Indo-UK: News & Discussion

[Karan Dixit]

An Indian company, TATA takes over Jaguar & Land Rover


http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li ... 621873.ece

[bhavin]

An Indian company, TATA takes over Jaguar & Land Rover


http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li ... 621873.ece

People should read the comments attached below the article - very illuminating about the khujlee happening to the 'commoners'..

[Karan Dixit]

Every culture has weakness. For British people, it is their ingrained racism towards Indians. This bias does not allow them to nurture a good relation with India. And it is this bias against Indians that forces average brits to look up to China but not India. If brits open up to reality, they will see that they need India's help. We are more than happy to lend a helping hand.

Jaguar is a good brand. It needed cash infusion badly and TATA, an Indian company was willing to lend a helping hand. If Jag were acquired by a Chinese company, the manufacturing jobs would have moved to China by now.

The difference between India and China is we believe in live and let live philosophy. Britain would be much better doing business with us.

[ranganathan]

I see no reason for Indian companies to be helping the brits. The deal is between Indian and american company. The poodles really don't matter. Unlike the stupid british others know jaguar is basically a has been brand. In US it is only driven by 60+ senile drivers looking to pick up 20 year old chicks. No one in senses would be caught driving one.

[vina]

Every culture has weakness. For British people, it is their ingrained racism towards Indians. This bias does not allow them to nurture a good relation with India. And it is this bias against Indians that forces average brits to look up to China but not India. If brits open up to reality, they will see that they need India's help. We are more than happy to lend a helping hand.

Jaguar is a good brand. It needed cash infusion badly and TATA, an Indian company was willing to lend a helping hand. If Jag were acquired by a Chinese company, the manufacturing jobs would have moved to China by now.

The difference between India and China is we believe in live and let live philosophy. Britain would be much better doing business with us.

The brits feel more comfortable with the Indians for many reasons (history, dilli billi connections, brit derived institutions /whatever) and the truth is that Corus, Jag, LR etc would rather sell themselves to Indians than chinese, even if the Chinese offered a better price.

That apart, there is nothing of value in the UK beyond Rolls Royce engines. Forget about it. UK as we know it will not exist for too long. All that is left is for the monarch /defender of the faith /leader of Anglicans to convert to Islam (tony blair already bolted to catholicsm) and the Al Qaeda kind of nut's wet dreams will come true and the de fact Islamic Emirate of Inglistan will de jure become the islamic emirate of Inglistan.

BBC NEWS
EU migrants relocating to the UK
By Ray Furlong
BBC News

Public concern over immigration has led the government to announce a stop on unskilled workers arriving from non-EU countries. But every year refugees and immigrants who have gained citizenship elsewhere in the EU migrate for a second time - to Britain.

Abdi Mohamed is one of 10,000 Somalis who have come to Leicester in recent years from other EU countries.

When his wife got a Dutch passport he joined her in the Netherlands - and then brought the whole family to Leicester.

"We eat on the floor. We can't keep chairs here; no room for them," he says in his tiny kitchen. Then it's up a narrow, steep staircase into the small room where his three children sleep.

Abdi abandoned a spacious four-bedroom house in the Netherlands for this poky two-bedroom terrace. But he's adamant this was the right decision.

"We can get here a Muslim community who can stay together. In Netherlands you're scattered, it's hard to find a Muslim community."

As we talk, a Somali neighbour drops his kids off from school - underlining his point. All the Somalis I spoke to complained that in the Netherlands they were dispersed around the country rather than living together.

High unemployment

But Abdi, a trainee teacher in Somalia, has not found work.

"We did research in 2004 and the unemployment rate within the community is almost 85 percent," says Jawaahir Daahir, head of Somali Development Services, which provides training, help and advice.

"You will see now in Leicester there are a lot of Somali businesses, I think about 400, because the Somali people are very entrepreneurial people. But also because many people could not find a suitable job they go self-employed."

The café Kilimanjaro is a typical Somali business. Built in a former textile factory, it is filled with the aroma of East African cooking and the blare of Arab satellite TV.

Sipping tea here, self-employed cab driver Ali Barre said he had to do factory work in the Netherlands because the bureaucracy required to get a cab licence was unbearable. "There are more opportunities here," he says.

Most of the new Somali arrivals have come from Scandinavian countries. Hinda Ahmed Awad arrived from Denmark 18 months ago. A soft-spoken single mother of seven children, she works 10 hours a week as a school cleaner, but has no regrets.

"In Denmark, my children were the only blacks in their school. Here there are other black or Muslim children. Leicester is multi-cultural."

Dramatic impacts

Indeed, Leicester is set to become Europe's first majority non-white city. But when the Somalis first arrived the city council called for help.

A submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2005 noted: "The absence of any mechanisms to provide assistance in the occasional circumstances where a community, usually a city, is expected to cope with mass migration is a potential crisis in waiting."

It's a continuing means of coming to the UK that could take on a significant scale
Sir Andrew Green Migrationwatch

"No increase in the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant has occurred to reflect these major changes and stresses. Even the modest £500 per pupil identified by the Home Office for asylum seeker children (for which EU citizens are generally ineligible) would have generated £700,000 for our estimates of new arrivals in the current year alone."

So there can be dramatic local impacts even though the numbers are not large in terms of overall national immigration.

"It's a continuing means of coming to the UK that could take on a significant scale," warns Sir Andrew Green, head of Migrationwatch.

Pointing to amnesties granted to illegal immigrants in Spain and Italy, he adds: "There's no European standard on how to get citizenship - the scope for onward movement is substantial."

Hundreds moving

Leicester is not an isolated case. It is hard to get reliable figures, but in Milton Keynes, for example, there is anecdotal evidence of hundreds of Ghanaians who have come from Germany, France, and the Benelux countries.

Nana Ohene Gyan-Boatey came from Hamburg five years ago. He says racism in German schools led him to relocate.

"The children were not happy at school, because of what we know the Germans are. So we decided to come here."

Another big group are Tamils. A recent paper by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University noted: "Asylum applications by Tamils in the UK have dwindled since the 2002 ceasefire in Sri Lanka," but that preliminary research "suggests a substantial movement of Tamils from continental Europe to the UK is underway."

The relative economic buoyancy of the UK in recent years compared to continental Europe seems to have been a key draw.

But many of the people I spoke to, including Tamils and Ghanaians in Milton Keynes, said getting their children educated in English was a key factor in deciding to migrate a second time.

"When we came, my daughter didn't have a word of English," says Nana Ohene Gyan-Boatey. "But the primary school got a special teacher to assist her to learn English. It's a big difference. We never had these chances in Germany."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/7312814.stm

Published: 2008/03/26 14:21:13 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

[Ardeshir]

An Indian company, TATA takes over Jaguar & Land Rover


http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li ... 621873.ece

People should read the comments attached below the article - very illuminating about the khujlee happening to the 'commoners'..

I liked this one:

All the racist and xenophobic attitudes coming out here will have to become a thing of the past. You have no choice. You'll have to get used to the fact that you're no longer no.1 in anything anymore.

What happened to the virtues of free trade, capitalism and globalisation you used to spout to the rest of the world? Or was that just when it suited you?

I'm constantly amazed at how deluded people in the UK are when it comes to their global position. The French dress and eat better, the Germans make things better, the Americans have more ambition, the Russians have more balls, the Chinese are rising as are the Indians.

Where does that leave poor old Blighty? In oblivion and get used to it.

Alex , London, UK

[Rye]

I would have thought Nehru was cool if he had toasted the brits with the Nimbu Pani.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/288998.html

[quote]
Humour in uniform

Ravi Sharma

A recent trip to Mumbai gave me a chance to meet again two distinguished personalities of the old navy — Admiral Rusi Ghandhi and Commodore Randhir Malia. The stories they tell you of the days of yore are truly fascinating.

Life Story World War II Battles News from Indian Country

One of Admiral Ghandhi’s favourites is dated August 15, 1947, when the smart and handsome Lieutenant Ghandhi was ADC to Lord Mountbatten. After the “tryst with destinyâ€

[Kalantak]

Asian students doing better at schools than whites: study
Friday March 28 2008 16:13 IST
[quote]
LONDON: Asian students in Britain are making far better progress at secondary schools than their white peers, a study has found.

White students from working-class families actually do the least homework and fall behind all other youngsters by the time they take their secondary examination as their parents have low educational aspirations, according to the study.

But, on the other hand, it has revealed that Asian and black youngsters, growing up in similar households, manage to do better in studies than white pupils, the British media reported here on Friday.

The government-funded report said: “The most significant factors were the frequency of completing homework, academic self-concept and pupils educational aspirations.

“These variables play a large part in accounting for the differential progress among pupils from low socio-economic classification (SEC) homes, and could statistically explain the strong progress of minority ethnic pupils and the poor progress of white British pupils from low sec homes.â€

[ramana]

So when does UK plan to elect someone like Sarkozy who can become the PM?

[Mahendra]

^^^^

Asian students doing better at schools than whites: study

Asian= Indian in this context.

The BeeDees are busy contributing to the sinking economy by working in chicken shops and claiming benefits at the same time. The Pigs..well you know what they are up to ..aiming for explosive growth.
Seriously something must be done to get rid of this "asian", "South Asian" tag

[Gerard]

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=461


Pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C at GCSE/GNVQ: by sex and ethnic group, 2004, England

GCSE performance
In 2004 Chinese pupils were the most likely to achieve five or more GCSE grades A*-C in England, with 79 per cent of Chinese girls and 70 per cent of Chinese boys respectively. Indian pupils had the next highest achievement levels: 72 per cent of Indian girls and 62 per cent of Indian boys achieved these levels.

The lowest levels of GCSE attainment were among Black Caribbean pupils, particularly boys. Only 27 per cent of Black Caribbean boys and 44 per cent of Black Caribbean girls achieved five or more A*-C grade GCSEs. Pupils from the Black African, Other Black and Mixed White and Black Caribbean groups had the next lowest levels of attainment.

Within each ethnic group a higher proportion of girls than boys achieved five or more GCSE grades A*-C (or equivalent).

People of working age with no qualifications: by ethnic group, 2004, GB

Highest qualification
In 2004 people from the Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Pakistani groups were less likely than White British people to have a degree (or equivalent).
Among men, Bangladeshis and Black Caribbeans were the least likely to have a degree (11 per cent for each group). Among women, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were the least likely to have a degree, 5 and 10 per cent respectively.

The groups most likely to have degrees were Chinese (31 per cent), Indian (25 per cent) and White Irish (24 per cent). These compared with 17 per cent of White British people. However, a relatively high proportion of Chinese people had no qualifications – 20 per cent, compared with 15 per cent of White British people.
Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were the most likely to be unqualified. Five in ten (49 per cent) Bangladeshi women and four in ten (40 per cent) Bangladeshi men had no qualifications. Among Pakistanis, 35 per cent of women and 29 per cent of men had no qualifications.

Sources: Department for Education and Skills, National Curriculum Assessment, GCSE and Equivalent Attainment and Post-16 Attainment by Pupil Characteristics in England 2004, Statistical First Release 08/2005; Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC) and Termly Exclusions Survey, Department for Education and Skills; Annual Population Survey, January 2004 to December 2004, Office for National Statistics

[Nayak]

This sorry symbol of incompetence

Flight cancellations by the score. Passengers close to tears. Exhausted families dossing down wherever they can. Bags missing, holidays ruined. Business trips wrecked, queues everywhere.

On Day Two of the shambles at Terminal 5, no relief is in sight. More cancellations are predicted as this £4.3billion "prestige" project becomes a national humiliation.

Those scenes at Heathrow, shown on TV screens all over the world, are tearing this country's reputation for competence into shreds.

If ever there was a reason for heads to roll, the T5 disaster is it. And the first place the axe should fall is at that stumbling behemoth British Airways, whose management plainly didn't plan properly.

So the baggage-handling system fell apart. Staff weren't adequately trained. Some couldn't work their computers. Others couldn't find a parking space.

The blame doesn't end there. Years of under-investment by Heathrow's owner, BAA, have made it one of the world's most loathed airports, notorious for delays, lost bags and shoddy facilities.

And it has become even worse since BAA was taken over two years ago by the unimpressive Spanish firm Ferrovial, which borrowed to the hilt to make that purchase and has struggled ever since.

You could hardly imagine a worse way of solving Heathrow's problems than by allowing it to fall into the hands of predatory, cash-strapped foreign owners. The case for the Government to break Ferrovial's monopoly over London's main airports is overwhelming.

Meanwhile, who is taking a grip? BA says the situation is "under review", which is small comfort for its unhappy customers. BAA seems to have taken to the hills. That supine, complacent regulator the Civil Aviation Authority is (as usual) all but invisible. Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly utters not a peep.

Hardly a great display of leadership, is it? But doesn't the saga of Terminal 5 also tell us something rather more significant - and disturbing - about the state of Britain today?

This is the nation, after all, that once built mighty rail networks not only at home, but across India, Africa and South America. We successfully constructed roads, ports, dams, canals and vast sanitation systems in five continents.

Today? With the admirable exception of St Pancras International, the picture is everywhere one of incompetence.

From the Millennium Dome to Wembley and the Scottish parliament building (five years late and ten times over budget) we seem to have lost the ability to handle great public projects.

And why? One reason, surely, is the way we have abandoned our industrial heritage, to embrace the service economy instead - notably the financial sector - with an almost reckless disregard for the needs of the nation.

So great British names such as Jaguar and Land Rover end up in American and now Indian hands. And we blithely sell our utilities to overseas buyers, without a qualm.

But aren't we in danger of losing vital skills if our industries wither?

Shouldn't we be seriously worried that engineering and the sciences are in decline at our universities? Shouldn't schools encourage more rigorous vocational training, instead of indulging pupils with such non-rigorous non-subjects as leisure studies?

It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of the threat to our economy if the South East loses its status as one of the world's most important hubs for air travel.

If any good is to come out of these last two days of shame, it will be the realisation that Britain urgently needs to reappraise its skills base.

[svinayak]

[quote]
Britain and America
Anglo-Saxon attitudes
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/ ... d=10927596

Mar 27th 2008
From Economist.com
Not such special friends

Illustration by David Simonds

TO TURN over the supposed Anglo-American common ground carefully, The Economist commissioned pollsters at YouGov in Britain and Polimetrix in America—supported by additional funds from the Hoover Institution, a California think-tank—to find out what people in both places thought about a number of social, political and economic matters. A thousand people in each country were consulted between March 7th and 11th. Broadly, the differences between the two countries look more striking than the similarities.

Like most west Europeans, Britons tend to have more left-wing views than Americans, but the first chart shows that this is often by a surprising margin. (“Leftâ€

[svinayak]

[Nayak]

The reverse Raj: Indian businesses turn tables on imperial master

[quote]
Dean Nelson in Delhi

The assembled businessmen wore black ties and listened politely to a string quartet under crystal chandeliers in a magnificent ballroom. The room buzzed with talk of the old country, but more importantly with commercial speculation about their new domain. What was to be their next takeover target in the local economy?

It could have been a sepia print of the British East India Company, which effectively ruled India as a private colony for 100 years, but a closer look revealed a different kind of burra sahib. More Chandigarh than Cheam, the men gathered at the Grosvenor House hotel in Mayfair, central London, last year were the representatives of a new Indian raj, powerful men intent on buying up chunks of the homeland of their old imperial masters.

They included the host Subodh Agrawal, dealmaker for some of India’s tycoons, and the Hinduja brothers, fourth on The Sunday Times Rich List. An aide to Lakshmi Mittal, the world’s wealthiest steel baron, was there, along with the Birlas and the Jindals, representing India’s oldest industrial families. Britain’s new Indian aristocracy – such as Mike Jatania, who bought Yardley cosmetics – were also in attendance.

They have been called the Indian Billionaires Club and last week one of its celebrated members pulled off the most symbolic corporate takeover in Indian history.

When Tata, the Mumbai-based conglomerate headed by Ratan Tata, bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford last week, a nation still reeling from a few cannabis-infused bhang lassis over the Hindu festival of Holi extended the party. The £1.15 billion takeover was worth far more than the money paid. The acquisition of Jaguar – a symbol of British style and engineering superiority, albeit until last week owned by Americans – was a moment of national triumph almost matching India’s victory in last year’s Twenty20 Cricket World Cup.

Tata has been buying British since 2000 when it purchased Tetley, which had been selling Indian tea to the UK since 1856. Last year it completed the £6.2 billion takeover of Corus, the British steel giant, in the biggest foreign takeover by an Indian company.

Its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover was smaller in scale but greater in symbolism. The Indians had bought the makers of James Bond’s new wheels, Inspector Morse’s classic and the workhorse of the British Army for a song. “It took a company from a former colony to come to the rescue of a beleaguered British brand,â€

[Nayak]

Ratan Tata rode the tiger economy and now he drives Jaguar

By William Langley
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 30/03/2008

Have your say Read comments

It is tempting to look at Ratan Tata, the Indian tycoon whose company last week took over Land Rover and Jaguar, as a symbol of a nation's headlong charge towards economic superpowerdom. This, we suspect, is how it tends to be with those pesky, nouveau riche Asians; one minute you've never heard of them, the next they are snaffling up all your best-known firms, and treating themselves to large, stucco-fronted mansions in Kensington.
# Wanted: rich new owner for old Jaguar

Ratan, 70, and his faintly mysterious Bombay-based family, do not fit this caricature at all. Resoundingly non-nouveau, the Tatas have moved among India's business aristocracy since Queen Victoria was on the throne, and while the last 150 years have seen a steady growth in their power, wealth and reach, the family is famed for never having done anything even remotely headlong.

Ratan Tata

Yet Britain is succumbing to them. The £1 billion acquisition of two of the UK motor industry's most illustrious marques follows the £250 million purchase of Tetley tea in 2000, and last year's £6.75 billion takeover of Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steelmaking combine. All this, moreover, is likely to be a mere warm up for the big invasion Ratan appears to have in mind. The Tatas are currently involved in everything from luxury hotels to watchmaking, but while their presence is inescapable in India, they see abundant room to grow in Britain.

The calm - some would say stealth - with which Ratan operates appears to be a consequence of both temperament and heritage. Sometimes described as the "Chairman of Corporate India" he is a non-drinking, non-smoking bachelor Parsee, descended from Zoroastrian priests who fled persecution in Iran more than 1,000 years ago. In the Gujarat region where they mostly settled, the Parsees have clung tightly to their distinctive culture and an austere set of religious values.

Even today they observe a prohibition against polluting earth, air or water, and traditionally dispose of their dead by leaving the corpses atop high, wooden "Towers of Silence" to be eaten by vultures - although a worsening Indian vulture shortage, even in rural areas, has lately led to the embrace of alternative methods.

Ratan's great-grandfather, Jamsetji Tata, having rejected the priesthood to pursue a career in commerce, founded the family business in the 1850s, and made his first fortune by peddling opium to the Chinese (a detail that goes conspicuously unmentioned in the Tata Group's otherwise comprehensive corporate history).
advertisement

He went on to establish textile and steel mills and a shipping line, but it was the building of his first hotel that best captures the ethos that the Tatas still hold to be particularly their own. The story goes that Jamsetji, although independently wealthy and politically well-connected, was turned away from the best hotels in Bombay, whose policy was to admit only Europeans.

The best answer, he decided, was to build a hotel of his own - one that would overwhelm its rivals in grandeur and opulence, and so was founded Bombay's Taj Mahal, still the country's most famous hotel, and still proudly owned by the Tatas.

After Jametji's death, successive generations of the clan added airlines, car and truck companies and a bank to the portfolio, but India's business climate - particularly in the years after Independence - was rank with the governing class's predisposition towards socialist economic models, and every attempt to stimulate development and wealth-creation foundered.

By the time Ratan became chairman in 1991 the Tata Group was in trouble. It had been asset-stripped by nationalisations, and battered by the high taxes and over-regulation that had, as a further consequence, driven millions of the best-educated and most enterprising Indians abroad.

As a young man, Ratan seemed destined to join this diaspora. Certainly, he could see nothing to suggest that India would ever embrace real liberalisation, unleash the talents of its people and emerge as a great economic power. Although privileged, his childhood had been unhappy.

His parents, Naval and Soonoo Tata, separated acrimoniously when he was seven, and with his younger brother, Jimmy, he was largely brought up by his redoubtable grandmother, Lady Navajbai. In a rare reference to these times Ratan told the American magazine Business Week: "She was very indulgent, but also quite strict in terms of discipline. We were very protected, although we didn't have many friends. I had to learn the piano, and played a lot of cricket."

From these emotionally threadbare beginnings grew a man of ambitious but strikingly solitary nature. Ratan has never married, and for the last 20 years at least has lived alone in a modest, book-filled seafront house outside Bombay from where he drives himself to work each day in a small Tata car.

His best friends are believed to be his dogs - he keeps several - and while enjoying quasi-celebrity status in India on a Bollywood scale, he is almost never seen at social functions. "There is a great sense of loneliness from time to time," he admitted, during last year's lengthy negotiations for the Corus deal, "I'd be lying or hypocritical if I said otherwise, but I have the dogs and they are a part of my life."

After attending a private school in Bombay, he studied at Cornell and Harvard universities in the US, and - wowed by the dynamism and opportunities of American life - decided to stay on and accept a job with IBM. The more he looked over his shoulder at the ramshackle conglomerate, dominated by committees of family elders, that the Tata Group had become, the more sensible his decision seemed.

Ratan's plans to escape the family firm were scuppered by his grandmother's ill-health. Consumed by a Zoroastrian sense of obligation, he returned to India, and by the mid-1960s was running the family's steel operations. He rose, steadily, although without fanfare, through the Tata hierarchy, finally becoming chairman - by a happy convergence of events - just at the moment that India finally accepted the virtues of the free market. The state's thumbs were prised off the economy's windpipe, the trade unions and regional bureaucrats effectively de-fanged, and the private sector allowed to compete right across the board.

Now Ratan was in his element. Despite slimming the group down to 80 companies from more than 250, reducing the labour force by close to 40 per cent and selling off millions of dollars worth of non-core assets, he was able to point to rapidly rising profits and a far more modern, technological industrial base to build a future upon.

So inescapable has the company become in its homeland that few Indians could imagine life without Tata. They spice their curries with Tata condiments, refresh themselves with Tata teas, dress in clothes made from Tata fabrics, drive Tata cars over bridges built with Tata steels, communicate through Tata telephone and internet networks, and stay in Tata hotels. Last year Ratan realised a long-held dream of producing an Indian "People's Car" costing little more than £1,200.

It isn't enough. "Ratan Tata isn't satisfied," concluded Business Week. "He wants the world."

But why? With his simple tastes and patrician bearing, the new boss of Jaguar and Land Rover is no one's idea of a ravening capitalist. His British workforce will be lucky even to see him, and the upper-tier London social circuit - already peppered with wealthy Indians such as steelmaker Lakshmi Mittal and Kingfisher beer baron Vijay Mallya - will not see him at all. Indeed, Tata plays down suggestions of great personal riches, pointing out that most of his businesses are ultimately owned by charitable trusts.

Yet he is a man in a hurry. The Parsees of India, the community that sent him forth, is running out of time. Forbidden from external marriages, and increasingly encroached upon by the modern world, they face slow extinction. Ratan has no children, and no obvious successor, and what he achieves in the next few years is all that he will be remembered for.

Have your say

[Gus]

True story. Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, frustrated with the conditions that prohibited Indian entrepreneurship in colonial India (British ploy to prevent Indian industrialisation), set sail to USA to invest in businesses there.

In the ship he met a monk and they were talking and the monk advised Jamshedji to return to India and overcome obstacles and invest money in India to build industries.

With his heart changed, he got down in a port on the way and came back to India to start Tata Steel and the rest is history.

That monk was Swami Vivekananda on his way to the Chicago conference on religion.

[Rye]

Willam Langley quote:

Ratan's great-grandfather, Jamsetji Tata, having rejected the priesthood to pursue a career in commerce, founded the family business in the 1850s, and made his first fortune by peddling opium to the Chinese (a detail that goes conspicuously unmentioned in the Tata Group's otherwise comprehensive corporate history).

Interesting that Mr. WIlliam Langley conveniently forgets to mention that the drug cartel in question was the British Raj/UK Government which was getting chinese addicted to opium/heroin, in order to weaken and destroy China's society, and they succeeded to a large part. It would seem that the US Govt. agencies refining and selling heroin via proxies, in order to finance covert operations, is not a new concept.

[bart]

“living in London is like living in a cleaner version of Indiaâ€

[Rahul Shukla]

G Subramaniam will be pleased. Lots of official numbers and data provided...

Born Abroad - An Immigration Map of Britain (BBC)

There were roughly 466,000 Indian-born people recorded in the 2001 Census, although people with Indian heritage top one million.

- 66% of new immigrants from India are employed out of which 16.4% are low earners (< £149.20/wk) and 18% are high earners (> £750/wk).
- 44% of new immigrants from Pakistan are employed out of which 35.4% are low earners (< £149.20/wk) and 4% are high earners (> £750/wk).

- 63% of settled immigrants from India are employed out of which 16% are low earners (< £149.20/wk) and 8% are high earners (> £750/wk).
- 44% of settled immigrants from Pakistan are employed out of which 23% are low earners (< £149.20/wk) and 7% are high earners (> £750/wk).

There is a drop down menu at the top & bottom RHS of the page where you can pick to see data for other countries.

[Raju]

[Gerard]

Pirates can claim UK asylum

THE Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

Warships patrolling pirate-infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have been warned that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain.

[Singha]

they will choke themselves with political correctness.

[Rye]

Looks more like the UK would like to coopt some of the pirates in order to use them in Somalia.

[svinayak]

Life in UK towns, villages on unprecedented decline: study
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 141655.htm

London (PTI): Towns and villages across the United Kingdom are losing basic services at the "fastest ever rate", hastening decline of community life in the countryside, a new Government report highlighted on Monday.

Nearly half of all neighbourhoods have lost key amenities such as surgeries, post offices, shops and schools in the past four years, a study by Oxford University indicated.

The disturbing news comes after Stuart Burgess, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "rural advocate" cautioned that poorer people in the countryside, who already face housing shortages and have little chance of a good education, "form a forgotten city of disadvantage".

The report focused on parts of the country that have lost out because of their distance from services such as doctors' surgeries and post offices.

It found that 45 per cent of the neighbourhoods in England - 14,493 out of 32,439 - have become more "geographically deprived" since the last such study in 2004.

The study indicated that the village of Wrotham, Kent, had experienced the greatest deterioration, earning it top ranking in the list of the most "excluded" communities in the South East.

One in every 13 rural primary schools has closed since the Labour came to power in 1997 with councils warning that more closures are inevitable.
International

[jash_p]

deleted

[jash_p]

bart quote:
Till Indian people invade Britan by force, kill British citizens, rob and loot all their wealth, treat Britons as secondclass citizens in their own country, destroy all their belief systems and institutions of learning, sow major seeds of divison amongt the local populace, and leave the country dirt poor


You mean to say like Pakis are doing in UK.

[Ameet]

How India "Colonized" Britain

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 72,00.html

In the six decades since Britain ended its rule in India, the two countries have had their share of spats. Indian resentment over past wrongs pushed the sub-continental giant to distance itself from its colonial master and forge a role as a "non-aligned" leader during the Cold War. For years, England-India cricket matches were charged with an extra element of rivalry as the Indian team tried to outdo their erstwhile colonial masters. A little over a decade ago an Indian Prime Minister called the U.K. a "third-rate" country after a perceived slight on an anniversary, and Prince Philip caused a furor during a Royal visit to the site of the massacre at Amritsar when he suggested that a memorial plaque "exaggerated" the number of people killed there by British troops. Still, while such contretemps may make headlines, they also distract from the love affair between Britain and India that endures to this day.

It's an affair born of shared history: Tea, for example, that most English of drinks, was first cultivated in India by British growers, who quickly undercut their Chinese competitors on price. Like cricket (which the English introduced to India) and polo (though its origins are Persian, the modern game began in northeast India and was later encoded and spread by the British), drinking tea is a joyous ritual that binds Delhi and Doncaster. (Polo is a rich man's sport, of course, but class and caste have long mattered in both countries.)

Then there is language. English may be Britain's greatest gift to India (which, today, is home to the world's largest English-speaking population), but Hindi has spiced the language with a masala of words long-since codified in its dictionaries: chit, guru, jungle, pajamas, pundit, sentry, shampoo, and thug, to name just a few. Indian cuisine long ago surpassed fish-and-chips as Britain's most popular restaurant food. Or, at least, "Anglo-Indian" — England's most popular "Indian" dish, chicken tikka masala, is actually a British invention, since exported to the land that inspired it. Indian property and hotel developers borrow the lexicon of their English counterparts, using terms such as park, mews or estate in the names of new upscale complexes. A hint of Britain sells, it seems.

Little wonder then, that when Tata Motors, one of India's biggest car companies, agreed to buy prestige British brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford three weeks ago, there were cheers in both India and Britain. Indian newspapers reveled in the fact that a company from the former empire had brought two icons of the British automotive industry, while Jaguar execs privately told at least one industry insider that they preferred Tata over rival bids from private equity firms because Tata understands the heritage of Jag and the motoring culture that produced it. "Buying this kind of thing builds a kind of permanent bridge between us," says Lt. Gen. M.R. Kochhar, president of the Delhi Gymkhana Club, a repository of colonial-era rules and British class-system etiquette in the heart of the Indian capital. "Both of us love the products, or at least the history of the products."

But these are business decisions rather than gestures of colonial nostalgia. Tata bought Jaguar not because it is British, but because it thinks it can make the company work where Ford failed. Indeed, Tata might turn out to be more hard-nosed (and lucky) than Ford. For too long, Jag's American owners relied on the company's heritage to sell more cars, releasing model after model largely based on the classic Jaguar look that dates back to 1968. Though Ford never broke out separate results for Jaguar and Land Rover, analysts believe the former lost at least $10 billion over the past decade or so (Land Rover has been in good health the past few years and made an estimated $1 billion in 2007). Tata is buying Jaguar just as the company has finally broken its repetitive mold and released a car that is truly new and modern looking. Some analysts say Tata's timing is perfect, and that if it manages the British manufacturer well, it could prove to be very profitable.

That doesn't mean, however, that the shared passions and pastimes, drinks and diversions of Britain and India are irrelevant. Far from it. Indian companies have been on a buying spree over the past few years, snapping up companies across the globe. Some of the biggest and most high-profile have involved British firms (Tata Motors' parent company, alone, has bought tea makers Tetley and steel giant Corus) and that's likely to continue, not only because Britain is a vibrant, open economy but because the shared history does count for something. "More than 200 years we were together," says Kochhar. "And any people who speak the same language have an understanding. Irrespective of the kind of things that happened in our past we owe a lot to Britain. And now that it's our turn in the sun of course we look at British things in a desirable way." It's not that being British or Indian will guarantee close relations, good ties. But it helps when you begin to talk if you both know what's pukka.

[Gerard]

In the Islamic Emirate of Norman-Ruled-England, Held Wales, Occupied Scotland and English-Administered-Ireland....

UK police arrest terror suspect, conduct controlled blast

Skynews....

Officers from the Explosives Ordnance Disposal team returned to the quiet cul-de-sac in Westbury-on-Trym on Friday night after detectives were granted seven days to hold a 19-year-old terror suspect, who Sky sources say is Andrew Ibrahim.

The teenager, who was understood to have recently converted to Islam, was arrested after covert inquiries

Third blast at terror suspect home

Army bomb disposal experts carried out a third controlled explosion at the home of a 19-year-old terror suspect on Saturday.

A loud crack from the detonation was audible at Comb Paddock in Bristol.

[Lalmohan]

bart quote:
Till Indian people invade Britan by force, kill British citizens, rob and loot all their wealth, treat Britons as secondclass citizens in their own country, destroy all their belief systems and institutions of learning, sow major seeds of divison amongt the local populace, and leave the country dirt poor


You mean to say like Pakis are doing in UK.

that is a very astute observation

[Kalantak]

Every nation needs an Brown. Guess what the data will be used for.

Britain to keep tabs on sex lives of citizens

22 Apr 2008
LONDON

The Brown administration's 'big brother' policy has reached Orwellian proportions with privacy a thing of the past for Britons.

Following it's biometric ID cards, surveillance cameras and national DNA database, the government will now snoop on the sex life of its citizens with probing questions about promiscuity and contraception.

British government inspectors are to pry into the intimate details of more than 500,000 people a year, asking a series of probing questions about their sex lives and earnings, according to Daily Mail. Snooping officials will want to know about previous sexual partners, contraception, and how long couples lived together before marriage.

The 2,000-question survey from office for national statistics will raise major concerns about privacy -especially as data will be with respondents' names and addresses.

Some of the questions seem remarkably insensitive. One asks: "Have you ever had a baby - even one who only lived for a short time?" Interviewers are told starkly: "Exclude: Any stillborn; Include: Any who only lived for a short time." Civil servants claim the sensitive personal information will be made anonymous once it is processed at the department's headquarters in Newport, South Wales.

Investigators conducting the survey - at a cost of more than £3.5million a year - will visit 200,000 homes at random each year and question each occupant - about 500,000 individuals altogether. They have questions on contraception alone, such as whether men have had vasectomies and brands of pill women take.

From London to Dhaka by train in 23 days

22 Apr 2008

In what would be the world's greatest rail journey, a new rail link, to be opened later this year, will enable one to undertake a 23-day journey by train from London to Dhaka via New Delhi.

The 11,000-km Trans-Asia railway network will follow one of the old Silk Roads through Istanbul, Tehran, Lahore and Delhi.The world's "greatest railway journey" will be longer than the Trans-Siberian railway, which spans 9,200 km, reported the Times Online .

India has already earmarked £90 million to extend its vast rail network towards its border with Burma. From there just 350 km of missing track stands in the way of an overland rail journey from London to Singapore.

Under a UN-sponsored scheme, Pakistan and Iran will link up their lines in the coming months to join the sub-continent's track to that of Europe for the first time. The UN said the link would open up new trade routes within Asia and give the former Soviet republics of central Asia rail access to Iran's strategic seaport at Bandar Abbas on the Gulf.

The route was extended when the Calcutta to Dhaka line reopened earlier this month, more than 40 years after it was blocked during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.

Last week, senior Indian officials met their Iranian counterparts in Tehran to discuss the progress so far made in the rail network. The prospect has caused excitement among Britain's rail enthusiasts. Mark Smith, whose website Seat61.com promotes rail adventures around the world, was planning his first London to Dhaka itinerary.

His trip incorporates the Eurostar to Brussels, breakfast in Vienna and onward trains to Istanbul, where travellers must take the ferry across the Bosporus linking Europe with Asia. The ferry will eventually be replaced by an underground tunnel, but for now passengers will be able to enjoy views of the Aya Sofya and Topkapi Palace.

China, a big supporter of the project, is spending billions on extending rail lines to its Burmese border.

Trans-Asia railway sources said the only barrier to eventually connecting London to Yunnan province and Singapore was Burma's military regime.

Laura will be happy to hear that now Burma can be easily accessed by ....

[Apu]

British MPs want 'US-style relationship' with India

Times Of India
23/04/08

Recognising that "trade" and "takeovers" have become the buzzwords in UK-India relations in recent years, a key House of Commons committee wants the Labour government to forge a "special relationship" with India.

"We need to establish a relationship as special with India as the one we have enjoyed with the United States," the Business and Enterprise Committee said in a report titled 'Waking up to India: Developments in UK-India Economic Relations'.

The report, published this week, notes that there has been a "significant improvement" in economic relations between Indian and Britain since 2006, and mentions recent takeovers of British companies by Indian companies such as Tata and United Breweries.

The committee comprising MPs across party lines is chaired by the Conservative MP from Mid Worcestershire Peter Luff.

"The United Kingdom has woken up to India, but progress must not now be slowed in response to global concerns or expressions of doubt about India's future," the committee's report said.

"Even if India grows more slowly than other emerging markets, in a country of over a billion people the opportunities created would still be huge. The United Kingdom is uniquely well placed to take advantage of them, to the benefit of both partners," it added.

The committee had briefings from several stakeholders, including Indian-origin entrepreneur Karan Bilimoria and representatives of UK Trade and Investment, the department responsible for overseas trade relations.

The committee noted that there were several hurdles in India to further growth, but declared that "not all the barriers to a deepened relationship are on the Indian side".

It mentioned challenges faced in the area of visas and competition in education from the United States and Australia.

The committee noted the "recent shocks" to the world's financial markets, and said that India's economy had recently enjoyed growth rates of around 9 per cent a year. It said that the growth was likely slow slightly in 2008 and 2009.

"The country faces significant challenges, such as real poverty, poor infrastructure and public sector bureaucracy.

However, the Indian market is liberalising. India is an emerging market with much to offer," it said.

"It would be wrong to pretend that no barriers to trade or investment remain, but there are real opportunities for those who are prepared to take advantage of them".

The committee noted that several British government agencies had opened offices in different parts of India, and called for a coordinated approach to deepen economic ties at various levels.

"While the establishment of offices by different public and private sector organisations in India is a sign of genuine and committed UK interest, we are concerned that the influx of organisations, if not properly co-ordinated, will increase confusion, with too many bodies with overlapping objectives," it said.

Recalling that the first bilateral UK-India Investment Summit was held in 2006, the committee noted that it had not been held again. The committee encouraged the British government to hold a follow-up summit soon.

The committee also urged the government to keep under review the possible improvements in visa and other related arrangements that could be made to the mutual benefit of the economies of India and Britain.

"We urge the Government to explore with Schengen countries how the visa regime for Indians resident in the UK and needing to travel to other EU countries could be eased, or periods of EU visa validity extended considerably," the report said.

The committee noted that Indian students were coming in increasing numbers to Britain, but said it was concerned that Britain's share was declining in absolute terms relative to its competitors, notably Australia.

"We call on the government to undertake a comprehensive examination of the ways of making the UK a more attractive place to study for Indian students, including overcoming visa issues and increasing the length of time Indian students can remain in the UK after graduation," it added.

[vina]

British MPs want 'US-style relationship' with India

What will this "special" relationship do for India ? .. The UK can offer diddly squat (other than RR engines).

The "Britannia" story is the 19th Century story. Like Azim Premji devastatingly responded if Wipro would shop for "large global companies with revenues 2 to 3 times its own" .."Those are yesterday's stories. Why would you pay good money to buy yesterday ?".

UK, is not even yesterday, or even the last century, but the century BEFORE that.. Why would you want to have anything with two centuries ago ?

[Gerard]

posted in full since site does not archive

Brown seeks 'Global New Deal' with India

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited India to be part of what he called 'a Global New Deal' - a partnership that will overhaul a string of international institutions and create new ones in order to ensure globalisation benefits the world's poor.

The partnership, he told a large gathering of members of the ruling Labour party and prominent non-resident Indian businessmen and bankers in Britain, would seek to end poverty, illiteracy and disease 'at a critical point in the global economy' by harnessing the economic, scientific and technological prowess of the two nations.

Just as the Marshall Plan helped the poorest countries rebuild after the ravages of the Second World War, so there was a need for a similar helping hand to the world's poorest now, he said.

Brown called for India and Britain to jointly rebuild a string of international institutions - from the United Nations to the Group of Eight - and even create new ones.

"We need a Global New Deal between rich and poor countries that can release millions of people from poverty, ensure every child goes to school and eradicate preventable and avoidable diseases from the world," Brown said in his speech to the Labour Friends of India on Tuesday.

"And just think what we can achieve - India and Britain working together. I know there are voices in India that I know want to do this. Let the Friends of India send out a message: this partnership is stronger than ever. It will strengthen in the years to come. It will not simply be a partnership for India and Britain. It will be partnership that will benefit the whole world."

Made in the backdrop of growing warnings of a global recession, Brown's call for a 'Global New Deal' recalled the New Deal measures that US President Franklin D Roosevelt introduced in the 1930s to extend a helping hand to the poorest Americans in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

Tuesday's meeting was attended by several cabinet ministers, including Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw and Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, as well as Indo-British industrialist Swraj Paul, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who currently chairs the British Council, and London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

"What is happening at the moment is that we have a moment of opportunity that will come and go unless we make the most of it - a moment of opportunity to rebuild the global institutions in a manner that will make globalisation inclusive for all people across the world," he said.

Reiterating Britain's support of India's demand for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, he said, "A Security Council without India cannot be a Security Council reflecting the reality of the day."

Similarly, Brown said: "A G8 that discusses the world economy without involving India cannot be a G8 that is discussing all the details of what needs to be done in the world economy."

Without naming the International Monetary Fund, he said: "We need a new early warning system for the global economy so we can prevent the kind of credit crunch that we have had in the last few months.

"And that's why we need an international institution that demands the support of the Asian continent as well as Europe and America that can actually show it can be involved in crisis prevention as well as crisis resolution."

In his speech, Brown revealed that India and Britain are already working together to consider creating a "World Bank for the environment." India and Britain also needed to help beef up the ability of the United Nations to prevent and resolve conflicts.

"I look forward to working with the Indian government and the Indian people in a major programme of the reform of the international institutions that will recognise the rising importance of India in the world but recognise also that India, Britain and other countries working together are the only means by which we can create the type of world that gives us peace, prosperity and sustainable development," the British premier said.

The Prime Minister later presented Kinnock with the Fenner Brockway medal, named after a late Labour MP who strongly supported India's independence.

[vishnua]

British MPs want 'US-style relationship' with India

What this means brit companies think US is bottom less pit with money. Not just the companies but pretty much every "export" from UK has similar view.

They probably want something like this in India as they know there is an oppurtunity of making zillions of $ out of india.

[Karan Dixit]

Vina,

Humor is one thing but reality is other.

There were always great potential there for a close relationship between India and UK. But primarily due to their bias against India, this potential was never realized.

I see a great potential for partnership in aerospace engineering. They are welcome to work with us and we can both benefit from it.

[Lalmohan]

don't worry karan, vina has his own "special relationship" with the UK which he tells us all about at regular intervals

the UK is not the old Imperial Britain, it has transformed - as have the other former European great powers. We need to transform too - and understand the potential

history is interesting for perspective, but we need to look forward
just my 2 new pence

[ashish raval]

posted in full since site does not archive

Brown seeks 'Global New Deal' with India

Gordon Brown is the best PM of Britain if the common British people can forsee what he is talking about for the future. Unfortunately common man in UK or elsewhere are not able to understand what he means to eradicate the poverty in the whole world. Short term gains are what people usually want and see when they device new policies or do the deals. He is the man on the mission to eradicate poverty and i must admit he does whatever he can to promote this theme and help reach poors wherever he can. Needless to say i am Gordon fan. PM and Government of India should have only 2 things on their mind 1) Eradicate poverty and 2) Education, all the problems will be solved if GoI allocates huge budgets in those areas. But unfortunately here too it is involved in votebank politics which is really pathetic.

[vishnua]

Yes. Few hundered years ago Brit just wanted to do trade only. Not that i am questioning the intent but need to see what this new deal actually transforms into. For Ex: who is going to be responsible for what and who is going to at the leadership role and who is going to cough out at what percentage.

Technically Brits have to cough up majority of the portion of the rupia and india can take the leasdership role because only "Third world" countries understand how to remove poverty as they are already in the process.

Need to wait for the details but i do have faith in our babus.

[ranganathan]

Why would India need britains hep in reducing poverty? If brown is serious he should focus on africa.