Subscribe to this site's feed.
Sugar in pastries - Is it too pink?
Andrew Leonard at Salon poses the question Bollywood in Africa -- Is it getting too Western? in an essay that leaves the reader confused as to what he is asking, or his conclusions on the topic. Having read his earlier haphazard thought stacking in articles such as From opium to outsourcing and discussed it with Desi Dreaming, I'm amused by Mr. Leonard's fondness for Indian topics and bemused by the results.
What Mr. Leonard leads up to, but fails to address, is whether Indians are leveraging their growing international influence appropriately. Indians believe that their international influence is mostly positive, as per the results of last year's survey by Chicago Council on Global Affairs:
While the efficiency of economic sanctions is debatable, does India have moral obligations to discourage trade with dictators, juntas, and despot leaders of countries?
If so, as I believe it is, how should we be approaching morally bankrupt leaderships such as the isolationist generals of Burma? Our current approach is to actively pursue joint projects with the Burmese junta. Do the benefits from such projects, much needed by our still largely impoverished country, really outweigh the danger and ethics-quashing of validating illegal rulers?
We haven't had sufficient dialogue or data to come to any conclusions. We won't know what the thresholds we are willing to cross when dealing with leaders of dubious authenticity, or measures of data to determine those thresholds and whether we're crossing them with more informed dialogue. So the only definite from this rambling of thoughts? - The media owes us improved reporting.
shrimpy:
Not quite on-topic, but interesting side notes: From the BBC, the usually reticent Red Cross has publicly criticized the Burmese military government, and Basharat Peer calling his compatriot colleagues out on their "unwillingness to allocate resources and time for deeply reported, long-form writing." In-depth reporting on India's foreign policy and its growing international influence would be very welcome.
Guest:
Shrimpy here, just not logged in:
As hinted in Andrew Leonard's tenuous wafflings, Indian foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired. Amnesty International pulls no punches in their report on the Indian sale of helicopters to the Burmese junta nutters. Excerpts from the report, linked to below:
... The ALH is currently in service with the Indian Army and is also manufactured in India for export. In 2004, two ALHs were exported to 11th Air Brigade of the Royal Nepalese Army Air Service 8 despite the Nepalese armed forces\u2019 involvement in serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL). Amnesty International had raised concerns about this and other military transfers. During 2004 in Nepal there were reports of civilians being killed or wounded in helicopter attacks by Nepalese security forces.
... A number of lessons and recommendations arise from this case, some of which apply specifically to the transfer of ALHs from India to Myanmar, and some which can be applied more broadly. Chief among these is that the efficacy of embargoes is dependent upon the robustness of the general EU arms transfer control regimes.
... If India has indeed supplied or plans to supply ALHs to Myanmar, EU Member States should immediately:
* rescind existing export licence authorisations and refuse any new applications for any transfers of equipment, components or technology which may be used in or to facilitate the design, production or armaments of the ALH;
* discontinue all future defence production co-operation with India that might lead to transfers of embargoed controlled equipment to Myanmar; and
* attach to all future licences for transfers of controlled goods and technology to India a strict and enforceable condition, with penalty clauses prohibiting re-export to states under an embargo to which the original exporting state is party without express governmental permission.