Who is doing wrong?

The Obama administration has put strict restrictions on hiring international students by the companies who have received any amount of the bailout money that was issued in order to boost the country’s economy by giving more jobs to American citizens. Not only that, he has enacted a legislation under which any company who ships its jobs overseas won’t get some of the tax benefits offered by his new policies. They call it the ‘Recovery’; however, some call it ‘Protectionism.’
In the 70’s, when Indira Gandhi, India’s prime minister, visited the US, she was called an ‘old witch’ by the US president, Richard Nixon. It was mainly because she was supporting the independence struggle in East Pakistan, which the US didn’t want to happen. But, there were some other reasons as well, like her decision to send American firms away from doing business in India which had a deep negative impact on India’s growth for the next 20 years. At that time, the Us president was right to some extend as Mrs. Gandhi was following protectionism ,even though, some Indian economists also warned her of the dire consequences. The consequences were so dire that by late 80’s the country had to mortgage its gold to receive loan from World Bank.
In 1991, the prime minister of India had to call an economist named Manmohan Singh to hold the Finance Ministry. That moment was the cornerstone in the history of the nation; it achieved 8-9% economic growth from measly 3%.The fast growth gave India the world recognition it was longing for. Actually, the very important thing he did was the removal of many obstacles for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and encouraged privatization. Mainly, he scraped the protectionist polices the country was following for years. Presently, he is the prime minister of the nation.
Recently, In the G20 meeting in Britain, Manmohan Singh urged the US president not to isolate the country by some of the president’s aggressive protectionist policies. The US is going on the same route as India was 28 years ago. Dr. Singh emphasized that more global co-operation is the only key to recover from this economic recession. Global cooperation is present in the world today, for example, we know how US is dependent on Chinese manufacturing industries, and similarly, many countries are dependent on US for high-tech technologies.
In this global village, it is not hard to understand how much our lives are connected to each other across oceans. Thus, the more protectionism we adopt, the less the cooperation. Hence, the more we slide into the abyss of this crisis.

India:Diversity is the Unity

A country whose two-thirds population is illiterate, has more than five hundred languages, twenty seven states, most having a different ethnicity, different cultures from N-to-S and from E-to-W, different food habits, and most importantly, more than eight religions got its independence in 1947.Yes, I am talking about India, the world’s largest democracy.

After India got independence from Britain, it was believed by many that it would soon disintegrate into different sections. For example, the foreign policy of Eisenhower’s government in US reflected this notion; for a while they were waiting for the disintegration to happen, before finally acknowledging India as a nation.

Last month, India held general elections for its 15^th parliament, 62 years after its independence. Again, the diversity of the nation was being considered to be an obstacle in its unity. India is a multiparty democracy, where Congress leads the UPA and BJP leads the NDA. The UPA is considered to be a secular coalition, where NDA is a Hindu right wing coalition, though it is alienating itself away from that sticker.

For the last 10 years, it has been observed that small regional parties in both the coalitions are getting more bargaining power. Earlier, their demands were only local, so the government at the center had to succumb to their demands for local issues for the sake of their support at the center. However, in the last 4 years they were threatening the coalition on some foreign issues and big reforms, which they were cautions of for no big reason. Nonetheless, Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister of the UPA, led the nation to a 9 percent growth rate during the first 4 years of his governance. In contrast, some argue that the more share of regional parties in the government is need to represent the diversity of the nation.

But recent elections results showed that history has repeated itself but in different context. The congress party received more than 37% of the seats and it needs just 29% to form a government. This big share of the congress in the government means that all the hopes of the regional parties are thrashed by the people of India, thus clearing the way for big reforms without much hullabaloo in the parliament. The impact of this victory can be understood by the fact that the National Stock Exchange jumped 15% in 30 seconds when this news broke out. The trading had to be halted for next 2 hours.

Some experts say that what India would have achieved in next fifteen years is equivalent to what it now would achieve in the next five years. A nation where nearly half of the people can’t speak the national language properly has shown that there is something common that binds every person from North to South and from East to West. India has shown the world again that its diversity is its unity.