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Bush travels to South Asia in pursuit of key strategic “partnership” with India
US President George W. Bush travels to South Asia this week with the aim of cementing a strategic and “global” partnership with India. According to his aides, the trip is among the most important that Bush has made in his entire presidency.
Rhetoric aside, the Bush administration has two interconnected objectives.
First, it wants to ensure that corporate America plays a major and ever-expanding role in India’s rapidly expanding economy—as exploiter of cheap labor in the offshore-oriented information technology and business-processing sectors, as participant in public-private partnerships (PPPs) aimed at furnishing India with the transport and energy infrastructure needed to more tightly bind it to the world capitalist economy, and as purveyor of weapons and weapon-systems to India’s burgeoning military.
The Bush administration is especially interested in prying open India’s retail trade sector—in which tens of millions are employed in small, unregulated businesses for want of proper, full-time jobs—to companies like Wal-Mart and in gaining greater access to India’s agriculture sector—which continues to provide over 60 percent of Indians with their livelihood—for agri-business giants like Monsanto.
While Bush will tout the rise in India’s GDP as a spectacular “free market” success story, the post-1991 dismantling of India’s nationally regulated economy has been accompanied by a rapid growth of social inequality and economic insecurity. In “democratic India” hundreds of millions of people must struggle to survive on less than a $1 per day and education and health care have for all intents and purposes been privatized with only the poorest of the poor using the dilapidated public education and health systems.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/bush-f28.shtml
First, it wants to ensure that corporate America plays a major and ever-expanding role in India’s rapidly expanding economy—as exploiter of cheap labor in the offshore-oriented information technology and business-processing sectors, as participant in public-private partnerships (PPPs) aimed at furnishing India with the transport and energy infrastructure needed to more tightly bind it to the world capitalist economy, and as purveyor of weapons and weapon-systems to India’s burgeoning military.
The Bush administration is especially interested in prying open India’s retail trade sector—in which tens of millions are employed in small, unregulated businesses for want of proper, full-time jobs—to companies like Wal-Mart and in gaining greater access to India’s agriculture sector—which continues to provide over 60 percent of Indians with their livelihood—for agri-business giants like Monsanto.
While Bush will tout the rise in India’s GDP as a spectacular “free market” success story, the post-1991 dismantling of India’s nationally regulated economy has been accompanied by a rapid growth of social inequality and economic insecurity. In “democratic India” hundreds of millions of people must struggle to survive on less than a $1 per day and education and health care have for all intents and purposes been privatized with only the poorest of the poor using the dilapidated public education and health systems.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/bush-f28.shtml
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A three-day visit by French President Jacques Chirac to India last week highlighted the growing competition of the major powers for influence in New Delhi. Chirac’s trip is to be followed by this week’s visit to South Asia by US President George Bush, who, like his French counterpart, is seeking to cement economic and strategic ties, particularly with India.
Underlining the significance of the trip, Chirac was accompanied by a high-profile delegation that included the French ministers for foreign affairs, defence, finance and industry, foreign trade and tourism. Around 30 CEOs from top French corporations came along to seek out business opportunities in India, which is second only to China as the world’s largest cheap labour platform.
On the eve of his trip, Chirac recalled the decommissioned French aircraft carrier Clemenceau to French waters. The warship, which was to be broken up in an Indian shipyard, has been at the centre of a long-running legal and political battle over health and environmental dangers. Its rapid recall, following an adverse decision in France’s highest court, served to remove a potential source of embarrassment during Chirac’s trip.
Chirac’s visit always ran the risk of being overshadowed by that of Bush. But he was keen to boost economic ties and to strengthen relations with New Delhi. He no doubt emphasised France’s record in not condemning India after its 1998 nuclear tests and, unlike the US, supporting New Delhi’s ambition to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/indi-f28.shtml
Underlining the significance of the trip, Chirac was accompanied by a high-profile delegation that included the French ministers for foreign affairs, defence, finance and industry, foreign trade and tourism. Around 30 CEOs from top French corporations came along to seek out business opportunities in India, which is second only to China as the world’s largest cheap labour platform.
On the eve of his trip, Chirac recalled the decommissioned French aircraft carrier Clemenceau to French waters. The warship, which was to be broken up in an Indian shipyard, has been at the centre of a long-running legal and political battle over health and environmental dangers. Its rapid recall, following an adverse decision in France’s highest court, served to remove a potential source of embarrassment during Chirac’s trip.
Chirac’s visit always ran the risk of being overshadowed by that of Bush. But he was keen to boost economic ties and to strengthen relations with New Delhi. He no doubt emphasised France’s record in not condemning India after its 1998 nuclear tests and, unlike the US, supporting New Delhi’s ambition to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/indi-f28.shtml
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