Free Republic

To understand India’s interest in Afghanistan you have to understand history..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814

What happens to China and India, when they each have about 50 million “excess” males with no chance of ever finding a wife?

It is a rather tricky situation...
Let me show you another side of the multidimensional object.
All these ‘Excess’ males have parents.. and many cases these happen to be only child in case of Chinese parents. I am sure Indians love their children too...when most of the families have only a few...They are not gonna send their coveted sons to some godforsaken war. They are gonna hide them in basements and hope that no one knows....

Also these ‘excess’ males may have a very low chance of finding a wife...but there is always hope....may be SOB would win a lottery tomorrow and then definitely get a wife...

There is also polyandry and not to forget them boys may just start buggering each other...

This China-India war hypothesis is a very far fetched pipe dream...

Any discussion of GDP and energy cannot exclude requirements of commercial, industrial consumption which is vastly larger than individual, private consumption

- The commercial and industrial consumption is a direct function of individual consumption. Would you agree ? All the commercial and industrial enterprise would not exist without the individual demand to consume the product of such enterprise...
If we take the example of aluminum , the demand for aluminum products by individuals would drive the aluminum production
in turn would drive electricity demand for the processing ..

The point I want to stress.. in case of India the total consumption would never approach the American levels because of inherent constraints of weather, culture and mindset....in turn never creating economy bigger than US...Unless they find some really creative ways of wasting resources...

This is to create a frame of reference for the GDP discussion ...

What drives the GDP of any modern economy?
The massive amount of energy derived from fossil fuels or other means.
Oil, Coal, Natural gas. In most the cases this energy use is largely
unavoidable. You have to heat your home in winter. You have to travel
by car. The public transportation is nonexistent outside certain areas.
The culture is more individualistic and fosters more consumption of
everything including energy.

India is a different ballgame. The energy usage of India would never
go as high as United states in per capita or in total. Most of the
country has warm/hot weather. No heating homes. Most of the homes
are well ventilated and door/windows always open. Air conditioning
is fairly rare outside the major cities. Even in major cities air
conditioning is relatively less used than in US. The country is 1/3
of US.. Transportation fuel requirements are never gonna be as high as US

Would India’s GDP be as big as US in USD numbers? probably never....

Would majority of people in India have a reasonably close standard of living
as that of average person in US?
That can happen even with a lower GDP number for India as a whole...

The folly of GDP statistics is that Consumption gets counted as wealth..

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/30pune.htm

US cultural exchange turns into nightmare for Pune girl

October 30, 2007 14:16 IST

Top Emailed Features

Little did the 16-year-old Nikita Dhavle know when she left Pune for the US with dreamy eyes and an idealism of a cultural ambassador, that she would return in three months, with a scarred mind and a fractured hand.

In what turned out to be a nightmare, Nikita, a bright student of a city school, selected under a cultural exchange programme of the American Field Service, landed in of Minnesota in the first week of August unaware of the hostility that awaited her in the form of the host family in Pipestone.

“I was asked to clean the kitchen, dining room, wash clothes, clean utensils, mow the lawn. I also cleaned the barn where the horses were kept,” the girl, who returned to India on October 26, told PTI.

“It seemed to me that what they wanted was a domestic slave who parades as a cultural ambassador,” a disillusioned Nikita said.

Nikita, who joined the Raff family in Pipestone after an AFS local coordinator screened the host family.

She was in for a rude shock when after two weeks, Ryan, the teenage son who was away, returned home.

“I came to know later that he was on probation for drunken driving,” she said.

Nikita, a keen learner with good academic and extra-curricular activity record, joined the Pipestone Central School to utilise her 11-month stay under the programme. But her problems with her host family continued.

“Ryan hurled abuses at me and said he the never liked the concept of cultural exchange. I used to wake up to violent arguments between the boy and the host mom and at times I saw them wrestle with each other on the floor. The lady of the house used to ask me pretentiously whether I was overworked but never cared to reduce the load,” said Nikita.

“Once in a fit of rage, the host mom physically pushed me when I requested her to encash my cheque as I needed money. Ryan took every opportunity to insult me.”

A fall in the barn fractured her left hand. The Raffs took her to hospital to plaster it but did not care to keep the follow-up dates with the doctor, Nikita recounted. By that time the girl who had made a favourable impression at the school, had begun to think of returning home.

She spoke to her parents in Pune and sent an e-mail to AFS functionaries in Delhi urging them to bring her back as she was no longer interested in completing the stay. Nikita was directed to the local coordinator of AFS who told her “You can change the host. But it could be from bad to worse. All families here are the same. Learn to accept and take things in good humour.”

With her disillusionment mounting, and the fracture of the hand adding to her agony and she decided to put her foot down and told AFS officials that “students who come here do not deserve this treatment”.

The emotional bruises inflicted on Nikita did not escape the attention of an alert faculty member of the Pipestone school who was fond of her and the teacher sounded the local sheriff that all was not well with the foreign student who looked sulky and depressed.

“I could have proper meal only at the school for lunch. At home the cooking was subject to the whims and fancies of the host mom. For two weeks, I only ate omlettes at home. When I requested her to teach me some American preparations, Ryan said teaching you amounted to teaching a dog,” Nikita recalled.

“Sheriff Dan Delanie was a nice man, he spoke to me affectionately trying to understand my predicament. He said I could change the family if I want or return home as per my wish,” Nikita said.

When she conveyed all the concerned that she wanted to go back she was advised to cite ‘homesickness’ as the reason for her premature departure.

But she refused despite repeated pressure and stuck to her stand that she was not comfortable there.

Meanwhile, Nikita’s mother, Anita, a school teacher, and her uncle Sarang Kamtekar, who is vice president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the students’ wing of Shiv Sena, contacted some Indian Americans settled in Minnesota appealing them to help her out.

Kamtekar said they got a very heartening response from the Indian community who contacted Nikita and was ready to arrange for her return journey. But her status of a minor posed some legal difficulties.

Finally on clearance from the Sheriff, the AFS functionaries decided to send Nikita back cutting short her stay.

She was sent to Chicago where she failed meet with an AFS contact who was supposed to put her on a flight to Amsterdam en route to Delhi.

“With none to escort me and my hand in plaster evoked suspicions at the airport and I was subjected to extra scanning at every point”, she said.

On her arrival in Delhi, Nikita met Adnan Siddiqui, cultural counsel at the US embassy. He had been briefed by AFS activists. “He told me he would look into the matter,” said Nikita, who returned to Pune with her uncle Kametkar who has demanded action against the host family in Minnesota who subjected her to mental and physical torture.

No one cares much about Pakistan...or what happens to Pakistan...

This one is even better

http://www.oilempire.us/new-map.html

Rearrange the whole middle east...

Looks like some other people also have the same brlliant idea..


http://www.afghanland.com/history/durrand.html

Interesting stuff...

Also see...
proposed map of pakistan...

http://dividepakistan.blogspot.com/2006/08/divided-pakistan-map.html

Chinese experts in connivance with the Pakistan Army have worked very intelligently to use the religion of Islam as a tool very useful to be used for extracting cheap fighting force in the name of holy war. On the other hand, the whole Pakistan Army getting salaries in millions of dollars per annum is not coming forward for this s-called Jihad simply for the reason that they know that it has nothing to do with any Jihad but to implement certain long-term political plans. It is, therefore, very essential to focus from a different angle without wasting any further time on Osama Bin Laden who is nobody but a well-trained puppet of Pakistan Army being used extensively for the purpose of masterminding the terrorist schemes and implementing them through the technical co-operation of Pakistan.

Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) is the real government in Pakistan. In the present situation it is the ISI, which is devising the self-made covert policies for the Government and also ensuring its implementation. It is part of the ISI’s well-established policy to organize violent pro-Taliban protest demonstrations against the United States in the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP (North West Frontier Province) and keep the province of Punjab away from these demonstrations and strikes. After the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001, the United States and the international community declared in clear words that we would now see that “who stands with us or against us”. The United States and international community assured the Pakistani rulers that if they extend co-operation to United States and international community in the war against terrorism, Pakistan would get the legitimate fruits of such co-operation. After these assurances of the International Community, the ISI conspired to activate the religious and so-called Jihadi groups on their payroll to use the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP (North-West Frontier Province) provinces as their battleground against United States and International Community. This conspiracy to use the minority provinces was aimed to give the United States of America and the International Community a completely wrong impression that people living in these provinces are against USA while the real situation is totally different. Pakistan Army through its terrorism network called ISI has made an attempt to tarnish the image of small provinces of present Pakistan on one hand and on the other to deceive USA and the International Community. It is a bitter truth that the province of Punjab is the hub of all the fanatical and so-called Jihadi groups and the Headquarters of all the fanatical and extremists groups are situated in different cities of the province of Punjab like Lahore, Multan, Jhang, Faisalabad and Nankana. The ISI’s “game” to deceive the United States and international community would not last long and this act of deception would reach to its logical conclusion. When that happens the world would know who actually benefited by deceiving others and who lost, whereas who was deceived by whom and who was hoodwinked.

It is not understandable as to why the Americans are not addressing the real issue. The real issue is Pakistan itself. In Pakistan, there is no religious disintegration right now. Rather all the religious groups are having mental equation when it is about the religion. There is no conflict among them if it is about Islam. Although they advocate a different Islam which was never the one introduced by Muhammad Bin Abdullah in Mecca some 1500 years ago, yet they are together under the supervision of ISI. ISI has sponsored this new brand of Islam with ulterior motives and to implement its hidden agenda. This new brand of Islam does not enjoy any recognition from the Muslims who really believe in Muhammad. It is indeed unfortunate that Islam has always been victimized throughout by the people who terms themselves as Muslims. Muhammad's Islam was hijacked even in his own lifetime when there were people who disliked Muhammad's relatives and wives. Such miscreants even accused Muhammad's wife Ayesha of adultery. People like Amir Mawiya hated Ali, the nephew of Muhammad so much so that Ali wrote to him several letters condemning Amir Mawiya to be a hypocrite. The revenge came exactly 50 years later when son of Amir Mawiya called Yazeed killed Hussain brutally who was the grand son of Muhammad and son of Ali at the place called Karbala (Iraq). The shia sect of Islam condemn this brutal murder of Hussain and do not recognize Ami Mawiya as Muslim for this arbitrary act of his son Yazeed. Today, Iran is the shia state while a large number of Shias live in Iraq also. It was one of the evil designs of late General Zia-ul-Haq that he made Pakistan a difficult place for shias and the formation of certain militant religious organizations was yet part of this plan. Today we have yet another Yazeed bin Amir Mawiya called Osama Bin Laden and several followers who have changed the very fabric of Islam in the new century. These are religious demons representing the Satan and not Islam.

It is, therefore, necessary to disintegrate Pakistan if we want to collapse the terrorists' network altogether. Unless we destroy the root cause of the whole terrorism tree, we will not be able to eliminate terrorism from the region which has been transformed into a centralized processing unit working under an integrated system not conveniently accessible unless Pakistan is divided in at least four parts. It is essential to divide the northern part of Pakistan into two countries that is Punjabistan and Pakhtoonistan. The Punjabistan will be on the eastern side and the present province of Punjab can be converted into Punjabistan while the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) having its borders with Afghanistan should be made another country called Pakhtoonistan. The new Pakhtoonistan will be a country loyal to the international comity of nations and shall not harbor any terrorists within its geography. Punjabistan shall not have any access to terrorist camps now being run by Pakistan Army in Afghanistan and NWFP as Pakhtoonistan will be a hurdle between Afghanistan and Punjabistan. The Pakistan Army mainly belongs to Punjab and hence the creation of Punjabistan and Pakhtoonistan will break the integrated network between Afghanistan and ISI (Pakistan Army).

The coming back of Pakistan Army in power through General Pervez Musharraf from the back doors on October 12, 1999 was yet another attempt to continue with the same old plan of Islamic domination in South Asia as masterminded by late General Zia-ul-Haq. This conspiracy had enjoyed assistance of China as China needed a strong Pakistan to keep an eye on India so that India should not become any problem for China in her traditional desire to win the regional supremacy which may pave way for her becoming another super war.

Pakistan is the central headquarters of all terrorist activities under the authoritative command of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) an organ of Pakistan Army who have been sheltering Islamic terrorists organizations in the country through military as well as financial support. Their objective is simple that is to rule the region under an Islamic system of their own brand and elimination of non-Muslim communities and culture. They believe that unless they use power they cannot fulfil their ambitions and as such they have found terrorism as the most convenient method for accomplishment of their political agenda. In order to promote this terrorism through religious recognition and some historic significance with a view to make it attractive for the youngsters, they misinterpreted the concept of Jihad (holy war) and since the Muslim masses living in that region are totally illiterate and ignorant about their own religion, they were misguided by the help of hypocrite Islamic scholars who motivated and induced the foolish young Muslims to fight against non-Muslims. These fools did not even think that if it was the question of Muslim and Non-Muslim, then they should also fight China being totally out of the religious orbit. But, in that case, their brains do not work because it is but China itself which is assisting the Pakistan Army in such activities. Hence, the entire phenomenon is not to propagate the Muslim beliefs but to conquer the whole world through the assistance of China. Pakistan right now is the puppet of China and therefore it has become inevitable to address this issue on top priority.

I have one thing to say about the Hagel-Martinez....

A huge demographic change is coming in the US in the next 20 years...77 million people would start retiring and put strain on the social services, Medicare and social security...No one seems to have a plan to deal with the labor shortage to...

What would be worse.....??

Getting 66 million new immigrants through Hagel Martinez or economic meltdown because of the demographic change ???

Quote:
The US would comfortably support a billion people. There is tons of available land, and we already feed a quarter of the world with our agricultural exports.


I would prefer not to see a billion in the US...But 400-500 million would be just acceptable....As the Chinese economic size goes on increasing, we have to expand to stay on the top of the game...in PPP terms Chinese are almost near the US economic size...Without a large population, it is not possible to have a large enough economy....

Newspapers have become overpopulated, so to speak, with warnings about human overpopulation. Such warnings have been issued regularly for decades - even centuries - with consistently incorrect predictions. On the first Earth Day, Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, was widely quoted. He predicted that by 1985, the "population explosion" would lead to world famine, the death of the oceans, a reduction in life expectancy to 42 years, and the wasting of the Midwest into a vast desert. He was about as accurate as Malthus himself, the Englishman who, in 1798, predicted catastrophic food shortages that never came.

The population doomsayers usually offer the solution of global government - BIG government - to determine, in Gaylord Nelson's words, "the optimum number of people." Ironically, where there is famine, the problem usually is not an excess of people but an excess of government, which leads to gross misallocation and misuse of resources as corrupt bureaucrats or dictators seek power more than the welfare their subjects.


http://www.jefflindsay.com/Overpop.shtml

The choice is no longer between good and bad...It is between bad and worse.....The effects of no population increase through drastically reduced immigration(like 5000 per year) would be worse than the over population...
No immigration is the medicine that would definately kill the patient...

Everyone keeps talking about overpopulation...

What about the fact that 77 million baby boomers are gonna retire in in the next 20 years? Who is gonna pay their social security and medicare ?? Do you want to make this country full of sick old people and no one to look after them ?

The only solution is to increase population. Through immigration or otherwise..The life style is gonna deteriorate anyway...at least people would be looked after....

Comparison

Japan
Total Area : 377,835 sq km
Population : 127,463,611

US
Total Area : 9,826,630 sq km
Population : 298,444,215


In absolute figures US looks a long way from over populated...Density of population does not necessarily mean deterioration in life style ...

Legal Immigrants in Limbo

It is that time of the year again. Immigration reform is in the air. Recently, there were raids on many businesses and the resulting arrests were given wide publicity. The Bush administration is showing its zeal to pursue the 'illegal immigrants' and 'Undocumented workers' and enforce the immigration laws. The pro-immigration and anti-immigration organizations are ratcheting up their activities. One of the common refrains of the anti-immigration groups is 'If they want to come to this country, let them come legally'. So let us examine what the people trying to immigrate legally face.

A significant number of the high skilled immigrants who immigrate to the United States are categorized by the existing immigration law as 'Employment Based' immigrants. We would refer to this as the EB immigration in this article. The EB immigrants constituted almost 22% of the total immigrants to United States in year 2005. The EB immigration process consists of four steps. There might be minor variations but the time periods for the processing described in this article remain very close to reality.

1. Labor Certification - The US Department of Labor (DOL) administers this program. This process takes anywhere from 3 to 5 years. There are people in this queue who had applied for certification in 2001. Now imagine waiting that long for the first step. However, to its credit, the DOL has implemented a new program which has significantly reduced the time required for this process to less than 6 months. However, this program is beneficial to only those applicants who filed after December 2005.

2. Immigrant Visa application - After obtaining the Labor Certification, the employer petitions the USCIS for approving the certified immigrant for permanent residency. This process can take anywhere between 1 to 10 months.

3. Adjustment of Status - If a immigrant visa is available, (and there are only 140,000 that are available each year, with a cap of 7% of these per country) the USCIS then allows the immigrant to file for adjustment of status and if approved, formally grants permanent resident status more commonly referred to as the Green Card. It is during this stage that the immigrant is subjected to background checks by the FBI and medical checks by USCIS approved physicians. Currently, the FBI background checks are taking anywhere from 8 months to a whopping two years. Also, immigrants from countries like India and China which are the main source of high skilled immigrants find themselves unable to even file for the adjustment of status because of unavailability of visa numbers. Given the current scenario, it is unknown how long it will take for these immigrants to be able to file for adjustment of status, but it is very likely to exceed 4 to 5 years

4. Citizenship – Five years after the Green Card is approved, the immigrant may apply for citizenship to the USCIS. At this stage, he has to undergo an additional background check, take a citizenship test before being eligible for approval.

As can be seen from the description above, the whole process can take 5 to 10 years just to obtain the Green Card and an additional 5 years after that to obtain citizenship. There are people waiting to be sure of their status for even more than that.

Let me make clear what this wait entails. When you are working on a work permit like H-1B, your employer sponsors you for a particular position in the future as a part of the EB immigration process. What that means in reality is that your employer cannot promote you even if you are capable and the employer is willing. In the convoluted logic of EB immigration, if you get a promotion you have to start from step 1 again. That means you are back at the end of the 5 to 10 year queue. Also, spouses of the applicants are not allowed to work even if they are qualified until the primary applicant can file for adjustment of status. Now keep trying to explain to your spouse to keep his/her career on hold for 10 years. The net result of these impediments is that a large number of these people prefer going back to their countries of origin or other countries that offer easier and faster ways to obtain permanent residency and citizenship. That is a big loss to this country.

And this is just for high-skilled and skilled workers, so our question and challenge to the anti-immigration lobby is ‘Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and pressure Congress to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform to ensure that people can immigrate to the United States legally in a reasonable amount of time?’

United States is undergoing an unprecedented change in demographic situation. The Baby boomer generation consists of 77 million citizens born in the years 1946 to 1964. The leading edge of this generation is entering their 60s in 2006 and a large number of the baby boomers would start retiring soon. This is a double whammy to the US economy. Even now, the employers ranging from
small businesses in the north-east to big corporations like Microsoft are facing serious labor shortages. When a large chunk of US labor force starts retiring every year, businesses are going to be even more hard pressed to find suitable workers. At the same time, the demands for social services from this large retiree population would keep growing. The US economy would find it harder and harder to support an ever larger population in need of Social services support. Unless something
is done to deal with the coming labor crunch, United States is facing a huge economic and social services meltdown. The businesses would either fold in face of global competition or go where they can find labor that would allow them to be competitive leading to additional job cuts in the US. The immigration policy this country adopts would determine the future of this country. The only solution to deal with the labor crunch is to allow more employment based immigration.

As mentioned earlier, the total number of Employment based immigrants allowed per year by current law is 140,000 and it also includes the dependents of these immigrants. This limit was established in the early 90s when population of United States was smaller and a lot younger. This number has to undergo a sharp upward revision to account for the coming demographic challenge this country is facing.

The current immigration law has rules that prohibit immigration from any country in excess of 7% of the overall immigration. As far as employment based immigration is concerned, this limit is of 7% is
illogical. Skills are not evenly distributed in the world and companies do not hire people based on the country they come from but for the skill set they possess to get the job done. As president Bush aptly described "It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, you can't come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems". This cap of 7% has caused the applicants from large countries like China and India to wait for years on end. As we all know, these countries are undergoing rapid growth. If the United States does not make an effort to retain this valuable human capital, those countries are going to benefit at United States’ cost.

Every year, thousands of students from various countries come to the United States to pursue higher education. In a fairly large number of cases, the universities and various endowments provide financial aid to these students. It would make sense for United States to make an effort to retain this talent that has been educated in a large number of cases by the American taxpayers. It is a reality that the talent is sorely needed. Abolishing the country limits on the employment based immigration would make it easier to retain this talent and help ease the skilled labor crunch.

The USCIS has serious issues in dealing with the magnitude of immigration benefits processing expected of the service. The Bush administration has made some not entirely successful attempts to improve the workings of the troubled federal agency. The United States does not become safer if an immigration benefits application sits entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare for years on end. The USCIS should be mandated to process all existing backlogs in a reasonable time frame and provided the resources and leadership to accomplish this goal.

In the cacophony of anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, no one seems to be paying attention to the plight of the legal immigration applicants waiting for years for their applications to get processed. The United States is supposed to be the land of opportunity. The Congress should make an effort to ease the hardships of the people who have followed the law and are trying to immigrate legally so that these deserving immigrants also get a chance to pursue their American Dreams.

Quotes from article...
http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/does_the_world_.html

Most Americans are entirely unaware that the most pro-US foreign country in the world is India. It is also one of the only countries where George W. Bush is more highly regarded than in the US.

I do not know about PRC...as far as India is concerned, India would never be a military or geopolitical competitor of United states...Here is some data..

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/does_the_world_.html


India happens to be the country with the most positive perception of united States...Now the only reason for that to change would be hyperbole on our part....