The Uncertain Future of India-Pakistan-Iran Pipeline

Yup, the rubbish India Fund is not so sure about its dividend distribution that its waits till end of the year to distribute its dividends.

Put in the foreign exchange currency risk and political risks, it becomes useless to invest in India. As a comparison, investors in Latin American Mutal Fund of T. Rowe Price got a 76% Total Return.

Now that is what rocks. India as usual sucks. Wet dreams for sperm eaters. India sucks no matter what the propagandists in the west believe.

re: BSE`s bullish run
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4696376.stm
(
Letter from Delhi : India`s Sensex bull


By Nick Byrant
BBC South Asia correspondent, Delhi

This past week may come to be viewed as one of the most important in India`s economic history.

Call it irrational exuberance. Call it naive optimism.

But there is more to that statement than mere journalistic hyperbole.

For in the past seven days the country has witnessed two economic events of immense consequence:

* The Bombay Stock Exchange`s benchmark Sensex index crossed the 10,000 threshold for the first time in its history

* The government launched its poverty-busting National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - a scheme of such ambition and scale that it has invited comparisons with Franklin Delano Roosevelt`s New Deal.

There was an almost orgasmic reaction to the Sensex crossing the 10,000 mark - a moment of frenzy lent even more excitement because it virtually coincided with Sachin Tendulkar blasting a century against arch rivals Pakistan.

Traders apparently punched the air in delight, exchanged western-style `high fives,` and scoffed celebratory chocolate cakes.

Then they savoured the prospect that the Sensex would end the year at 12,000.

`Christopher Columbus moment`

`Tensex`, `Shareway to Heaven`, `10K`, `Sensex Atop Magic Mountain` - the country`s headline writers also had a sugar rush.

The soaring Sensex has become a symbol of India`s growing economic self-confidence.

More important, the current spurt in the price of leading shares has reflected the confidence of overseas investors.

One fund manager said that the Sensex had just experienced its Christopher Columbus moment : Indian shares had just been discovered by the rest of the world.

Unquestionably, global fund managers have woken up to the earnings potential of India`s corporate titans - Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Reliance, the blue-chip stocks, which lend the Sensex its sheen.

As the Sensex went from 9,000 to 10,000, foreign investors invested $3bn in the market.

There has been nervous talk of an Indian bubble - that shares are over-valued and that a correction in the market is imminent.

Yet with the Indian economy pegged to grow at over 8% - of the world`s 20 largest economies only China has a higher growth rate - the startling rise in the stock market is surely more than illusionary.

`Economic celebration`

If the rising stock market is bringing cheer to the Indian middle class, then the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is aimed at ameliorating the condition of the poorest of the Indian poor.

Indian farmer sprinkles fertilizer in his field near Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu
The government is offering help for 60 million households

Launched with the promise of giving 60m households a measure of financial protection, through guaranteed work and unemployment benefit, it would be easy to write off the scheme as a political ploy - an attempt by the Congress Party-led coalition to curry favour with the very voters who brought them to power.

The less cynical interpretation is that this is a genuine and long overdue effort to address India`s gravest problem and greatest shame - that up to 400m of its people live below the poverty line, the world`s largest number of poor people in any single country.

Corruption and bad governance, two other Indian afflictions, are almost certain to limit the scheme`s effectiveness.

But the programme is underpinned by honest redistributive intent, a belief that as the country grows economically and its tax coffers swell, all its citizens should come to enjoy a more abundant life.

So the rural poor and the urban rich have both had cause for economic celebration - which, if not entirely unprecedented, is something of a novelty.

The bulls are roaring on Dalal Street, the home to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

And a measure of relief may finally be at hand for the country`s `bullock cart belt.`)
Sridhar

re: India`s sensex recently touched a historic high
http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/06sensex.htm
Sridhar

re: Lee Kuan Yew`s views on Pakistan
LKY thinks Pak rocks: with terrorism, that is.
For the uninitiated, LKY made Singapore what it is today.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501051212/lky_intvu3.html
Excerpts:
(....TIME: The 2002 plot to blow up seven embassies in Singapore using truck bombs—our sense is that you were taken completely by surprise.
LEE: Of course. How could we, in this most cosmopolitan and open of cities, where 15% Muslim Malays are completely mixed up with Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and others, go to English-language schools, do similar jobs, live in similar homes, produce 30-plus would-be jihadists?

TIME: You had no idea?
LEE: No idea at all. It was a stroke of good fortune. Our intelligence had under surveillance a few religious types [in Singapore]. One of them left for Karachi and went on to Afghanistan, soon after the country was bombed by the Americans [in late 2001]. He was captured by the [anti-Taliban] Northern Alliance. He was of Pakistani descent. So we found that this wasn`t just a religious study group. If that fella had not gone off to Karachi to fight with the Taliban, we would have been hit with seven truck bombs. The nitrates were sitting [across the causeway] in [the Malaysian state of] Johore.

At the same time that this Pakistani, born and bred in Singapore and English-speaking, was caught by the Northern Alliance, another Pakistani born and bred in Bradford, U.K., was caught in Iraq and sent to Guantánamo Bay. I watched his father on the BBC, and thought to myself: two Pakistani families left Pakistan, one for Bradford, the other for Singapore, produced children, brought up in two totally different environments, quite distant from the Islam of Pakistan, and yet they both end up fighting in Afghanistan. This Islamist pull is more powerful than that of communism. The communists never fully trusted one another across racial boundaries. The Vietnamese communists never trusted the Chinese communists and so on. But with the Islamists there is total trust: You are a warrior for Islam, so am I: We swear to fight together....)
Sridhar

re: Pakistan rocks: with Al Qaida terrorists!

Sridhar

re: Pakistan rocks?
As Saudi King visited Pukistan, everybody tried to impress him for what else but Oil.
Mushy`s GUBO technique, so successful against colin Powell, failed to impress the Saudi King. Then Mushy resorted to what he knows best. Bending on his knees he begged: ``Dey dey baba, allah key naam sey dey dey`` wailed Mushy and the rest of the nation. Saudi King was not impressed.
(S Arabia declines Pak request for `free` oil

Press Trust of India

Islamabad, February 9, 2006|14:25 IST

Saudi Arabia has declined Pakistan`s request to resume supply of free crude oil worth two billion dollars under the Special Financing Arrangement, a Pakistani official said.

Pakistan made a well-publicised request to the Gulf nation during the recent visit of Saudi King Abdullah Bin Aziz to the country and it figured prominently in the talks with President Pervez Musharraf.

``But the King did not entertain such a request,`` the official was quoted as saying in local daily `Dawn`.

``The issue did come up (for discussion), but the chapter stands closed now,`` the official said.

Considering the close ties between the two countries (my comments:Mushy doing GUBO, the king riding on Mushy, very close ties indeed!), Musharraf had initially requested the King during his visit to Saudi Arabia in December last to restore SFA, the paper said.

Pakistan imported about 110,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Saudi Arabia costing around two billion dollars per annum and Pakistan wanted this import under the SFA to reduce mounting pressure on foreign exchange reserves.

The request to Saudi King for SFA was made in the back drop of growing Pakistan trade deficit which has already increased by over 132 per cent to 5.6 billion dollars during first six months of the current fiscal year compared with 2.4 billion dollars of the same period last year.

Saudi Arabia had started supplied oil to Pakistan at the rate of about one billion dollar per year under the special financing arrangement commonly known as Saudi Oil Facility (SOF) in 1998, following US-led international nuclear sanctions against Pakistan.

The two countries have signed five agreements mostly on higher and technical education during the King`s visit but no accord was reached on energy security.)
Sridhar

re: Pakistan rocks: with terror!
News flash in MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11247934/
(Shiite procession in Pakistan attacked; 22 dead
Dozens of others injured as attack on Ashoura holiday sparks riots

USTARZAI, Pakistan - A suicide bomb ripped through a Shiite Muslim procession Thursday in northwestern Pakistan, sparking riots during the Muslim sect’s most important holiday. At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured, officials said.

The bomb targeted hundreds of people in a bazaar soon after they emerged from the main Shiite mosque in the town of Hangu, district police chief Ayub Khan said.

The Shiites responded by burning shops and cars while clashing with police in the town, located about 125 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad, Khan said. Army troops moved in to restore order and a curfew was imposed, he said.)
Sridhar

re: Pak rocks?
It does seem Pakistan rocks: with terrorism from Karachi to Kandahar.
And Pak`s brightest and the best are returning home to be of service to their nation:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006/02/09/story_9-2-2006_pg7_34
(hursday, February 09, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

51 deportees arrive from United States

By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Fifty-one Pakistanis deported from the United States for violating various laws reached Islamabad by a chartered flight on Wednesday.

The US embassy spokesman in Pakistan told Daily Times that the deportees were involved in several cases including fraud, forgery, burglary, drug smuggling, murder, illegal immigration, sexual assault, rape and possession of illegal weapons.

“The governments of the US and Pakistan coordinated with each other through the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for the deportation of these people,” the spokesman said.

US law enforcement agencies arrested them in Virginia and Texas. Up to 29 deportees was jailed for over 18 months while the rest of them had been in jail for over eight months, FIA sources told Daily Times.

A chartered flight carrying the deportees landed at the Islamabad International Airport at 12.30pm. Officials of the Pakistani embassy in the US and US commandos accompanied the deportees.

Most of the deportees are from the interior parts of Punjab. Emotional scenes were witnessed at the airport when the plane landed as the deportees kissed the land after getting off the plane.

Naveed Ahmed, one of the deportees, told his family that US law enforcers had put him behind bars on charges of having a “long beard”. He said the deportees were handcuffed in the plane during the 19-hour flight.

He said US security personnel raided his house in Virginia because of his suspected links with extremists but they could not prove the charge.

Tanveer Khan, another deportee, said that Muslim prisoners in the US were treated roughly and they were not given proper food.

Syed Kaleem Imam, the FIA Immigration Cell deputy director, said the deportees were allowed to go to their hometowns after brief interrogation. He said none of the deportees was carrying illegal documents or wanted by Pakistani law enforcement agencies. He said the Pakistani embassy had given $30 to every deportee so that they could reach their hometowns.)
Sridhar

#197 by behram1

[The United States regards Pakistan as a non-Nato ally, a designation given to close friends.]

Wow! perhaps that is why the US doesn`t have to ask for permission when it bombs Paki territory, after all what is a few bombs between friends? Yeah, Pakistan rocked.....but by bombs.

Re#199
Jesus,behram you are a man .You are always welcome to join us in performing our bowel movements.It would be nice change to have a few circumsized Penises out there.It would be nice change for you from sh**ing in your pants

Re:#193 by rsridhar on February 7, 2006 4:54pm PT

Always a sperm eater, always.

{Ha, ha. } plop, plop.

India will build some more railroad tracks for hindoos to have early morning bowel movements.

---

http://dawn.com/2006/02/09/int11.htm

India’s infrastructure woes dampen growth

By Chris Sanders

MUMBAI: India needs to spend as much as $200 billion on boosting electricity supplies, running water, highways, ports and runways to bring its infrastructure to levels of other Asian nations.

It’s a pressing issue: top corporate executives and economists at this week’s Reuters India Summit cited infrastructure woes as a key threat to India’s phenomenal economic growth.

“If a consignment has to take seven days to cross 1,400 kilometres, it is a misuse of resources,” said the India head of Chinese appliance maker Haier Electronics Group Ltd., T. K. Banerjee, at the summit in Mumbai.

Hurdles to expanding infrastructure include political squabbles between state governments and national politicians as well as financing. When there is progress, it’s slow.

Under a national highway programme, just 13,000km have been completed while more than 60,000km are needed, said Y. M. Deosthalee, the chief financial officer of India’s largest engineering firm, Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

“It must be done at a much, much faster pace,” Deosthalee said. Infrastructure is taxed to the hilt, threatening to soften industrial output in Asia’s third-largest economy in the 2006/2007 fiscal year, said Indranil Pan, chief economist at Kotak Mahindra Bank in Mumbai.

Strong manufacturing, as well as services, are expected to lift gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 8.1 per cent this year.

Indian roads carry 85 per cent of passenger and 75 per cent of freight traffic. Highways make up just two per cent of the total road network yet carry 40 per cent of this traffic.

“If the infrastructure is not developed, then you will have bottlenecks,” said Bharat Doshi, executive director at tractor and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

More than 14,280km (8,900 miles) of national highways are being widened to between four and six lanes at an estimated cost of 650 billion rupees ($15 billion).

Infrastructure problems run deeper than roads, they touch shipping, water and power — India has a 10 per cent electricity shortfall during peak hours.

“The quality of power is horrendous. There are shortages all over the country,” said Haier’s Banerjee, adding that washing machine sales are stuck below the two million mark because most cities do not have running water 24 hours a day.

India’s power deficit could cap growth in a couple of years, warned Ajit Ranade, chief economist at the Aditya Birla Group conglomerate.

“Electricity is directly connected with GDP. We shouldn’t land up in a situation where GDP can’t grow any more because there’s no electricity,” he said.

Improving the country’s infrastructure supports many other industries, said L&T’S Deosthalee.

“It boosts the capital goods sector because a lot of equipment manufacturers would benefit from it and it brings in FDI (foreign direct investment).”

The government is keen to boost cash coming into the country and recently partially liberalized FDI limits in sectors such as airports, mining and retailing.

Ports and airports need immediate attention.

At India’s ports — where container traffic grew 15 per cent a year in the five years to 2004 — insufficient capacity, inefficient operations and a lack of deep drafts capped growth.

Turnaround times at Indian ports improved to between three and four days in 2005, from about eight days in 1996, but still lag Asian rivals like Hong Kong where turnaround is one to two days.

“Most Indian ports have drafts of less than 10 metres and you cannot really take advantage of international shipping unless you have ports with drafts, cranes and storage,” said Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Chairman Subir Raha.

Passenger traffic at 125 state-run airports topped 50 million in the year to March 2005 and is estimated to rise 12 per cent each year between now and 2009. Already, passengers queue in long lines inside as carriers battle it out for terminal space outside. Regulatory delays bogged down construction of Bangalore’s new international airport, due to be finished in 2008. The antiquated airport, pot-holed roads, flooding and power outages are constraining the outsourcing boom in Bangalore, a city that accounts for 35 per cent of India’s $17.2 billion software and business services export industry.—Reuters

Pakistan rocks, always

http://dawn.com/2006/02/09/top3.htm

America waives export curbs for Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Feb 8: US President George W. Bush on Wednesday waived restrictions on exports to Pakistan, saying it would ease the democratic transition in the South Asian nation and help combat terrorism.

In a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush said he was easing prohibitions under the Appropriations Act, which targets countries where a democratically elected government has been overturned by a coup, according to a White House statement.

Mr Bush said the waiver would “facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan” and is “important to United States efforts to respond to, deter or prevent acts of international terrorism,” according to the statement.

“Accordingly, I hereby waive, with respect to Pakistan, the prohibition contained” in the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programmes Appropriations Act, Mr Bush told Ms Rice, asking her to inform Congress about the change.

Following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, Washington passed broad legislation waiving restrictions on US arms exports and military assistance to Pakistan and India.

These countries were sanctioned following nuclear tests in May 1998, and additional sanctions were levied against Pakistan when President Pervez Musharraf launched the coup.

US-Pakistani ties have improved considerably since President Musharraf made a key decision after the 2001 attacks to back Washington’s ouster of Afghanistan’s radical Taliban regime, which had supported the terror group Al Qaeda.

The United States regards Pakistan as a non-Nato ally, a designation given to close friends. —AFP

re:#195 by soysauce
I agree with u there. Iran seems to have decided that being a nuclear power can give it the kind of security that North Korea has.
Sridhar

#192 #194
Ahmedinejad seems to be taking a cue from the North Koreans who fire a few missiles into the ``sea of japan`` just to get some reaction. It`s noteworthy that Bush sabre rattling with respect to north korea has come to an end even tho they may or may not have the bomb.
I do agree that the iranians, like us, have loose lips.

re:#191 by soysauce
A nation whose aim is only to defend itself will not go public proclaiming war on Israel, destruction of Israel etc etc.
Iran seems to be on the path of self-destruction.
Sridhar