India

As the Libya crisis drags out, and Bashar al-Assad orders a crackdown in Syria, many have begun to doubt whether the changes seen in Tunisia and Egypt will actually spread to the rest of the Middle East. One former British ambassador recently suggested that perhaps the peoples of the Middle East preferred a mixture of authoritarianism and democracy — and that Britain should accept this; not impose its values and views.   But there is plenty of reason for optimism. The first is to look at the countries that have transformed themselves over the course of the last fifty years. Powerhouses like India and Brazil, but also smaller countries such

How to manage Britain’s aid to India? The fast-rising country has a space programme, costing nearly the same as Britain gives in annual aid. To many people, that is reason enough to cut all aid. Yet, at the same time, India is one of the world’s poorest countries. 456 million people live on less than $1.25 per day. Annual income per person is only $1,180, compared to $3,650 in China and $41,370 in the UK. That means there are 20 percent more poor people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa. But India receives only $1.50 in aid per person, compared to $28 for Sub-Saharan Africa. A good example of India’s

We’re used to seeing growth forecasts for the next few years, but here’s an altogether rarer beast: forecasts stretching all the way to 2050. They were released by PricewaterhouseCoopers last night, and I thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate seeing them in graph form. Naturally, slap health warnings aplenty across this – economists barely know what will happen this year, let alone decades hence – but some of the trends are still pretty striking. Here’s a round-up: 1. This first graph suggests that – allowing for the relative values of different currencies – China’s GDP will top the US’s around 2020. India’s does likewise just before the 2050 endpoint:   2. The

For the first time since 1990, Burma went to the polls. Though the final results have not been released, most regard the election as a sham meant to cement military rule, with complex election rules put in place to exclude opposition candidates as well as interference from the junta in the campaign and a ban on foreign reporting.   Senior General Than Shwe and his camouflage-clad cohorts are likely to get away with the electoral theft. Nearly all of Burma’s neighbours -– Thailand, India and China included -– are willing to ignore the regime’s failings to obtain commercial benefits.  As The Telegraph has reported, Chinese investment in Burma stands at

It is appropriate that the US president will be in India on the day that President Bush’s memoirs are published. For President Bush transformed the relations between these two countries, making a strategic alliance possible. This will turn out to be one of Bush’s most important legacies. A strong US-India relationship is vital if this century is going to be one that sees democracy advance. An alliance between the US and India would act as an effective check on China’s attempts to assert its power in Asia. However, I suspect that, for obvious and understandable reasons, most of the coverage of Bush’s memoirs will focus on his comments on 9/11

Spectacle counts in the emerging East. China confirmed its coming dominance with the spectacular Beijing Olympics. On the evidence of the Commonwealth Games village, India has the squalid air of an impoverished country ineptly governed. William Dalrymple, author on all things Indian, wrote a measured commentary for the Times (£) yesterday: “The Commonwealth Games was meant to be India’s coming-out party, a demonstration to the world that the old days of colonial domination and subsequent relegation to Third World status were finally over. Sadly, the Games have shown that the Old India is very much with us. This is a country, after all, where — alongside all the triumphs of