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India aims to be global power: 21st century belongs to rapidly growning nation, leaders say
Billings Gazette ^ | January 23, 2004 | Chicago Tribune

Posted on 01/25/2004 3:23:52 PM PST by VinayFromBangalore

NEW DELHI - The advertisements are everywhere, on television, in newspapers and in magazines. "India Shining," the slogan proclaims, over pictures of happy-faced people talking on their cell phones, going shopping and reading newspapers trumpeting the latest good news about the booming economy.

"India is awakening to a new dawn," croons the voice on the TV ads. "Our dreams were small, but now anything is possible. Across India, you can feel a new radiance."

The advertisements don't mention the hundreds of millions of Indians who can't read newspapers, let alone afford a television set, and the campaign has drawn criticism from social activists for overlooking the country's chronic poverty.

But the ads, soon to be broadcast globally, nonetheless capture the spirit of a rapidly changing India that is starting to redefine its image, to itself and to the world.

India asserts aspirations

Buoyed by a surging economy, an expanding network of international relationships and the prospect of peace with Pakistan, a newly confident India is asserting its aspirations to become a global power, as a nuclear-armed nation and as a potential market of 1 billion people.

"If the 20th century belonged to the West, the 21st century will belong to India," the deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, told an audience recently to loud applause.

"Our short-term objective is to become a developed nation, like Singapore or Taiwan," he added. "Our long-term goal is to be on a par with America."

For a country in which per capita income averages less than 2 percent of America's, that is a bold objective. India has declared itself on the threshold of greatness on several previous occasions, only to see its hopes dashed on the realities of the country's choking bureaucracy, its crumbling infrastructure and its vast legion of about 300 million impoverished people.

Yet the fact that some Indians are daring to dream of superpowerdom is an indicator of the country's new mood, said C. Raja Mohan, professor of South Asian studies at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"For the first time in 45 years we've gone from saying, 'We're a Third World developing country,' to saying, 'We're going to be a developed nation and a great power,' " Mohan said. "It's a fundamental shift in terms of perceiving who we are and what we can do."

Economy fuels confidence

Much of the confidence stems from a flurry of good news on the economy. Foreign-exchange reserves passed the $100 billion mark in December; the stock market has soared more than 70 percent in the past year; and growth reached a sizzling 8.4 percent in the third quarter of 2003, making India one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

The growth can be attributed partly to one of the most favorable monsoon seasons in years, giving a boost to the farmers who still account for 70 percent of the labor force.

But as U.S. and European companies continue to shift jobs to India by the thousands, India's expanding middle class also is lifting growth by splurging on cars, apartments, appliances, clothes and vacations.

Indian companies, until recently dismissed as inefficient losers, are emerging as world leaders in such fields as information technology and pharmaceuticals. Over the past year they have moved aggressively into the global market for the first time, acquiring more than 40 foreign companies in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The new confidence also is finding expression in India's relationships with the wider world. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has pushed to mend fences with rival China, initiating talks to end a 40-year cold war along the two nations' disputed Himalayan border since their 1962 war.

Most significantly, after leading India to the brink of war with Pakistan in 2002, Vajpayee now has extended a "hand of friendship" that is expected to lead to peace talks next month.

"There was this dawning realization by the Indians that they couldn't accomplish their global ambitions unless they first made peace with Pakistan," said Shireen Mazari, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies based in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The global recognition that India craves is starting to come. The United States, Iran, Israel and Russia are among the many nations upgrading their relationships with India. President Bush promised earlier this week to open cooperation with India in space, nuclear and high technology, fields that are crucial to India's ambitions to become a technology powerhouse.

Once regarded as worryingly close to the Soviet Union and suspiciously socialist in its policies, India now is being hailed by Washington as a "strategic partner" that could one day provide a useful counterweight to the emerging might of China.

"There is an assessment that Indian power over many fronts is growing steadily and that other countries must develop a working relationship with it," said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, who predicted the rise of India in a 2001 book.


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: india; pakistan; southasia
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To: RightWhale
Can India compete for oil with China?

Err, they do have a growing navy and they can control the oil flows through the Mid East through the Malacca Straits to China.
21 posted on 01/26/2004 4:32:34 AM PST by Cronos (W2004!)
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To: risk
They really are in the Anglosphere despite the many contradictions even among the lefty intellectuals, language being one factor and an illfated predilection to Fabian Socialism, but, hey, that's an Anglo thing to.

Not to mention sports, the Commonwealth kind, cricket, (field) hockey, tho the subcontinent doesn't seem to have taken to rugby the way the old Dominions have.

And what the English do without Indian food in the Realm. Reconquer India again, I suppose.
22 posted on 01/26/2004 8:54:48 AM PST by swarthyguy
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To: risk
They really are in the Anglosphere despite the many contradictions even among the lefty intellectuals, language being one factor and an illfated predilection to Fabian Socialism, but, hey, that's an Anglo thing too.

Not to mention sports, the Commonwealth kind, cricket, (field) hockey, tho the subcontinent doesn't seem to have taken to rugby the way the old Dominions have.

And what the English do without Indian food in the Realm. Reconquer India again, I suppose.
23 posted on 01/26/2004 8:55:01 AM PST by swarthyguy
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To: swarthyguy; Atlantic Friend; Michael81Dus
Patriots for freedom have to stick together across borders. The American Revolution is an international one! We can't claim it by race or by religion. We can claim it based on our intrinsic humanity, however. And we will together. And damn those who would take that away from any of us.
24 posted on 01/26/2004 9:00:42 AM PST by risk
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To: zarf
Solutions to India's horrendous poverty will not be solved by capitalism. The religious caste system is an appalling deformity that will forever keep masses of people shitting on the side of the roads and living in vast urban squalor.

Actually, economic freedom is the only chance they have to overcome this historical burden. Software companies can't afford to care what caste you're from; only politicians can gain from emphasizing that. This is why Indian politics is more and more defined around caste and ethinicity, even as modern Indian businesses, many of them very young, are far more integrated.

The only color that matters in business is green, which is why "capitalism" is the best chance India has to do what fifty years of aggressive affirmative action have failed to do. It's the avoidance of economic freedom all these years that has made these problems so intractable, IMHO. Fortunately that is starting to change.

25 posted on 01/26/2004 9:06:51 AM PST by untenured
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To: risk
Patriots for freedom have to stick together across borders.

BUMP!

26 posted on 01/26/2004 12:57:40 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: Michael81Dus
Hey, we heard reports of German troops (police, army, etc...) lining up to pay tribute to American wounded coming in from Iraq during the first part of the war. Was that story true, and are there news reports we can link to?
27 posted on 01/26/2004 1:28:49 PM PST by risk
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To: risk
http://www.andreas-fecker.de/friendship/ramstein.htm
http://www.lajes.af.mil/newspaper/0017-May2-03.pdf
http://www.talkingproud.us/Military052303.html
http://www.house.gov/petri/weekly/apr18_03.htm

Yep, this story is true. :-)
28 posted on 01/26/2004 1:39:33 PM PST by Michael81Dus
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To: VinayFromBangalore; John Robinson
Maybe we could benefit from having the spellchecker toggle on when a post is first made.
29 posted on 01/26/2004 2:02:02 PM PST by Old Professer
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To: jonatron
point taken.

The French are idiots.
30 posted on 01/26/2004 5:28:46 PM PST by PokeyJoe (This tagline got outsourced to India.)
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To: Michael81Dus; Atlantic Friend; tictoc; ALOHA RONNIE; tet68; SAMWolf; American in Israel; ...
> [links in ] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1065089/posts?page=28#28

When I first heard about this story of tribute being paid to our Iraqi wounded, I was relieved in so many ways. The Deutche Welle news here had been so anti-American during the first days of the war (or so I felt, being quite on the defensive myself). German protests were very loud, and Schroeder had my teeth on edge. I still hear a lot of European popular music over the Internet that strikes me as anti-American, which doesn't help.

Why would this event give me such satisfaction? Let me explain. The thought struck me that no matter how hostile German "greens," socialists, or even Nazis, heaven forbid -- we imagine all sorts of things when we hear about anti-semitic graffiti and violence in east Germany -- become, when all is said and done the German soldier, police officer, and special forces troops will stand with America. In other words, what is there to really fear.

German political leadership might fail, but they will have no currency with the soldiers this time. I suspect the same is true of the French military, which has fought with us in Indochina, as well as (presumably) many other secret locations around the world since WWII.

Once again, soldiers of the free world will be our bullwark against tyranny.
31 posted on 01/26/2004 7:00:56 PM PST by risk (Live free or die.)
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To: risk
Bump
32 posted on 01/26/2004 7:25:21 PM PST by SAMWolf (I am Shakespeare of Borg. Prepare to be, or not to be)
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To: SAMWolf; Michael81Dus; Atlantic Friend
Japan's commitment of troops to Iraq, and this gesture by Germany's troops are the best signs that the allies completely won WWII that I've seen yet.
33 posted on 01/26/2004 10:44:58 PM PST by risk
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To: risk
Very true.
34 posted on 01/27/2004 4:27:20 AM PST by Michael81Dus
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