WHY THE RED DRAGON IS ON THE OFFENSIVE MODE?

China has been in the news for a long time now for bad reasons like censorship issue with the Google, issuing separate visas for Indians flying from J&K, Chinese army entering Indian Territory; the latest is the news that the Chinese have hacked the mail accounts of Google user’s mainly human rights activists and they are allegedly involved in spying activities. Why china is getting aggressive and trying to establish its influence around the globe? It has recently warned the US president Mr.Obama, not to meet Dalai Lama.

China has a totally different political and economic setup, and it has its own advantages. China is communist at heart but capitalist at brain, unlike other communist countries which adopted complete communist policies and too much of bureaucracy leading these economies to become stagnant, this is what happened with the Soviet Union, post Lenin era and some countries which were socialistic in nature started to adopt capitalism and have become almost free markets, they are totally in a confused state, mixed economy hoping to achieve the prosperity that capitalism promises, still keeping a majority of its masses in poverty, unemployment and illiteracy.

But china on the other hand, is a complete communist regime, party is above all, but yet has adopted capitalist model of growth. These Chinese are crazy about foreign direct investments; they have provided entirely favorable environment for foreign investors, they are not only flourishing in exports but also serve as a great market for western companies. Even the Chinese have started learning English, and are attracting even BPOs to their country. The kind of policy they have adopted has helped them build adequate infrastructure, attract huge foreign direct investments and more importantly has created millions of jobs. The policy makers of this country have played a fantastic role in pulling out millions of people out of poverty over the years and steered the total economy to achieve tremendous growth rates and will continue to be one of the fastest growing economies of the world, but what seems interesting is that, though these communists have adopted a capitalist model of growth and allowed a plenty of corporate companies to flourish in their territory, they still control the economy at a large scale, it is not a free market, remember party is above all. Usually, in a free market or capitalist society, the corporate companies rule the country, they control government decisions, and this is an untold truth and hidden fact. But these communists are very particular about that, they never allow private hands to play at their will, there is a complete government control in the whole functioning of the economy.

This is where the capitalist societies of the west have the problem, they want free market every where all around the globe so that, their companies grow, expand and flourish and strengthen their already strong economies and the Chinese communists know this well, that’s why they play this capitalist game very cautiously, but the point is, china is a very attractive market like India, and the whole west knows that china has a great future, and impatiently waiting that one day this china will become a democracy like India, so that the exploitation of the market becomes easier. They basically hate communist regimes.

The Soviet Union, of course had its own draw backs, the economy was totally mismanaged post Lenin era, but the then western Industrial powers, especially, the US played a great role in facilitating the collapse of the Soviet Union and these Chinese Communists know history very well, they know how their comrades were felled by these western powers and they wait for another historic opportunity to crash their present regime too. So, it’s a situation of act or perish, grow or perish. They have decided to expand their influence now around the globe and got into the offensive mode, unlike the Soviet Union which was very much defensive, and tried save its power till then it was very late. These Chinese have decided to take on all their threats, that’s why it views India more of a competitor than as an ally ( I have already posted an article on this), that’s why it has started its spying activities around the globe to keep a check on all the western powers. China has emerged as an important financial center of the world and in the years to come will become a super power and will pose a real challenge for the whole western world and now the Chinese communists are preparing themselves for the challenging future and to make themselves capable enough to foil any possible attempts the western world can make to destroy their regime. The on-going tensions between china and US over the US president’s meet with Dalai Lama, the US government coming forward in support of Google, the western countries’ concern over china’s rapid economic growth and a possibility of becoming a world power, Multinational companies’ desperation to exploit the Chinese market, all these factors may contribute to a Cold war situation in the future, remember such a cold war existed between U.S.S.R and the U.S for years until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. So, The Chinese probably see such a cold war in the future and thus the Red dragon has decided to fight all its threats including India and right now is on the offensive mode. Now, the time has come for India to be cautious about China, and needs to prepare itself in all possible way economically and militarily to defend itself from any Chinese threats in the future.

TRAI WAKE UP! THE REAL TELECOM GAME BEGINS NOW……

“I don’t meet competition, I just crush it” said Charles Revson, but as the Indian Telecom battle going on, it’s likely that a few players will get crushed. Yes, it’s about the hyper competition that is going on in the Indian telecom market.

India is the fastest growing telecom market in the world, having approximately 52 crore mobile users, account to more than 50% of the population and the expert forecasts show that by 2014, the number of mobile users will rise to 100 crores. India being a very attractive market in terms of its population and ever growing educated middle class, and potential unexplored rural market, apart from some strong existing players, more and more new entrants have been entering the market. As the competition is getting intensified, Michael Porter’s all the forces have become active, in the telecom industry, right from industry competition, new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, Threat of substitution. Well, as the number of phone users growing day by day, new entrants see the opportunity and have been entering the market and also giving tough competition to the early birds. As the competition intensifies the companies have started to bombard the market with offers like cheap connections, lower call rates and various other mixed offers to attract customers, and the biggest beneficiary of this intensified competition is the customer, the Indian mass have been benefiting from the offers offered by these companies. Competition is good for any industry; monopoly is bad, because it will affect common people.

But what is going on now is something very interesting, blistering growth has attracted new players like Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc which formed a joint venture with Tata Teleservices Ltd. in June and sparked a race to the bottom over prices as companies rush to grab market share. The price war triggered by these new entrants have resulted in hyper competition, the price cut is huge and unimaginable, the call charges were dropped as low as 1p/sec, later MTNL’s MTN offered ½ p/sec, and companies like Virgin,Reliance offered 20p/min, now the last one to join the price war is Tata Do co mo offering 1p/6 sec (call charges, though similar but may vary from place to place).

Indian consumers at least have a reason to smile, despite the increased food inflation, that the telephone bills have come down drastically. But see what the companies are going through right now. The four month old price war has hit margins at a time when Indian telecom companies have little scope for cost-cutting, Macquarie Securities analysts said in a report. They maintain that the "price cut contagion" is likely to spread from retail rates to corporate, wireless data, international roaming and SMS rates as well. Midst of the price war, government has decided to rise the spectrum charge to 50% for the existing players recently.

The kind of price war that’s going on may lead to heavy losses and can badly affect the whole telecom industry, at least now, TRAI, our Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Department of Telecom can intervene, not to control the market, but to take some measures to curb new entrants from triggering such kind of price war in the future. A price war that analysts say could turn India's telecom boom into a financial bust.

You may say, millions of people are benefiting from the low call charges, and price war is good, and after all who cares about the telecom companies. But the point is, we are part of a large system, an economy, a complex structure of sub-systems, where one sub-system gets affected the whole system is affected. You must be aware of such a price war that went on in the Aviation sector, which resulted in heavy losses for Airlines and companies were asking for bail out packages from the government. The telecom game that is going on now may result in a disaster; if the companies incur losses, this will badly affect the telecom sector and economy as a whole. Ultimately, government has to come up with bail out packages to save the sector, because the concern is not only about these companies which are pillars of the telecom sector but also about the thousands of employees working in these companies and the number of units like the intermediaries, suppliers, distributors etc. associated with the industry.

DISINVESTMENT! YOU MEAN, YOU GONNA’ SLAUGHTER THE GOLDEN GOOSE?

Will you sell your business when you need money? Or you will run your business efficiently and generate profits? I would go for the second option. But our government thinks otherwise, sell taxpayers assets to raise funds for social sector projects.

The Private Sector, has been given so much of freedom today in every aspect, the scenario was totally different before 1991, as a result of which the private sector companies could achieve tremendous amount of growth in these years. It’s probably good for India, in spite of having its own disadvantages like bringing in economic inequality, on the other side an open economy model has helped in generating good amount of Jobs in the urban areas, and India has become a hot destination for overseas companies for investments. Some infrastructural developments are taking place due to Foreign Direct Investments flowing into the country. We are being able to get access to modern technologies through FDIs, no doubt, but, all would be well and good if the government restricts its liberalization policies to the private sector only and not extend them and implement in public sector.

My argument is, do we need to hand over public sector companies to private hands or do we really need to divest?

Have you heard the story of a villager and his golden goose*? Of course you must have. A PSU is like a golden goose if run efficiently and profitably, it can provide sustained revenue to the government, in other words public, which can be used for infrastructural and other social sector projects. Instead, government over the years have been privatizing the PSUs slowly or divesting the stake to foreign or domestic corporate investors.

For the year 2009-10, Rs 30000 crores could be made available to the government through divesting the stake in PSUs and the same would be used to meet the fiscal deficit. One of the arguments kept by some section is that disinvestment would help PSUs realize their true potential and a change in management in this way would boost their m-cap. Of course yes, as soon as the government announced the disinvestment plan, the stocks of public sector companies shot up 20%, other wise who will buy stocks of public sector companies?

The point is, we Indians resist change, a revolutionary change to totally transform the way things are done, we want the system to go as it is, because a massive change would cause pain, an enormous amount of pain which we do not want to undergo, but there is no gain with out pain. But we just want things to go as they do usually. That’s the reason why we do not see rapid growth in our country, our court cases take years to deliver justice, projects initiated by governments move slowly and when they get over a total generation passes away, we couldn’t find a solution for Kashmir till now, complacency and tolerance have become the way of life for us. The only dramatic change that occurred in India was the 1991, so called economic reforms, that too was forced by external forces (European Union, World bank, IMF ... those elite Western institutions). So is the attitude of our politicians, our policy makers have come to the conclusion that these PSUs are of no use for the government any more, we need funds, let’s sell our assets once and for all. They cannot think otherwise, that why shouldn’t we run these PSUs efficiently, why not we bring radical changes through out the structure of the PSUs. When Corporate Companies can do that, why not a powerful democratic government, fiscal deficit is a problem for our country today, if these PSUs are run properly, it can yield sustained and permanent revenue for the government for years, instead of selling in a one final deal.

Yes, As a few section claim, including our policy makers, many PSUs are in a very pathetic condition today, heavy losses, rigid management at the top, lack of innovation and creativity, an inefficient work force, lack of competitive spirit, too much of government control… all these factors contribute to their inefficiency. But there are PSUs which are performing really well, especially in the banking sector and I have written about this in one of my earlier articles. Recently, there was a news report about Three Public sector companies BCPL (Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals), HAL (Hindustan Antibiotics Limited) and IDPL (Indian Drugs Pharmaceuticals, which were expecting operating profits in 2009-10. These firms were sent to the BIFR (Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) for revival plans as these firms were declared sick units. Let’s see the steps that were taken to bring life to these companies. The firms have cut internal costs and improved employee productivity, upgraded technology, increased salaries and introduced performance-linked incentives to boost sales. Yes, this is the way to go. Just imagine, if all the PSUs in the country start to deliver in terms of performance how these firms can serve as a continuous and permanent source of revenue for the government.

The Point is, A complete change over is needed from top to bottom, a Business process Reengineering of these PSUs, first of all, autonomy, but with a pre-condition of performance evaluation time to time, that these autonomous units need to show in terms of performance at any cost, just like the way private companies are run, PSUs are also businesses whose objective is profit, then why not run these units in a commercial sense, (except a few public sector companies which were setup by the government for the purpose of serving citizens, but these companies too can be run profitably by providing excellent customer service). Secondly, top heads leading these firms, leaders need to show an absolute sense of passion towards their companies, this is where these PSUs are lagging behind, the heads leading these units are not leaders but mere appointed officials, and most of them do not have any vision for their company, nor do they have the urge to perform. The top management needs to be purpose driven, especially the one at the top of the hierarchy. Hire a few Jack Welch’s, Steve Jobs, and Ben Benarkes to lead these firms; do we have shortage of managerial talents in this country? For what purpose does the government provide subsidized education to the students of IITs and IIMs? Pick a few bright talents from these institutes; provide them adequate remuneration to lead these enterprises. Thirdly, Workforce, Most of government servants today misuse the privilege given to them by the government i.e., permanent employment, there is no incentive based package. Whether a government employee performs or not, hardly anybody bothers, even he performs or doesn’t he will get the same salary, there is no incentives based on performance, he enjoys full protection from the unions. There is no question of firing for under performance unless some serious allegations are proved against him/her. The total HR Policies of these State run enterprises need to be revised. It may sound harsh, but a series of such reforms will change the whole scenario of these loss-making PSUs, The policy of ‘permanent employment’ need to be abolished by passing a law in the parliament. The HR Policies need to be similar like the Private sectors’, perform or perish, the salary package need to be incentive based and real committed workers need to rewarded with incentives and promotions and underperformers need to be fired subsequently after a few warnings. The recruitment process should be short and simplified, in order to intake the fresh batch of candidates to compensate the fired ones and finally, up gradation of Technology is essential in order to ensure smooth and efficient functioning.

These kinds of reforms will totally change the way these Public sector enterprises function and they will subsequently become competitive enough, once these enterprises start to perform and yield profits, expansion plans can be charted out, adequate funds can be pumped in by issuing IPO’s to the retail investors (General Public) not corporate investors, because again that will amount to profit sharing with the private hands, and some profits can be ploughed back.

These PSUs if run efficiently can provide sustained and continuous revenue to the government and the surplus profits can be diverted to various social sector and infrastructural projects.

The suggested reforms may seem difficult, but not impractical, Mrs.Indira Gandhi, nationalized various important banks of this country in one go, no body could stop her from doing that, the militancy in Punjab was completely suppressed in her regime, what seemed impractical or impossible was made possible or practical, a terrific leadership at the national level is what is needed.



*The story of the villager and his golden goose (for reference)
A village bought a goose from the market , to his surprise , it used to lay one golden egg every day, and he was the happiest man in the world, he would sell an egg per day ,and earned a lot of money, he was becoming rich day by day, finally he became greedy, one day this foolish villager thought , this crazy goose lays eggs one by one that too one per day, let me slaughter this goose and get all the golden eggs inside her stomach at a time, he brought his sword from the store room, caught the goose and slaughtered it, but could find only one egg in the stomach which it was supposed to lay on that day, he realized his mistake and repented, but that couldn’t bring the goose back.

HEY DUDE! CARRY OUT OPERATION GREEN HUNT.

‘We can fight naxals and not naxalism’ this is what a DSP of a Maoist hit area told to the media. It is very important that we address the key issues of the problem called naxalism, it is a movement, and the government is taking the efforts to suppress it, in other words, naxal operations. Of course anyone who indulges in violence can be called as terrorist, but it’s important to analyze the fact that what motivates these people to fight the government against all odds. What is naxalism? It is nothing but an outcome of frustration, anger and disappointment of people over the inefficiency of the state to solve some of their basic problems which a government has the obligation to fulfill. These naxalites are none but people who once were the part of India, who have been living in remote corners of our great democracy mostly tribes who have often been neglected by the state and has always shown complacency in providing infrastructure and basic amenities to these people. This movement is led by some highly educated left ideologists and backed by tribes and other down trodden people. These people who have been neglected by the state since independence, suffering from absolute poverty, acute hunger, diseases, lack of infrastructure, sanitation, education, Isolated from the urban India. These people now, influenced by left ideologies leading a movement, called naxalism, objectives are state control, redistribution of land and wealth, so and so, the same old communist theories, though the kind of setup they try to bring in India, is very hard and next to impossible. As most of the Indians prefer Democracy and value it and may be we can never live under such rigid setup, but the naxals have succeeded over the years to make their voices reach the deaf government which has over the years never bothered about their problems. You can see everyday in newspapers about naxalism and naxalites, they either shoot dead police men or kidnap any officials or stop a train and aboard it to prove a point. They have so many districts under their control; they just kill the Zamindars after conducting a trial in the people’s court (naxals court) and distribute the land to the poor, they have intensified their activities as the government is taking some serious steps to suppress the movement.
Finally government has at least given some considerable amount of importance to the issue, which was earlier completely ignored. It is appreciable that Mr. Prime Minister has accepted that naxalism is a result of poverty. He said ‘naxalism is an outcome of poverty’ he is probably the first prime minister to accept the fact. But mere acceptance is not enough; government needs to do some thing concrete to win the confidence of those people in the region. Of course we need to curb these naxals from spreading their wings and invade our country, but at the same time we need to accept the fact that their issues are genuine, and at one side when we fight naxals, other side we need to take the benefits of the economic growth of India to those remote corners too. The government often accuses that the naxals hinder developments in those regions, but the question is, what were you doing when the movement didn’t even exist? This is just excuses government gives to cover its inabilities. These naxals are not just unorganized poor common people of these democracy, they are well organized and fight with a definite purpose, so it’s very important that when we fight them, we too fight with a definite purpose of bringing some significant developments to those people who have lost faith in democracy and not for any corporate backed ambitions. Arundhati Roy, the well-known writer, wrote a few weeks ago in an article how government is keen to get back those territories controlled by naxals as they are mineral rich lands owned by tribes, the government and the corporate India is keen to reap the benefits of those naxal hit areas. Arundhati Roy writes as follows, “the rich corporate backed army is fighting the Poor’s army to seize the only dignity left with the tribes, their lands and hand them over to big corporate sharks”. If what she writes is true, then the situation is going to worsen further, the operation against the naxals is called operation green hunt. Is the corporate India interested in those lands?, is it saying to the government ‘Hey Dude, carry out operation green hunt and wipe out those naxals over there, lets grab those lands and make some quick bugs’, if yes, then this will lead to more complications (remember lands were grabbed from poor farmers by the government in West Bengal which resulted in social unrest). If we fight naxals we should have a definite purpose of developing those areas and improve the standard of living of those people. Unless the government ensures that benefits reach these remote corners of naxal hit areas, Operation green hunt will not serve any purpose and it’s a waste of money, human resource and time.

CHINA’S DREAM OF DISINTEGRATING THE GREAT INDIAN FEDERATION

Some weeks back, there was a report in the newspapers about an article posted in the website in china, in which the writer has written how with a small effort from china the great Indian federation can be broken into many countries, like it happened with the union of soviet socialist republic of Russia (USSR). I was shocked to read, how the person who posted this article on the website (Some unconfirmed report was that the article was written by some government official and it may be the Chinese governments plan for the future) has formulated strategies to carry out this, like he says, kashmir can be liberated by supporting Pakistan, and West Bengal by giving assistance to Bangladesh and North eastern states like Assam, Manipur are facing threats from the so called liberation fronts, and disintegrating Tamil nadu by giving support to existing rebel movements. The article further indicates how India being united in spite of its different states having different culture, language and ethnicity is a big disadvantage for economic growth and thus disintegration of the great Indian federation was necessary.

Chinese have never had a proper relation with us since our independence and have been supporting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in order to keep a check on India; it has military bases in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh surrounding India on all the sides. We have border disputes with them, where they claim parts of J&K, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. They have been continuously supplying arms to the Maoists and other rebel movements operating in parts of North Eastern India with an intention to disintegrate these states from India. Recently we can see every day in newspapers about the Chinese incursions and tensions along the LAC (Line of Actual Control). Why China is totally anti-Indian, even though we have been their peaceful neighbors (except the Indo-Chinese war). The reason being that china is desperate to take over the disputed territories in India, which they claim as Chinese territory, so the recent actions are just pressure tactics to call India to the negotiation table and settle out the long disputes, they are at a stage to get something out of such negotiations and at the same time they are preparing themselves militarily by setting up bases surrounding India , which would become very difficult for India to tackle if some military actions taken from any of the sides and another strong reason being that India and china are fast growing economies of the world and soon to become important financial centers of the world, and India is a direct competitor to china in everything from exports to foreign direct investments, though china has a better advantage than us , still they feel threatened by us, so an united India is a huge diversified market, and has the capability to attract foreign direct investments in the future and India’s economic development is unstoppable. In fact India is not a single market, due to its diversity, it is a cluster of markets which gives India the edge in attracting foreign investments and only disadvantage is the lack of infrastructure which would be provided in the years to come.

The article posted on the website shows the Chinese intentions, how by disintegrating India they can achieve two things, one, they can interrupt the economic development, they can wipe off their competitor and secondly, they can get back those territories in the north east which they claim.

But the Chinese dream of disintegrating the great Indian federation will remain a dream forever, India is a growing economy and the future for many western companies, and indirectly the western economy, so protecting India becomes their obligation, particularly the United States, Why the united states have been favoring us so much, it was particular to sign the Nuclear deal with India, wants India to be a terrorist free state, Mr.Obama calls India as its (united states’) best friend of this century’, all because of its rapid economic growth and future opportunities the Indian market provides. So India should remain as a peaceful, terrorist free state for U.S so that its companies can expand and exploit the 1 billion+ market. So, U.S will not remain a mere spectator, when china plunges into action. U.S has the obligation to protect India, in such situations, if not for the sake of friendly ties with this country, but at least for the sake of protecting its companies and their future prospects. See some of the United States big MNCs operating in India, Coke, Pepsi, Mc Donald, General Motors, Bank of America, Microsoft, and the names go on. These companies are the back bone of United State’s Strong economy; will the U.S let its precious Companies’ future ruin in Chinese hands? The Chinese dream of disintegrating the great Indian federation will remain a mere dream forever and hope china will not commit such strategic error. Instead of dreaming something unrealistic, china can make a strategic alliance with India, rather than behave as a competitor, so that both the fast growing economies of Asia can mutually benefit.

THE CHAMELEON CALLED ‘THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’

Though the Industrial revolution started in Great Britain, today United States of America has emerged as the Global Super Power. Being the most powerful nation, it has taken control over international organizations like World Bank, UN, IMF etc. The European Union and the United States of America together have an indirect control over the whole world. They supported implemented and forced capitalism as a policy among those nations which they provided financial aides. One of the classic examples is India which was forced to become an open economy in 1991, as India faced a serious foreign currency crunch and the west backed international organizations came to help with some conditions which forced India to become an open economy from a state which have always followed socialist policies. They criticized protectionist polices of the communist countries and other nations like India which were closed economies and they also pointed out that being closed economies was the biggest disadvantage for these economies like India for being economically stagnant. These western nations strongly supported and promoted free market, market economy, Globalization, Privatization and liberalization. Finally they succeeded, most of the nations of the world including the countries which got independence from the soviet block (USSR) to accept the open economy system and most of these economies have become a part of globalization, except a few countries like Cuba, which is still under communist regime remain isolated from these global setup. This is the reason why the rise and fall of the NASDAQ index in US affect other nations too.

Now, after the Great Melt down that shook the whole American and European markets leading to the collapse of some great financial institutions and companies of the west. The America is keen to adopt some policies to protect its interests; the country which has always acted against those countries which resisted open economy system is now adopting protectionist policies in order save their jobs and economy. I was surprised when I read in newspapers about the policies that were to be adopted by the Obama administration like nationalization of some corporate companies and financial institutions, bail out packages, restricting outsourcing. Though America didn’t have any other options to bring back its economy from current recession, the point here is, this is a country which does not practice what it preaches and can change its ideas for its benefits and but others need to follow its rules. The country which is a center of world capitalism and a classic example of market economy and whose leadership always talked about globalization, free trade and economic cooperation among countries, is adopting protectionist policies. Another example to support my argument is the issue of war, though U.S hates when other countries go for war or create war like situations, like a situation between India and Pakistan, US has always intervened to settle the issues, whether it was kargil war or the recent Mumbai attacks. It has raised concern over the war between Israel and Palestine. But this same country can strike Iraq in the name of capturing the dictator Sadam, and bringing peace to Iraqi people, to gain control over the Oil fields, or can strike Afghanistan in the name of war on terror, in which innocent people too die, but the same is not acceptable when India talks about dismantling terror infrastructure by air strikes in Pakistani territory (Though nobody knows whether India is capable of carrying out such strikes, that’s another story), within days of such statements released from the Indian government officials, the US secretary of State would come here to settle the issue just in order to ensure that nothing of that sought happen mainly to protect Pakistan which helps them in the war against Taliban, In fact, Taliban was earlier armed and supported by America’s elite Intelligence unit CIA to fight the Communists of the Soviet Union. I remember of a debate at our college days ‘America is a threat to world peace or for political good’. The fact is, America is a capitalist country with brilliant economists and policy makers who can think about their sole interests and not about any other country. Even if it provides financial aides to some countries it does with an ultimate motive, for ex- it supports Pakistan and provides arms so that Pakistan could keep fighting the Taliban in the north western frontier, it favors India as it views India as a strong market for its companies to expand. It is like a chameleon which changes its color of the skin according to the surroundings in order to escape from its enemies , U.S can force an idea or rule on others to accept them, and when it comes to them , they can change any policies and ideas to protect their interests. They change the rules of the game as they want and act as a world dictator. The United States of America is a real chameleon which can change its stance according to its interests at the cost of other countries.

COLONISATION AND IMPERIALISM – THIS TIME IN THE NAME OF GLOBALISATION!

For Some time now, the western countries have been showing keen interest in the emerging markets of Asia, to name a few India, China, Korea etc. Corporate bodies of the west have been setting up their offices in India, China and other Asian countries. These Asian countries which were considered as third world, usually mocked by westerners as slums are gaining importance. In order to survive and grow these powerful Multinationals of the west have been expanding all over the world to survive and grow. They have been making their presence in the emerging Asian markets looking at the potential of these markets and the rapid economic developments. They know very well that these emerging economies are hidden treasures which can serve as a huge market for their goods and services. Now recently, the damn fall out of the European and American financial supremacy further intensified the process of these corporate to make their presence in these Asian countries.

All credit goes to the saturated western market; the western market has the capacity absorb any amount of production of goods and services. Because westerners have the habit of changing the goods as they become old and they also accept new technologies as soon as they arrive. So this is what makes the market keep going, but now after the collapse of the European and American financial system followed by recession, the purchasing power has come down in these western countries and the entry of these big corporations to enter into the third world markets has become inevitable. Now the point is, these big corporations are looking for markets all over the world to dump their excess production of goods and to survive in the highly competitive markets.

Now let’s have a look at the colonization period, during the industrial revolution there was an excess production of goods in the west, these western countries in order to keep their economy and big corporations alive started to explore new markets in the other parts of the world like Asia and Africa. They first entered into these third world countries as traders to sell their goods and later started to colonize these countries, finally they established their rule over these countries successfully. They dumped such goods in these markets which are not very much needed for human existence, but they created demand for these goods, like perfumes, hard drinks, clothes etc, in exchange they exported food items, costly spices, gold, diamond, rubies, emerald etc to their countries. so in this way they drained the wealth of these third countries which were not actually third world, but the people of these countries did not know how to make money out of these precious treasures hidden in their own countries, further the imperialistic greed did not end there, after almost capturing all parts of the world and colonizing them, they started to invade other colonies controlled by other powerful nations. This led to world wars. At those times colonization and imperialism took place with the help of military force.

And now we are back to the same era, this time in the name of globalization, with the help of financial might. With the help of west controlled international organizations like WTO, IMF , World Bank etc, these western countries have managed and forced many third world to become an open economy and these countries have already opened their markets for western companies in the name of creating employment and bringing prosperity. But the point is, they are companies, whose primary objective is profits, they are here to exploit the potential of this market (1.3 billion population), and not to do any social service. These companies would change their policies and strategies according to their business interests and not in any nation’s interest and they sometimes lead countries’ economies into deep trouble. For example the BPOs which have employed a huge amount of work force in our country, May any time pull out from India, as US president is completely against outsourcing and wants to bring back those jobs to America, if these thousands of BPO employees would be left jobless, this would lead to a big economic instability, how would they pay their huge home loan EMIs and personal loans (remember Sub prime market of the US). The American President recently quoted ‘He was more interested to create jobs in Buffalo, USA than in Bangalore, India.

So these Asian countries have already taken staggering amount of loans and aides from these west backed international organization like WTO, World bank etc, which cannot be repaid in the near future, this means these countries are already in the clutches of these western countries which indirectly control these Asian economies with their financial might and these western corporations have already colonized these Asian and African countries in the name of globalization. Though it has benefited some people at the top of the pyramid, nothing has changed in the life of a common people of these countries. Even the bull drive in our Sensex is not a real one, which has been supported by these FDIs and FIIs, the sensex would crash like hell once these FDIs and FIIs pull out from our country, as it happened a few months ago. The state of our stock market became pathetic once the meltdown shook the western financial system. We are back to the age of Imperialism and Colonization, this time in the name of Globalization. Once this gets out of control, a third world war may become inevitable. Thanks to capitalism and its supporters.