india
With the Games to come, 2010 looking rosy for India tourism
Sep 8th
Tourism is big business in India and according to new figures released on Wednesday, business is booming.
Despite continued warnings of the threat of militant attacks in the country and sluggish growth in international traveller numbers following the global downturn, India’s tourism numbers bucked a downfall last year to post close to double-digit growth last month, resulting in an almost $1 billion windfall for the industry.
Foreign visitors jumped 9 percent during August compared to last year, with 382,000 entries during the month. A cumulative total since January of 3,467,000 is up 9.7 percent on 2009, according to India’s Ministry for External Affairs.
For India’s hotels, restaurants, tourist sites and shops, higher visitor numbers means higher revenues — in August, revenues touched $992 million, an increase of $70 million from the same period last year.
Perhaps most encouraging for industry players, and the government’s Incredible India tourism campaign, the rise in visitors comes during a year that has seen bomb attacks and civil unrest.
In April, two bombs exploded at a cricket stadium in the southern city of Bangalore, Karnataka, injuring 17 people. That attack followed a similar bombing in the western city of Pune in February that killed nine and foreign offices around the world were moved to list India on their list of dangerous countries for travellers.
Even today, the UK’s Foreign Office warns: “There is a high threat from terrorism throughout India. Recent attacks have targeted public places including those visited by foreigners.” The U.S. State Department website carries a similar message.
In 2008, the UK and U.S. provided the most tourists to India, with 30 percent of the total number of visitors, according to government statistics.
While Wednesday’s figures are certainly worth toasting, for Delhi’s tourism industry disappointment may just be around the corner.
October’s Commonwealth Games were expected to provide a surge to the nation’s tourism industry, with some estimates predicting that up to 100,000 foreign spectators would flock to the event, filling hotels, restaurants and markets.
To date, however, the prophesied surge is more like a trickle. Just 2,000 of the 15,000-odd rooms set aside by the government for spectators have been snapped up.
Furthermore, in a strange twist, New Delhi’s traffic companies have revealed that bookings for holidays out of the capital during the games period have spiked, as residents plan to flee the inevitable chaos that will surely ensue, according to media reports.
As India’s hoteliers nervously watch and wait for the promised deluge of visitors to appear over the next few weeks, at least the tourism figures make for enjoyable reading.
BA’s Kingfisher deal ups pressure on India’s airline regulators
Sep 6th
Willie Walsh, Chief Executive of British Airways, is not afraid of conflict. Having tackled investors who have seen the airline struggle through two years of substantial losses and stared down continued industrial action from his cabin crew, he’s now set his sights on India’s civil aviation regulators.
With the ink barely dry on BA’s merger with Spain’s Iberia, the recently-announced code-share agreement with India’s Kingfisher Airlines marks the UK flagship carrier’s first tentative step into the Indian aviation market. While current rules do not permit any foreign ownership of Indian carriers, he has made it clear that reforms are needed.
“If the rules change, not just British Airways, all airlines around the world will look at the possibility to invest in Indian carriers. I have no doubt Indian carriers would welcome such foreign investment because airlines are looking at strengthening their financial position. Also, consolidation will help. We will be looking at opportunities in the future. We are sponsoring Kingfisher Airlines into Oneworld (a global grouping of airlines) because India is such an important growth market and we want to participate in this growth,” Walsh told India’s Mint newspaper in an interview.
His sentiment is clear. The code-share agreement, which begins on 15 September and will allow customers to book journeys encompassing both airlines’ networks on each other’s websites, and BA’s sponsoring of Kingfisher to join the Oneworld global airline alliance, are tentative steps in the British airline’s desired move into the Indian market.
And Kingfisher isn’t the only airline in Walsh’s targets. As the Financial Times reports, BA executives have drawn up a list of 12 carriers across the globe that they are interested in buying or merging with.
For these grand dreams of acquisition to take flight, however, Walsh knows that government regulations forbidding foreign ownership of airlines across the globe will need to be relaxed.
Next Tuesday, India’s government will study a proposal to do just that. Current indications suggest a long-standing demand to allow stakes of at least 26 percent may be considered.
BA’s Kingfisher connection and its chief executive’s timely comments may have upped the ante for next week’s meeting, but unless India’s government also straps in for take-off, Walsh’s dreams may stay grounded for now.
India offers fresh peace talks to Kashmir
Sep 5th
New Delhi has expressed its willingness to hold talks with ”any group” from Kashmir where protests against Indian rule have mounted in recent weeks and government forces have killed at least 65 people, mostly stone-throwing protesters.
The civilian deaths have fuelled anger in the disputed Himalayan region where anti-India sentiments run deep though militant violence has gone down.
“We hope to restart the dialogue process. We will talk to any group, any political party which is willing to talk to us,” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.
According to Hindustan Times, the government will soon come out with specific meaures to address some issues which may bring relief to the people of Kashmir.
A nearly three-month-long separatist strike, curfew and security lockdown has kept the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley on the boil, shutting down much of the scenic region.
“Few days means few days…government hopes that it will be able to re-start the process of dialogue in the near future,” Chidambaram said.
After several failed rounds of peace talks between moderate separatists and New Delhi in the past decade, locals say India is only buying time and is not serious about resolution of the dispute.
In 2008, the biggest anti-India protests in two decades died down and India successfully held local elections in Kashmir a few months later. New Delhi showcased the election as an endorsement of its rule over the region.
Now Kashmiri separatists have laid down five conditions to enter into dialogue or end violent protests, the worst outbreaks of anti-government violence since a separatist revolt against New Delhi broke out in 1989.
The conditions include that India must accept Kashmir as an international dispute, revoke all oppressive laws including the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which gives Indian troops wide powers to shoot, arrest and search in battling a separatist insurgency.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, the country’s main opposition, has warned New Delhi against any compromise on Kashmir and said there are indications that the government “is all set for some panic steps“.
Separatists want Kashmir’s complete freedom from India while New Delhi sees the mountainous region as an integral part of the country.
There is a gulf between their positions and New Delhi and Kashmir doubt each other’s sincerity. The two sides may find it difficult to start fresh peace talks soon and Kashmir may bleed more.
India can now follow the black money
Aug 31st
Indians love many things about Switzerland: chocolates, watches, Bollywood movie locales and secret bank accounts.
Until now.
India and Switzerland on Monday signed a pact amending the existing double taxation avoidance agreement, that will make it easier for New Delhi to gain access to information on suspect bank accounts, possibly paving the way to recovering billions of dollars in undeclared wealth.
It is anyone’s guess just how much money is stashed away in secure vaults in the scenic Alps.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which made repatriating “black money” one of its election promises last year, estimates there may be some 25,000 trillion rupees, or roughly half India’s GDP of $1 trillion, in secret Swiss accounts.
Other estimates are even higher.
A report from Global Financial Integrity last year said $23-$27 billion in illicit money left India every year in the period 2002-06; some of it to offshore financial centres, and the rest to tax havens and traditional banks including big Swiss banks.
These are not just retirement funds. Besides depriving countries of valuable resources for development, experts warn “black money” is often used to fund militants, and therefore poses a major security risk, as well.
But signing a deal to gain access to this money is one thing, assembling convincing evidence of these accounts is another.
Swiss bank UBS last year agreed to hand over details of more than 4,000 American accounts to the U.S. government for investigation of tax evasion.
But Swiss banking officials, who have long resisted pressure to open up, have already indicated India cannot simply “throw a telephone book” at Switzerland and expect ready cooperation.
What India needs to do is build strong cases against people it suspects are guilty of tax fraud and graft.
It will not be easy, as they may well include politicians and other powerful figures. But with an abysmal ranking when it comes to corruption, India has much to gain from building credible evidence against tax evaders.
India has shown serious intent with the pact; now it needs to demonstrate serious and swift action.
Gridlocked in the rush to grow
Aug 30th
Newspapers have delighted in reporting a 100km traffic jam outside Beijing could last until mid-September. Road construction is the immediate cause for the gridlock, which stretches as far as Inner Mongolia, Chinese officials have said.
For Indian commuters battling a near-daily gridlock in all the big cities, this is an ominous sign of things to come.
India is adding vehicles at an unprecedented pace, with July clocking the highest car sales on record.
China has already overtaken the United States as the biggest auto market, and Indians are splashing out on cars across segments, from the humble Nano to the uber luxury Jaguar sedan.
But India, despite its stated goal of spending some $500 billion in the five years to March 2012 and double that sum over the next five-year period, has failed to build roads to keep up.
Transport Minister Kamal Nath’s promise to build 20 km of road a day is as full of holes as Mumbai’s roads in the monsoon, and plans for improving public transport have been slow off the ground.
Delhi’s Metro is a success story, but needs to cover a far greater distance before it can take the load off the congested roads.
Mumbai’s local trains are its lifeline, but they are bursting at the seams. A Metro has been slow in coming and plans to develop the waterways for the island city have been mired in political and environmental concerns. Other big cities have faced similar issues.
Still, there is a ray of hope: a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Ahmedabad in western Gujarat state, built and launched with minimal fanfare, has captured the imagination of even its wealthy residents, and is easing congestion gradually.
The BRTS, which transports some 60,000 people daily, aims to cover some 88 km and ferry 120,000-130,000 passengers by March 2012. Countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia are studying the system, called Janmarg, or people’s way.
Indian cities are competing now to build the tallest apartments and the biggest statues; what they should be focusing on, instead, is affordable housing, public transport and sewage treatment to make them more liveable.
The McKinsey Global Institute has said India will, over the next two decades, see an urban transformation the scale and speed of which has not happened anywhere except China, with many Indian cities becoming larger than many countries today, in terms of size of population and GDP.
A cheap, efficient and scalable public transport system is essential to ensure millions are not stuck in gridlocks.
Is New Delhi working on Kashmir solution?
Aug 30th
At least 64 people have been killed across Kashmir during anti-India demonstrations, one of the worst outbreaks of unrest since a separatist revolt against New Delhi broke out in 1989.
Frequent curfews, security lockdown and separatist strikes have kept the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley on the boil, shutting down much of the region for the past two and a half months.
New Delhi has been criticised for failing to respond to violence that has wounded hundreds, closed down schools and colleges also.
But now Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, has hinted at a political solution of the crisis by New Delhi in the coming days.
“The Union government is actively working for a political solution,” Abdullah said and expressed hope that an “amicable and peaceful” settlement would not be too far off.
After several failed rounds of peace talks between separatists and the Centre in the past two decades, India will find it difficult bridging the “trust deficit” between New Delhi and Kashmir, a region seen as key to the stability of a broad zone ranging from India to Afghanistan.
Abdullah expressed hope that New Delhi will take positive steps in addressing the political issues of Kashmir in a sustained dialogue process avoiding the “re-occurrence of mistakes done in the past.”
“Kashmir issue has political genesis and it has originated with the independence of India and the birth of Pakistan. The over 60-year-old problem has become a complex one and requires sustained political efforts by all the stakeholders through a dialogue process to resolve it as per the aspirations of the people of the state,” Abdullah added.
Sentiment against New Delhi’s rule runs deep in the disputed Kashmir region, which is claimed both by India and Pakistan.
Kashmiri separatists want to carve out an independent homeland or merge with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
But New Delhi sees Kashmir as an integral part of India, key to highlighting the secular nature of the Hindu-majority nation.
Is New Delhi ready for a political solution to end the decades-old dispute over Kashmir that may encourage further demands for independence from other states, especially in its northeast region near China?
Manipur blockade highlights India’s northeast dilemma
Aug 25th
An entire state held to ransom for the past three months. And a central government that seems helpless to stop it.
Naga groups on Tuesday said they were extending for another 25 days their blockade of the two highways linking landlocked Manipur to the rest of the country.
This follows almost consecutive 20 days and 69 days of similar blockades, leaving the northeast state surviving on army-escorted supplies for the past three months.
Before a recent deployment of security forces for escorting food supplies, the state faced acute shortage of essential commodities like live-saving drugs. Petrol was priced at 200 rupees, LPG cylinders at 1,500 rupees and a kilogram of rice at 60-70 rupees.
The United Naga Council, which is leading the agitation, says the blockade is being extended because the Centre has not fulfilled their demands, which include demilitarisation of all Naga-inhabited areas.
The Nagas, who are demanding a ‘Greater Nagaland’ state which include chunks from three neighbouring states, are also angry at the home minister’s statement in parliament ruling out division of Manipur.
And therein lies the catch-22 situation for the central government.
The Nagas, who say they have never accepted India’s constitution after independence from the British, claim the right to integrate all areas inhabited by the tribe.
But any sign the Centre is giving way on the issue of a state’s territorial integrity could evoke violent protests, something that has been seen in Kashmir and Telangana.
This represents the crux of the problems plaguing the northeast, home to more than 300 ethnic groups living side by side in eight states, each competing to carve out an identity.
The lack of development and the geographical and cultural isolation of the region from the rest of the country may also further stoke unrest.
Even the media and public from the rest of the country are sporadic in their interest in the region, which is rarely in the public imagination due to its relative political and economic insignificance.
The Centre, which doesn’t look like it has a clear policy for the region even after decades of armed insurgency, still lurches from one issue to the next without really achieving any closure (the 1986 peace treaty with Mizo militants being an exception).
Is there any solution to India’s northeast dilemma?
Commonwealth Games besieged – now diseased?
Aug 24th
Plagued by endless corruption accusations, vast overspending claims and huge construction delays, you would be forgiven for thinking none of Delhi’s inhabitants were overjoyed about the city’s upcoming Commonwealth Games.
But you’d be mistaken, at least according to India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
On Sunday, he said that the construction sites for the Games, which kick off in just over 40 days, were providing perfect conditions for the city’s mosquitoes, and laying the blame for the city’s record-breaking dengue outbreak squarely with the organising committee.
“Dengue and water is strongly related. Delhi is already dug up because of the Games and it is also raining heavily. Since water remains accumulated in many places, it becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which are contributing to diseases,” Azad told reporters.
Throwing salt in the organisers’ wounds was his thinly-veiled accusation that had the work been completed on schedule, and the construction completed before the monsoon weather arrived, this year’s outbreak of the deadly virus could have been avoided.
The embarrassing issue for the much-maligned organising committee is that he may well have a point.
Across the city, pits and troughs scattered around uncompleted Games venues have filled with rainwater during the recent monsoon downpours, providing the dengue-spreading Aedes mosquito with perfect breeding grounds.
This year’s count of dengue victims in the city — currently totalling 434 — represents a huge rise from 3 last year and 55 in 2008. But do two swallows make a summer?
Indeed, a spiralling dengue victim count needs a scapegoat, and what better culprit than the Games, which is already disliked by many of the city’s residents.
But Azad’s timing is intriguing. Recently, his government has slowly become engulfed in the Games’ bad publicity, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appearing to step in last week in an attempt to provide relief to Suresh Kalmadi, the Chairman of the Organising Committee.
Whether or not his comments are true, or indeed supported by his party, Delhi is anxious to be rid of the outbreak before the high-profile event begins in October.
City administrators, who are hard at work with fogging machines to prevent mosquito breeding in danger areas, said this week that none of their employees would get time off until the monsoon season concludes, while mobile vans have been laid on to rush victims to 24-hour dedicated hospitals.
According to an advertisement published by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, 6,125 people have been prosecuted this season for allowing water stagnation to occur on their property.
Following Azad’s comments, perhaps prosecutors will make a visit to Kalmadi’s office in the coming weeks. Until then, Delhi’s love-hate relationship with the Commonwealth Games rumbles on.
Is the Commonwealth Games to blame for Delhi’s dengue problem?
Filling the gap one brick, one hospital bed at a time
Aug 20th
Two stories this week stand out as examples of how entrepreneurs in India are doing what the government and the private sector have largely failed to do.
One is on housing, the other on healthcare, hot-button topics in India, which is struggling to house and heal its 1.1 billion population even as it gallops toward double-digit growth.
Various state governments and real estate firms have made lofty promises of “affordable housing”, but few have delivered.
One man is determined to show he can. Entrepreneur Jaithirth “Jerry” Rao, who headed software firm MphasiS, this week launched a project in Bangalore to build 1,900 homes that will be priced at 450,000 – 1 million rupees (roughly $9,500 – $21,000) each.
Rao’s Value and Budget Housing Corp – floated with a former Citibank colleague – will use lightweight aluminium beams and cast-on-site technology to cut costs.
Top mortgage lender HDFC will provide housing finance for the project, which will be replicated in cities including Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, the NCR and Navi Mumbai, which are more often in the news for luxury residential projects looking to outdo Dubai.
Rao’s project comes on the heels of a similar one launched by entrepreneur Ramesh Ramanathan’s Janaadhar Constructions, which is building more than 500 homes priced at 500,000 rupees or less.
A similar model of professionals coming together to start a venture — this time for affordable healthcare — was also in the news this week.
A team that includes the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board, a former CEO of IL&FS and a former civil servant plans to set up a rural hospital network of about 2,000 hospitals to provide primary and secondary care at less than what rural Indians pay today, just over 1,000 rupees a year.
These initiatives are impressive not just in that they are largely born of the dreams and ambitions of one person or a group of not-so wealthy individuals determined to make a change.
They also address obvious, pressing needs.
A lack of affordable housing means India has the largest urban slum population in Asia; Mumbai for instance, boasts some of the priciest real estate in the world but 60 percent of its residents are homeless or live in slums.
Similarly, while India is a desired destination for medical tourism for expensive cosmetic surgeries, it has just 0.7 hospital beds and 0.6 doctors per 1,000 people, well below the world average.
With an estimated shortfall of some 20 million urban housing units and a healthcare system that falls short of meeting even basic demand, initiatives like these are perhaps just a drop in the ocean.
But they are a start, nevertheless.
The Mongol Rally: Return to the Desert
Aug 16th
We left Almaty feeling refreshed and ready for the road ahead, knowing we would face another tough stint on the open and deserted roads of Kazakhstan.
Unlike the low-lying desert basin of Central Kazakhstan, the northern and eastern regions gently rise up to a high altitude plateau that extends east into Russia, China and Mongolia. The grass here was longer and greener and gentle hills were faintly visible in the distance.
We were heading for a town called Semey, about 1,000 miles away on the border with Russia. We were nearing the 6,000 mile mark in our journey – two thirds of the way to Mongolia – and our car was beginning to struggle.
The treacherous terrain was taking its toll and over the next two days we limped from one mechanical challenge to the next. About 155 miles outside Almaty, the condition of the roads sharply deteriorated, becoming virtually unusable.
The gravel surface in between stretches of badly ruptured asphalt reduced our progress to less than 10 miles per hour and we swerved and skidded to avoid giant potholes that could have engulfed both front wheels of the car. It felt like the car would shake itself apart.
On our map we could see no towns nearby where we could seek help or buy spare wheels. We had not passed any traffic all day and 93 miles later, we were exhausted and beginning to worry about our progress.
The next day saw no improvement in the condition of the roads and we struggled on at a crawl. After several hard knocks against lurking potholes we started to hear a heavy, dull metallic thud coming from the belly of the car.
The sound was unnerving. We stopped to check our luggage, we checked the engine for leaks and broken parts, we checked to see if the exhaust had come loose but could not locate the source of the thumping.
It took us some time to realize that our rear suspension springs had snapped. The car was simply unable to withstand the impact of so many potholes.
We needed to repair the suspension urgently, but it was getting dark and we didn’t know where we were. The only sign of habitation we saw all day was a ghost town, completely abandoned.
We decided the best option was to set up camp and wait for daylight.