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Asian Voice | 28th November 2015
Paris burns: US-led coalition in wilderness Our foremost thoughts are with the people of Paris, our concerns are for the well-being of France. The French contribution to the Universal Civilization, of which India is a part, has been extraordinary. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a ringing call to the international community to close ranks in the face of the jihadi terrorist threat. Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, the eminent exponent of Indian classical music, gave voice to India’s civil society by announcing that his forthcoming concert in the French capital would take place as scheduled. The show must go on, he said. Such expressions of solidarity, however, should not obscure the dark reality that jihadi terrorism like Frankenstein’s monster is now stalking its creator. Our sympathies should extend to the people of Lebanon as they cope with frequent ISIL bombings; we must not forget the people of Nigeria who have been, and are, routinely subjected to Boko Haram bombings, rapes of kidnapped young women and their subsequent conversion to Islam and their sale to willing bidders from among the faithful. Mali is now in the jihadi firing line. Indians readily recall the jihadi assaults on Mumbai in March 1993 and November 2008, and the numerous outrages across the country, and the tepid Western respose. Jihadi terrorism was incubated initially in Afghanistan with the active connivance of the United States. Hosting a reception for jihadi leaders in the White House in 1985, President Ronald Reagan introduced his guests with the following words: ‘These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s Founding Fathers.’ Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted, in 2010 ,that the venture, had been an error of judgment. Have any lessons been learned? The answer, alas, must be few if any. The US partnered (and still does so) Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. The ISI trains, arms and funds the Laskar-e- Taiba and kindred groups for cross-border strikes in India. These have not ceased, but US financial and military aid to Pakistan goes on regardless, despite the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms also fund and arm jihadi groups, most notably the Islamic State, which carried out the Paris bombings. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin declared at the G20 Summit, that around 40 states worldwide were funding ISIL, of whom four were sitting across the table. Russia’s formidable intelligence service had all the data it required. Not surprisingly, his words evoked embarrassed silence. As alarming, is the revelation by officials of the Kuwait security service that ISIL had acquired weapons from Ukraine The Western media’s grim satisfaction at the Beslan massacre of 330 Russian children and the Moscow bombings over a decade ago is an enduring monument to shamelessness, even for a fourth estate long reduced to fourth-rate status. Fictive demarcations between ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ enable Syrian jihadis fit the bill in columns of the Western press. The US went easy on its bombing campaign against ISIL oil depots in Syria, source of revenue for the terror group. Russian warplanes carried more sorties in six weeks then the US-led coalition had achieved in 15 months, a likely game changer in Syria. French President Francois Hollande has been described in Le Monde Diplomatique as a faithful follower of German Chancellor Angela Merkel on matters European, who cleaves to Obama on matters international. Hollande was a bombing enthusiast on Libya and Francophone Africa, but the jihadi assault on Paris and its political fallout – his political ratings in his country are derisory – has forced the frightened and harassed President to take pause and read the runes. Having done so, he is winging his way to Moscow in search of a closer alignment with Russia. President Putin, with studied nonchalance, has asked his military to treat the French as allies. The awesome display of Russian military power has a carried a jolting wake-up call to the US and its Nato allies much given to sabre rattling diplomacy, or its cruder substitute. The image of Russia as a Potemkin village propagated by the US State Department and Pentagon has had its day.
British media not on message The British media coverage of Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the UK was remarkable only for its insolence. Diatribes and insults followed his every step. Newspapers and the BBC were apparently more impressed by demonstrators with jihadi sympathies, by Khalistani vocalists and Nepali quartets. The Wembley extravaganza, with Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha in close attendance, was perceived as a side show. Mr Cameron, a shrewd politician, has been reading the Indian signs more wisely. Whatever its trials and tribulations, the uncoiling of Indian economic and military power – still in its infancy – is destined surely to attain wider significance. Balanced criticism of Modi and his government is legitimate and carries no offence; insults and vituperation are another matter. He is democratically elected, the process impeccably transparent, and the result vindicated by the numbers. Insulting his person is insulting his country and its people. The eminent Indian economist Amartya Sen has never concealed his opposition to Mr Modi. But when asked whether it would be appropriate for the British Government to receive him, he answered with a
resounding Yes, because he, was the elected leader of his country, therefore, it was right and proper that he be invited and accorded the courtesies befitting his office. The British across the spectrum of the left-right divide, are wedded to viewing Indians as hewers of wood and drawers of water, lavatory cleaners at Heathrow, bowing and scraping in corner shop counters. Old habits may die hard, but they had better change, sooner rather than later. The image of the standard Indian immigrant of a bygone era has been giving way with ever greater momentum to an emergent middle class of business executives, entrepreneurs, academics and the like. The new reality is a creditable reflection of British values and Britain’s level playing field. But the Indian achievement also bespeaks hard work, appreciation of education as a tool of upward mobility and much else. There is less recourse to the grievance industry for which papers like the radical chic Guardian and the BBC have an enduring affection because it belongs to their patronizing comfort zone. The time for such condescension is past; the time to grapple with the present is upon us.
UK IT interns with Tata India’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will train 1,000 UK university graduates over the coming years at its innovation labs and software development centres across India through a new partnership between the British Council and TCS. British Council Chief Executive Sir Claran Devane said: ‘India is emerging as a global superpower and the initiatives such as this will enable the next generation in both countries to engage, learn and grow with each other.’ N. Chandrasekeran, Managing Director and CEO, TCS, explained: ‘By providing 1,000 British graduates with the opportunity to work and train with TCS, we hope to address this skills shortage and give UK employers access to the digital expertise they will need to compete and succeed in the hyper-connected digital economy.’ The interns will travel to India from 2016-2020, the flow to be regulated jointly by the British Council and TCS. Each intern will work for a year as a TCS employee, training in the technical and commercial
skills needed for a career in software development and global consulting business-process management. This new commitment is part of the wider TCS investment in the training of its 100,000 global workforce in emerging digital technologies. The TCS, presence the UK reaches back to 1975. Today it works with some of the biggest businesses in the country, including 33 of the FTSE 100. It is also one of the largest digital employers, with more than 11,000 UK employees at 30 locations across the country, from London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Ipswich, Norwich, Peterborough to Swindon, Redhill and Liverpool. TCS’s partnership with the British Council is the most recent in a number of TCS skills initiatives with the UK. As part of its IT Futures programme , TCS is working with UK schools and universities and the not-for-profit sector to encourage young people to pursue a career in Information Technology. The British media would do well to awaken from their slumbers.
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Not all those who wander are lost. - J R R Tolkien
Rishi Sunak MP
Richmond (Yorks)
Our country's special relationship promises to be bright Last week, sitting in the stands of Wembley Stadium, I was fortunate enough to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted by the cheers of more than 55,000 British-Indian voices. The crowd was the largest the Indian Prime Minister has attracted outside of his home country. That the head of the world's largest democracy received such a warm welcome in Britain should, of course, hardly come as a surprise. The UK, after all, is home to the second largest Indian population outside of Asia (beaten to the top spot only by the USA). Not only is our Indian community a large one but it is also thriving. Since 2010, the numbers of British Indian students studying the core academic subjects at GCSE has increased by over 70 per cent. The bond that these 1.5 million BritishIndians - and the central role they play in our society - create with the world's second most populous nation is immensely strong. Indeed, few cultures in the world have embraced each other's traditions as Britain and India have done. What, after all, could be more British than a Chicken Tikka, or more Indian than a game of cricket? In our politics too, Britain and India have a special relationship to be proud of, both in our shared love of democracy and in 2015 General Election that saw more British-Indian MPs elected to Westminster than ever before. As our own Prime Minister told the Wembley crowd in his exceptionally warm welcome to Mr Modi: "it won't be long before
there is a British Indian Prime Minister in Downing Street". Perhaps the opportunity that Prime Minister Modi's visit embodies most vividly, however, is the importance of India's economic relationship with the UK. In India, 1 in every 20 private sector jobs is created by a British Company. The UK, meanwhile, attracts more investment from Indian companies than the rest of the EU put together. Given that India is predicted to be the world's fastest growing major economy in 2016 (outstripping even China) as well as its most populous country by 2028, the relationship between our countries will be of huge importance to the future of Britain's prosperity. Already, Indian owned companies like Jaguar-Land Rover and Tetley employ thousands of workers in the UK and if David Cameron can fulfil his desire to create a trading relationship between our countries that matches investment, those jobs will only multiply. Britain, of course, has much it can offer India in turn: whether in working to secure the permanent seat on the UN Security Council to which a country of India's stature is surely entitled, or in providing the expertise to create the digital economy and up-skilled workforce to which Mr Modi aspires. One in six human beings is a citizen of India, a country with which we are fortunate enough to share a long history. If Mr Modi's reception is anything to go by, our country's special relationship promises to be just as bright.
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