Invincible India

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7350118.stm

aaaThis article is about the endangered tigers in India and how people try to smuggle their body parts and skin to northern Asia. People of the west have come to the conclusion that India alone cannot stop the radical decrease of the numbers of tigers, so Neena Gill, a president of the European Parliament’s India delegation has brought attention to this topic. She believes that this year is a great time to bring awareness to this issue, because China, one of the main consumers of the tiger skin, will receive a lot of attention (through the Olympics) and therefore some of that attention can be linked to the tiger-business. This is the income of many people in India, Nepal and China though it is illegal. It is believed that 100 years ago, there were 40,000 tigers in India while now there are only around 1000 left.
aaa Raising awareness for the endangered animals is very important. What used to be only animals on this world is gone now and the humans have replaced them. It is scary how the numbers of endangered species, not only tigers, have decreased over the last few centuries. I really believe that this year is a great timing to raise awareness, because this is a serious topic. It is a great idea to get not only the east included in the project of saving the tigers. India is the home to almost half of all the tiger population; therefore I think that the majority of NGOs and other government based organizations should concentrate on India and its environment/animals.

Why haven’t people bothered saving endangered species such as the tiger before?
How can one help save the animals?
What would happen to India if the tigers would die out?

aaaThe article that I used for this analysis was posted on Monday, May 5th 2008. It was the same day that I found this article, therefore its significance is its recentness. It has little hindsight, only as a summary of the food scarcity in India, but apart from that little to none hindsight. The article is an average online news article on the Reuters website. It was written by Jonathan Leff and Mayank Bhardwaj, working for the Reuters website. Neither of the journalists have written about their personal views, though there are some direct quotes and opinions of economists. The combination of the authors is interesting, because one of them sounds like an Indian, the other more like a Westerner. One can’t really say whether they wrote the article from inside or from outside o the country. The authors have written this article for money, as well as to inform curious, interested adults or people in the food business like economists and farmers. Throughout the article, both writers use no emotions to influence the audience to a certain perspective. It has no bias and sets the audience on the positive side, even though mentioning negatives.
aaaaaaaaaa Asuka Heltmann

http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-33413220080505

The Uncomfortable Rise of the Rupee

This article talks about the Indian Rupee, and how strong it is becoming. “One poor wretch, pressed against the car window at a Delhi traffic light, tries to change a dollar bill she presumably cadged off a tourist. She wants 50 rupees for it.:” The rupee is growing so fast that the poor can not even keep up with it. In just one year, 2006-2007, the rupee went from 46 rupees to a dollar down to 39 rupees to the dollar (US). This is mainly caused by the help of other nations. “The net inflow amounted to almost $45 billion in the year to March, compared with $23.4 billion a year earlier.” So in a span of one year, the net inflow of India almost doubled its amount. From all of India’s exports to other countries in 2007 came to $23.4 billion US dollars. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, is doing its best to keep the rupee from growing too fast. “Printing rupees to buy the incoming dollars keeps the currency cheap but also adds to the money supply, stoking inflation.” Some people fear that the high priced rupee will make India take a step backwards, and tighten its controls on capital inflows.
I do not believe that the Indian rupee will not rise so quickly that it will make the country have to make a step backwards. Like the article said, the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) will do something about the problem before it will do any harm to the country. One paragraph in the article did say that some on this is a good thing, because India is also getting foreign money which it can use to make the country better.

1. How is the rupee growing so fast?
2. How is the RBI keeping the rupee cheap?
3. Why do you think that the high priced rupee will make India take a step backwards.

Kris M.

Is India the New China?

The news article that I analyzed is called “Is India the New China?”. The man who wrote this article was a professor from Cornell University, his name is Kaushik Basu. Mr. Basu lives in the United States, but he is originally from India. It could be bad that he wrote the article because, he is Indian, and the article is consulting whether India is going to surpass China as an industrialized nation, so he may write it in a perspective that India is defiantly going to succeed. People who are in business, interested in foreign affairs and economics would most likely to read this article, as well as fairly well educated people. Mr. Kaushik wrote this article to inform people about how fast India is becoming more and more powerful. An interesting thing about this article, even though he is Indian, he isn’t being persuasive or objective, he is just giving you facts about both sides of the problem. Due to his position on this subject, he doesn’t have any emotions about the topic. “China, being ahead of the pack, will probably escape this trap. India will certainly feel the heat. There can be political turmoil, and both China and India are at risk.” Kaushik Basu posted this article on BBC on November 2, 2007. The importance of this date is that Mr. Kaushik has a bit of hind sight, since some of the statements were based on calculations that were done a few years ago, and have recently proven to be true.

Kris Meredith

Here I upload the factboko that we had to do in PE.

Factbook Page

Darrence’s homework will be posted here.

Youtube for India was launched on May 7th, 2008. The url is www.youtube.co.in. People in India suspect that this is just the beginning of a great relationship that Google/Youtube will have with India’s other companies. YouTube India is supposed to bring a lot of traditional entertainment onto video for the rest of the world to watch.

To read more about this article, click here.

Marriage Dowries
Brooke, James. “Dowry Too High. Lose Bride and Go to Jail..” The New York Times May 17, 2006:

Marrying with money
Aggressive grooms
Rupees demanded under the marriage tent
Reports of abuse
Infinite tradition
Always a burden for the bride’s family
Giving money away with no profit of their own
Expected with marriage

Demanding grooms, that no women can oppose
Obligatory
Woman’s nightmare
Rescuing needed ASAP
Ironic, marrying with money not with your partner
Easy money for the men,
Seding grooms to prison, the women will try to fight back

The article that I looked at was about women’s rights and marriage dowries that were pressured on women when getting married. I think that it is very unfair for the women who have to pay just to get married to the one they love and unfair that the men use marriage as a way to make money, and you know, marriage is supposed to be a girl’s happiest day of her life. The dowries and marriages based on money break that happy dream and turn it into a nightmare. The tradition exists in many countries, but in my opinion I think that India has the worst stories. Because in many cultures that had dowries, they got rid of it, or the women pay only a small amount, just as a celebratory allowance for their new lives. In India, the money they have to spend is not an amount of an allowance, and they pay to the groom’s family and not to their new lives. The men in India who use the women to make money should be arrested, and to prevent dowries from being a huge problem, I think that schools should educate the children about dowries and discourage it. Also, so that changes occur instantly, the government should set a maximum amount of money that a dowry can be so that the groom’s family does not ask for impossible amounts.
1. Why was the dowry tradition created?
2. How have the women of India tolerated this issue until a few decades ago?
3. What is the government doing to get rid of the dowry?

Haruka Fukukawa

THE POTATO MAKES A COMEBACK is a news article published this year 2008, written by Terry Wade who is a journalist of the Herald Tribune. Terry Wade, the author of the article has written this proposal of idea from an outsider’s point of view. Since he didn’t collect the information himself in India, he had probably not thought of the conveniences and reactions of the people in India, and pushed the idea into the ideal plan. He did not consider deeply about how the Indians would take this suggestion, or how they would feel when the suggestion is given to switch their main and most major dish to potatoes. This article was written for the people that are connected to the government, a researcher, or some position mighty enough to influence the food production of a country. Although that would be the main intent, the article is also addressing intellectuals and aware adults as part of their audience too. The aim of the article is to suggest a solution to the world food scarcity crisis, and to educate those who have not considered the problem seriously before. The article is trying to persuade countries like India whose diet focuses on rice and wheat to convert to potatoes as their source of carbohydrates and grains. Also, the article was written so that even if the potato solution is not considered or approved, the readers would get an inspiration of other solutions to this problem. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to suggest the potato idea, or to give inspiration to lead to future solutions. The writer is trying to objective by only stating facts and not opinion, but is also being subjective by listing facts on the positive aspects of the plan, and none of the negative. “…the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable “a hidden treasure.”.” “Potatoes come in about 5,000 types. With colors ranging from alabaster-white to bright yellow and …potatoes offer inventive chefs a chance to create new, eye-catching plates.” “”They taste great,” said Juan Carlos Mescco, 17” “Potatoes are a great source of complex carbohydrates, which release their energy slowly, and – so long as they are not smothered with butter – have only five percent of the fat content of wheat. They also have one-fourth of the calories…” Most, if not all of the facts that are said are boasts to the potato solution, or defense to any doubt the reader may have. The author Terry Wade is expressing his opinion and beliefs, trying to persuade the readers to match his thinking by giving the one-sided facts, but he never directly states his opinion. Also, since the article was written only a few months ago, and food scarcity is a problem that is occurring now, he probably still has the same beliefs and has not taken into consideration the side effects of the solution when writing the article. Therefore, the article was probably mixed with beliefs and views of the situation than rather analyzing the whole scenario carefully.

Haruka Fukukawa

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/16/business/potato.php

This is Yuki