ductile iron pipes in Spain with a capacity of 175,000 tons per annum. Hindustan Seals, manufacturer of roll on pilfer-proof closures and crown closures, is setting up manufacturing facilities in Sri Lanka, Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania and Russia. Finally, Oswal Projects is commissioning an ammonia project in West Australia with an investment of $630 million.

With economic liberalization having paved the path to prosperity, Indian companies are better equipped to take advantage of new opportunities. Many of them are sitting on piles of cash thrown up by profitable local ventures. Add to this the erosion in the values of international companies due to an ongoing global recession. More Indian companies can therefore be expected to snap up their foreign competitors in the months to come.

Israel meets South Asia: A visit of import

Israel meets South Asia: A visit of import
By Stephen Blank

On September 9, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will begin a three day visit to India. This state visit has three immediate goals for Israel and India. First of all, it is expected that the formal agreement by Israel to sell India the Phalcon AWACS system will be signed. Second, it is also expected that there will be discussions, if not announcements, of other major Israeli arms sales to India. Third, the improvement of these two governments’ bilateral relationship will also solidify ties among them and Washington, with important implications for future developments in the Middle East and South Asia.

Certainly there is the expectation of further major arms sales, such as India’s interest in the joint US-Israeli Arrow missile defense system. Israel has already sold it the accompanying Green Pine Radar system, which is in use along the border with Pakistan. Israel is also India’s second-largest supplier of weapons and Sharon’s entourage will include top Israeli defense executives, undoubtedly with an eye to future major deals. These defense deals will add to a bilateral trade that already exceeds US$1.5 billion and will probably top $2 billion in 2004.

These lucrative defense and trade relations attest to similar threat perceptions, a high degree of respect for each other’s technological capabilities and a shared desire to improve relations with each other as well as with Washington. Israel also hopes to solicit partners for its growing space and military satellite program, and India would also be a logical candidate for doing so.

Other governments have also long accepted that one way to improve ties with the United States is to engage in positive relations with Israel. Thus, India is not alone in appreciating the political value of relations with Israel and its acknowledged military-technological prowess.

President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan earlier this summer similarly came to this conclusion and announced that the time had come to consider establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. This step, a major challenge to a Pakistan, which perceives itself essentially and first of all as an Islamic state and society, naturally aroused a storm of opposition, argument and discussion within the country. Although low-level and unofficial contacts with Jerusalem have existed previously, nothing like this has ever been suggested. But now it is evidently believed that such ties are vital to Pakistan’s further interests.

According to Jane’s, Pakistani sources are very concerned about the high level of Israeli arms sales to India and hope to limit the scope of this “emerging alliance” by recognizing Israel. They evidently also hope to initiate a process of arms sales from Israel to Pakistan. Third, they hope that this move will play well in Washington and soften congressional opposition to the Bush administration’s pledges of $3 billion in aid through 2008. Israel naturally wants to establish relations with so self-consciously a Muslim country because it hopes that achieving such recognition will erode opposition to Israel in other Muslim but non-Arab or Middle Eastern states. Israeli officials also hope that recognition will allow them to gain some means of reliably monitoring Pakistan’s nuclear program and of playing a role in the strategic equation tying together the Middle East and South Asia.

Thus Israel has quietly welcomed Pakistan’s overtures and it appears that a process of gradually expanding unofficial ties between groups in both countries and a foreign dialogue will take shape until the expected formal announcement occurs. However, India has now thrown a spanner into the works. Indian sources have warned the Israeli government that arms sales to Pakistan would lead India to pull the plug on defense deals with Israel totaling several billion dollars, including the purchase of the Phalcon. While India does not object to the establishment of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Israel, it evidently fears that Pakistan will make such relations conditional on the ability to buy advanced Israeli weapons systems similar to those that it buys. For New Delhi this is intolerable and it has made its objections as clear as possible.

Thus Israel is now confronted with a dilemma if indeed Pakistani relations – a major prize for it – are conditional on arms sales, and hence the jeopardizing of its ties to India. Of course, this Israeli dilemma expresses yet again the strategic ties between South Asia and the Middle East, not the least of which has been Pakistani help for Iran’s nuclear program that Israel regards as its greatest threat.

Ironically, Iran is now almost India’s ally, a testimony to New Delhi’s adroitness in establishing strong ties with mutually incompatible players at little or no cost to its interests. The question thus becomes, can Israel imitate New Delhi or not? The answer will tell us much about the developing strategic profile of the Indo-Israeli relationship, but it will also tell us just as much about prospects for real amelioration of Indo-Pakistani relations and for the development of further strategic linkages between the Middle East and South Asia. However these issues play out, Sharon’s visit to India is a visit to watch and one with profound repercussions beyond the important issues involved in these arms sales and the overall bilateral relationship. Indeed, those repercussions will be felt across much of Asia.

US adds power to India's Israeli links

US adds power to India’s Israeli links
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON – Immediately after the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal featured an article arguing that Israel, India and Turkey were Washington’s only “allies for the long haul” in the coming war against terrorism.

While an increasingly democratic Turkey turned out to be a major disappointment (from the Washington point of view), three-way ties between Israel, India and the United States are growing fast, spurred by precisely the same forces in Washington who championed the invasion of Iraq.

That trend reached new heights when US officials confirmed last week that Washington has given the go-ahead for Israel to sell its advanced Phalcon airborne reconnaissance system to India in a deal worth some US$1 billion.

The same officials said that the administration of President George W Bush is also on the verge of approving the more-expensive sale of Israel’s Arrow anti-missile system, which was developed jointly with the US. Such a system could go far in neutralizing threats posed by Pakistani missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Both moves highlight the burgeoning alliance between the two most potent non-Islamic militaries in the Middle East and South Asia, a trend that has the enthusiastic support of Bush administration hawks, particularly in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. That alliance will again be spotlighted with next month’s scheduled visit to India by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

While Israel sees India as a comrade in the fight against Islamic militants, the US has a somewhat broader agenda to pursue with New Delhi, particularly its possible role as a counter-balance to China, which US hawks see as Washington’s strategic competitor in Asia. “India is the most overlooked of our potential allies in a strategy to contain China,” according to Lloyd Richardson of the Hudson Institute, a think tank very close to the administration.

With India determined to build a naval force capable of projecting power into the South China Sea, says Conn Hallinan, an analyst at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Washington has especially courted India’s navy, most recently with the Malabar IV joint exercises involving thousands of sailors and pilots from both countries.

Not coincidentally, some of the biggest boosters of US-Indian military ties both in and outside the Bush administration are also prominent neo-conservatives with close ties to Israel’s ruling Likud Party.

With the support of hardline officials like Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith – whose law partner is a spokesman for the settlement movement on the West Bank – a group of leading neo-conservatives have formed a new think tank, the US-India Institute for Strategic Policy, precisely to promote military ties, according to Hallinan.

Members of note are the head of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, and a founder of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Michael Ledeen. Both have promoted Indian-Israeli military ties as well. Gaffney and Ledeen, in particular, have long argued that the Pakistani military was unreliable as a US ally in the “war against terrorism” given the alleged sympathies felt by middle- and some senior-ranking officers.

Washington put on hold the Phalcon deal last year when Pakistan and India were mobilizing their forces along their common border. Tensions between the two countries have since eased considerably, and there is hope that a new peace initiative by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may yield progress.

But the fact that the deal was approved before any indication of serious forward movement in bilateral talks suggests that the more hawkish forces within the administration are winning the argument over the value of “tilting” ever more sharply in India’s direction.

It is no secret that the Pentagon, in particular, has become increasingly angry about the alleged role of Pakistan’s intelligence services in protecting Taliban and al-Qaeda forces along the border with Afghanistan, from which ever more frequent and lethal attacks against Afghan security forces and US soldiers have been launched.

Final approval of the Phalcon sale and likely approval of the Arrow sales are designed in part to demonstrate that Washington’s patience is running out, according to one administration official.

India is already the biggest customer for Israel’s sophisticated military industry, which last year ranked fifth in the world among all arms exporters, after the US, the European Union, Russia and Japan. The Phalcon and Arrow deals are likely to propel Israel even higher in the rankings over the next two years, arms experts say. Almost one half of Israel’s total military sales last year of $4.2 billion went to India.

But the deal also moves the relationship between Israel and India closer to the vision set out by the Journal back in September, 2001, of an alliance of three non-Muslim states (now, perhaps, minus Turkey) and the US in an existential battle against “Islamic terrorism” and the governments (including, presumably, Pakistan’s) that support it.

“Outside the Western world, as geographically defined,” wrote the author, editorial board member Tunku Varadarajan, “these three states are perhaps the only ones on which the US can count, virtually unconditionally, to show an immutable opposition to Islamic terrorism. Crucially, they are all situated at terrorist nodes, in a vast, seething region in which Islamic states are preponderant.”

Indeed, that vision was also echoed earlier this month with the unprecedented appearance by Vajpayee’s National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, at the gala dinner of the annual convention of the American Jewish Committee. The US, India and Israel, he said “have to jointly face the same ugly face of modern-day terrorism”, adding that “such an alliance would have the political will and moral authority to take bold decisions in extreme cases of terrorist provocation”.

Given their democratic governments, “vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity …”, Mishra said, “stronger India-US relations and India-Israel relations have a natural logic”.

The AJC announced it would soon be opening an office in New Delhi.