The accidental tourist
Hu Jintao's visit to the US surely must have been on a tourist visa

(column by Nidhi Sharma)

Late April 2006 saw the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to the United States, a visit that was much touted to cover up miles of diff erences between Sino- American relations; but a visit that turned out to be so ridiculously hollow, that Hu could as well have been visiting on a tourist visa!

Sino-American relations can best be described as multifarious and knotty, leaving their image in the political arena as neither allies nor enemies; partly due to promising commercial ties over the past few years that have jumped on to an extremely fast track, and have ensured that questions on China's pathetic human rights record have got shift ed to the background - evidenced from the fact that even in recent US-China dialogue, business issues and China's manipulative currency policies have taken precedence.

It is surprising how even in business dialogue; the power of Chinese economic growth has made the United States, and especially George Bush, blind to the blatant commercial misdemeanours being committed by China. None of the existing business verticals in America have been spared the intimidating low-cost 'dumped' (as in the WTO) competition posed by Chinese manufacturers.

American industries have several concerns when it comes to trade with China, the ones that top the list are China's undervalued currency, a wide net of government subsidies, which covers export oriented production, abysmal labour practice records and feeble protection to intellectual property.

Economically, China has contributed the most to devastating US macro-economic indicators. Out of last year's historic $800 billion US deficit, China accounts for 25% ($204 billion); all this, while China itself swims in surpluses that are now at a humongous 7% of its GDP. And still, Bush, apart from a feeble request, does not fi nd it pertinent to force China to free up the yuan (see related story in Pecunia).

Most amusingly, during his US visit, rather than going to the White House first, Hu instead met with officials from Microsoft & Boeing. Hu's dinner date with Bill Gates - where he claimed he used Microsoft products "every day" - was perhaps the most interesting part of the complete tour. Without doubt, Bush has to ensure that China is forced to announce policy commitments that are not simple rhetoric but are ones that they will be forced to implement. Th e global tourism industry really doesn't need tourists like Hu; accidental or otherwise...

(End of Nidhi Sharma column)

'N'ext 'A'fghanistan 'T'o 'O'ppress
Instead of having a military agenda, NATO should support democracy

On April 28, 2006, NATO foreign ministers met in Sofia and decided to double troop levels in Afghanistan to nearly 17,000 from July, to help the US to reduce its presence. Troops from Britain, Canada, Netherlands, Spain and Ukraine are slated to lead the deployment, while 2,500 US marines will return home. In numbers, US troops will be down to 16,500; but noticeably, NATO's numbers will be the highest since Taliban's overthrow in late 2001.

Clearly, Afghanistan will be NATO's toughest ground mission in its 58 year history, with the US failing to still decisively control on-ground issues; though it has its man (some call 'stooge'), Hamid Karzai, as President. "The troops will employ robust rules of engagement. Only a sustained... effort will yield success," claimed NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, making it quite clear why the troops are being sent.

The NATO expansion will take the number of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan to around 32,500 by August 2006, the highest since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban. Sadly, what NATO does not realise is that if the idea is to allow Afghanistan to develop, war is surely not the way to go. Of late, Afghanistan is in the worst spell of violence since the US attacked the country.

Nearly 1,500 people have died in insurgent-linked violence in 2005 (with the most recent being the April 30 beheading of an Indian engineer by Taliban), including almost 60 Americans, making it the bloodiest for US forces since they invaded. Most definitively, till the time electoral progress is dictated by a representation of citizens - rather than Presidents accused of being American stooges - the nation will continue to suffer. The moral: NATO must support democracy - rather than "robust rules of engagement" - which still holds ultimate promise for the Afghans.

When's the last time this happened?
Obasanjo's debt repayment is totally irresponsible macro-economics

(column by Kalyan Upadhyay)

April 21, 2006, was a big day for Nigeria. The debt-ridden nation became the first African country to repay a large portion of the money it owed to the Paris Club. It came aft er a hard-fought deal, where lending nations agreed to write off $18 billion of the $30 billion debt if Nigeria made quick repayment of $12 billion and undertook economic reforms.

So how did Nigeria manage the repayment? The country has vast oil reserves that constitute 95% of its foreign exchange, 65% of budgetary revenue, and 20% of the GDP. Th us, when mighty economies quivered in the wake of global oil price rise, Nigeria made merry with exports. As a result, its economy grew by 5.6% in 2005 alone; and Nigeria decided to show off to the world its debt repaying capacity.

Though most ridiculously, we should undoubtedly assert. It is unbelievable how Nigeria could not think about reinvesting the earned money back into developing its destitute society. Sadly, about 60% Nigerians live below the poverty line, with an average life expectancy of 47 years. Average per capita income is a mere $390.

Political instability & corruption are further impediments. Wiets Wiertsma, an extremely well known campaigner, laments, "It (debt repayment) is really sore in a country where a far majority of people live off just a dollar a day." Should President Olusegun Obasanjo (left ) have invested precious earnings in improving Nigeria's economy instead?

The answer is a resounding yes. Meanwhile, there's still $5 billion that Nigeria owes to the World Bank and other lenders. Having stupidly disposed off part I, Obasanjo might want to deal with part II differently. If not, given the legacy of Nigeria suffering political instability, perhaps his people might want to "deal" with him a little differently now, eh?

(End of Kalyan Upadhyay column)

Eureka! Einstein's got competition!
DoT has hit upon the most radical and innovative "socialist" method of bandwidth allocation; pathetic!

(column by Steven Philip Warner)

If one were to go by the Indian Department of Telecom's tradition, one would find rules made with no authentic guidelines, comparisons drawn with no substantiations and bodies prosecuted with no proofs - such is the trend of decision- making followed by the DoT in many instances, if not always. The recent spectrum allocation, as declared by the government, allocated an upper limit of 15MHz to GSM telecom players, while the CDMA operators were allocated a maximum of just 7.5MHz!

Th e most probable rationale behind this allocation could be an Einsteinian assumption that the CDMA technology is more efficient than GSM; perhaps policy makers calculated through advanced analytic measures available to their offices that CDMA technologies are twice as efficient as ones depending on GSM.

One should mention that if such analytic measures do exist, our policy makers could apply to scientific journals and patent their latest innovation. But the reality of it all is that, there is no such groundbreaking analysis that has been employed by our respected and quite "mobile" globe trotting DoT officials.

As Ratan Tata rightly objected by shootingoff a letter in April 2006 to the DoT Secretary, J. S. Sarma, the Wireless Planning Coordination (WPC) wing of the DoT passed this discriminating rule in spectrum allocation with no concrete reasoning. Of course, given the extremely fast and efficient grievance redressal machinery of the Centre, Ratan Tata never even received a formal acknowledgement of the government receiving the above mentioned letter.

But seriously, it is most imperative that a scarce resource like spectrum should be allocated completely based on transparent and rational measures, and not on a seemingly socialist ideology of supporting the underprivileged by taxing the other privileged. In the very words of Ratan Tata, "Think of what would happen if airlines flying jet aircraft were forced to fly at reduced speeds and at a lower, fuelguzzling cruising altitudes to 'equalise' performance to protect airlines flying slower, turboprop aircraft ."

Interestingly, it is quite hilarious how the most logical and rational strategy of them all has been so easily overlooked by the DoT. Instead of arbitrarily allocating spectrum, the bandwidth could be priced directly on the basis of individual player subscriber density. The base and variable prices could be easily set by the free forces of competition (that is, by understanding the demand-supply dynamics of bandwidth).

Thus, a player in need of a bigger spectrum could simply pay up and be happy; and not be left to the vagaries of the numerous quasi-Newtons sitting in our telecom control rooms bringing out newer quantum theories on the issue of bandwidth allocation...

(End of Steven Philip Warner column)