["US authorities have explained to us that under existing US regulation, former President Abdul Kalam does not fall into the category of persons exempt from security screening. However, US authorities extended usual courtesies to him at the airport, including escort and private screening,"]
By Ashok T. Jaisinghani
Ex-Indian President APJ Kalam |
The American officials seem to be obsessed with the personality of Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. A general question would be- did the American security officials plant any tiny bugs in Dr Abdul
Kalam's jacket and shoes to spy on him? The Americans can do anything and
everything to spy on others for getting the information they want. Did the
American spy agencies try to find out Dr Abdul Kalam's secrets by hearing his private
conversations and by recording his visits to different places in USA ?
There are many women who have hairstyles
like that of Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. Did the Americans want to find out the
sex of Dr Abdul Kalam, as they might not be certain of his being a man or a
woman? The American spy agents might have probably got some strands of his hair
from his jacket, which could be used for DNA tests to determine the sex to
which Dr A P J Abdul Kalam belongs.
Alternatively, the Americans might be
wanting to find out which genes in Dr Kalam's chromosomes had made him a great
genius, who is known as one of the most important scientists of India .
US
APOLOGIZES FOR KALAM'S SECURITY CHECK
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: Reacting to reports about President A P J Abdul
Kalam being subjected to security check by American authorities again, the US
embassy said in a statement that after the incident, its charge d'affaires
Peter Burleigh had hand-delivered a letter of apology from the US
Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) administrator to Kalam.
The embassy said it deeply regretted the
"inconvenience that resulted for Kalam" as a result of the September
29 incident involving security screening at John F Kennedy airport in New
York. "We are actively working to prevent similar incidents in the future
from occurring," the statement said.
"US authorities have explained to us that
under existing US regulation, former President Abdul Kalam
does not fall into the category of persons exempt from security screening.
However, US authorities extended usual courtesies to him at the airport,
including escort and private screening," a statement from the foreign
ministry said.
It added that the two governments were planning to hold
discussions to explore appropriate mechanisms for facilitating airport
procedures for dignitaries, in accordance with national regulations.
After Kalam had entered the aircraft, TSA agents requested
Air India staff for his jacket and shoes,
reportedly as these had not been checked according to the prescribed procedure. Air India staff then sought the consent
of Kalam, who had by then removed his jacket and shoes and settled in his seat,
to hand them over to TSA authorities. These personal belongings of Kalam were
returned shortly thereafter.
- Times of India of 14 November 2011 .
***
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY: WHOSE CENTURY, CHINA OR INDIA ?
[With so many of the
world's economies in tatters, the combined might of China and India could spearhead global growth in the coming decades. Are
they up to the job?]
By
Zoher Abdoolcarim
Illustration by the Heads of State for TIME |
Introducing India 's 3 Idiots to a Chinese audience won't
make the cut of epic attempts to break down barriers between cultures. But it
does tap into a spreading consciousness that China and India and their people share a special place among today's
nations — a tandem locomotive pulling the global economy while much of the rest
of the world is a train wreck. You've heard the drumbeat: stupendous growth
rates; ever richer consumers; geopolitical clout — a new order trumpeted by
mega-events and extravagant slogans like the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing
and "Incredible India" at Davos. "The rise of India and China ," writes Robyn Meredith in her seminal book, The
Elephant and the Dragon, "has caused the entire earth's economic and
political landscape to shift before our eyes." Indian politician Jairam
Ramesh sums up the phenomenon in a neologism: Chindia. (Graphic: How the Giants Measure
Up.)
With Western economies reeling, the world is
looking especially to China and India as saviors — whether it's buying Italian bonds or Italian
bags. The E.U. is even begging Beijing to help bail out its euro-zone bailout fund. But that's
only one side of the coin. There's a duality to China and India , a blend of reality and myth, internally as well as
between them. China and India have an arabesque relationship. These two giants on the
cusp of superpower-hood are more rivals than partners. Despite their
achievements, they face enormous challenges. And though they add up to nearly
40% of the world's 7 billion population, they still live pretty much in
parallel universes. Chinese and Indians, writes Indian journalist Pallavi Aiyar
in her perceptive book, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China,
are "largely culturally untranslatable to each other."
Rivals or Allies?
As a Gujarati born, raised and living in overwhelmingly Cantonese Hong Kong —
both tribes are brash and materialistic — I have long been privy to what local
Chinese and Indians think of the other. It used to be downright ugly.
Perceptions and attitudes, liberally spiced with racial epithets, went broadly
like this: to the Chinese, the Indians were poor, superstitious and dirty; to
the Indians, the Chinese were crass, godless — and dirty. Hong Kong is
no microcosm of Chindia, but it reflects how, just as China and India have changed, so have the stereotypes. If before I were
assumed by the Chinese to be someone's chauffeur, now I am a tech entrepreneur
or investment banker. Local Indians see China afresh too, but often in just two superficial dimensions:
wealth and might. My 17-year-old son's peers are only half-joking when they
tell him that, because he is half Chinese, half Indian, he has it made. (See photos of the making of modern
India.)
If only it were that simple. In her book,
Meredith quotes Indian tycoon Ratan Tata saying, "China is the factory of
the world; India can be the knowledge center of this region ... If we orient
ourselves to working together, we could be a formidable force of two
nations." That's ambitious — and perhaps unrealistic. China and India were once soul mates — through the
migration of Buddhism some 2,000 years ago. Later, the Indian monk Bodhidharma
traveled to China to spread the message of Zen. Prominent Chinese went the
other way: the devout pilgrim Xuanzang, later immortalized in the classic Ming
novel Journey to the West, and the great explorer Admiral Zheng He.
It was a time of mutual discovery. By the 17th century, the Middle Kingdom and
the subcontinent were the planet's trading powers. They then got caught up in
their own worlds of feudalism and colonialism — a decaying dynasty in China , the British Raj in India — followed by decades of serial revolution and fervent
socialism. Modern relations between the two countries were marked mostly by
suspicion — and the occasional border war.
The contemporary period is friendlier, yet
tensions are never far from the surface. Even as both governments speak of
peace and prosperity, China is establishing a "string of pearls" in the Indian Ocean ,
unsettling New Delhi , and India is talking oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea ,
angering Beijing . More to the point, the close economic ties between
nations that often prevent conflict do not sufficiently exist between China and India . Chinese investment in India is about 0.05% of its worldwide total, while Indian FDI in
China is so low that it does not appear on many charts.
Bilateral trade is growing (especially Chinese exports to India ), but it's still a small proportion of their global total.
Given their size and footprint, the two are nowhere as connected as they should
be. Astonishingly, just a few of the two countries' cities have direct flights.
Houses in Order
Before they rescue the world, china and India need to fix their own economies and societies. They are
beset by some grim news. Growth is slowing, though in China 's case that helps cool an overheated economy. In both
countries, exports are sliding, inflation is at painful levels, income
inequality is reaching chasm proportions, and injustices like land grabs are
sparking widespread protests. Cronyism is a scourge. The two have lifted
countless millions out of poverty (though China has done a better job), but countless other millions —
youths, workers, farmers — remain marginalized and desperate for decent
livelihoods. While China doesn't follow the rules, India has too many rules to follow. China is, if not at a tipping point, certainly at an inflection,
struggling to contain asset bubbles and bad loans and to rebalance its economy
away from state-directed investment to consumer-led growth. India 's reputation, meanwhile, has been so dented by corruption
that the country's top corporations have hired U.S. consultancy Bain to craft a "Credible India"
campaign. Good luck. (See photos of China's 90 years of
communism.)
Perception vs. Reality
At least India can count on a better image worldwide than China . Westerners in particular see the pair through a romantic
and ideological prism. India is Gandhi, yoga, eat-pray-love. A gentle elephant; an
exporter not of unfairly underpriced goods but articulate and urbane CEOs as at
home in New York City as in Mumbai. China is "gutter oil"; the country you love to hate.
Fiery dragon rather than cuddly panda. Mercantilist, rapacious, threatening;
resented even as it is wooed.
There are two reasons for this dichotomy: Beijing 's profile and swagger are bigger than New Delhi 's, allowing India to escape the same scrutiny; and India is a democracy while China is an authoritarian state. All year, Beijing 's leaders have systematically cracked down on political
dissent and cyberspace activity; they would not have tolerated, for example,
the Indian summer of anticorruption protests in New Delhi . (Remember Tiananmen?) Yet the hard truth is that India is not as free as it's made out to be. Democracy does not
necessarily result in good governance. India 's institutions are weak, human-rights abuses are not
unknown, and money and power often buy impunity. "India 's poor [have] a vote," writes author Aiyar, "but
this [does] not always equal a voice." India even has its own Tibet : I don't mean Dharamsala but Kashmir .
Whose economic path, China 's or India 's — essentially, state capitalism vs. private enterprise —
is sustainable? Which society is more durable? Which nation has a stronger
sense of destiny? The entire planet wants and needs to know. In the following
pages, TIME's Bill Powell and Michael Schuman face off to argue the case,
respectively, for China
and India as to whose template of change will prevail. It's not easy
to pinpoint the killer app. But given a year of restless populaces worldwide,
the winner may be the one providing the greater justice and dignity to the most
people. On that score, it's still China 0, India 0.