Coal Blooded Murder Thursday, Aug 23 2007

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Coal Blooded Murder

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India – The Road ahead to become a economic superpower Sunday, Jul 22 2007

Introduction

China and India – two competing nations for the status of a superpower..

It is a foregone conclusion that America will have to give up its sole superpower status within the next 2-3 decades, at least in the economic field… It is just a matter of time.. Two nations with a population of over 1 billion each are surging ahead..

But who will replace USA? India or China?

China – with a population of 1 billion has world’s largest forex reserves today, its exports are moving all around the globe.. cheap exports.. due to a weak chinese currency controlled by the Chinese government.. China is also the world’s largest autocracy with a dictatorial communist regime.. See Tiger Vs Panda

India -with a population of 1 billion again.. but with a difference.. Indian population is much younger compared to the Chinese. Chinese population will comprise mostly of retired people in the next 1-2 decades.. India is the youngest country in the world with over 70% of its current population being below 35 years of age! What’s more, India is the largest democracy in the world! Unlike Chinese currency, Indian currency is controlled by the open market..

A Comparison

So let us see where does the road lie ahead for India to become a superpower..

The Chinese economy is export oriented.. China is making money by its Cheap exports.. The day other countries come up with even cheaper alternatives to Chinese goods, or the day the true value of Chinese currency is enforced in the markets , Chinese exports will be hit and so will be the Chinese economy…

Indian economy needs to grow in an opposite direction.. Instead of being export oriented nation, India has to become consumer oriented.. India has a population of 1 billion.. It is 1/6 of world’s market.. the world’s largest youth population exists in India.. This market has to be tapped by Indian industries and the government should encourage consumption within India…

The American Angle

Note that America did not become a superpower by exporting its cheap products.. In fact American products were costly due to a strong USD in the earlier decades..

Instead Americans encouraged a consumer based economy inside USA. Americans used to buy everything on this planet.. So the companies there also started manufacturing everything on this planet.. the consumer oriented nature of its economy lead to more technological innovations.. by maintaining a stronger USD against other countries, the american government also ensured that its hungry consumer society got products from all over the world at a lower price. Which is also the reason why other countries exporting their products to USA ended up with inflation within those countries, while the american dollar remained stable! The very reason why american dollar never faced a huge inflation in US was because the rest of the world was exporting cheap goods to USA, thanks to their weak currencies against USD.

The lesson India needs to learn from this consumer oriented chapter of american economy is that India should move towards becoming a consumer based economy where even Indian companies start producing world class products which first gets sold in India and anything extra gets exported. For this India needs to have a very strong rupee first. Because when the rupee is stronger, it means you will get very little in return for exports.

Suppose 1 Indian rupee = 1 USD, then why would Indian manufacturers want to export their goods, because either way the returns are the same!

Even more, suppose 1 Indian rupee = 2 USD, well in that case the Indian manufacturers will prefer to sell their products within India instead of exporting it to US. This will increase the standards of life inside India. Infact, a rupee stronger than USD will mean that american companies will line up to export their products to India!! Just imagine in that case how the standards of living will go up in India. Well, yes there is also an energy angle to this!

Today what is happening is the best of the products manufactured inside India are exported and whatever is left is made available to the Indian consumers. Reason, exports bring more money than selling within India! This is exactly how americans got best of the products worldwide sold to Americans by maintaining currencies of other countries at a lower level than USD.

For instance today, best of the breed of Indian mangoes are exported to America! They are not available to Indians even though they are grown in India! This is just a simple example.

How about a stronger rupee? The price of a big 5 bed room house in USA for instance is about 4,50,000 USD ! Imagine buying a big 5 bedroom house in USA for 4,50,000 rupees!! In that case every young Indian IT professional today can buy about 10 such 5 bedroom houses in USA

US Economy

Inspite of a strong american dollar, the current US national debt is about $28000 per head! India, inspite of its weak rupee has a national debt of about 20000 rupees per head! Just imagine how the situation would reverse further as Indian rupee becomes even stronger.. The Indian average debt would come down to as low as about 2000 rupees per head without even having paid back a single penny, just because of a stronger rupee!

The best way ahead right now for India would be to use its heavy forex reserves for large scale infrastructure development projects within India, and this has to be done well before USD falls even lower. So let India not keep its forex reserves tied up inside the bank lockers..

Indian IT

The issue is that Indian IT industry will be hit if it continues to depend on a weaker rupee for its profits. Indian IT instead has to concentrate on developing core system products which has market both inside and outside India. In the next 10 years millions of new computers would be added in India thanks to more Indians coming online. If Indian companies can manufacture operating systems, compilers, databases, browsers, media players and what not.. just imagine the size of the market they can rule! This is just an example alternate approach I am suggesting for all similar export oriented industries – make use of the vast Indian consumer base.

Summary
To become a true superpower, India needs to concentrate on expanding its own consumer based market within India, there by making available best of the products to its own people..

Just by increasing forex cash reserves like China, no country can become an economic superpower. Just imagine what will be the status of China if the value of dollar crashes tomorrow? What will happen to its forex reserves of 1 Trillion USD?

So Indian economy needs to become a self sufficient economy with minimal dependency on exports. The government needs to encourage more spending within the country, than to solely depend on more selling outside the country.

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Mother of all Martial Arts – Kalarippayattu Saturday, Jun 23 2007

Kalari or Kalaripayattu of ancient India is the world’s oldest martial arts. Infact, it is the mother of all martial arts in the world. Ancient buddhist monks who travelled from India to China to spread buddhism are said to have taught these martial arts to the Chinese.

For instance, one of the buddhist monks Bodhi Dharma who founded the Zen buddhism and is called C’han in China was a Kalarippayattu master himself! From his native Kancheepuram in South Indian state of Tamilnadu, he went to China in 522 AD to the court of Chinese emperor Liang Nuti. He taught Kalarippayattu at the Shaolin monastery to the buddhist monks to defend themselves from the frequent attacks by local bandits and dacoits. It has to be noted that all far eastern martial arts are taught by Buddhist monks. In China it is Kung Fu, Karate. In Japan the Samurai warriors are Zen Buddhists.

The Shaolin temple itself was founded by an Indian Dhyana master Buddhabhadra. On one of the walls of the Shaolin temple a fresco can be seen, showing south Indian dark-skinned monks, teaching the light-skinned Chinese the art of bare-handed fighting. On this painting (see image below) are inscribed: “Tenjiku Naranokaku” which means: “the fighting techniques to train the body (which come) from India…”

Please note that Buddhism was born in India and then spread to rest of the world including China, Japan, Thailand, Srilanka, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia etc.

As a Chinese Ambassador to USA, Hu Shih once said “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”. He was referring to the spread of Buddhism into China.

Kalaripayattu means “Practicing the arts of the battlefield”. Kalari means battlefield. Kalaripayattu is sometimes in short called as Kalari . It is today more prevalent in the south Indian state of Kerala. This art is said to have had its origin in the Rishi Agastya and in Parashurama. Agastya is a great name in Ayurveda – the main Indian medical system. Parashurama is also said to have reclaimed the submerged Kerala from the Arabian Sea (Will write on this aspect of Kerala someday)

The oldest reference to this martial art is found in the Rigveda and Atharvaveda. In Rigveda it is mentioned that lord Indra defeated the daemon Vritasura using one of the marmam techniques of Kalari. Marmam are pressure points in the human body and experienced practitioners can disable or kill their opponents by a mere touch of the opponent’s Marmam. This technique is taught only to the promising and level headed persons, to prevent its misuse. For Indian movie fans, this technique is used in the famous Indian movie ‘Indian‘ of Kamal Hassan by the aged but still energetic hero who fights against corruption.

Sushruta, one of the famous Indian ayurvedic medical practitioner and researcher who lived in 6th century BC identified and defined 107 vital points of the human body in his book Sushruta Samhita. Of these 107 points, 64 were classified as being lethal if properly struck with a fist or stick.

Students start with unarmed kicks and punches, then would graduate to sticks, swords, spears and daggers and finally study the marmas.

The Discovery Channel says “Possibly the oldest martial art in the world, Kalarippayattu is still being practiced widely today in the Indian state of Kerala. Shaolin chuan is said to have evolved from Kalarippayattu.”

You can read more about Kalari at here and here. To learn it or for more details visit here. Below is a four part documentary about this world’s oldest and the mother of all martial arts.

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Quotes about India Thursday, May 31 2007

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”- Albert Einstein

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition.” – American Writer and Humorist Mark Twain

“If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.” – French scholar Romain Rolland

“India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.” – Hu Shih (Former Chinese ambassador to USA, referring to the entry of Buddhism into China. Buddhism was born in ancient India).

So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.”- Mark Twain

“In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth. but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.”- Apollonius Tyanaeus, Greek Thinker and Traveller 1st Century AD

“Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world and … he who can exclusively command it is the dictator of Europe.”- Peter the Great of Russia

“Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago.” – Grant Duff, British Historian

“India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity… of self-government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all” – Will Durant, American Historian

“If I am asked which nation had been advanced in the ancient world in respect of education and culture then I would say it was – India” – Max Muller, German Indologist

“In religion, India is the only millionaire …. The One land that all men desire to see and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined” – Mark Twain

“Indian cities are prosperous and stretch far and wide. There are many guest houses for travellers. There are hospitals providing free medical service for the poor. The viharas and temples are majestic. People are free to choose their occupations. There are no restrictions on the movement of the people. Government officials and soldiers are paid their salaries regularly. People are not addicted to drinks. They shun violence. The administration provided by the Gupta rulers is fair and just” – Chinese traveller Fa-Hien during the reign of Chandragupta II

“Indians have in general superior endowments in reading, writing and arithmetic than the common people of any nation in Europe.” – Warren Hastings

“It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry…But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins’ science not been long established in Europe…” -Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire, French Philosopher/Writer

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