Indo-UK: News & Discussion

Karan Dixit · Post by **Karan Dixit** » 13 Oct 2010 07:15

I think it is a wise move on the part of UQ to go for decreased military budget. As a matter of fact they should totally do away with Navy and Airforce. All they need is paramilitary level force to help US out in Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-1 ... -cuts.html

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 15 Oct 2010 03:56

Published on Oct 15, 2010
By Premen Addy
Manifestations of Delhi belly: Daily Pioneer

Beyond this, the season of calumny and insult from sections of the British media may well be drawing to its undignified close. The fourth estate in Britain has long been reduced to a fourth-rate estate, commented retired veteran Tom Bairstow, a name familiar to New Statesman readers when this once famous Left-wing weekly was rationally radical rather than radically chic. Certain British reporters have been engaged in feeding frenzy of spite as they predicted the debacle awaiting the Commonwealth Games in the Indian capital and much else besides in the rest of the country.

A subconscious resentment of the former coolies of the Raj playing lords of the manor was, is, and has been difficult to stomach. Delhi belly mutates in inexplicable ways.

Karan Dixit · Post by **Karan Dixit** » 16 Oct 2010 22:57

UK jobless picture masked by data

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a45496e2-d8c4 ... abdc0.html

Karan Dixit · Post by **Karan Dixit** » 16 Oct 2010 23:04

THE UNITED KINGDOM'S cash-strapped government announces its long-awaited cost-cutting program Wednesday, and investors will be poring over the details to identify winners and losers. Outright winners will be hard to find, but some companies might not fare as badly as expected.

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB500 ... ws_barrons

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 17 Oct 2010 14:13

India eyes common trade bloc

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101017/j ... 066245.jsp

India may have spent $8 billion in organising the Commonwealth Games this fortnight, but compared with the $93 billion it trades annually with the Commonwealth members, that spending is small change.

Top Indian officials said India had long advocated turning the “club” into a trade bloc where members enjoyed exclusive tariff advantages but has been thwarted by the British who preferred an euro-centric trade policy. However, it intends to use the former British colonies’ club to strike trade and investment deals to its benefit over the next few years.

Indian officials said, “Britain and Canada, which are the only two nations whose trade with other Commonwealth nations is in single digits, are also keen to turn the Commonwealth to their trading advantage … the reason of course is the economic weakness in European and American markets.”

“We do not envisage a Commonwealth trade pact in the near future but do visualise using the club to catapult FTAs (free trade agreements) and economic pacts. We are working on FTAs with Australia, Bangladesh and have similar deals with two other members — Sri Lanka and Singapore,” the officials said. A trade pact with Canada is also on the anvil.

Karan Dixit · Post by **Karan Dixit** » 18 Oct 2010 08:11

UK leaders lag behind in the first global ranking of leadership effectiveness

http://www.onrec.com/news/uk_leaders_la ... irst_globa

sunnyP · Post by **sunnyP** » 18 Oct 2010 15:02

European terror attacks mastermind sent operative to Britain to raise arms and money

Ilyas Kashmiri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, sent an associate to Britain to meet two men from Derby in August 2009, security sources have told the Daily Telegraph.

The British contacts were supposed to assist the associate, a US citizen called David Coleman Headley, with plans for a truck-bomb attack on the Danish newspaper behind cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Kashmiri said contacts in Europe would provide “money, weapons and manpower” for Headley, according to US documents, although none materialised.

It is feared the network has now been re-tasked to support Kashmiri’s plans for Mumbai-style attacks in Europe.

Intelligence suggesting Kashmiri boasted that he had already sent terrorists to Britain and Germany as part of the plot, sparked an alert across the continent two weeks ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... money.html

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 19 Oct 2010 11:20

Bureaucrat assured Zakir Naik supporters after his entry ban by Minister

Mr Farr has been director general of the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in July 2007. Once tipped to be the next head of MI6, his responsibilities reportedly include running security for the 2012 Olympics. When she banned Dr Naik in June 18, Home Secretary Theresa May cited reported comments from Dr Naik such as “every Muslim should be a terrorist” and, on Osama Bin Laden, that “if he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him” when she decided to ban him.

However, later that same day, Mr Farr told one of Dr Naik’s supporters that he wanted to find a way to get the Muslim preacher into the UK.

According to emails, due to be disclosed at the High Court, Inayat Bunglawala, the chairman of lobby group Muslims4UK, asked Mr Farr whether he could “agree a form of words which makes it clear that Naik totally disassociates himself from the kind of extremism that the right wing press have – very unfairly in my view – accused him of, and thereby allow the governments to show that progress has been made in resolving the issue of problematic statements from the past”.

Mr Farr replied: “Of course I agree. We are aiming to do just that. I am getting this process underway next week and will see it through myself. To be frank with you, the more time you can give us to try to get this right in private the better. Any ideas of course please have a word.”

Robert Halfon, Conservative MP said: “This underlines what I have been saying that there are too many people who seem to be appeasing extreme Islamism, rather than confront it. I welcome Theresa May’s robust response to it and extreme Islamism. This man should be removed from the Home Office. He is not suited to do this role. Why on earth is someone in the Home Office trying to help bring an extreme Islamist into the UK?”

Last night Dr Naik said he was “confident justice will be done” regarding his legal challenge. He said: "I have great faith in the British justice system. The court will be clearly shown that the independent advice of the most senior government advisors was wrongly overturned and ignored by the Home Secretary Theresa May.”

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 20 Oct 2010 01:55

UQ's defence review decisions :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11574573

C-130 Hercules transport fleet to be withdrawn ten years earlier than planned

Withdraw the Sentinel surveillance aircraft

Remove Harrier from service ergo no carrier fast jet operations till JSF

Scrap Nimrod MRA4 implying no MPA capability

and their base RAF Kinloss to be closed down.

build 2 CVF as planned, 2nd one as CTOL. no jet to fly off them for the decade !

ark royal to be decommisioned.

reduction of support ships from 23 to 19.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 20 Oct 2010 01:59

Ameet wrote:India eyes common trade bloc

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101017/j ... 066245.jsp

Top Indian officials said India had long advocated turning the “club” into a trade bloc where members enjoyed exclusive tariff advantages but has been thwarted by the British who preferred an euro-centric trade policy. However, it intends to use the former British colonies’ club to strike trade and investment deals to its benefit over the next few years.

Indian officials said, “Britain and Canada, which are the only two nations whose trade with other Commonwealth nations is in single digits, are also keen to turn the Commonwealth to their trading advantage … the reason of course is the economic weakness in European and American markets.”

Perhaps India should set aside UK and Canada from CWG and create a trade block with a different name. Can UK call itself the king without the crown (India)?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Oct 2010 17:42

UK Govt has unveiled the new economic plan:

490,000 public sector jobs to go
retirement age to be 66 by 2020
some brave words about railway and road upgrades...

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 17:45

and all of that is only 19% cut of budget over 4 years...

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 20 Oct 2010 18:20

Holy shi*!

UK's net debt hits £842.9 billion - a record 57.2 per cent of GDP
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z12u6aKOZP

By 2014 , the deficit will reach a whopping £1.2 Trillion is what I heard.

So they just borrowed and borrowed and partied all this while eh. So much for the aid cr@t

Comparison - Indian SDRE deficit:
6% and is projected to drop down to 4.8% in the next years.

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 20 Oct 2010 18:36

^^^ Err, Neela, - there's a difference between debt and deficit.

A 57.2% debt to GDP ratio is quite, quite good, IMVHO.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 18:42

well... its good in comparison, but certainly not sustainable
cuts are required, but they will be painful
health is largely untouched and cuts to core benefits (pension, unemployment...) are not major
interestingly, spend on these core benefits is 4 x the entire defense budget and about 1.5 x health budget

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 20 Oct 2010 19:05

HariJi

Finance not my forte. The numbers looked really big to me. Me poor SDRE onlee.

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 20 Oct 2010 19:07

UK deficit at 12%.
That is more than Greece no?
How come there are no riots?

IN true Paki style , I blame everyone else....damn you economists for confusing things with similar sounding worlds.

Manishw · Post by **Manishw** » 20 Oct 2010 19:21

Deficit is the difference between revenues and expenditures of the Govt. per annum
and net debt is what the name suggests net debt of the Govt.
This figure of 57.2% actually hides more than it shows eg the unfunded social liabilities of the UK govt and many more.These crooks have cooked their accounts for a long time and got away with it since they own the international finance agencies like IMF, Credit rating's agencies et al along with the US and other worthies and now its payback time.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 19:22

greece has far more fundamental problems, e.g. the non collection of tax, the grossly overpaid civil service (grossly underpaid private sector and high unemployment), un controlled government borrowing without any fundamental industrial structures in place, a population that thinks it ought to have the same standard of living as germany...

by contrast, the uk has reasonable employment, high tax payments, regulated workforce... a strong fear of unemployment, backed by a decent set of services that cushion the blows if the worst comes to the worst, and more or less stable industrial and governmental landscape (by comparison)

red lines have not been crossed yet

Manishw · Post by **Manishw** » 20 Oct 2010 19:26

Lalmohan Ji after all the cooking the deficit is 12%.It is whopping.Comparing it to Greece is like India comparing with Bangladesh and feeling happy about it.A drastic reduction in the lifestyles of UK wallas is coming sooner then we expect.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 19:28

no doubt it is coming, i am merely answering why there are no riots (as yet)
p.s. strictly speaking, the numbers are worse than greece...

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 20 Oct 2010 19:48

But how come 900billion debt is good? Do you mean good relatively? . If my annual income is Rs.10 and my debt is Rs.8, that is still a lot no? Whathephck - if that is good, what is bad? Damn you economists!

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 19:50

i did write relatively didnt i?

Manishw · Post by **Manishw** » 20 Oct 2010 19:52

Neela wrote:But how come 900billion debt is good? Do you mean good relatively? . If my annual income is Rs.10 and my debt is Rs.8, that is still a lot no? Whathephck - if that is good, what is bad? Damn you economists!

Yes it is good relatively, nothing great about it and add the fact that even these nos. are cooked and not real, actual nos. by GAAP might be multiple times of this 900 B.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Oct 2010 19:52

choti muh bari baat sarkar, but I think Japan's debt:gdp ratio is 200%. not sure if these are high interest or low interest debt.

per BBC today for UK its 64% , well below the of the PIIGS

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Oct 2010 19:54

depends on which numbers you look at... however, things are bad in all scenarios, and all economies (except india and china) are in the brown stuff

Manishw · Post by **Manishw** » 20 Oct 2010 19:55

Singha Ji Japan had two lost decades and still in danger of falling in the nearest ditch it can find.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 21 Oct 2010 07:28

Many of Greece's problems have to do with the fact that the rules don't really apply to the wealthy and powerful, and the middle and working classes violently refuse to carry what they see as an unfair share of the burden. The result is that much falls by the wayside while everyone is busy being intransigent.

Even when Britain was gripped by paralysing and organised class warfare (the strikes of the 1970s) neither public opinion nor rule of law were things that can be easily dodged without offending the voting public, who will react. One reaction to the strikers was to elect Thatcher - repeatedly.

The last time you had mass civil unrest and civil disobedience in mainland Britain was Thatcher's attempt to impose the Poll Tax in 1989-90.

The key to the survival of any policy always lies with "Middle England" - they are in a belt tightening mood but will resist anything they see as unfair (to them at least!).

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 21 Oct 2010 07:41

Singha wrote:choti muh bari baat sarkar, but I think Japan's debt:gdp ratio is 200%. not sure if these are high interest or low interest debt.

per BBC today for UK its 64% , well below the of the PIIGS

Which is why Cameron and co. are rushing to cut deficits. Japan fell into the trap of trying to spend its way out of a credit by stimulating demand. No jobs and/or no job security means no increase in aggregate domestic demand.

This is not the 1930s when governments were not running huge deficits an FDR could could spend to create PWD jobs.

Interesting perspective is liabilities of UK banks (including derivatives) ~$60 trillion worse now that they are effectively government controlled.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 21 Oct 2010 10:14

This cannot be considered Indo-UK, but did not find a more suitable thread..
Saudi prince sentenced to life for killing servant
In quick time a life sentence (for 20 years minimum) has been awarded to a Saudi prince who killed his servant by brutal assault with a s-exual element (I like this new phrase

). Though the judge is to have said 'No one [in UK] is above the law', I dont know if the verdict was given with a tacit approvals for the Saudi rulers. Homo sexuality in Saudi Arabia is a punishable by death as per the Shariah, so it would be better if the prince is holed up in a prison in the UK. Another example of Saudi Barbaria's hypocrisy.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 21 Oct 2010 12:52

one of the papers was saying that the death sentence for homosexuality in saudi arabia is only carried out in the case of rape. wonder what happened to the 5 guys who raped the woman and her male friend in a car. the girl who then got lashes for being alone with an unrelated male in the car...

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 21 Oct 2010 16:15

Sikh Shopkeeper murdered in Yorkshire

ofcourse the four natives of huddersfield who murdered Mr Singh appear to be descended from a certain well known land of the pure

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 22 Oct 2010 20:00

one used boat for sale.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0555567869

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 23 Oct 2010 07:30

From twitter

NYTimes: British Navy Seeks Inquiry After Nuclear Sub Runs Aground http://nyti.ms/cC2qN8

Well well. Thought experiment : Imagine the hullabaloo, the vitriol and the gloat-bloat that would have resulted in the UKstani media if, say the Arihant ran into minor trouble, forget running aground only....

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Oct 2010 08:40

being a shakedown cruise the captain might escape with a severe warning. in normal course, he would lose his job at sea. maybe the new trend is avoid 'old fashioned' INS type stuff and instead navigate by hooking it up to a iphone maps and get turn by turn directions lol they didnt factor in the distortion field of AAPL

and its using a smoky diesel genset whose plume can be spotted for miles....

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 23 Oct 2010 09:22

Singha wrote:being a shakedown cruise the captain might escape with a severe warning. in normal course, he would lose his job at sea. maybe the new trend is avoid 'old fashioned' INS type stuff and instead navigate by hooking it up to a iphone maps and get turn by turn directions lol they didnt factor in the distortion field of AAPL

and its using a smoky diesel genset whose plume can be spotted for miles....

Seems to have strayed considerably from the clearly marked navigational channel.

The Captain will get it in the neck along with his navigator.

Maybe they lost motive power and drifted.....

Kukreja · Post by **Kukreja** » 23 Oct 2010 10:06

Singha wrote: and its using a smoky diesel genset whose plume can be spotted for miles....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p2LuvoXKmU

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Oct 2010 14:08

some pretty cruel comments from americans rubbing it in to lil brother...atleast until the next american sub breaks its nose prowling around off hainan.

imagine the takleef if this had beached in russian waters in the barents sea....the Rus would gleefully impound it for trespass.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 23 Oct 2010 14:57

It seems that they had lost situational awareness and lost the plot along with that. That is the only explaination for some thing as advanced as the Astute runing aground.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 23 Oct 2010 18:43

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/2 ... tute-freed