Re: India-Africa News and Discussion
Posted: 08 Nov 2008 02:45
You need a clear enemy...........not dogs behind the bushes. It is not question of balls.
Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
One should not be so quick to vouch for war. That seems to be the problem with many short tempered on BR.vavinash wrote:India does not have the balls to start a war when its parliament is attacked and you want them to start a war in africa??
After defence minister A K Antony recently expressed "serious concern'' over the developments in Congo, sources said his ministry has now told the external affairs ministry that there is no need to rush additional troops to Congo unless it is felt that it would "serve some major strategic or politico-economic interest'' of India.
however the RM needs to ensure that Indian troops on the ground do not get overwhelmed by superior rebel numbers and weapons and are not hampered by ineffective UN rules of engagementGerard wrote:India virtually rules out sending more troops to CongoAfter defence minister A K Antony recently expressed "serious concern'' over the developments in Congo, sources said his ministry has now told the external affairs ministry that there is no need to rush additional troops to Congo unless it is felt that it would "serve some major strategic or politico-economic interest'' of India.
The writer was at pains to point out: "I can assure you I had nothing to do with the coup d'etat." Forsyth has previously admitted helping to finance a 1973 coup attempt in another West African state, Equatorial Guinea. Those events were the inspiration for his 1974 book The Dogs of War, which chronicles a failed plan by a group of European mercenaries to topple the government of a fictional African country.
It was obvious that the trip was intended to create a particular image of India in African minds; an image of an emergent global super-power that African countries cannot afford to ignore and we are the vehicles through which this all-important message is to be conveyed.
MoS External Affairs Shashi Tharoor will be handling the Gulf countries, which has a large Indian expatriate population. Tharoor also gets to handle the divisions of West Asia and North Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; East and Southern Africa; West Africa; consular, passport and visa; Special Kuwait cell; and policy planning and research.
So he gets charge of North Africa, East and Southern Africa, and West Africa. Is there any part of Africa remainingGerard wrote:India to take part in Egypt NAM summitMoS External Affairs Shashi Tharoor will be handling the Gulf countries, which has a large Indian expatriate population. Tharoor also gets to handle the divisions of West Asia and North Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; East and Southern Africa; West Africa; consular, passport and visa; Special Kuwait cell; and policy planning and research.
Central ...RaviBg wrote: So he gets charge of North Africa, East and Southern Africa, and West Africa. Is there any part of Africa remaining
I think the writer is showing her angst because Zuma doesnt belong to the sophisticated in crowd. And criticising him even before he can take charge? Wonder whats her agende and connection to South Africa? To me it lokks like the South Africans have elected a self educated native and thats causing anxiety that he might go tribal.STAGGERINGLY IGNORANT OR UNUSUALLY SMART?
Can a new president with half-a-dozen first ladies and a dubious past revive South Africa’s political future? asks Jyotirmoy Pal Chaudhuri
Charismatic and canny
On Saturday, May 9, Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa’s largest political party, the African National Congress, was sworn in as the president of Africa’s most significant and powerful state. In an election held towards the end of 2007, Thabo Mbeki, the then president of South Africa and of the ANC, lost to Zuma in the ANC presidential elections. In accordance with ANC tradition, the president of the party also becomes the president of the country. Zuma’s assumption of power, therefore, would correct the aberration.
This was made possible because in South Africa’s fourth general elections, held on April 22, ANC won 264 seats in the 400-member national assembly. The party secured about 66 per cent of the votes cast. Twelve more parties were in the fray. The Democratic Alliance and Congress of the People (Cope) were two other parties of any significance. The DA, a party of liberal whites headed by the feisty leader, Hellen Zille, a former anti-apartheid campaigner, got about 17 per cent of the votes and Cope, a new party set up by ANC rebels after the ouster of Mbeki, secured little over 7 per cent of the popular votes. Because of the system of proportional representation, DA and Cope have 67 and 30 seats respectively in the legislative assembly.
Zuma’s parents were Zulu peasants. He herded his grandfather’s goats when other children, coming from more affluent families, went to school. He joined the ANC in his mid-teens. From then, until he was 50, he devoted his life to the liberation struggle; first as a prisoner on Robben Island for 10 years with Nelson Mandela, then as an activist in the armed underground, and finally as ANC’s head of intelligence. When the white minority rule ended in 1994, Zuma became the minister for economic affairs and tourism in his native Kwazulu-Natal. He worked as a minister till 1999, when he was made the vice-president of ANC, a position he held for about 10 years.
According to former cellmates at Robben Island, when Zuma first came to prison, he could speak only Zulu. By the time he left Robben Island, he was reading the English versions of Leo Tolstoy’s novels. With no formal education, flamboyant polygamy, numerous children, silk ties, lavish lifestyle, luxury homes and expensive cars, Jacob Zuma remains an enigma. Now Zuma is 67, and recently he married his sixth wife — a wife 30 years his junior. South Africa now becomes the only country in the world with half-a-dozen first ladies.
These, however, can be dismissed as trivial personal matters. But there are quite a few other issues pertaining to the new president of South Africa which cannot be ignored at all. Zuma was accused of accepting more than 4 million rand ($5,96,000) between 1995 and 2005 from his friend and former financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, in exchange for using his influence to help secure government contracts for Shaik’s companies. Sentencing Shaik to 15 years imprisonment in 2005, the presiding judge said that the payments to Zuma “can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient”. Zuma denied any wrong-doing, and both men maintain that the money was intended as a loan, part of which Zuma has already repaid.
A month ago, the supposedly independent National Prosecution Authority announced that it was withdrawing all charges of corruption, racketeering, tax evasion, money laundering and fraud against Zuma. Immediately after that Shaik was released from jail on ‘medical-parole’ after serving two years and four months of his 15-year sentence. Zuma made a public announcement stating that if elected president, he would consider granting a ‘pardon’ to Shaik. Not a bright picture at all.
But Zuma has his bright side as well. He is undoubtedly a man of remarkable qualities. He connects easily with black slum-dwellers and white tycoons alike. He is charismatic and canny. He has been a wily negotiator who majesterially ended the strife between his fellow Zulus in early post-apartheid era. Zuma is a good listener and a skilled conciliator. He works hard and has impressive energy for a man of his age. After the heroic, aristocratic Mandela and the aloof, technocratic Mbeki, South Africans seem to be ready to welcome a man of the people as the president. Zuma can charm the birds out of the trees.
But the question is: can Zuma take South Africa out of the mess it is now in? With vast mineral resources, well-run industries and excellent infrastructure, South Africa is the biggest African economy. But it is sinking into recession after 16 years of expansion. Business confidence is low, and after growth averaging around 5 per cent a year between 2004 and 2007, the economy is expected to contract by around 0.8 per cent this year. Mining and manufacturing have been hard hit; so have been export and retail trade. Preparations for next year’s football World Cup, which South Africa is hosting, and a stimulus package of 690 billion rand over the next three years have not succeeded in preventing job- cuts and increase in poverty. South African cities have high rates in all sorts of crimes — murder, mugging, rape, and so on. The country has a population of over 47 million, of whom a staggering 5.7 million are AIDS victims. Unemployment is over 20 per cent and rising.
The ANC government under Mandela and Mbeki has set up a broad-based welfare state which provides cash benefits to 12.5 million people. To help people get out of the squalid shanty towns, it has built 2.7 million low-cost homes, housing around 10 million people. Some 80 per cent of all households are now connected to electricity and clean water. More than half of the state schools no longer charge fees. A large number of free health-clinics have been set up. Some 60 per cent of the AIDS-infected are receiving antiretrovirals. South Africans, especially poor black South Africans, have got used to seeing the government perform. The economic downturn will cripple the new incumbent. For sheer economic reasons, it will be virtually impossible for him to match the track record of his predecessors.
However, this is not the only challenge Zuma will face. With a huge cloud of scandal hovering over him, Zuma faces a serious credibility crisis. In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission accused the ANC in the 1970s and 1980s of “gross violation of human rights” and routine use of torture for extracting information. Zuma was the head of ANC intelligence at that time. He loathes the press, which, in his opinion, has started a “vicious media campaign designed to find me guilty in the court of public opinion”. Zuma wants to review the status of the constitutional court, which has spoken against him several times. “I do not think we should have people who are almost like god in a democracy”. Zuma expresses his strong dislike of the authority and power that the constitutional court enjoys. Many are convinced that it is because of the behind-the-scene machination and manipulation of Zuma that the NPA was forced to drop the case against him. They are also sure that the day when the new president grants pardon to his benefactor, Shaik, is not far off.
These problems are unlikely to intimidate Zuma. His support base is vast and very effective. His victory over Mbeki in the ANC presidential elections was stunning. Zuma has total control over the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu), the country’s largest trade-union federation, and is very close to the communists — the two partners of the ANC in the tripartite alliance to run the government. Julius Malema, the undisputed leader of the powerful Youth League, is one of Zuma’s staunchest supporters. In fact, Malema is known as the powerful ‘bullyboy’ who does all the dirty work for Zuma. With the support of the ANC, Cosatu and the Youth League, Zuma faces no serious threat to his authority.
There is no reason to believe that in the near future the DA and Cope will be able to expand their support base and be strong enough to challenge the ANC or Zuma. On the contrary, Zuma, with his unscrupulous political style, may succeed in making inroads into these parties, and weaken them. “It is cold out there if you are out of the ANC”, he warned them. “Very cold”.
In Black Orpheus, Jean-Paul Sartre asked, “What do you expect to find when the muzzle that has silenced the voice of blackman is removed? That they would thunder your praise?” The non-whites of South Africa were subjected to the ugliest form of social and economic discrimination in the most pervert political system installed by the white minority. The muzzle was finally removed when Mandela was elected the president of South Africa in 1994. Belying Sartre’s apprehensions, under Mandela’s most dignified and majestic leadership, South Africa had an unbelievably smooth, bloodless transition. There was no political reprisal, no act of collective vengeance, no vendetta. The whole world adored Mandela for his magnanimity, statesmanship and vision. Mbeki did all he possibly could to retain the image his illustrious predecessors had projected. Can Jacob Zuma match it? Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace, is not very sure. “We have let down our guard and quickly forgotten the struggles of our past…. Please allow us old people to go to the grave smiling, not with our hearts broken”.
Some years ago, Jacob Zuma was tried on a rape charge. The female involved belonged to an HIV-infected family. When asked about the danger of HIV infection, Zuma explained that after having sex he had showered to stave off the disease. Staggering ignorance or extraordinary smartness! The world would soon find out.
The author is former professor and head, department of history,
University of Liberia, Monrovia, West Africa
SK Mody wrote:China goes to Africa - Slides
Go soft power !!!!India, a developing and incredible country is known for its ancient monuments and unlimited natural resources. The rivers, mountains and vegetation and its exotic spices, make the country wonderful.
It covers an area of 3,287,263 square kilometre with its political capital as New Delhi and Mumbai formally known as Bombay the economic capital.
It is the second largest populated country in the world after China with a total population of 1.2 billion. India, a land of diverse culture and religion shows unity in diversity.
This country which has its roots deep in the past also has its long branches in the future and one needs to know more about India, especially in its recent developmental status on the globe and learn from it.
India’s economy has been ascending for the past two decades with drastic increase in foreign exchange reserves. Globally, India is recognised for its success in managerial and entrepreneurial talents as well as technological competence.
The country has really contributed immensely in various disciplines to make the advanced countries what they are today. Yet, India is termed a developing country. In my opinion, this is due to the population density but I hope with good policies in place, India will become a developed nation by 2020.
The face of India's undying commitment to South-South co-operation, the Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation (ITEC) programme and its corollary SCAAP has disseminated expertise and the country's developmental experience acquired over six decades of existence as a free nation to generations of students from 156 countries in Asia, East Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, popularly known as 'ITEC', was launched in 1964 as a bilateral programme of assistance of the Indian Government. The ITEC programme, including its corollary SCAAP (Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme), has expanded to include some 220 courses ranging from Journalism, IT, Rural Electrification, Textile Designing to Commerce and Science.
Most of these courses that students pursue under the ITEC/SCAAP programme are of short-duration lasting between three and 12 weeks.
The rationale behind imparting technical training to young men and women from developing countries is based on India's strengths and expertise in different sectors of the knowledge economy.
India is not a rich country and cannot offer grants-in-aid to match those of the developed countries. It does, however, possess skills of manpower and technology more appropriate to the geographical and ecological conditions and the stage of technological development of several developing countries and empowering them with life-sustaining skills.
The ITEC programme also gives students from different countries a taste of multiculturalism and pluralistic secular ethos of India.
Each year, India spends about Rs.500 million ($10.8 million) on ITEC activities and over 35,000 candidates from across the globe have been trained since its inception.
Since 1964, India has provided nearly $2.5 billion worth of technical assistance to developing countries, including neighbouring countries (assistance to whom is administered separately).
Last year, 80 Ghanaians were given the chance to participate in the ITEC/SCAAP and over the years, the number of slots for Ghana and other eligible countries have increased .
Participants are given well-furnished, well-equipped, air-conditioned residential facilities as well as a monthly allowance of Rs. 10,000 which is about $250. Participants are also provided with economy class tickets from the Indian Mission of their respective countries.
India has a rich cultural heritage and the ITEC/SCAAP participants have the opportunity to visit the world’s renowned monuments and heritage structures in the cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur.
In Delhi, the participants normally visit monuments like the Red Fort, India Gate, Lotus Temple, Humayun’s Tomb, Akshardham Temple, Qutab Minar and the Raj Ghat.
In Agra, the participants get to see the glorious Taj Mahal, Sikandra and Agra Fort. The Pink City of Jaipur houses monuments and architectural wonders such as Hawa Mahal, Amber Fort, Jantar Mantar, Maharaja Palace, Birla Mandir and Albert Hall.
Today, Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organisation (AARRO) and the G-15 are being helped by ITEC with training and project support and a small beginning has also been made with cooperation with the SADC (Southern African Development Community).
Project assistance like training accounts for 40 per cent of the annual ITEC budget. India has financed an entire range of infrastructure-related projects across Asia, Africa and Latin America and in recent years in the Central Asian Republics (CARs).
Thanks to ITEC, Cuba and Costa Rica have got solar energy plants. Other key projects executed under the ITEC programme included computerisation of the office of the Prime Minister of Senegal, assistance in the transformation of the educational system of South Africa and fitting of artificial limbs in Cambodia and Uzbekistan
Agriculture, however, remains a major focus of ITEC's project assistance. The programme has provided Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali and Surinam with equipment and expertise for agricultural use and generated tremendous goodwill among African countries.
Vocational training in small-scale industry and entrepreneurship development are important areas of co-operation with Senegal, Zimbabwe, Vietnam and Mongolia under ITEC. Such training enables young people to gain useful employment at comparatively low levels of capital intensity.
It is not just students from foreign countries that have benefited from ITEC programmes, but several public sector undertaking have acquired a distinctive niche in developing countries, especially in Africa.
The National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), Hindustan Machine Tools International Limited HMT (I), Water and Power Consultancy Services Limited (WAPCOS), Rail India Technical & Economic Services (RITES) and Central Economic Limited (CEL) have capitalised on their ITEC association and are now bidding for development projects in these countries on their own.
The ITEC division of the External Affairs Ministry also takes up feasibility studies and consultancy services on request. Results of these studies are handed over to the governments concerned, who are at liberty to use them in the manner they like.
Not surprisingly, the ITEC programme that encompasses an eclectic range of activities ranging from building and manning of a hospital in Afghanistan, restoration of the Angkor Vat temple in Cambodia, to sharing experience in dry-farming technique with Iraq and teaching Vietnamese students to converse in English, has created huge reservoirs of goodwill the world over.
Networking and bonding is incredible among students. Many of them have tears in their eyes when the course ends and most of them retain their bonds forged during this short programme.
With India emerging as a potential global power, its knowledge economy that is epitomised in the ITEC programme will shine as an example of the country's ethos of creating a more equitable world based on a transfer of technology and skills from the powerful to those who are still struggling to find their voice.
India's Yes Bank expects a $150 million Tanzanian rice and wheat project to reach full production by 2011, the first of several large African farms it is funding, a senior bank official said on Monday. Listed on the Bombay stock exchange, the bank is providing finance to Indian companies eager to invest in farming projects in the world's poorest continent.
India’s ‘boycott’ costs Denel
Mpumelelo Mkhabela
Published:Jun 20, 2009
Arms parastatal says relations frosty since questions arose over procedure during contract procurement
South Africa’s state-owned arms manufacturer, Denel, has lost R2-billion in revenue after it was “blacklisted” from selling weapons to India. The company plans to seek diplomatic assistance from the SA government to recapture the Indian market.
On Wednesday, the para-statal’s group executive for business development, Zwelakhe Ntshepe, told the parliamentary portfolio committee on public enterprises: “We have been blacklisted, not officially, but the behaviour shows. They don’t invite us to tender, they cancel existing contracts. It’s been going on for the past four years.”
Denel has not received invitations to tender for any Indian government armament contracts since 2005, after allegations surfaced that it had earlier paid “commissions” for a deal to supply rifles………………..........
The Times, South Africa
shravan wrote:Manmohan Singh reminds the world not to forget Africa in the race for development
.
.
.
Nowhere are the challenges that humankind faces more pressing than in the continent of Africa. NAM should work to give Africa’s problems and equally its prospects, preeminence in the global development agenda.”Many African nations have looked upon India to voice their concerns in the global polity, and the Non-Aligned Nations platform has been one such forum.
“Making Africa an active participant in global economic processes is a moral imperative”, he said. And like a marketing guru, throwing a bait, he added: “It also makes good economic sense.” Dr. Singh also spoke about India’s role in furthering the African continent’s concerns about being neglected by International bodies.
He said: “India is committed to develop a comprehensive partnership with Africa. As a first step, we held the first India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi in 2008. We are ready to work with other NAM countries to enhance our partnership in areas that are of priority to Africa.”
One of the grand strategy projects should be an African Union initially comprised of Anglophone states and then with the Francopone states. This current small states lead to fractured society and reduced gravitas for Africa in world trade and politics.
A EU type of setup or SAARC type network are good models to begin with.
Can interested people sum up the economies of such an initial setup and we can wrtie an article on that?
John Snow wrote:But India being a moral super power vision, being nice to pakistan even if they have evil intentions were cornerstones of Gandhiji and his approach towards partition and pakistan. He lived by that ideology and died for it. You may not agree with that vision or with Gandhiji. MMS probably does.
Folks I just returned to Massa land after 5 weeks of touring SA, Zimbabwae, Mozambique, Namibia, Kenya.
I want admins persmission to post a comprehensive report covering Political, Cultural, strategic, economic and geo political goings in the Southern African continent part . A continent rich with resources and thanks to Indian diaspora who have been there since 1800s where India does resonate in a positive way still.
Now this picture from Kwazulu Natal province where Gandhiji started his mission to uplift the down trodden.
His original ashram was burnt down during 1984 roits and was reconstructed by her grand daughter (i am told).
Note on the left bottom of the picture ADT 24 hour Armed response, this is how Ahimsa is to be protetcted.
Please dont compare the pigmies like MMS SG and Co to the giant called Mahatama. I have been humbled with what I have seen and read and been told. I have lots of pictures of everything.
*******
SwamyG garu
All the pictures are with Minolta Dynax 7 Digital SLR. onlee 6 Meg Pixels
This one was with 70-300 zoom lens on the Minolta camera made by Quantray (Ritz Camera folks get it manufactured by Sigma I am told)
The project will connect two universities in India and five in Africa to 53 learning centres as well as between ten specialty hospitals (three in India and seven in Africa) and 53 remote hospitals.
It will establish VVIP connectivity between 53 African Heads of State for voice, Internet and video-conferencing, as well as continental and national tele-medicine and tele-education infrastructure.
Indian farming companies have bought hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils for their own domestic market back in India.
More than 80 Indian companies have invested an estimated £1.5 billion in buying huge plantations in Ethiopia. The largest among them is Karuturi Global, one of the world's largest producers of cut roses. It has signed deals for just under 350,000 hectares to create what it claims is the world's largest agricultural land-bank.
I found that we do have an interesting advantage with the Africans. First of all, there is that consciousness that we have been friends for a long time. Second, there is a sense that whereas the others who are vying for Africa’s hand, as it were—the West and China—have very impressive accomplishments in their development, and African countries look at them often with a lot of respect, even bordering on awe, they still see a certain distance between them and Africa. Whereas when African countries look at India, they see a country that is accessible, that is familiar, that seems to be grappling with many of the similar sorts of problems that they have—and yet a country that nonetheless has overcome them and managed to succeed. And they say to themselves, if India can do it, maybe we can do so too and learn from India. There is in many cases a sense of cultural affinity with India that enhances the content of our relationship.
But the thing about the Indian approach, going to the second part of your question, is that it is very different because it is not a heavy governmental footprint. I do not want to name the other countries, but I think you know what I am referring to. We come in, in a much more modest, unchallenging, unthreatening sort of way. Our government itself is not in a position to buy out presidencies and wholesale governments and nor would we want to—that is not our approach. What we often do is we extend modest levels of assistance by today’s standards—certainly in relation to the kind of assets that are available to China. Our grants are very modest. We make it 25 million dollars worth of something here, and 50 million worth of thing somewhere else and then we extend much larger amounts of lines of credit.
I kept hearing wherever I went anecdotes like, you know India gave a certain number of buses for example, and China gave four times as many, at a larger cost at least on paper, and often of a newer make; but the Indian buses are still running, the Chinese buses have long since broken down. No one knows how to fix them, the Chinese are not there to help, whereas we are more attuned to their needs, we’ve brought in the spare parts and trained the maintenance guys, and this has been a huge advantage to us.
Seeking closer ties with the hydrocarbon-rich Africa, India today proposed to invest in oil fields and increase purchase of crude oil and LNG from the continent, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said today.
"Our objective with Africa has been to build up a strategic partnership of enduring dimension in the oil and gas sector," he said in his valedictory address at the Second India-Africa Hydrocarbon Conference here today.
As India is hugely dependent on oil and natural gas imports, there is huge potential of Africa and India coming closer, he said addressing the representatives from 15 countries including 10 ministers.
The conference is part of New Delhi's attempt to catch up with Beijing which has developed deeper ties with Africa.
ONGC Videsh, the international exploration of the public sector energy giant ONGC, he said, has already invested $2.5 billion in the Sudanese oilfields. "Our focus has been to step up investments...In exploration and production."
"India can be a partner of African countries in the modernisation of their refineries," he said. "India is also keen to have partnership with the African nations by offering its expertise for development of their gas sector."
Since already over 15 per cent of the country's crude imports coming in mainly from Nigeria and Angola, he said Indian companies are willing to buy more crude as also explore opportunities to source more LNG.