In The News

Carmakers Around World Are Turning to India for Parts

Saritha Rai June 20, 2003
India’s auto parts industry is finding new success as global carmakers struggle to find low-cost, high-quality parts. It is these two qualifications that give India, with its cheap skilled workers and locally produced raw materials, an edge over other developing economies. But although the industry is growing rapidly within the country, problems remain. Competition from other South Asian...

Gay Bombay Comes Out

Zubair Ahmed June 19, 2003
In the last decade, Indian gay men in cosmopolitan cities like New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta have established international social networks, organizations and Internet forums to create a modern and global gay community. The publication of The Boyfriend, a love story between two men, one openly gay and the other unable to accept his homosexuality, typifies the increasingly unapologetic public...

The China Syndrome

John Elliott June 19, 2003
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s trip to China is hailed for moving the two countries’ frosty relations forward. However, as this article by a New Delhi-based writer shows, growing trade ties with China and economic globalization are still subject to historical suspicion and national security concerns. If it were not for old security concerns, trade relations between India and China...

Without Firm Action, There's No Birthday Joy for Suu Kyi

Jody Williams June 19, 2003
As Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi draws more attention, the international community has begun responding. The Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), breaking with its policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, pressed the Myanmar government to release Suu Kyi. Welcoming this positive step, writer and Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams cautions that...

U.S. Steps Up Pressure on Burmese Junta

Seth Mydans June 13, 2003
In an effort to support the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, in the past the US imposed a five year economic ban against Myanmar's military Junta. But these tactics were inconsequential; Myanmar (Burma) continued to thrive through relations with its regional neighbors and $300 million in exports to US clothing and footwear companies. Following a recent attack on Suu Kyi and her entourage...

Crisis Puts Burma Back in the Spotlight

David I. Steinberg June 11, 2003
The current flurry of interest in Burma occasioned by the arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will likely wane, as it has so often in the past, before another episode thrusts it back to the world's attention. David Steinberg, a Burma scholar, says that such sporadic focus, accompanied by sanctions, has not made any change in the Burmese situation. He maintains that current policies...

Indians Pursue Portuguese Passports as an Entree to Europe

James Brooke June 8, 2003
Anyone who was living in the Indian state of Goa in 1961 – when colonization by Portugal officially ended – or who had an ancestor living there at the time, can still obtain a Portuguese passport and thus have indirect access to much of Europe. During decolonization, the Portuguese made arrangements so that all inhabitants of “Portuguese India” would retain some of the rights of Portuguese...