The dark hour

China help stabilise Pakistan?

When President Barack Obama suggested in Beijing last month that China and the United States could cooperate on bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and indeed to “all of South Asia”, much of the attention was diverted to India, where the media saw it as inviting unwarranted Chinese interference in the region.

But what about asking a different question? Can China help stabilise the region?

China – Islamabad’s most loyal partner – is an obvious country for the United States to turn to for help in working out how to deal with Pakistan.

It already has substantial economic stakes in the region, including in the Aynak copper mine in Afghanistanand Gwadar port in Pakistan. Its economy would be the first to gain from any peace settlement which opened up trade routes and improved its access to oil, gas and mineral resources in Central Asia and beyond. It also shares some of Washington’s concerns about Islamist militancy, particularly if this were to spread unrest in its Muslim Xinjiang region.

There is virtually no chance of Beijing sending military forces to Pakistan or Afghanistan. But Chinese support could come in the form of pressure on Pakistan, help for its economy, and at least tacit backing forU.S. actions and demands.

It already indicated a willingness to take a more nuanced approach to Pakistan when it supported a U.N. ban on the Jamaat ud-Dawa, the humanitarian wing of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, after last year’s attack on Mumbai. It is also looking for ways to help bolster Pakistan’s economy –a Pakistani finance ministry official said this week that Pakistan was in talks with China on a currency-swap deal with the aim of conserving its foreign exchange reserves.

But Chinese antipathy to interference in other countries’ affairs, a divergence of views on exactly what needs to happen in Pakistan, and China-India rivalry all limit how far Beijing can be roped into helping on Pakistan.

You can see the rest of the analysis here, or read this very detailed report (pdf) by the German Marshall Fund of the United States on the possibilities for greater Chinese involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For now the jury is still out on how far China and the United States can work together on Afghanistan andPakistan, at least in the short term. In the longer term, the path is fraught with difficulties, not least because of tensions between China and India dating back to their 1962 border war.

Historically, rivalry between India and China has had a major impact on Pakistan. At its most obvious level, India developed nuclear bombs in response to the perceived threat from China; Pakistan developed nuclear bombs – with help from China — in response to the perceived threat from India.

But Sino-Indian rivalry has also played out in less predictable ways. India, Pakistan and China all hold parts of Jammu and Kashmir, the former kingdom which has been the cause of much of the tension in South Asia since partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

The 1962 war was triggered by what India saw as Chinese encroachment in the Aksai Chin on the remote fringes of the former kingdom. Years later, when India began sending military expeditions to explore the Siachen glacier – a move that escalated into open conflict with Pakistan in 1984 — its interest was underpinned by concerns about China’s presence in the region. Even today, India is wary about Chinese investment in dams on the side of the former kingdom under Pakistani control.

If you consider the China-Indian border then stretches from the Kashmir for 3,500 kms to the east — where the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is itself a source of tension with China — you have a minefield for a U.S. administration which would like China’s help in stabilising the region. And all that is while trying to encourage Pakistan and India to reduce their own tensions as part of its efforts to reverse a stalemate in Afghanistan.

Students can do more against terrorism

Under the slogan “Terror-free Pakistan” an Interior Ministry spokesman in Islamabad said the government established a country-wide Volunteer Student Task Force (VSTF) to increase the capacity to help victims of violent extremists.
Membership in the VSTF includes a three-day orientation and basic training course that is organized and taught in schools and colleges. Interested student can register their names at local police stations. The training course has been designed by academics, and security experts. Students of schools around the country have expressed interest in becoming involved in this endeavour.

Violent extremists want to keep students away from studies so that the country will not progress. Educated youth must become involved so that they fail to achieve that objective. The government is playing its role to counter violent extremism, and civil society and the educational system should join them.

Why people love blondes?

Well, are they?

That line has been
around forever, so may be there is some truth to that statement. I wonder how the stereotype got its induction in to society. I suppose, regardless of how it started, it has endured. While I think men are programmed to react to blondes, from mild curiosity to outright ultimate in sexiness, a lot of it probably comes from advertisements. We always see the blondes getting the most handsome of guys, and are always portrayed as the sexy bombshells in the movies. But, it usually comes at a price. It is a double edged sword. Blondes can get an instant reputation as being dumb ditz’s. As with most reputations, once labeled, they are hard to remove. Marilyn Monroe was one, for example. She could have been a genius, but she got labeled!
Due to the fact that we live in a technological, visual world, we get bombarded by media trying to get a point across, or to make you buy a product, which greatly contributes to the “Blondes having more fun” mentality. It is a great advertising scheme for hair color treatments, beauticians, clothes designers, the movies. In other words, blondes sell, and so they are promoted to goddess class. We, being guys, have become conditioned to accept this! Take your average Joe on the street, and have 2 average Jane’s walk by, with one being dark haired, the other being blonde. Ask the guy to describe the dark haired girl versus the blonde, and see who gets more results.
Ok, I just can’t resist. My two favorite blonde lines:“I’m a natural blonde, the carpet matches the drapes!” andI’ve decided to go blonde, or I’ll dye trying!

Pakistan and the War

President Obama has articulated a reasonably comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan, but there is no chance of defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda unless Pakistan’s leaders stop temporizing (and in some cases collaborating) and get fully into the fight.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, former President George W. Bush tried to buy off Pakistan’s military leaders who pocketed billions of dollars in American aid and continued to shelter the Taliban. Mr. Obama must demand more while finding ways to bolster the country’s weak civilian leadership and soothe anti-American furies.

In a world of difficult strategic and diplomatic challenges, this may well be Mr. Obama’s toughest.

In his speech last week, Mr. Obama laid down a marker for Islamabad, declaring “we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.” In private, administration officials have been even more explicit, warning Pakistani leaders that if they don’t act the United States will, including with more attacks by unmanned aircraft.

Such strikes have killed several top extremists, but the program is hugely unpopular in Pakistan and Mr. Obama must be judicious about expanding it. That means three things: extremely careful targeting, no civilian casualties or as few as possible, and no publicity.

Drones won’t be enough. Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders must finally be persuaded that this is not just America’s war, it is central to their survival. In recent months, the Pakistan Army has gone after Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley and Waziristan. Yet the Army leadership is refusing to strike at the heart of the Taliban command in Baluchistan Province.

In part, they are hesitating because of legitimate fears of retaliation. But there are also many Pakistani officials — and not just in the intelligence services — that continue to see the Taliban as an ally and long-term proxy to limit India’s influence in Afghanistan. To change that thinking, Mr. Obama will first have to persuade Pakistanis that the United States is in it for the long haul this time. The president sent conflicting messages in his speech, promising Pakistan a long-term partnership “built on a foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect and mutual trust,” but also suggesting that there will be a quick drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama privately has promised Pakistani military and civilian leaders what one aide described as a partnership of “unlimited potential” in which Washington would consider any proposal Islamabad puts on the table. Congress has already authorized a $7.5 billion aid package, over five years, for schools, hospitals and other nonmilitary projects. But this won’t mean anything if it does not follow through and actually finance the program. The White House should also press Congress to pass long-stalled legislation to establish special trade preference zones in Pakistan.

Presuming security needs can be met, President Obama should visit Pakistan so he can tell Pakistanis directly that their fears of abandonment — or domination — are unfounded. Mr. Obama also must keep nudging India and Pakistan to improve relations. That may be the best hope for freeing up resources and mind-sets in Pakistan for the fight against the extremists.
Mr. Obama told a small group of journalists at a White House lunch last week that reducing tensions between the two nuclear rivals, though enormously difficult, is “as important as anything to the long-term stability of the region.” He is right.

Art :South Asia

South Asian art originates from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Maldives and other surrounding areas and diasporic communities. Presenting a mosaic of rich traditions, diverse cultures and vibrant arts, it is most famous for its Gandhara sculptures, Jain Temple stone carvings, Mughal miniature paintings and contemporary works by emerging South Asian artists around the World.

The Indian subcontinent, known today as South Asia, extends as an inverted triangle from the snowbound Himalayan ranges toward the equator and includes the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. Extending some eighteen hundred miles from north to south, and almost the same distance from east to west, the area is home to an ancient and varied group of cultures.

Although ancient literature confirms that wall paintings were a routine part of the decoration of monuments in early India, only fragments remain that date from the first century onward. Illustrated manuscripts on the long, narrow leaves of the palmyra palm survive from the eleventh century, and when paper was introduced a century later, artists retained the horizontal format of the palm leaf.

When the Mughal emperors—Muslim Turks from Central Asia—came to power in 1526, they introduced the vertical page format of the Persian world. Court artists during the reign of Emperor Akbar (ruled 1556–1605) adapted elements from indigenous Indian as well as Persian and European art to create a superb and unique style of painting. Mughal court portraiture combined the naturalistic rendering of individual physiognomies with symbols of rank and status. The portraits were mounted with elaborate borders and bound into imperial albums or given as gifts to cement political alliances. Other important subjects of Mughal painting include dynastic histories, Persian literature, and Hindu epics.

When the British supplanted the Mughals as rulers of India, from the mid-eighteenth century onward, a new style known as Company painting (from the English East India Company) came into existence. Local artists adapted their manner to produce the type of accurate documentation of the world around them demanded by their new patrons. Today artists working in a multiplicity of media have found a new idiom that instills a sense of quality and confidence while invoking the strength and dignity of the past.

Rebirth of Cinema in Pakistan

It’s a Saturday night during the holy month of Ramadhan, a period of piety, solemnity and worship in Pakistan where Islam is much more than just the flavour of the month. Special taravih prayers offered during Ramadhan are underway in mosques across the city. But within the confines of the Cineplex at Karachi’s Seaview beach and at Nishat Cinema on the city’s cinema strip, M A Jinnah Road, a secular form of worship is being practiced, before a lesser if not less popular God.

The Bollywood blockbuster Singh is Kinng has been running to packed houses for five weeks across Pakistan. By the time it completes its run at the box office in September, it is expected to do business to the tune of Rs. 30 million.

Of late, there has been pressure to lift the ban on screening Bollywood films (suspended during the 1965 war) in Pakistani cinemas. Pushed for initially by cinema-owners hopeful for a revival of their business, film-makers, initially apprehensive that Pakistan’s own industry would not survive the competition, eventually joined their ranks after realizing that in the long run it would boost the Pakistani film industry rather than undermine it.

But more importantly, in the midst of this cross-border cultural CBM (confidence-building measure), the fears and apprehensions of a few Pakistani film-makers have abated. In the last two years, several Pakistani films have also rubbed shoulders at the box office with their far more popular Indian counterparts.

TV actor Jawed Sheikh who switched to the big screen in the 1990s and added direction-production to his portfolio with Yeh Dil Aap Ka Hua in 2002 was the first to benefit from the revival of a cinema-going culture in Pakistan. More recently, in 2007, Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda ke Liye (KKL) was a resounding success, playing to packed cinemas in Pakistan’s urban capitals and is now doing the rounds internationally among the Pakistani diaspora. Its biggest accolade was perhaps the enthusiastic reception in India where it was critically acclaimed by discerning cine-goers.

In 2008, the focus has been on Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani. The young TV director’s debut film turned an everyday Indo-Pak occurrence of a stray border crossing – in this case that of a peasant’s son stumbling into India across an unfenced border – into a piece of subtle cinema.

South Asia’s Megacities of 2025

In 1900, every city in the top 10 was in Europe or America, with one exception: Tokyo (which was the seventh largest, with 1.5 million people). The world's largest city was London, with 6.5 million people that year.

In 2025, nine of the world's 10 most populous cities will be in Asia and Latin America – among them Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi in India, Karachi in Pakistan and Dhaka in Bangladesh.

Will they be able to handle the load?

Will they come to grips with the problems of transportation, housing, waste disposal, and pollution? None of these cities have embarked on a serious urban planning exercise – in fact there is little vision for the 21^st century. If not addressed and planned right now, the congestion and time-consuming long commutes will result in loss of economic productivity – apart from other environmental and health concerns.

This millennium is perhaps the beginning of the age of megacities - huge metros that are already sprouting across the globe, but more rapidly in the developing world. The growth of megacities - those with populations exceeding 8 million – has been phenomenal. In 1900 there were none. In 1950, there were two – London and New York. In 1990 there were twenty-one. In 2025, the World Resource Institute predicts, there will be thirty-three – and all but six of the 33 will be in the developing world. The next sixteen years will see a huge increase in rural-to-urban migrants in search of better jobs, education and opportunity.

While the world's urban population is growing, its rural communities are shrinking. In 2007, for the first time, there were more people living in cities than in villages. It is estimated that 5 billion of the world’s 8.1 billion people in 2025 will be urban dwellers -- twice the number in 1990 (World Resource Institute). Where will these people live? About 40% will live in slums – with little or no access to clean drinking water and working toilets. Already, South Asia is home to half the world's poor.

Mumbai, India - Projected Population in 2025: 26.4 million

Delhi, India - Projected Population in 2025: 22.5 million

Dhaka, Bangladesh - Projected Population in 2025: 22 million

Kolkata, India - Projected Population in 2025: 20.6 million

Karachi, Pakistan - Projected 2025 Population: 19.1 million

Art Pakistan: 1947-2009

Challenges of transition from a colony to a democracy.

"I’m still optimistic about the future of art in Pakistan. Artists do have problems here, but don’t forget the Renaissance movement took 500 years and Pakistan is only 60."Iqbal Hussain - the enfant terrible of Pakistan

In the early post -1947 decades, the artists in Pakistan adopted Modernism not as perpetuation of the First World hegemony but as a metaphor for change and economic freedom. The society was no longer being viewed in stereotypes or idealised images, but as an evolving nation faced with the challenges of transition from a colony to a democracy. .

In 1947 Lahore boasted of two art institutions and an expanding artists’ community. Karachi had very little post-Partition art activity, which expanded and became enriched by the arrival of pioneering talent in the exodus of displaced people from all over the sub-continent.

In the early 1950s The Lahore Group initiated experimentation in the Modern idiom and had a seminal influence on contemporary Pakistani artModern Art also seemed to be the chosen visual language that was compatible with the national poet Iqbal’s philosophy of ‘khudi’ or ego as a dynamo that would propel man towards personal success. In this milieu traditional art seemed inadequate to articulate the dreams and fears of a generation poised to enter a new era of freedom.

Those educated in the English medium schools with greater exposure to global changes, readily adopted the western idiom and recognised it as a vehicle of progress. The majority, who were unread or received their education in the traditional medium or ‘madrasas’ developed a suspicion of western values and regarded them as vestiges of the colonial heritage and opposed to the spirit of Islam. Their path to progress lay through a revival of indigenous socio-political values.

The art that emerged from the studios of the Modernists, because of its economically advantaged status, came to dominate the national art scene by the 1960s. The art of the East Pakistani [now Bangladesh] painters had a tremendous impact on their counterparts in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Peshawar, who had yet to reach that mature understanding of the discipline. Artists such as Zainul Abedin had already bridged the gulf between folk art and contemporary art.

Mansur Rahi, a student of Zainul Abedin, became one of the pioneer teachers at Karachi School of Art where his pedagogic influence on the young watercolorists heralded an aquarelle revival in the 1980s. Rahi became a faithful exponent of analytical cubism and developed his oeuvre under the influence of this style.

he Lahore Art Group was committed to modern art but before it could become a cohesive movement its activities were disrupted by political interference. After a gap, when they returned to mainstream art activity, their will had been blunted and the spirit lost.

The 60s also saw the American cultural impact on Pakistani urban centres. Films and publications were freely shown and distributed, and media were used to promote United States’ first art movement – Abstract Expressionism. Through visiting exhibitions and art historians, Pakistani artists received considerable exposure to abstract styles from America.

The Modernists

Zubeida Agha

Zubeida Agha enjoys the distinction of the first artist to hold a solo Modern Art exhibition in Pakistan. Held in Karachi in 1949, it kicked up a storm of controversy with its radical interpretation of perspective and space.

Ali Imam

Among the Lahore Artists Group, Ali Imam became an important art educationist in Karachi. He was the architect of the modern curriculum of The Central Institute of Arts and Crafts. In the 1970s he founded the Indus gallery.

Ahmed Parvez

Ahmed Parvez transferred his restless energy on the canvas with a burst of colour and exploding forms. His early figurative art turned abstract during the decade he spent in England from 1955 to 1964.

Ahmed Parvez influenced the Karachi art scene in the 1970s both with his personality and art. An uncompromising professional, he was a spiritual mentor to the younger generation and a fierce critic of his peers. His volatile, impatient nature brought him tragedy in personal life, which drove him to ill health and an early death. Ahmed Parvez continued to paint till the end and has left behind a large body of work. In 1978, a year before his death, he was recognised as one of the country’s outstanding artists and awarded the Pride of Performance.

Guljee

It was his exposure to Action painting that motivated Guljee to turn to gestural painting. Over the years he incorporated Arabic calligraphy and textured his works with gold leaf and lapis. His latest most prestigious commission was for the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.

Sadequain

A rare visionary, Sadequain was able to bridge the gulf between the disparate groups in society. At the age of 31 his work won recognition at the 1961 Paris Biennial. Sadequain had a prolific career and much of his work is displayed in public places. Like Diego Rivera, he celebrated the role of the proletariat. His early mural, based on the dignity of labour is housed in the Mangla dam, near Islamabad. Later he painted a mammoth ceiling for The Lahore Museum based on poet Iqbal’s verses evoking the spirit of man to triumph over odds. While working on his second ceiling at the Freer Hall in Karachi, the painter took ill and died leaving the work incomplete. During his life Sadequain became a cult figure with a large following from all walks of lifeElongated human forms with bleeding pen-like fingers and nest-shaped head were central to his imagery.

In the 70s he got nation-wide fame for his rendering of Quranic verses. Sadequain was one of the few artists who continuously received State support and was equally admired by the people. The content of his work has wider appeal, the early works addressed social evils and in the later decades Sadequain used the unifying spirit of calligraphy to appeal to the masses, who came in large numbers to see his exhibitions.

Shakir Ali

Shakir Ali held sway over the Pakistani modernists for two decades, both with his work and his disposition. He was among the privileged few of his generation of painters who had firsthand experience of Modern Art in Paris.

Bashir Mirza

Bashir Mirza, a student of Shakir Ali, made a name with his pen and ink series of portraits of the common folk of Pakistan. He was also responsible for setting up the first private gallery in Karachi. His Lonely Girl series were completed and exhibited in the 70s and won him a permanent place in Pakistan’s art history.

Jamil Naqsh

Jamil Naqsh studied miniature at NCA but turned to modernism after his exposure to Shakir Ali’s early cubist paintings. Naqsh, a consummate draughtsman, began to paint nudes to which he added pigeons in subsequent years and this became the topic of his visual treatise. In the 70s his technique was redolent of pointillism, today he prefers to work with acrylics on paper with skilful washes creating images from multi-faceted planes.

Reinventing India 2009:The Failure of 20 th -Century Development Paradigms

India’s most pressing problem in the 1950s was to feed its poor, who made up roughly half of its then burgeoning population of 350 million people. My father, one of the first Indians to come to America to study after India gained its independence in 1947, was working on a degree in soils analysis at Oregon State University. This was the era of the "green revolution."

Fueled by a mixture of Gandhian idealism and American can-do spirit, his plan was to complete his degree, return home, and do his part to help "Young India"--as it was often called in those days--improve agricultural production. But the attractions of making a decent living were irresistible. He decided to stay in America, switched his career to aeronautical engineering and got a job with one of the cutting-edge companies of the time: Boeing. My father became part of the "brain drain" that subsequently brought thousands of engineers, scientists, doctors and other professionals from India to America in search of a standard of living their country of origin could not afford to give them.

India’s Poor

Half a century later, India’s most pressing problem is still how to deal with its poor. The green revolution did allow India to dramatically increase crop yields and become self-sufficient in food production. But India’s population more than kept pace with the country’s economic growth which ambled forward at the rate of 3.5 to 5 percent for many decades. Only after a balance of payments crisis forced India to take steps to liberalize its economy in 1991 did the country begin to achieve consistent growth of between 6 and 7 percent. But even this was not enough.

Today, more than fifty years after independence, India remains a country where 350 million people--a number equal to the entire population of the country in 1950--live in absolute poverty. India’s poor make up fully one third of its total population, which passed the billion mark on May 15, 2000. And India’s population is increasing by 15.5 million people each year. This means the country will need 125,000 new schools, 373,000 new teachers, 2.5 million new homes, and 4 million new jobs every year to meet the needs of its new citizens. With its current rate of growth, India cannot possibly hope to keep pace.

More alarming, even were India to move forward quickly with the next round of economic reforms and push growth up to the 8 to 10 percent range, and even if it were able to sustain this high level of growth over the next ten years, the lives of the poor would remain substantially unchanged. In fact, in this best-case scenario, per capita income in India would rise from the current $300 per year to all of $500 per year a decade from now. India cannot simply grow its way out of poverty.

The cost of the poor to India is inestimable. First and foremost, of course, there is the wasted human potential and the very real human suffering due to preventable contagious disease, lack of access to basic health care and education, even to sanitation and clean drinking water. Mass poverty is having a devastating impact on India’s environment, which is under attack from accelerated deforestation, overgrazing, and extremely high levels of air and water pollution, especially in urban areas. Mass poverty also affects India’s ability to compete against countries with better physical infrastructure and more educated populations for foreign direct investment, which India badly needs to face a fiscal deficit the IMF has recently deemed "unsustainable" and to jump-start badly needed infrastructure development in transportation, communications and power. Finally, mass poverty and the growing gulf between haves and have-nots poses a looming threat to India’s internal security and to its political and social stability.

A succession of state-directed five-year-plans for development, the injection of billions of dollars of foreign aid and loans, and the dramatic improvement in agricultural production following the green revolution did have positive effects. Despite a tripling of its population, India has been able to reduce the total percentage of the poor from 50 to 35 percent; to nearly halve illiteracy, reducing it from 81.7 percent in 1950 to 48 percent today; to reduce the birthrate from 40 per thousand to 26 per thousand and to increase life expectancy from 32 years to a little over 62 years.

India can be proud of its many successful domestic industries in manufacturing, information technology, textiles and many other sectors. For all that, India remains a "developing" country. With one-sixth of all humanity living within its borders, India is still playing catch-up to the world’s great economic and political powers. During this time, it has seen countries in Southeast and East Asia no better off than India was after World War II achieve phenomenal improvements in their economies and for their people. And India has watched China transform itself into one of the biggest global economies.

Time and time again, whether in those heady days following independence in the 1950s or in the euphoria following economic liberalization in the early 1990s, India’s aspirations to overcome mass poverty and create opportunities for all its people to realize their potential have gone tragically unfulfilled. Three generations after independence, India’s poor are still waiting for their lives to improve. Their patience is wearing thin, especially in a world where they can now easily see on television what others have, how others live.

The Imperative for a New Development Paradigm

It is clear that for India to make real gains in alleviating poverty a radical solution must be found. The development paradigms of the post-war 20 th century worked some wonders but failed, overall, to solve the problem of mass poverty in India. In fact, the digital revolution has made the imperative for dealing with mass poverty in India--and elsewhere in the developing world--a critical priority demanding immediate action. Indeed, there may be no issue facing humanity at the beginning of the 21 st century of greater importance than finding solutions to the yawning divide between the world’s rich and poor.

The new millennium has brought with it a new geoeconomic reality. The forces of globalization, propelled by rapid advances in information, communications and bio-technologies, are deepening divides between haves and have-nots, creating, on the one hand, a transnational class of people who move competently in a knowledge-driven economy and, on the other hand, masses of people with no knowledge of, no access to, and no skills to exploit this new economy. Fortunately, these very same forces offer unprecedented opportunities for creating entirely new approaches to alleviating world poverty and closing the inequality gap.

Of all the developing countries in the world, India offers a unique opportunity to launch a new development paradigm that harnesses global market dynamics. India’s economy may be growing overall at a modest rate of 7 percent but its information technology sector is booming at an explosive 50 percent rate of growth. Already a $5 billion-a-year undertaking, India’s information technology sector is expected to reach $87 billion by the end of this decade. Bangalore alone is home to 300 technology firms that employ 40,000 people.

Indian immigrants in the United States, as a group, have been highly successful, earning the highest incomes per family of any immigrant group and enjoying, in general, a standard of living well above the American norm.

India remains a country where there are only 0.21 personal computers and 1.86 telephones for every 100 people. But then 71 percent of India’s people do not have access to basic sanitation.

The current critical juncture in world history presents India--a country that supplies 35percent of the world’s software engineers but accounts for 25 percent of the world’s poor--with a both a challenge and an unprecedented opportunity.Reinventing India means creating a new paradigm for development that harnesses the irresistible market forces driving the transformations in the global economy. It means creating new partnerships between government agencies, NGOs, philanthropic institutions and grassroots entities created by the poor themselves.

In the 1950s, my father felt he had to choose between helping the poor in India and making a good living for himself and his family in America. The digital revolution’s impact on the global economy is giving members of the Indian diaspora new opportunities to do both. But even highly creative solutions to specific, localized problems will have a limited effect on the alleviation of poverty in India as a whole unless they are deployed in concert with a massive effort involving alliances across traditional development divides. This is the fundamental challenge of the India Initiative.

About the Author
Mira Kamdar is a Senior Advisor with Digital Partners and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute at New School University in New York City since 1992. She is the founder of the Institute's Emerging Powers Program: Brazil, India, South Africa, and currently directs the India segment of the program.

Her work has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Times of India, World Business, the American Journal of Semiotics, the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and World Policy Journal. She is a member of the editorial board of World Policy Journal. Mira holds MA and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.