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Image of the Day: August 2

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Newswallah: The Government Is Broken

By NEHA THIRANI

The massive scale of this week's blackout in India, which left 684 million without electricity, has galvanized the country's already critical English-language media.

Vague misgivings about the weakness of India's political leadership and infrastructure problems have been steeled by the two-day power outage. The oft-repeated, disapproving yet hardly aggressive phrase “policy paralysis” has been replaced with an all-out battle cry.

“Powerless and Clueless: 684 Million Indians Without power,” The Times of India trumpeted Wednesday, followed by an article that dubbed the blackout “Terrible Tuesday.” In a column titled “India, interrupted,” the same paper wrote of the need to stop states from overdrawing from the electrical grid to prevent persistent power outages. The editorial warned, “Unless we can summon up the political will to make systemic changes, this is going to happe n again.”

“Superpower India: R.I.P.,” The Economic Times said, referring to the government's repeated aspirations to be a global economic and political player. NDTV, a prominent English-language news channel, ran an hourlong episode called “Powerless Superpower: Are India's superpower dreams a joke?”

India's power problems, which stem in part from poor maintenance, are nothing less than a “national failing; a corollary to the affinity to leave things unfinished,” said Samar Halarnkar in the Hindustan Times.

The Business Standard ran an article titled “Powerless at Noon,” which argued that the episode underlined the power sector's mismanagement by its regulators. In a separate piece, S. L. Rao, the first chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, said, “Electricity is too serious a business to be left to politicians or procedure-oriented bureaucrats, who are not held individually accountable for anything.”

The Hind u's editorial “Delhi is Powerless” contended that while power grid collapses in other countries are usually caused by “freakish acts of nature,” India's blackout was the result of poor long-term planning. Open Magazine, in a piece creatively titled “Dark Nights (and Days),” pointed to the central government's inability to stop state governments from overdrawing electricity. “For a country with superpower delusions, the super power cuts of 30-31 July should serve as a wake-up call,” read the piece's opening lines.

Several newspapers decried the timing of the cabinet reshuffle that effectively promoted the erstwhile power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, to the Home Ministry. The move was seen as a reflection of the government's lack of tact in dealing with the crisis: Rather than tackle the pressing demands at the time, the government chose to “reshuffle” yet again.

“The government is running on empty privilege, bereft of purpose,” Pratap Bha nu Mehta, president of the Center for Policy Research, wrote in a scathing indictment in The Indian Express.

R. Srinivasan in The Hindu Businessline wrote that the government's “inexplicable reaction” has exacerbated the problem and sent the message that “the political class simply does not care.”

“A power trip, of another kind,” said the Mint newspaper, asking, “So, what has gone so terribly wrong that the power management system is now a subject of ridicule?” The piece pointed out that while power management should be a technical problem, the political relationship of the state government to the alliance at the center plays a huge part.

Meanwhile the Chinese media's view on India's blackout seemed more forgiving, with most state media coverage focusing on what China could learn from this disaster.

The American satirical newspaper The Onion, however, ran perhaps the most damning indictment of India's predicament, by just printing the truth: Since India's infrastructure has been restored to 100 percent capacity following Monday and Tuesday's blackouts, “vast swaths of India are now completely without access to electricity,” read the piece.



Anna Hazare\'s Movement Turns Political

By NIHARIKA MANDHANA

After leading a civil society movement against corruption for months, Anna Hazare and his team changed their strategy Thursday, saying it was time for a “political alternative.”

“Things will not change till we change the people in Parliament,” Mr. Hazare said.

Mr. Hazare, 75, has been fasting for five days in New Delhi, the latest in a series of public protests aimed at forcing India's government to pass laws to combat bureaucratic and governmental graft. He and his advisers said Thursday that the fast would end and they would try a new tactic.

“The people have said in overwhelming numbers that they want a political alternative,” said Arvind Kejriwal, an adviser to Mr. Hazare who has been on a fast for nine days and whose failing health had increasingly become a cause for concern. “This movement is ready to give them a political alternative.”

While Mr. Kejriw al stopped short of saying that the Hazare team was going to form a political party, he asked citizens for their advice on a range of political issues, including the selection of candidates before India's general elections in 2014. “How do we pick clean candidates who love their country and have given their lives to social work?” he asked.

“Positions of power seem to corrupt our leaders,” he added. “How do we ensure this doesn't happen?”

The reaction from India's ruling Congress Party was swift. “This is something we have always been saying,” said Ambika Soni, the information and broadcast minister, in a televised interview. “They have shown that politics was at the back of their agitation.”

While Mr. Hazare and his advisers drew tens of thousands of people last year to protests in Delhi, his efforts this year have been less well-attended. Still, on Thursday at Jantar Mantar, an astrological observatory built in the 1700s, nearly 5,000 p eople had gathered to hear him speak by early afternoon. Those in attendance said they, and the anti-corruption movement, were here for good.

“This is a difficult fight,” said Rishipal Chauhan, 49, who works nights as a driver and has spent the last week at Jantar Mantar. “Nothing will happen overnight,” he said.

But not everyone was convinced of Mr. Hazare's political move. “If I want a street in front of my house repaired, should I run for municipality elections? Can't an ordinary citizen demand his rights democratically?” Parvesh Kumar, 28, said.

India is regularly ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries, and rankings show many feel corruption in the country is increasing even as its economy grows. Vast amounts of money earmarked for India's hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens and decrepit infrastructure have been looted by bureaucrats, politicians and middlemen, according to outsiders, advisers to the government and pol iticians themselves.

India is regularly ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries, and some rankings show many feel corruption in the country is increasing even as its economy grows. Vast amounts of money earmarked for India's hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens and decrepit infrastructure have been looted by bureaucrats, politicians and middlemen, according to outsiders, advisers to the government and politicians themselves.



In Assam, Grim Aftermath to July Riots

By BETWA SHARMA

KOKRAJHAR/CHIRANG, Assam - Almost two weeks after their village was burned by rioters, a group of Bodo men sneaked back to see the charred remains of their houses. All their livestock, except the pigs, were gone. “Right now, standing here, I am petrified,” said Kalidas Brahmo, a farmer, walking through the rubble of his home.

Bangaldoba village Part I in Kokrajhar district was attacked on the afternoon of July 23 by Muslims, villagers said. “They came with sickles, swords, sticks, spears, and all us of took off together,” said Mr. Brahmo, 32. “The women and children ran in front, and the men were behind them.”

“As we looked back, we saw our houses burning,” he continued.

At least 53 people have been killed in riots between the Bodo tribals and Muslims, which started on July 19. Many of the latter are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh or their kin crossed the border gener ations ago. The clashes occurred in the Muslim-majority Dhubri district, as well as the districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang, administered by the autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council.

The Bodos fear losing power as the growing population of Muslims changes the demographics, and they contend that most of the Muslims are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. “Encroachment by Muslims is going on in almost all the government and common land, which include protected forests as well as water bodies,” said Derhasat Basumatary, executive member of the council.

Muslim women at a refugee camp in Chirang, who had fled Bodo attacks on their village, responded angrily to the accusations of that they are Bangladeshi encroachers. “My grandfather came here, and I was born here, so Assam is my homeland,” said Zobeeda Begum, 42. “Where do they want me to go?”

Even before the violence erupted, the women said, their village of Chatipur was regularly attacked by Bodo s with stones. “Every night, our men went to guard the village and now this place,” said Ms. Zobeeda.

People on both sides said that this latest collision was avoidable.

They faulted the government for not beefing up security this summer after the killing of two Muslim boys and four Bodo men. Even the army arrived late to quell the riots. The state and central government, both led by the Congress Party, have blamed each other.

L.K. Advani, a Bhartiya Janata Party leader, said Tuesday that Bangladeshi immigrants were responsible for the land grabs, the ethnic tensions and the changing population profile of Assam. “The Congress deserves to be punished for its collusion in the massive influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh,” he said.

On Tuesday, Tarun Gogoi, Assam's chief minister, responded that the opposition party did not act to stop the illegal immigration when it was in power and that illegal immigrants were not responsible for the rio ts.

Tens of thousands of Bodos and Muslims are now crammed into unprotected temporary camps, with only one toilet for around 3,000 inhabitants staying in a madrassa of Chirang. “It is dirty, but we have nowhere else to go,” said Hazra Khatu, a 50-year-old widow.

Mr. Brahmo is living in a school about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from his village. The farmer, who returned on Tuesday to assess the damage for the first time, stared at the destruction in disbelief. “Hindus and Muslims have always lived together here,” he said. “Even when violence started, we agreed that we would not fight here.”

These Bodo villagers refuse to be labeled as Muslim haters. They employed 2,000 Muslim agricultural laborers to plough their fields in exchange for half the produce. “I had eight Muslims work in my field,” said Laisang Brahmo, a 38-year-old farmer, whose house was burned down. “That relationship is over.”

The Muslim labor came from the borderin g Bangaldoba village Part II. Mohammed Moinul Haq, a farmhand on a Bodo field, is saddened by the plight of his neighbors. “Yes, we agreed to no fighting,” Mr. Haq, 68, declared. “We have eaten from the same plate, and there was no bad blood.”

Several villagers from Bangaldoba said that Muslims from Part II were not their attackers. “I did not recognize them,” said Laisang Brahmo, who is not related to Kalidas Brahmo. “After the attack, we even called some of our Muslim friends to go see if it was safe for us to visit, and they expressed sympathy.”

The Muslim villagers insist that the attackers came from outside, but some Bodos suspect that Muslims from Part II did show the attackers their houses, as not all of them work in the Bodo fields.

Mr. Haq said the flight of the Bodos has snatched away the livelihood of Muslims who don't have their own land. “We haven't thought of a new way to earn yet,” he said. “We don't know if they will be back, and even if they do, we are too scared to work for them now.”

On July 30, Mr. Gogoi announced that refugees will be sent back in 15 days. The villagers of Bangaldoba Part I, which hardly has a house standing, wondered if the minister was joking. No official, they say, has asked them about the requirements to restore their village.

Abject fear supersedes their monetary losses. Anita Basumatari, a 27-year-old Bodo farmer at the camp, is worried about missing this year's rice sowing time, which lasts until September. Her family also employed Muslim labor. “We don't hate them, but we cannot go back without proper security,” she said. “Even here, there is no police or army protecting us.”

Mrs. Basumatari lost her mother-in-law in the violence. Plagued by paralysis, she could not run along with the villagers who recalled that the attackers came from three sides. They ran north through the flood waters. “She had become too fat,” said Mrs. Basu matari. “We could not carry her with us.” The elderly woman, alone in the village on July 24, was stabbed with a knife in the back and neck.

Bodoland continues to be under curfew from late evening to early morning. Army patrols and a stream of noisy police cars, flanking officials, now dot the lush green landscape of colorfully dressed women working in tea and rubber plantations surrounded by rolling hills.

Even the non-Bodo Assamese crave normalcy. Locals say that prices of vegetables, grown mostly by Muslims, have doubled since the Muslims fled their villages.

Prabin Brahmo, a 44-year-old schoolmaster from Bangaldoba Part 1, pointed out that it would be difficult but essential for Bodos and Muslims to trust each other again. “It's an old bond,” he said, tearing up. ‘We need their vegetables, and when they want a cow, they come to us.”



Why Pakistan is Losing Out in the Mango Market

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“With their golden yellow, blushing pink and pale green hues coloring markets by the cart-full, Pakistani mangoes are a source of national joy and pride. But bad luck - and poor logistics - are now threatening Pakistan's king of fruits,” Huma Yusuf wrote in the Latitude blog of The New York Times.

Pakistan is the fifth-largest producer and third-largest exporter of mangoes in the world. Last year the emergence of promising new markets in countries like Britain and United States brought cheer to the mango growers here. “Not only did the British retailer Asda start stocking Pakistani mangoes, but the first-ever shipment of Pakistani mangoes arrived in the United States in July 2011,” he wrote.

But Pakistan is likely to fall short of its export target this year. Part of the reason is “last year's monsoon and subsequent flooding,” which affected mango productivity, but it is also poor logistical planning , Mr. Yusuf explains.

Containers needed to ship mangoes are in short supply;  Pakistan International Airlines does not appear to have the proper infrastructure to make shipments; international shipping companies have transported mangoes to the wrong destination or failed to secure the fruit against damage or theft en route; a cumbersome distribution system has caused Pakistan to lose out in the Asian mango market to China and India.

Read the full article.



Gallup Poll: India Worst Country in Asia for Entrepreneurs

By HARI KUMAR

Indians' unwillingness to risk failure has hobbled the creation of small businesses and led the nation to be ranked last in Asia in promoting entrepreneurship, according to a Gallup poll.

Government corruption, a lack of capital and credit, and poor technology and training have also impeded the creation of small businesses, Gallup found. Its survey, of 5,000 adults in India from January to March of this year, found that 16 percent of Indian adults own a business and half of those owners are solo operators.

The survey was not all bad news. It found that business thinking, optimism and persistence â€" all important for entrepreneurs - are common traits among Indians.  Small and medium-sized businesses contribute 8 percent of India's gross domestic product and employ 60 million people in 26 million enterprises, according to a http://msme.gov.in/PM_MSME_Task_Force_Jan2010.pdf”>January 2010 government report.

Nearly half of those surveyed by Gallup said that the government is a significant stumbling block to starting a business. Seven out of 10 Indians said that corruption is widespread in government and 60 percent said that corruption is common in business. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, Gallup said. A recent report by the World Bank ranked India 166th among 183 countries in terms of the ease of starting a business.

Training and mentorship are also crucial for startups, but only 37 percent of current business owners and 28 percent of those seeking to start a business said that they know someone who can offer advice about business management, the Gallup poll found.

The survey results were released just as India experienced the two worst blackouts in human history and as foreign investment in India has slowed in part because of concerns about changes in India's tax policies.



The Blame Game Begins Over Blackout

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“As electric power was restored across northern India on Wednesday, political jockeying over who was to blame for the widespread blackouts intensified,” Gardiner Harris and Vikas Bajaj wrote in The New York Times.

Former and current power ministers, the opposition party, state power officials and others joined in the finger-pointing, they wrote. Whoever is at fault, there's no escaping India's basic power problem: the country's rapid development has led demand to far outstrip supply.

Changes may be afoot, though.

Some experts are more hopeful than in the past because a number of Indian officials have made politically difficult decisions in recent months to raise electricity prices. State governments in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Punjab have moved to stem losses at public utilities that had been selling power for far less than it costs them to bu y it. Besides providing more money to invest in additional supply, the higher prices for consumers and businesses should also help lower demand for power.

“I think everybody has realized that there are no free lunches,” said Chandan Roy, a former director at India's largest state-owned power producer, the National Thermal Power Corporation.

Frequent blackouts have forced many businesses, including India's vaunted software industry, to rely extensively on diesel generators, which typically cost two to three times as much to produce power as does electricity from the grid. Comparisons are difficult, though, since the government partly subsidizes both methods of generating electricity.

Read the full article.



India\'s Glee at the Flaws of Olympics

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“There was an honorable reason why many Indians followed the string of mishaps at the London Olympics with glee,” Manu Joseph wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “Such things usually happen only at home,” he wrote.

“The British and the Indians are too proud to let foreigners whip them, but if they are given a whip, they do a good job on themselves,” he wrote. “Still, there is a crucial difference in the ways the two countries have reacted to their national embarrassments.”

Despite the outrage over its own failings, Britain appeared to possess an understated confidence in itself, which is more profound than the mere swagger of national pride.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, reacted to bus drivers getting lost with the casual quip, “If they took four hours, then they will have seen far more of the city than they might otherwise have done.† After Mitt Romney landed in London and questioned the city's preparedness for the Olympics, the mayor told a huge crowd, “There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we are ready. Are we ready? Yes, we are.” The joyous crowd agreed.

When the Delhi Commonwealth Games were falling apart, Indian politicians, the public and the news media interpreted it as a calamitous shame that appeared to point to a failure of the Indian civilization. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a leader of the Indian National Congress, the party that was at the helm during the games, said that he would be happy if the games were a spectacular flop and India irreversibly shamed, because that would ensure that the country would never again be asked to host another expensive sports event.

The Commonwealth Games did expose what was wrong with India: the perpetual quest “to show the world” without altering the ground realities, the incurable corruption. Even so, the reactions of the p ublic and the news media, which included this reporter, were, in hindsight, a bit extreme. The Commonwealth Games did go off well in the end.

Indians tend to magnify the flaws of their nation. The reason why is that nobody is as good at whipping themselves as Indians. Faced with a fiasco, a downturn, a riot or a calamity, Indians are quick to admit that there is something seriously wrong with them.

Read the full article.



Chick-fil-A Draws Huge Crowds for Appreciation Day

By JENNIFER PRESTON

A video of long lines outside a Chick-fil-A at the Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the country headed to Chick-fil-A restaurants on Wednesday, answering a call from Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to show support for the fast-food chain after the company's president drew criticism for his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Long lines were seen outside Chick-fil-A restaurants nationwide, and many customers documented their visits on social media sites and shared their reasons for eating at the chain.

Many said they showed up because they agreed with the position of Chick-fil-A's president on same-sex marriage, while others said they wanted to support freedom of expression for business owners.

As my colleagues Kim Severson and Robbie Brown report from Atlanta, where Chick-fil-A began in the 1940s, the president, Dan T. Cathy, made comments last month about the biblical arguments against homosexuality. This prompted calls to boycott Chick-fil-A that were supported by the mayors of Boston and Chicago, along with plans for a same-sex kiss-in at the restaurants on Friday.

Last weekend, Mr. Huckabee used his television and radio programs, as well as Facebook, to help organize an appreciation day for Chick-fil-A on Wednesday.

More than 650,000 people signed up to participate, and tens of thousands “liked” photos of packed restaurants that Mr. Huckabee posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

Below are some of the photos shared Wednesday on Twitter from Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country.

Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, shared a photo from her visit.

Last week, Sarah Palin posted a photo of her visit to a Chick-fil-A in California on her Facebook page.

Mr. Huckabee noted in regular audio updates Wednesday that Chick-fil-A did not participate in organizing the event. And there were no tweets or photos about the appreciation day on the company's Facebook or Twitter accounts.



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