India's transition from Receiver to Donor of Foreign Aid
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Amid slowdown, India ramps up aid for neighbours
Mar 18, 2012
NEW DELHI: A difficult economic situation notwithstanding, India will be stepping up its assistance programme to its neighbouring countries in the coming fiscal.
The biggest chunk of India's assistance programme is reserved for Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bhutan that are provided for in the 12th five-year Plan. But under the non-plan head, Bhutan takes the largest chunk with a combined loan-grant amount of Rs 1,500 crore. Bhutan has traditionally been the largest recipient of Indian aid, with massive hydro-electric projects being covered in the Plan expenditure. :thumb:
Afghanistan and Myanmar are big recipients, both strategically vital for India's security and economic interests. India has invested heavily in infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including roads, parliament buildings and capacity building for the Afghans in various fields. India also runs the biggest children's hospital in Kabul. :thumb:
However, recently, India won the Hajigak iron ore mines that will necessitate building several roads connecting the mines to border points. A new component of India's aid package to Afghanistan is in the security sector. As a result of the strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan last year, India is committed to training and equipping Afghan national security forces. This will include training programmes, to be mainly held in India.
New Delhi is building a multi-modal transport system in Myanmar that could also serve to improve trade with the country that India now regards as the gateway to south-east Asia.
Other countries that will continue to receive Indian aid this fiscal is Sri Lanka, where India has invested in rehabilitation and rebuilding programmes in the north, railway lines and oil terminals as well as building houses for the internally displaced persons from the Tamil regions. Bangladesh also takes a sizeable chunk of Rs 250 crore after the PM announced a $1-billion credit line for the country in 2010.
Bafflingly, the government spends a minuscule amount for "energy security" in the MEA, but it's so small that it's unclear what this would be used for. Equally strangely, Mongolia gets Rs 2 crore this year from India, but the reason for that remains unclear.
Amid slowdown, India ramps up aid for neighbours - Times Of India
India Gives Financial Aid to War-Ravaged SL Businesses
-APR 11, 2013
India today extended financial grants to businesses in northern Sri Lanka, ravaged by the nearly three-decade-long civil war, to promote economic development and prosperity in the country.
Additional Secretary of the Indian External Affairs Ministry P S Raghavan visited the former stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Kilinochchi to award grants to some 1,233 small and medium scale businesses. :thumb:
"The government of India will be with you in your economic development and prosperity", Raghavan, part of a team of officials here with a 5-member Indian parliamentary delegation, told the gathering.
The 1,233 businesspersons received cash grants ranging between Sri Lankan rupees 50,000-200,000 based on the scale of devastation suffered by them due to military clashes between the government troops and the LTTE.
Revathi Robert, whose medicine retail store was destroyed in the war, said although her loss was quite large, she could now rebuild her business with the Indian grant assistance.
India and Sri Lanka have also agreed to resume the ferry service between Rameshwaram and Talaimannar in north Sri Lanka within the next two months, Raghavan said.
The service was suspended in 2012.
Raghavan said that building of two railway tracks to link Talaimannar with Pallai in Jaffna and the building of 50,000 homes are two key Indian assistance-funded projects in the north.
India will also fund the commissioning of a factory to process palmyra-related products.
India Gives Financial Aid to War-Ravaged SL Businesses | news.outlookindia.com
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look, remittances to India is hardly around $30billion from US+EU, check, and it is from those high qualified professionals who run US's industries, to help them have high technologies and these industries not only employ low skilled/unskilled local civilians but also these firms pay very high taxes to the US's government from the business they do by using these High Qualified migrants, mainly Indians, who are cream of their society, and migrated there under "Demand List Category" for a better future. and hence they are involved in building US's society/economy this way :tup:
at the same time, we do know that most of the companies as below are Western, so this way you get at least half of your $30billion remittances back to US+EU again this way. have fun :cheers:
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India increases aid to Sri Lanka[/B]
CHENNAI: Even as the anti-Sri Lanka mood in Tamil Nadu is getting more belligerent, the Centre has increased its annual grant to the island nation in the Union Budget. The allocation has gone up to Rs 500 crore for 2013-2014 from Rs 290 crore last year. It was Rs 181.94 crore in 2011-2012. The Budget has allocated Rs 5,550 crore as aid for foreign governments and organizations.
The grants for Sri Lanka are meant for rehabilitation of internally displaced Tamils, but parties in Tamil Nadu have accused the government there of diverting the Indian aid for other purposes. The issue could be raised again with the two main Dravidian parties, the ruling AIADMK and the opposition DMK, using it to corner the UPA government. The move comes at a time when political parties in the state have stepped up their offensive against the Lankan government for alleged war crimes.
Recently, UK's Channel 4 had released pictures allegedly showing Balachandran, son of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, minutes before and after he was killed towards the end of the decades-long civil war in 2009. Former Indian ambassador to Italy K P Fabian pointed out that increasing the grant to Sri Lanka was important. "It is not only in the interest of Sri Lanka. It is also in our interest. The Indo-Sri Lanka relationship is important." Sri Lanka should also understand that there is a growing international concern about the manner in which it has dealt with the Tamil question, he said.
Under the non-plan category, the Indian government has proposed to donate Rs 4,143 crore to various foreign governments and organizations, besides Rs 1,406 crore under the plan category to Afghanistan, Bhutan and Myanmar. But unlike 2012-13, when the government allocated Rs 550 crore to Bhutan and Maldives, in the budget for 2013-14, there is no loan component to any country and all the money is treated as grant alone.
Prof V Suryanarayana, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies, said India has committed to help the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka in recent years. "Housing scheme and other development projects have been announced by the Indian government with the good intention of helping Tamils," Suryanarayana told TOI. But most of the projects have been getting delayed due to 'non-cooperative attitude' of the Sri Lankan government, he said. "For instance, housing for internally displaced Tamils have been delayed due to non-allotment of land by the local government," Suryanarayana said.
He also pointed to the speedy progress of Chinese projects in Sri Lanka. "The projects of the Chinese government are being completed quickly with the co-operation of the Sri Lankan government," he said.
In another strategic move, the Centre has increased grants for all the neighboring countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The Indian government has not allocated any aid for Pakistan for the last three years. "It is important for India to promote development in its neighbourhood in SAARC region as well as African nations. Allocating funds to neighbours is not to compete with China. In our own foreign policy, we have expanded system of technical and financial assistance in recent years," said Fabian.
India increases aid to Sri Lanka - Times Of India
CHENNAI: Even as the anti-Sri Lanka mood in Tamil Nadu is getting more belligerent, the Centre has increased its annual grant to the island nation in the Union Budget. The allocation has gone up to Rs 500 crore for 2013-2014 from Rs 290 crore last year. It was Rs 181.94 crore in 2011-2012. The Budget has allocated Rs 5,550 crore as aid for foreign governments and organizations.
The grants for Sri Lanka are meant for rehabilitation of internally displaced Tamils, but parties in Tamil Nadu have accused the government there of diverting the Indian aid for other purposes. The issue could be raised again with the two main Dravidian parties, the ruling AIADMK and the opposition DMK, using it to corner the UPA government. The move comes at a time when political parties in the state have stepped up their offensive against the Lankan government for alleged war crimes.
Recently, UK's Channel 4 had released pictures allegedly showing Balachandran, son of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, minutes before and after he was killed towards the end of the decades-long civil war in 2009. Former Indian ambassador to Italy K P Fabian pointed out that increasing the grant to Sri Lanka was important. "It is not only in the interest of Sri Lanka. It is also in our interest. The Indo-Sri Lanka relationship is important." Sri Lanka should also understand that there is a growing international concern about the manner in which it has dealt with the Tamil question, he said.
Under the non-plan category, the Indian government has proposed to donate Rs 4,143 crore to various foreign governments and organizations, besides Rs 1,406 crore under the plan category to Afghanistan, Bhutan and Myanmar. But unlike 2012-13, when the government allocated Rs 550 crore to Bhutan and Maldives, in the budget for 2013-14, there is no loan component to any country and all the money is treated as grant alone.
Prof V Suryanarayana, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies, said India has committed to help the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka in recent years. "Housing scheme and other development projects have been announced by the Indian government with the good intention of helping Tamils," Suryanarayana told TOI. But most of the projects have been getting delayed due to 'non-cooperative attitude' of the Sri Lankan government, he said. "For instance, housing for internally displaced Tamils have been delayed due to non-allotment of land by the local government," Suryanarayana said.
He also pointed to the speedy progress of Chinese projects in Sri Lanka. "The projects of the Chinese government are being completed quickly with the co-operation of the Sri Lankan government," he said.
In another strategic move, the Centre has increased grants for all the neighboring countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The Indian government has not allocated any aid for Pakistan for the last three years. "It is important for India to promote development in its neighbourhood in SAARC region as well as African nations. Allocating funds to neighbours is not to compete with China. In our own foreign policy, we have expanded system of technical and financial assistance in recent years," said Fabian.
India increases aid to Sri Lanka - Times Of India
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Can India 'Fix' Afghanistan? - NY Times
June 7, 2012
As the United States winds down its military engagement in Afghanistan, optimism is growing about the role India can play to stabilize and develop the country.
This week, visiting United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta encouraged Indian leaders to take a more active role in Afghanistan, involvement once considered by the United States as merely an opportunistic way for India to antagonize Pakistan.
The United States' encouragement is hardly needed. India plans to "intensify" its already "high level political engagement and broad-based development assistance in a wide range of sectors," India's minister for external affairs, S.M. Krishna, told Afghanistan's visiting foreign minister, Zalmai Rassoul, in a speech in New Delhi last month. With assistance from Europe and the United States expected to drop substantially, India may be left as one of Afghanistan's most prominent aid partners.
Here on India Ink, we have been asking: Does this make any sense? On first glance, at least, India seems an unlikely provider of development assistance because of the serious issues troubling it at home. Many of the same things that Afghanistan needs, from infrastructure to education, India is having troubles providing for many citizens, even without the regular threat of attacks from the Taliban.
India's state-run power industry struggles to get enough fuel thanks to mismanagement and bureaucracy, even its brightest youth can't land a spot at a good university and about third of its citizens live in destitute poverty, with hundreds of millions malnourished. The current central government is grappling with a growing deficit, shrinking economic growth and an increasingly dissatisfied voter base.
It's no surprise that India's Afghanistan plans have been greeted with some skepticism.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," said Rajeev Malik, an economist at CLSA, a research and brokerage house, who has been a sharp critic of India's fiscal policy and government. "India has not managed to fix these issues itself," he said, but added that the country "probably has more experience than Afghanistan."
India's on-the-ground aid record, though limited, has been decent.
India has committed some $2 billion in aid to Afghanistan, of which $1 billion has been spent, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. Indian public and private companies have built a highway to Iran, put up transmission lines to bring power to Kabul, are constructing a new Parliament building and working on a hydro-electric project in western Afghanistan.
India sent one million tons of high-protein biscuits to Afghanistan, and plans to follow that with an additional 250,000 tons this year. There are 1,000 Afghan students on scholarships in Indian universities right now.
More ambitious plans are in place. In October of last year, when Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, visited India, the two countries signed a strategic agreement that said India would train and equip Afghan security forces. This month, India is holding meetings for regional investors interested in Afghanistan in New Delhi.
Invitees include Turkey, China and Pakistan. Over a dinner in May in New Delhi, Mr. Rassoul told Indian government advisers Afghanistan would like India to concentrate on building up governance, law courts and health care.
"We don't want a fundamentalist Afghanistan, just like everyone else," explained Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, in a recent interview. "We don't want an Afghanistan that slides backward."
The two countries share ties cemented long ago, he said, citing the well-known Rabindranath Tagore story "Kabuliwala," about an Afghan fruit seller who befriends an Indian girl. India has a limited physical presence on the ground in Afghanistan, he said, which should quell concerns that India is focused on containing or antagonizing Pakistan. "What do we have in Afghanistan that is a threat to Pakistan?," he asked rhetorically.
India's aid to Afghanistan comes without any conditions, unlike aid to India from foreign countries in the past, he said. India is not pressuring the Afghanistan government to improve, say, education for girls, or rights for women, but is focusing on infrastructure and other concrete projects, he said.
India's projects in Afghanistan are "replicas of what India has been able to successfully implement in some part of India or the other," said Mr. Akbaruddin. "They have been incubated in some part of India."
Staunch supporters of India's involvement say sheer practicality of the alliance makes it work.
"Today the average Afghan knows that for many of the things that would lead to an improved quality of life, India offers the most viable option," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a security analyst based in New Delhi.
To explain, he offered an example: The quality of higher education in Britain or the United States or Australia might be better than in India, he said, but most Afghans can't afford Western universities, and if even they could, they probably wouldn't get a visa to go anyway.
Much of what is on Afghanistan's "wish list" can be "enabled in a considerable degree by India," Mr. Bhaskar said. President Karzai himself attended an Indian university, doing his postgraduate studies at Himachal Pradesh University, in Shimla.
Others note that the "aid" relationship is not new. "People forget this has been going on quietly for a long time," said K. Shankar Bajpai, a former ambassador to China, Pakistan and the United States, who is now an analyst with Delhi Policy Group. For six decades, India was "very much engaged" in Afghanistan, working on everything from building tunnels through the mountains of the Hindu Kush to education and health programs.
Recently, the two countries have built up a "friendly relationship without some of the imperial hang-ups that spoiled Delhi and Kabul's relationship in the past," he said. In a sign of this friendliness, in March, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Mr. Karzai to congratulate him on the birth of his daughter.
Another factor to consider is that while India's development problems weigh heavily on the country's poor and middle class, facilities for the wealthy in India are often world class. Many of Afghanistan's wealthy are already beneficiaries, and these upper-class industries and ties are only expected to grow.
Take health care: India's private hospitals, and especially those in New Delhi, serve as de facto doctors' offices for wealthy Afghans, who are just a two-hour flight away. Hospitals like Max Healthcare's giant facility in Saket have special facilitators for Afghan patients who come for everything from in vitro fertilization treatments to heart trouble, doctors say. Often, their Afghan patients pay in crisp United States dollar bills.
On the other end of the economic spectrum, at least one Indian charity has also been successful in Afghanistan.
The Self Employed Women's Association(SEWA), which starts women's self-help groups, has been running vocational training programs in Afghanistan since 2008, teaching women to make jam and sew clothing, among other skills. The group said it has trained 3,000 Afghan women so far, despite two fatal terrorist attacks on the team in Kabul. The women, who are often orphans or widows, use the training to earn an income outside their home.
Whether the ambitious plans in industries like mining and manufacturing will work out remains to be seen. In November, a consortium of public and private Indian companies, led by the state-owned Steel Authority of India, won a bid to mine in three states in Afghanistan, which includes the construction of a six million-ton steel plant, an 800-megawatt power plant and 200 kilometers each of road, rail and transmission lines – as well as a pledge to set aside one percent of profits for establishing educational and medical facilities.
"We are very bullish about this," the chairman of SAIL said when the deal was announced. Total investment by the Indian companies is pegged at $10.8 billion. :thumb:
The big numbers, heavy-duty infrastructure plans and optimistic outlook are a stark contrast to SAIL's India performance. In February, SAIL said quarterly profits fell by more than 40 percent from the same period the year before, thanks in part to higher raw material costs and SAIL's inability to get coal from another state-owned company.
Can India 'Fix' Afghanistan? - NYTimes.com
India's growing stake in Afghanistan
28 June 2012
India is flexing its soft power muscles this week by hosting an international investment conference on Afghanistan, barely a week before another global gathering in Tokyo to pledge aid. The BBC's South Asia correspondent Andrew North examines the deepening ties between India and Afghanistan.
On a recent flight from Kabul to Delhi none of the Afghan passengers were surprised when take-off was delayed.
Business class was still empty. Some VIPs must be running late, they concluded.
They were right, except the late arrivals turned out to be very important policemen - among them a colonel - severely injured in another insurgent assault on Kabul.
It is quicker to fly to next-door Pakistan. But when officials like this need help, Afghanistan would rather trust its old friend India to look after them.
Battle for influence
Encouraged by the US and its Nato allies as they prepare to retreat in 2014, India and Afghanistan are deepening their ties, to the frustration of their neighbour sandwiched in-between.
The two states signed a strategic partnership last year, which among other things promises more Indian help in building up Afghan security forces.
More than 100 Afghan officers are already attending Indian military colleges, with the number set to rise.
In effect, the next round of the age-old battle for influence in Afghanistan has begun.
India is watching closely the actions there of its huge northern rival China, which has secured rights to vast copper deposits.
The Indian government is keen to emphasise the soft power side of its strategy, such as Thursday's gathering at a plush Delhi hotel aimed at attracting more foreign investment into Afghanistan.
"Let the grey suits of businessmen take the place of the olive green fatigues of soldiers and generals in Afghanistan," Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna told a conference hall filled with would-be investors.
In financial terms, India is already one of the biggest players in Afghanistan.
It has pledged or spent some $2bn (£1.3bn) worth of aid over the last decade to build roads, power stations and even the Afghan parliament.
'New silk road'
India has been rewarded with rights to mine Afghanistan prime iron ore reserves.
It is state companies who are leading the way so far though.
Private investors at the conference seemed to be doing more window-shopping rather than being ready to invest - with many nervous about events after the Nato pull-out.
But for Indian companies there is an open door, from the Afghan street to the presidential palace.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai did his university studies in India and speaks Hindi.
Walk through central Kabul and you soon lose count of the number of places selling Indian music and movies.
While you never hear a good word about Pakistan, you rarely hear a bad one about India.
Afghan officials at the Delhi meeting were talking of a "new silk road" between the two countries, even though Commerce Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi admits Afghanistan is still "one of the riskiest places in the world to do business".
But go to a private Delhi hospital and you see a new kind of silk road already emerging, with a boom in Afghan medical tourism.
It is not just security personnel coming for specialist care, but thousands of other Afghans for routine operations.
Some hospitals now have separate reception desks with staff speaking the two main Afghan languages to handle the numbers.
As most Afghan patients pay with wads of crisp dollars, the hospitals want them to keep coming.
Locals in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar district, where many Afghan medical tourists stay, joke it should be renamed "Little Kabul".
The connections between the two nations are set to get physical, if a recently signed deal to pipe gas 1,700km (1,056 miles) from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to India goes ahead.
India's state gas company is one of the leaders of a consortium trying to persuade global investors to stump up $7.6bn (£5bn) for the so-called TAPI pipeline later this year.
It is a rebirth for an old idea which US companies tried to get the Taliban to sign up to before 9/11 - and with the route by-passing Iran, the Americans are encouraging it again.
With the obvious security challenge of trying to lay and protect a pipeline not just across Afghanistan - but also the troubled Pakistani province of Balochistan - the project has been derided by some in India as, well, a pipe dream which leaves Delhi beholden to its old enemy Pakistan.
There are fears it will only increase the risks India faces in Afghanistan.
It has already lost diplomats in bomb attacks on its in Kabul embassy - attacks India says were carried out by Pakistani-backed groups.
Getting in deeper only inflames India-Pakistan tensions, some argue.
Strategic self-interest
Why does not India just get out and leave "Af to Pak" asked a column by Shekhar Gupta, the influential editor of the Indian Express.
Foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akrabuddin says India's presence is about its own strategic self-interest.
"Afghanistan is in our neighbourhood and there is a history of Afghan soil being used for terror attacks on India. We can't have that again," he said.
The truth is that few Indians pay much attention to their government's policy in Afghanistan.
If they consider the country at all, they think of it as a place of suicide attacks.
But there is a kinder image too, from the Kabuliwalla story taught in many Indian schools - about a poor Afghan who comes to Calcutta to work to pay off his debts and befriends a young girl.
The many Afghans coming to India for medical treatment or business are showing another side to their country too, one Indians realise they can benefit from.
Delhi's "Little Kabul" looks set to keep growing.
BBC News - India's growing stake in Afghanistan
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Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India's "Philantrocapitalism"
September 10, 2012
In this time of global financial crisis, when so many are suffering financial hardship, most countries have witnessed increases in their number of dollar millionaires. These 'High Net-Worth Individuals' (HNWI), according to a report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, have in recent years more than doubled in India. In 2008-09, India had 84,000 HNWIs. By 2010, it had risen by 50 per cent (126,700), the biggest increase of all countries.
In the worldwide list of dollar billionaires for 2010, India ranked third with 69, behind China (128) and the US (403). Forbes states, however, that the wealthiest 100 Indians are collectively worth $276 billion, while their top 100 Chinese counterparts are worth $170 billion. The three richest Indians together had more wealth the top 24 Chinese billionaires combined.
You don't have to look very far for evidence of their wealth, with more than 30 luxury skyscrapers springing up in Mumbai. For the rich occupants, the taller, the better, to escape from the reality of India below — the railway tracks, low-rise tenements, choking traffic and the 55 per cent of the city's population who live in slums. People are paying nearly two million dollars for a designer apartment, built in complexes with private cinemas, swimming pools, floodlit tennis courts and high-level security. Developers believe each year Mumbai can absorb between 30,000 and 40,000 more homes in the one million dollar-plus category.
Such extreme wealth doesn't go unnoticed. In the UK, people are questioning the decision to keep giving India some $460 million of aid annually, which makes India the largest single recipient of British aid. Many ordinary Brits are asking if it can be right that the downtrodden British taxpayer gives such sums to a nation that boasts such wealth (albeit highly concentrated).
Siphoning off the country's wealth
Some of the most damning comments about India come from French author Dominique Lapierre, whose book royalties from 'City of Joy' fund projects for the underprivileged in India. He is frustrated by the greed and corruption that he encounters.
Lapierre's non profit organisation, City of Joy Aid, runs a network of clinics, schools, rehabilitation centres and hospital boats. It operates 14 projects in India, most in the Sunderbans area. However, 90 per cent of free medicines get stolen in the journey from Delhi to Kolkata, and the project is thus forced to buy them at high prices from the market.
A few years ago, Lapierre set up in Delhi a trust which offers a tax-deductible certificate for all donations. With more than a hint of disappointment, he notes the foundation still does not have any funds from affluent Indians who seem reluctant to help their fellow country-folk.
Quite the opposite, it seems. Much of India's wealth has been creamed off into Swiss banks, robbing ordinary folk of a quality of life they can now only but dream of. According to some estimates, it could be over Rs 7,280,000 crore (around $1.6 trillion). Data from the Swiss Banking Association in 2006 indicated that India had more black money than the rest of the world combined, or 13 times India's total national debt.Global Finance Integrity notes this siphoning of wealth has served to widen the gap between rich and poor and asserts the main guilty parties have been private organisations and High Net Worth Individuals.
By contrast, Global management and consulting firm Bain notes philanthropic donations amount to just 0.6 per cent of India's GDP. This is not too good when compared to giving in the US and UK, for example, but is better than rates in other developing countries like Brazil and China. In the US, individuals and corporations are responsible for 75 per cent of charitable gifts, whereas in India individual and corporate donations make up only 10 per cent of charitable giving. Some 65 per cent comes from India's central and state government, and the remaining gifts are provided by foreign organisations.
In India, giving does not rise with income and education. As a percentage of household income, donations by the wealthy actually decrease. From an analysis of 30 HNWIs in India, Bain noted that they contribute, on average, just around one-fourth of one per cent of their net worth to social and charitable causes.
All of this is not meant to imply that philanthropy is absent in India. Far from it. Vineet Nayyar's Rs 30 crore gift (just under $7 million) to the Essel Social Welfare Foundation is a high-profile example of philanthropic giving. Over the years, Rohini Nilekani has donated $40 million to numerous causes that try to tackle the root causes of social problems and not merely the symptoms. Her biggest contribution has been to Arghyam, a Bangalore foundation that promotes clean water and hygiene, which now has projects in 800 villages. Philanthropy can and does positively impact people's daily lives.
Philanthrocapitalism: a plaster on a gaping wound
What is really required, though, is a proper redistributive system of taxation, effective welfare provision and genuine economic democracy through forms of common ownership to help address inequality and poverty. In the absence of such things, wealthy philanthrocapitalists will have a major say in deciding which problems are addressed and how, and some will be highly selective.
For instance, critics of Bill Gates say his foundation often ends up favouring his commercial investments. Instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he donates his profits where it is favourable to him economically, such as supporting GM crops in Africa or high tech patented medicines. 'Giving' often acts as a smokescreen for channeling funds into pet projects and 'business as usual', with rich corporations receiving money to shape the world in their own image and ultimately for their own benefit. Apparent benevolence can have sinister motives, just like certain governments which provide money in the form of 'development aid' that is intentionally used to fund actions that serve geo-political self interest and ultimately undermine the recipient state.
Philanthropy isn't necessarily opposed to capitalism; it's very much part of it. Capitalism is designed to ensure that the flow of wealth goes upwards and remains there via, among other things, the privatisation of public assets, deregulation of the financial sector, the use of subsidies and tax policies that favour the rich, the legal obligation to maximise shareholder profits and the consistent downward pressures on labour costs.
Professor Ha Joon Chang of Cambridge University says that economics isn't a social science anymore, but adopts the role the Catholic Church played in medieval Europe. Essentially, economic neo liberalism is secular theology used to justify the prevailing system, with the hope that some drops of wealth will trickle down an extremely thin funnel to placate the mass of the population. Widening the funnel slightly by making benevolent donations will not address the underlying issues of a failed system.
For example, consider that one in four people in India is hungry and every second child is underweight and stunted. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva argues that hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system and of the design of capital-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures of industrial agriculture. The long-term solution for hunger lies in moving away from and challenging the centralised, globalised food supply controlled by a handful of profiteering corporations.
This type of built-in structural inequality, whether it concerns hunger, poverty, housing, income or health, is part and parcel of a development process that is skewed by elite interests in India and at the World Bank and by the corporations that pull the strings at the World Trade Organisation, who have all succeeded in getting their 'globalisation' agenda accepted. No amount of philanthropy, regardless of how well meaning it may be, will remedy the overall destructive effects of the type of capitalism (and massive corruption) being embraced by India's economic and political leaders.
Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald, New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in many other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest site is at: East by Northwest :thumb:
Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India’s “Philantrocapitalism” | Global Research
in fact now poverty of India is only because of over population. population of India was around 347million at the time of freedom in 1947, when there were only 2% rich and rest poor, while now we find around 350 million Middle Class in India, whose Per Capita Income is around $20,000 on PPP, similar to Very High HDI countries as below :thumb:
We have new GDP Per Capita on PPP calculation for India considering the year 2012 as below:
we now find most of the problems of India is because of its Over Population and India has to reduce its population only. otherwise India has around 350mil Upper Middle Class, more than total population in 1947, whose per capita income on PPP is similar to the Very High HDI countries like Argentina, Poland, Saudi Arabia etc. one day I calculated as below:-
first, we find GDP on PPP of India was $4.45tn in 2011 but its still manipulated by the US/UK since 2007. as, till 2006, we had a different way of measuring GDP on PPP which used to include estimated undocumented part of GDP also. and I remember, this way GDP of high population 'developing' countries was around 50% to 80% higher, and for the middle order countries like Brazil/Turkey it was around 10% higher. and for the developed nations, the difference was hardly around 1% to 3% by that "Old Method" which was in application till 2006. like as below:
means, GDP of India on PPP was already $5.16tn in 2006. again we have India's growth rate since 2007 as below:
India GDP Annual Growth Rate
here we find, "Average Growth Rate" of India from first quarter of 2007 till the December quarter 2012, stood at around 7.7%, on 'annual' basis. hence considering GDP on PPP of India at $5.16tn in 2006 by Old Method, we may calculate its value by 2012, after 6 years since early 2007, as below:
GDP on PPP of India by end 2012 = 5.16*1.077*1.077*1.077*1.077*1.077*1.077= $8.053tn
but we would also get to know that PPP value consider value of goods and serivces in US$ term, means we would include the factor of inflation of United States also. and even if we consider average 2.0% inflation of US for those six year in between early 2007 to 2012, with considering an overall factor of just 1.10 this way, then GDP on PPP of India comes around = 8.053* 1.1= $8.86tn by 2012. and it still hasn't included 'Value Added' effects also........
again, we know that share of agriculture was around 17% in India's GDP in 2012. therefore, we find share of agriculture in indian economy, 0.17 * 8.86= $1.506 trillions, on which 50% population of india is dependent. means around 600mil people based on agriculture in india have per capita income around = $2,500 on PPP by 2012, which is itself similar to the lower middle order countries.
this way, 8.858 - 1.50 = $7.36tn is left for rest of 600mil people based in industry and service in India, with per capita income of around $12,366 on PPP which is higher than Brazil..........
again, we have news that 25% of the population of cities are either in slum or in bit better condition only. so we would consider per capita income of 300mil living in cities in low condition at hardly $3,000 which takes a share of $900bil from its GDP. hence we are then left with around 7.36 - 0.90 = $6.46tn, around, for rest of 300 mil people living in cities, the so called Middle Class of India with per capita income around $21,533 on PPP this way.
but it is estimated that out of total 600mil people based in agriculture sector, it also has around 50mil Lower Middle Class with Per Capita Income around $12,000 on PPP. (as we know that agriculture has higher share of 'undocumented' part, with that, Agriculture also has higher share of non-taxable business of India.) so we find total middle class of India around 350mil with per capita income around $20,000 on PPP which is similar to Very High HDI countries like Argentina, Poland, Saudi Arabia etc, which is more than total population of India at the time of freedom in 1947 :ranger:
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Poor Little Rich Country
BY PATRICK FRENCH | JUNE 24, 2011
How do you categorize India, a nation that is at once fantastically wealthy and desperately poor?
In May, the Indian government announced that it was giving $5 billion in aid to African countries in the interest of helping them meet their development goals. "We do not have all the answers," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "but we have some experience in nation-building, which we are happy to share."
The British could be forgiven for being annoyed with Singh's largesse. Britain, after all, currently gives more than $450 million a year in aid to India, and has plans to continue doing so for at least the next few years. The British economy is bumping in and out of a recession, while India's gross domestic product is growing at more than 8 percent a year. This has put the British government in the rather bizarre position of having to sell bonds in order to donate money to Asia's second-fastest-growing economy, even as the latter is itself getting into the philanthropy business.
The policy is unpopular with most of the British press, which argues that because India has a space program and some flamboyant billionaires, it does not need aid -- especially when Britain cannot really afford it. (When the Labour government was voted out at last year's general election, the departing Finance Minister Liam Byrne left a one-line note on his desk for his successor: "I'm afraid there is no money." It was a joke -- but it was also true.) Nevertheless, Britain still sees itself as a donor nation, with all the obligations and international prestige that entails. This comes in part from a sense of postcolonial guilt: Prime Minister David Cameron spoke recently of a "sense of duty to help others" and the "strong moral case" for giving aid.
The situation suggests just how dramatically the economic rise of Asia has undone centuries of experience, and the expectation that the West will retain the hegemony it has had for the past 400 years. It is increasingly difficult to classify whether a nation is rich or poor, and terms such as "the Global South" and "the Third World" have to be heavily qualified to take into account the fact that large sections of the population in countries like China, Brazil, and India now have a purchasing power matching that of people in "the West."
In 1951, the American diplomat Bill Bullitt described the condition of India in Life magazine: "An immense country containing 357 million people," he wrote, "with enormous natural resources and superb fighting men, India can neither feed herself nor defend herself against serious attacks. An inhabitant of India lives, on average, 27 years. His annual income is about $50. About 90 out of 100 Indians cannot read or write. They exist in squalor and fear of famine." Today, it would be hard to make such an absolute statement about India. Poverty certainly remains a chronic problem, but it exists alongside pockets of substantial wealth. An Indian's life expectancy at birth now stands at 67 years, and continues to rise. It is necessary perhaps to think in a different way, and to see that a country like India, like Schrödinger's cat, exists in at least two forms simultaneously: rich and poor.
The most important change of the last two decades, since the beginning of economic liberalization, has been the transformation of middle-class Indian aspiration. Although the stagnant days of the controlled economy and the "Permit Raj" -- when important decisions depended on a bureaucrat's authorization -- had their own stability, they also stifled opportunity and individual talent. Members of the professional middle class frequently preferred to seek their fortune in more meritocratic societies abroad.
The modern Indian middle class has a new chance to shape its own destiny in a way that was not previously possible. You can move to your own house using a home loan and live outside the joint family; you can buy a car that is not an Ambassador or a Fiat; you can travel abroad and see how people in other countries live; you can watch your politicians accept bribes or dance with prostitutes on television in local media sting operations while surfing your way to Desperate Housewives or Kaun Banega Crorepati, an Indian adaptation of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Businesspeople who have succeeded on their own merits overseas, such as PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, are presented as national heroes.
Poor Little Rich Country - By Patrick French | Foreign Policy
as above, whenever Western Media comes to India, they are generally failed to look on the pictures on the back of these poor...... the picture looks like taken from Mumbai and its property price is as below: :coffee:
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as in above post, with the estimated 350million Indian Middle Class, whose Per Capita Income on PPP at around $20,000, which is similar to Very High HDI countries like Saudi Arabia, Poland, Argentina etc, we also have an estimate of Upper Class of India as below: :ranger:
(here, 350million Middle Class of India is more than total population at the time of freedom in 1947, when it was at around 347million.)
=> the above report mention around 109 Billionaires in India, as compare to hardly around 60 by Forbes, its because Forbes estimate only Share values, while the above report includes as below:
Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2011-2012 | Wealth-X
also, we may have an overall look on the UHNW of the world as below :ranger:
=> with that, a different report by Knight Frank Wealth Report 2013, puts Indian billionaires at 5th rank, while taking properties etc also into account, as below: :ranger:
=> further to the above talks, BRIC economies as whole have their UHNWI estimate as below: :ranger:
(here, 350million Middle Class of India is more than total population at the time of freedom in 1947, when it was at around 347million.)
=> the above report mention around 109 Billionaires in India, as compare to hardly around 60 by Forbes, its because Forbes estimate only Share values, while the above report includes as below:
and here is the main report, as below :thumb:
Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2011-2012 | Wealth-X
also, we may have an overall look on the UHNW of the world as below :ranger:
=> with that, a different report by Knight Frank Wealth Report 2013, puts Indian billionaires at 5th rank, while taking properties etc also into account, as below: :ranger:
=> further to the above talks, BRIC economies as whole have their UHNWI estimate as below: :ranger:
BRIC Country Super-Rich Worth $4 Trillion
The future of wealth will be built with BRICs.
According to new data from Wealth-X, the wealth research and consulting firm, Brazil, Russia, India and China now have a combined 25,600 people with $30 million or more in net worth (which includes shares in publicly traded and closely held companies, residential and investment real estate, art, planes, cash and other investible assets).
That is about half the number of ultra-high-net individuals in the U.S., according to Wealth-X.
The BRIC ultrarich have a combined net worth of $4.125 trillion, compared to $6.4 trillion for the U.S.
What is most interesting about the BRIC data is the concentration of wealth at the very top of the wealth pyramid. In Russia, the nation's 80 billionaires account for 7% of the total population of people with a net worth of $30 million or more, but they own 84% of that group's $640 billion in wealth.
In Brazil, the nation's 50 billionaires account for less than 1% of the ultrarich population but a third of the group's $890 billion in wealth. India's 115 billionaires represent 1.4% of the total ultrarich population and 20% of the group's wealth of $945 billion.
China's billionaires account for 1% of the ultrarich and about a third of their wealth of $1.65 trillion.
The U.S., of course, isn't exactly a model of equity when it comes to billionaires and the ultra-rich. Its 450 billionaires account for less than one percent of the ultra-rich population but control 25% of the group's $6.4 trillion wealth.
But the fastest global growth in billionaires and their lesser ultra-rich aspirants will likely be from the BRICS rather than the U.S. or Europe.
"In Russia, as in other emerging markets"¦.billionaires and near-billionaires, followed in aggregate by the mass of ultra-high-net-worth will dominate wealth," according to Wealth-X.
Which country would you want to live in if you had a net worth of $30 million or more?
BRIC Country Super-Rich Worth $4 Trillion - The Wealth Report - WSJ
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CHENNAI: Even as the anti-Sri Lanka mood in Tamil Nadu is getting more belligerent, the Centre has increased its annual grant to the island nation in the Union Budget. The allocation has gone up to Rs 500 crore for 2013-2014 from Rs 290 crore last year. It was Rs 181.94 crore in 2011-2012. The Budget has allocated Rs 5,550 crore as aid for foreign governments and organizations.
India increases aid to Sri Lanka - Times Of India
its interesting that Indian Annual Aid for different countries is around Rs 5,600 crore, or around US$1.0 billion every year, as part of Indian Annual Budget. while US just gave $150,000 aid for the Uttarakhand flood victim
=> US Announced 150000 US Dollar Financial Aid for Uttarakhand
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its all about a bottom line fact that they left 347millions people in 1947, 2% rich and rest poor at the time of freedom, while there are already 350million Middle Class in India whose per capita income is close to $20,000 on PPP, similar to Very High HDI countries like Poland, Saudi Arabia, Argentina etc. but rest of the population growth has covered all the gains since then.
also, Billionaires don't have money in pocket, but they are billionaires in terms of the industries they have to provide employment, generating taxes for the government which government use to help the common public itself, with introducing new technologies too through their industries, hence building the nation this way
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time has changed during last 70 years, and hence we need to think more than what Mr Gandhi could think during WW1 and WW2 time, isn't it?????
at the same time, we have a clear view of Mr Gandhi itself as below, on the government website of India, any comment???? :coffee:
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Gandhi's economic ideas are shit. Those ideas do not suit today's modern world. All the talk about "charkha" and "villages" and stuff. Absolutely useless today.
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he was in favor of having home industries, and hence you need to modernize it, obviously, as he demanded that, as in my last post#34???? but until you don't have your own industries, it was good to have charkha in the villages that time, as this is what he could do as a Professional Lawyer???????
its all about having home industries, to provide employment to the people of India, and to generate taxes for the Indian government for the good of Indian people itself, not for the war purposes of British during WW1 and WW2
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Charkha was good at that time, it became outdated within 10 years. Today, it is idiocy to talk about "Charkha".he was in favor of having home industries, and hence you need to modernize it, obviously, as he demanded that, as in my last post#34???? but until you don't have your own industries, it was good to have charkha in the villages that time, as this is what he could do as a Professional Lawyer???????
its all about having home industries, to provide employment to the people of India, and to generate taxes for the Indian government for the good of Indian people itself, not for the war purposes of British during WW1 and WW2
Of course everyone wants home industries, and it is indeed good for India. But home industry does not mean "swadeshi". Toyota or POSCO setting up a plant in India is as good as Tata or Mahindra doing the same. Accenture opening offices in India is immensely beneficial to India, and is part of globalization, which has brought India up among the league of serious powers in this decade.
My main gripe with Gandhian ideas in today's age is his emphasis on villages and rural life. India will remain a backward and superstition-ridden nation as long as India continues to "live in villages". Urbanization and massive development of cities will propel India into a liberal and modern nation.
Gandhi was a great man, but his economic ideas have ZERO relevance to the modern day.
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Mr Gandhi wanted India to have industries on its own, and develop technologies by own, provide employment and generate taxes, and hence, "He advocated renewal of native Indian industries." check post#34 and its reference again :ranger:
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Did you read my post? I mentioned that what is happening today by means of foreign investment and FDI is actually generating employment for Indians, so what is happening is great.
That misplaced mix of Gandhian-socialism in the 1950s and 60s set the foundation of India's ruin. India would have been a developed nation by now, if it were not for that toxic economic policy that India followed back then.
Why don't you tell me what is the meaning of these empty words "renewal of native Indian industries"? Examples? Concrete agenda?
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look, FDI in 'manufacturing' is what we always look for, as its bring many technologies from the foreign companies, who then employ the home professionals/ provide them training etc, so it finally help other home Industries too. as these professionals then switch to other companies with wealth of experience too.... (i was one of the biggest supporter of FDI in manufacturing, no matter what India has to commit for it......)
FDI in non-service and non-agriculture sector is always good, as it all about inviting technologies to Industrial sector this way and generate a competitive environment in India this way :thumb:
(but I just don't want FDI in Service Sector as its share in economy is close to 55%, and you just get no technologies by inviting multi brands in service. as we do know have many professionals coming from overseas, having qualifications in supply chain etc with experience from there too..... its no rocket technology that you need FDI in retails to 'hand over' your business to foreigners.)
from here, we have only one conflict, i favor the Indian industries to outperform the foreign ones, like how TATA bought luxury Jaguar, which was on death bed in UK by 2008, and then TATA turned it into a profitable company since 2009
. while you favor the same by foreign investments in non-service/ non-agriculture industries, as these companies do employ the home workers and pay taxes on their income too, its also true.......i think we both would reach a 50-50 agreement here. have FDI in Industrial sector (non-service and non-agriculture) and also keep helping our home industries to outperform them also. :thumb:
I would like to see the news like as below quite often
Luxury carmaker does profit U-turn
The Range Rover Evoque is the latest in the luxury brand's line-up, and goes on sale in Australia later this year.
In one of the greatest industrial turnarounds in British corporate history, Jaguar Land Rover, the luxury carmaker so troubled during the depths of the recession that there were fears it could go bankrupt, has reported a profit of more than £1 billion ($1.54bn).
Tata, the Indian parent of the British manufacturer, reported that JLR made a profit after tax of £1.043 billion ($1.6 billion) in the financial year to March 31, compared to £32 million ($49.3 million) the previous year.
The rebirth of the carmaker comes courtesy of the strong overseas demand for Jaguars, Range Rovers and Land Rovers which has made the company one of the UK's most important exporters.
Last year, more than 77 percent of JLR's output of about 240,000 cars were bound for shipment, with China for instance now making up a fast-expanding 10 per cent of its market.
JLR is also Britain's single largest automotive employer, with nearly 20,000 staff.
Carl-Peter Forster, chief executive of Tata Motors, the Indian company which bought JLR from Ford for €2.3 billion ($3 billion), said, "Jaguar Land Rover is now a strong, profitable and innovative competitor in the premium car industry and will deliver even more attractive models and technologies to customers worldwide."
The new baby Range Rover, the Evoque, is being launched in the US this northern summer and the company has also committed to the construction of a limited edition hybrid electric-powered supercar, the Jaguar C-X75.
Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian
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