Joseph R. Biden Jr. just became the first US Vice President to visit India in three decades. While India considers this to be a proof of its popularity and widespread influence, there is The People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) proving us all wrong. PLA crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) into India for the nth time this year alone! That China is bullying India has become more a common headline these days – and during a time when India is busy with some ineffective verbal tactics to cajole and persuade its adamant, powerful neighbour. But all along, we’ve seen China adopting the carrot and stick approach while dealing with our nation. How have we reacted? Actually, the more pertinent question is – have we? History stands testimony to the fact that India – more often than not – chooses to sit back and take the blow (or many blows-after-many!) than being proactive in its foreign policy. Is there a wiser justification to the fact that even a much smaller (and weaker perhaps) State like Pakistan has dared to wage war with us as many as four times in the last 65 years. Today, it even executes terror acts in our country. Still our authorities choose to remain still and silent! There is no question of meeting the Pakistani Head of State eye-to-eye! And presently, with great camaraderie between China and Pakistan, the two foreign forces are working hard to make their fellowship count – against their common neighbor. The two have in recent times only magnified India’s external and internal security concerns and are literally toying with India’s perception of xenophobia! And China isn’t just the only culprit – Pakistan is enjoying giving the “poke” too. If China has displayed open disregard for the sanctity of LAC, Pakistan is flouting cross-border ethics in Chimur and Ladakh. That the United States is increasingly feeling the heat from China – whose ambition clearly is to eclipse US as a global geopolitical and economic superpower – is a fact unknown to only a few. Under such a circumstance, US wants to cook a potion to neutralise the Chinese poison. There is also deep resentment in America regarding Pakistan, as time and again it has come to public light that the country covertly works against the interest of US and its people. From giving shelter to Osama bin Laden to becoming a haven for a host of small and large, organized and unorganised terror groups, like the Haqqani network (that engages in asymmetric war against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan and is said to have tremendous support from influential elements within the Pakistani security establishment), US is increasingly finding Pakistan an unmanageable rogue State. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles SC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
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I had been quite upset over the completely politically motivated Oscar award for the Best Picture to a rank ordinary, non thrilling, slow paced, average film called Argo, specially in the year when Lincoln was released, and Django Unchained – with its heart in a similar place and with film making par excellence – was released! So when a friend of mine suggested to me that we watch a slightly older film called Charlie Wilson’s War, saying that it was based on a true CIA operations story, I was least interested. I thought that it was one of those films that had been again made to lobby for American ‘heroism’ at the cost of putting another nation down. I couldn’t have been wronger. After seeing the movie, I wondered how I had missed this gem when it was released! Never too late I guess. Charlie Wilson was an American Congressman (elected 11 times from Texas to the US House of Representatives, from 1972 till 1996) who became the first civilian to be decorated with the Honored Colleague Award by the CIA. He had achieved no less a feat. Almost single-handedly, this man could be credited with bringing an end to the Cold War era and the breaking down of erstwhile USSR (Yes, he was also unabashedly a party loving, womanising Congressman – but he made no bones about it or about hiding the fact). The film is about how, in less than a decade – starting early 80s when USSR invaded Afghanistan brutally – Charlie Wilson influenced the CIA budget for covert operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan to support the Mujahideen forces and increased the same from a mere 5 million dollars to 10 million dollars initially, and then subsequently to 20, then to 40, then 100, then again to 250, to 500 and finally to a billion dollars! And that, mind you, is what they officially accepted! And all this money was to be used to paradrop high end arms to the common men and boys of Afghanistan so that they could fight the mighty USSR and defeat them! And they did! By firing down hundreds of Russian fighter jets and blowing off almost as many Russian tanks with handheld bombers and high-end guns! Of course, the rest, as they say, is history! The mighty USSR conceded defeat and pulled out of Afghanistan, the Berlin wall came down and USSR broke down! Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles SC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global
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Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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The opening of the first Starbucks outlet in South Mumbai in October last year triggered quite some frenzy among Mumbaikars, with long queues of venti-mocha-frap verve translating into a major rock concert hysteria. And it was all for a coffee shop! Imagine the burst of marketing energy from Starbucks to take advantage of this excitement. Within five months of opening its first outlet, four each were opened in Mumbai and Delhi (taking the footprint of the coffee chain to nine outlets in India). It reminded me of the kind of madness that was witnessed during the launch of Pepsi and the relaunch of Coke in India, way back in the early 1990s. Here’s the simple truth – our craze for foreign brands has never ceased, despite our progress in almost all dimensions of socio-economic parameters. Why? Because as a nation, experience has taught us that our brands have never quite had the gumption of American, British, European or even Japanese brands. The halo was and is missing. This lack of unique proposition in our brands is due to the shoddy products and services offered in the name of Indian brands! In this new age of globalisation, our brands need to compete globally and not just nationally. In the past, so many Indian brands – from the Ambassadors to the Vimals – were whipped and almost but sent off packing when foreign brands came knocking. These foreign brands piggybacked on their global popularity and our lack of expertise due to substandard innovation. If India has to reverse the ongoing trend of the influx of foreign brands into its market, it has to invest on innovation on a large scale, and frame and implement comprehensive policies to support innovation. The low count of patent applications that is filed in India is some warning. In 2011, only 42,291 patent applications were filed in India. China on the other hand saw 526,412 applications being filed – highest in the world that year, followed by US with 503,582 applications (source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2012, released by the World Intellectual Property Organisation; December 2012). In the Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking 2012, India stood at a dismal 64th – two spots below where it stood in 2011! Shameful it is that India, in terms of GII ranking is last amongst the BRICs. No wonder, a June 2012 Standard & Poor’s report revised its outlook for the Indian economy and warned that India could become the first amongst all BRIC countries to lose its sheen! [The S&P report was titled, ‘Will India Be The First BRIC Fallen Angel?’] It is disheartening to observe that despite Sam Pitroda’s efforts to pump life into India’s innovation machine, and PM Manmohan Singh’s call to promote India as an “Innovation hub”, the country is still largely seen as a “screwdriver nation”, only capable of assembling together parts of foreign-branded products. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles SC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global
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Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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Just a couple of months back, the entire global media fraternity was talking about the next probable war between China and Japan over the issue of a small group of islands in the East China Sea. Just when people thought that the issue was cooling down, last month, a delegation of former US officials submitted a report to Hillary Clinton that the dispute could spin out of control and result into a military confrontation; add to that China’s recently declared intentions to deploy marine surveillance drones to track maritime activity around the cluster of islands from where the conflict originated. The entire issue is certainly far from over, with both the nations in no mood to step back. There is, of course, nothing new in the conflict between Japan and China. Through centuries, these two Asian neighbours have been brutal to each other – politically, economically and militarily. The Japanese monarchy before World War II was notable for their imperialistic intentions – they invaded China in 1931 to mark the beginning of a violent, 14-year occupation of the land, finally retreating only after the World War II reversals in 1945. However, in the post-World War geopolitics, the foreign policy trajectory between the two nations has swapped its direction. Since the past few decades, Japan has sought to maintain a nice-guy image, while on the other hand, China has wanted to treat Japan slightingly. Japan’s cooperative and accommodative foreign policy acted as a silver bullet for its economy, which saw an unprecedented growth from 1950s till 1980s. That period saw Japan barging into the elite club of developed nations (the only Asian country to accomplish the feat then) and becoming a part of G-7, or the seven most industrialized states in the world. That’s a remarkable accomplishment, considering the fact that this was the same country that had literally been reduced to ruins in the Second World War and also the fact that none of its Asian counterparts could mirror Japan’s subsequent economic achievements. China, like Japan, started a new journey from 1949, when the Mao Tse Tung-led Communist Party of China overran the country and gained control on its governance. But unlike Japan, China, in the first three decades, emphasized largely on a military buildup. Amidst this journey of these two Asian giants, one thing represented permanency – that these two nations won’t walk hand in hand. Interestingly, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party had promised before the 2009 election that Japan would be more muscular in its foreign policy and had hinted then on a shift from being a US-backed nation to being one with a more Far East integration, including with China. However, that didn’t happen. The recent happenings have in fact worsened the situation. The first, significant barrage came from the Japanese government in early September 2012, when they revealed their intentions to purchase three disputed islands in East China Sea – a move that led to their fragile relationship with China nose-diving in no time. China pledged to thwart Japan’s intentions, and in response, sent three fishery surveillance ships to the territorial waters near Senkaku, the group of islands in contention. In return, Japan adopted an aggressive foreign policy stance and announced that they would take the Chinese bull by the horn – by mid September, Japan had officially bought the islands. Read more....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles SC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global
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Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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Since time immemorial, the entire global media fraternity has been divided between Israel and Palestine. While on one hand, a set of media has been strongly supporting Israel, on the other, there has been as staunch a support for Palestine. Amidst all this, the debate still lingers – which one of the two, Israel or Palestine, is wrong? But then, how can one be right and how can the other be wrong? In other words, how can any one of them be right! Supporting any of these nations would essentially and fundamentally mean supporting the very doctrine of war. In no given circumstance has a war been the appropriate route to a solution! Thus, the very discussion of which country is wrong or right gets futile, if one were to view the entirety of the situation through the lens of humanity. War, has always – especially in recent history – been a tool to display a nation’s military might. It is a way of flaunting newly developed state-of-the-art weaponries and defence technologies. War today provides a platform for selling arms in the open market. It is very easy to deceive the world during any war and to shift global focus from the actual objectives. When United States invades a minnow like Afghanistan or Iraq, the spotlight is shrewdly thrown on perspectives like the clash of civilizations, terrorism, imposing democracy, or removing a tyrant. The majority never notice the underlying and the real reason behind the invasion – to spur the global weapons trade market! Wars give opportunities to developed countries to test and showcase newly developed weapons. Arms trade is a huge business and it is (and has perhaps always been) expanding globally at a breakneck speed – with the leading player in this space being United States, with its massive infrastructure of research and development of weapons, that invariably warrants rabid marketing and promotion for economic viability. Yes, that’s the word – there are no better promotional strategies for weapons than live demonstrations; and for implementation of the same, the US has been in the want of some scapegoat investees. What can be a better opportunity to display the might of weapons to potential buyers than during a war? Capitulating to that, almost all media channels across the world, 24x7, in their local languages, describe the destructive capacity of these weapons in their breaking news ‘war’ coverage. The result? Free global promotion, which otherwise would have cost millions and would have also come under huge global criticism! Read more....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles SC slams AICTE's illicit control on MBA coursesMBA, MCA courses no longer under AICTE 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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IIPM B-School Detail IIPM LinksIIPM : The B-School with a Human Face------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had written this after the Virginia Tech shootout and I write again – capitalism is a great slave, but a pathetic master. This truth unfortunately gets lost in our chase for that elusive dream... especially in America, the land that has been marketed as the land of dreams – the Great American Dream. It’s the dream of being independent masters of our lives, the dream of making big bucks and the dream of being happy – even if that happiness is being bought by money, which all of them chase out there. No doubt, the US, on its part, has been fairly successful in creating material comfort aplenty. It has upped the living standard of its average citizen to an extent that it stands amongst the highest – even if that is a result of more than 200 years of unbridled growth and exploitation. Thus, the shop window of Americanism looks lucidly attractive; you’ve got all of them standing there – from Bill Gates to Michael Dell – in Tommy Hilfigers and Ralph Laurens! And that is what has made the rest of the world mindlessly chase Americanism, not necessarily happiness or an ideal form of society. All because the shop window looks very impressive and it has been marketed very well. What goes unseen and almost unheard is that America also happens to be the land that is right amongst the top in terms of the number of divorces per thousand, the number of single-parent families per thousand, the number of old people in old-age homes, the number of rape cases per million, the number of suicides, homicides, and of course, the number of college/school shootouts... And why not! After all, in a society where ‘what you are’ is equal to ‘what you have’ plus ‘what you consume’, the only way to achieve more is to have and consume more (That’s why we call the US a consumerist society, and its culture, consumerism), and therefore, be constantly driven towards higher profits and materialism. Expectably, this materialism comes at a cost that the world is paying today. The interesting thing about material things is that they only give an illusion of happiness; and even such happiness always is momentary in nature. Ergo, at this juncture, after buying your new car or flat-screen TV, you feel you are the happiest person in the world; and just a few days later, these are the very possessions that cease to make you happy, because you are already thinking of a bigger car or a bigger TV. While you chase the bigger car to become larger than life in order to be happier, you sacrifice those that have the maximum power to make you happy – family, emotions and love. Prolonged abstinence in employing emotions finally destroys them; and you don’t even realise when you’ve become a dry-eyed moron (Yes! America also happens to be the land that has the maximum number of dry-eyed people). And then, while chasing never ending desires, one day you are left alone... probably divorced, without children, and in an old-age home (Even if not exactly that, the situation is often closer to what I have described, than not). And suddenly, you realise that there is emptiness all around... and you land up in a Deepak Chopra workshop to find out the ‘real meaning’ of life – or whatever he is capable of explaining. But by then, it’s really too late. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly globalManagement Guru Arindam ChaudhuriRajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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One needs to be a Sanjay Dutt to fetch lakhs in auction for his work, and that too while serving his jail term. For other prisoners, even a few hundreds is a boon. Indian prisons are still more like Nazi-era concentration camps than being places for correcting the guilty. With over 3 lakh prisoners packed across 1200 plus jails, the government is shamelessly unable to manage these centers and has reduced our prisons to human slaughter houses, where self-respect, dignity and morale are butchered at every single moment. Prisons in India are not only a liability on society but have lost the very essence of their objective. Let me discuss this issue point by point. Most of the prisons in our country (barring two or maximum three) are a cost for the nation. The total expenditure on all prisons combined, across the nation, was estimated to be around Rs.2,69,726.80 lakhs during the year 2010-11, with every prisoner, on an average, costing the exchequer Rs.19,446.60 (2010-11 data)! Now, here is where the paradox lies. These criminals are stuffed (literally) into our prisons since they have created either an economic loss or social loss to the country; and they are then made to survive on the tax paid by that very aggrieved society. In simple terms, the total cost on all prisoners put together is shared by around 150,000 taxpayers! What’s worse is that our prisons are no more corrective centers. With time, these are increasingly become training centers for to-be criminals. Since there is no such concept of correction in our prisons, even a one-time criminal comes out as a seasoned criminal. And why not? With the training of inmates for skill enhancements being poor, they are left with no option other than resorting back to the criminal world. For the uninitiated, the functions performed in Indian jails include tailoring, paper and leather work, carpentry, baking, textiles and candle making. And it requires no NSSO-type survey to find out that such skill sets without an enabling environment generate little productive engagements. Strangely, Gautam Doshi (group MD of ADAG) was assigned the work of making chairs and baking cakes and was paid peanuts in return. With 42.9 per cent prisoners being educated till class 10 and 6.44 per cent being graduates and above, it makes little sense for our authorities not to utilize their competencies. At least the more educated (professionals) can train those who are not that well educated, so that they can lead decent lives after their incarceration is complete. It’s astounding but true that the average monthly output per prisoner in India is no more than Rs.150, which is at the ebb of utilized resources. The compromise with performance is writ clear on the wall with annual pan India turnover being a meager Rs.66 crores. Read More....An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri ( Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles 2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th OverallZee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA IndoreIIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 yearIIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman ConsultingProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and ManagementIIPM makes business education truly globalManagement Guru Arindam ChaudhuriRajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
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Continuing my American series from my previous editorial, I must admit that my American tour didn’t start so well. On my flight to the US, I saw three films which symbolized the epitome of boredom of made-only-for-Oscars and Oscars nominated stuff! First, I saw The Iron Lady; then I saw another forgettable movie whose name also I have thankfully forgotten; and finally I saw the movie J Edgar – each outdoing the other in trying to be slow, boring and almost meaningless. But then, when you want to win at the Oscars, a boring biopic is often the best way! Nevertheless, in the most boring J Edgar, what struck me was the fact that perhaps the biggest achievement of the iconic Hoover, the man behind American intelligence, was his investigation of a case of kidnapping of a little boy called Charles Lindbergh. The film and the American society, way back then in 1932, made such a huge issue around the kidnapping and disappearance of a kid – so much so that a famous newspaper writer called the kidnapping and its trial thereafter “the biggest story since resurrection”. The whole incident led to landmark acts and laws being passed, making transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime. The accused was given the electric chair after being caught a couple of years later. But Hoover had used that particular kidnapping as a tool to lobby for a centralized record-keeping system leading to the fingerprint mapping of every citizen and the beginning of the world’s most efficient intelligence body – the Federal Bureau of Investigation; FBI. Upon landing and reaching the hotel, even as my thoughts on the importance given by the American society to a single case of kidnapping had barely subsided, I read in the papers about the story of a 1979 kidnapping... that of a child called Etan Patz. What amazed me was that though the boy was kidnapped 33 years ago at the age of 6, and declared dead in 2001 since he could never be found, the police and FBI didn’t give up on him and continued their search. And then, in April 2012, they discovered a basement under a road near the boy’s home, where a carpenter lived, who was possibly someone who had had a hand in the murder. What struck me in the story again was how the kidnapping then in 1979 had shaken up the entire America and had resulted in amazing new awareness and changes in various systems – of parenting and schooling. Earlier, schools never alerted the parents if a child didn’t show up at school; but post the Etan case, schools started doing so, in order to ensure that in case there were a similar tragedy, it wouldn’t take till the end of the day for the parents to come to know – thereby saving precious hours for search operations to begin. Ronald Reagan even declared May 25th – the day of Etan’s disappearance – as the Missing Children’s Day. More importantly, a national system was laid down to track children who disappeared. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children since then has tracked down more than a hundred and fifty thousand kids. And as per statistics, the rate of recovery now stands at an extraordinary 97%, up from 62% in 1990! Read More....For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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First of all, congratulations to our Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Quraishi for yet again managing the elections with the least reports of rigging; congratulations also to Akhilesh for becoming an icon overnight for the Indian youth through sheer hard work. I shall write on him very soon! This time, I want to write on something that is spoken about every time that elections are held anywhere in India – the question of election time funding. Of course, it’s shameful the way black money dominates election funding in India. But then, if you thought American Presidential elections – the nomination fight for which is underway currently in the USA – are clean, then here are some facts which will make you think again! Actually, throughout history, elections have never been democratic in the true sense with money power significantly dominating the outcome instead of ability, one way or the other. There has been rarely an election where power-variables have not played their role. Almost all elections around the world are manipulated to one extent or the other with money, power, rigging, hacking or even fixing. The upcoming American Presidential election is no exception either. Clearly a strange paradox – on one hand, the American election system is considered one of the most transparent electoral processes; on the other, this very election rarely has been fair to its masses. Unlike in India, where election funding is mostly clandestine and is funded primarily with black money, the US electoral system has been legally endowed with formal procedures to direct cash flows into the system, especially for election campaigns. On hindsight, it might appear that therefore, the elections held in the US would be quite transparent and money would play a moderate role in deciding the final winner. Unfortunately, the fact is that irrespective of how transparent the election process might be, money power is quintessential for any political party or any Presidential candidate to perform well in the elections – that in itself undermines the true essence of democracy! Today, the underlined fact is that globally, it is money that makes one win the elections, (and this has been proved through various studies). Period! US election laws allow Political Action Committees (PACs) – organizations that campaign in favour or against political candidates – to raise money for financing the election process. In the veil of being non governmental organisations, the so called PACs have been known to generally redirect money obtained for electioneering to specific political lobbying and political purposes. However, now a new kind of PAC – called the ‘Super PAC’ – has come into existence. These infamous Super PACs gained legal backing and dubious prominence after two court judgments in 2010; the first by the US Supreme Court and the second by Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Post these judgments, a Super PAC is allowed to be the recipient of an unlimited sum of money from individuals, corporations, or unions and further can keep their names anonymous – provided the Super PAC remains independent and away from the direct control of any political party/candidate it is supporting! As is quite evident, the latter part of the ‘direct control’ requirement can be quite easily fudged over, thus ensuring that the Super PAC model has given the perfect opportunity for political parties and candidates to sidestep the existing campaign finance rule, which enforces that no individual can give more than $2,500 to candidates during the nomination race and another $2,500 during the actual elections. Apparently, contributions to Super PACs can be unlimited (as they’re ostensibly ‘independent’ of the candidates). Even though officially the Super PACs seem to be independent bodies with no connections to respective candidates and political parties, it’s anybody’s guess that no sensible and wealthy American would leave out on an opportunity to gain the most out of this system. Also, needless to say, many of these Super PACs are in reality run by the candidates’ own acquaintances and former associates! Read More....For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Woodrow Wilson once said that, “A nation that is boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but it brings a pressure upon the nation which, in my judgment, no modern nation could resist.” Rebutting the same, decades later, Omar Bongo, former President of Gabon, argued against the use sanctions, commenting, “...It is important to observe that when Europe or the United Nations impose sanctions that are supposed to be aimed against a certain regime, usually millions of people end up being directly punished.” With time, the very objective of sanctions has undergone a full transformation – today, sanctions are used mostly for strategic gains than anything else. The United States and its allies (particularly Israel) are closing in on Iran! With a thumping majority (100-0), the US Senate last month approved sanctions prohibiting foreign financial institutions from undertaking any business with the Central Bank of Iran. After a series of sanctions that have been regularly imposed on and off, the US government’s latest sanctions against Iran (signed into law by US President Obama on December 31, 2011, as a part of the act titled H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012”) are clearly the strictest ever. In his official statement on H.R. 1540, available at the White House website, Obama uses the word ‘military’ 14 times, with ‘defense’ being used only 9 times – this makes the aim of the law very evident! For records, more than 15 sanctions have been imposed on Iran till date! Post the latest set of sanctions, the Iranian national currency – Rial – immediately lost its value by almost 15-20 per cent and is currently being exchanged at its lowest-ever rate of around 17,000-17,500 Rials to a dollar. The sanctions curtail other countries too from buying Iranian crude oil. The US through the latest sanctions can also debar parties that are trading with the Central Bank of Iran from having correspondent banking operations in the United States. The National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) has been passed by President Obama with an ensured funding of $662 billion that apart from imposing sanctions on Iran will also review Iran’s military capabilities. This is of utmost importance in case US plans to wage a war against Iran in the near future! Not surprisingly, all this is amalgamated with one of NDAA’s main objectives – which is to ensure energy security of NATO. The most audacious part of the Act is that NDAA has unilaterally slapped these sanctions in such a manner that it can impose penalties on any third party that dares to trade with the Iranian Central Bank! The official aim of this sanction, as cited by the US administration, is very basic, yet highly tactical – Iran’s revenue streams are expected to be stifled, and consequently Iran is expected to have no money to advance its nuclear program! However, such a reasoning seems silly and juvenile! How on the earth would US be able to strangle Iran from achieving its nuclear ambition when they have gloriously failed in the past to deter even poor and impoverished countries like North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, in spite of imposing several sanctions on these nations? The situation may soon boil up to a scenario that resembles the implication of Iraq in the 1990s. Failing to ruin Iraq through sanctions, US ultimately resorted to war. As I mentioned earlier, this is not the first time that America has targeted Iran. On June 9, 2010, the Obama administration had slapped extremely hard sanctions on Iran; banning the delivery of major military equipment to Iran and prohibiting international financial and asset transactions of Iranian corporations. In fact, Iran is not the lone target of America in the region as Syria has been party to the NATO’s ire and has been facing sanctions since 1986. A month and a half ago, the European Union and United States imposed new and renewed sanctions on Syria on the ground of suppression of its rebels, but interestingly remained silent on the same kind of repression in Yemen and Bahrain! US has always imposed sanctions and embargoes on the pretext of national security and eventually invaded the target nations after making them economically and politically weak. Iraq has been a crying example of the same. And in Iran’s case, neither has US been able to prove any negative use of the atomic and nuclear facilities that Iran possesses (the International Atomic Energy Agency has no concrete evidence against Iran), nor were they ever able to prove the presence of WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) some years back in Iraq. The entire fable created around WMDs in Iraq ended with a mere apology from America’s end. As a matter of fact, the perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudi and Pakistani nationals. Pakistan is internationally infamous for harbouring numerous terror groups and was shamefully responsible for providing sanctuary to even Osama Bin Laden. But neither Saudi Arabia nor Pakistan had to face sanctions post 9/11 like those being faced by Iran. Reason? They have been following US diktats word by word! And the lesser said about Taliban, the better for the US, as it’s quite well accepted that the Taliban has been America’s own creation. The US trade embargo against Cuba is five decades old and was described as “ineffective and detrimental” by Obama himself in September 2010. Pakistan also did face military sanctions much before by the US (a 15 year embargo that ran from 1990 to 2005 on the sale of F-16 fighter/bomber aircraft); but that didn’t deter the country from purchasing weapons from elsewhere. In similar lines, sanctions have had results quite opposite the objectives for which they were enacted. Human rights abuse and societal demotion were strongly visible in nations like South Africa (faced sanctions between 1960s-1970s), Haiti (1990-1994), Iraq (1990-2003) and the former Yugoslavia (1992) and went against the very objective of the sanctions that aimed at protecting of human rights. The arms embargo imposed on South Africa (during the 1960s) was also found to be counter-productive. The then Pretoria regime responded to the sanctions by developing a large-scale domestic weapons industry called Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor). Similarly, the sanctions on Yugoslavia didn’t prevent the Bosnian war and eventually pushed the nation into poverty and destitution. Read More.... For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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