New Delhi, November 4
Even as India readies itself to welcome US President Barack Obama, differences were quite evident today between the two countries over a host of issues, particularly outsourcing, American arms supplies to Pakistan, taking forward cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector and India’s candidature for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s remarks at a press conference here this evening also indicated that India is not expecting any ‘big bang’ outcome from the visit that could provide substantive content and shape to bilateral ties.

However, on the contentious issue of Washington lifting restrictions on the export of dual-use technology items, New Delhi is quite optimistic about a positive outcome soon of the discussions it has been holding with the American side.

Just days after an election drubbing back home in which Democrats lost majority in the House of Representatives and lost ground to the Republicans in the Senate, Obama will arrive in Mumbai in the forenoon of November 6, accompanied by First Lady Michelle and a high-level delegation, on a four-day visit.

Replying to questions on the much-awaited visit, Rao said the two countries would sign development-related agreements in the fields of agriculture, space, health and clean energy which impact the lives of the people at the grassroots level.

She was quite careful not to refer to any defence-related accord in which Washington seems to be quite interested. India has made it clear that it has not made up its mind on the three defence pacts, including the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), which, strategic observers believe, could send negative signals to other important defence partners of the country.

President Obama’s interview yesterday in which he held out no assurance on supporting India’s candidature for a UNSC seat has certainly come as a big disappointment to mandarins at the South Block. However, the Foreign Secretary refused to draw any “hasty conclusion” on the basis of Obama’s comment, saying the two countries have been discussing UN reforms in a candid, open and transparent manner. The US was becoming increasingly aware of India’s potential and its contribution to global institutions and global security, she added.

Terrorism, particularly the one emanating from Pakistan against India, is one issue on which India expects President Obama to take a strong stand. Nirupama said India would discuss with the American leader the situation in the region, particularly terrorism directed against India and also the targeting of Indians in Afghanistan.

India has not taken kindly to the latest military aid of more than two billion dollars announced by the US for Pakistan to enhance its capabilities in fighting terror. New Delhi’s contention is that Pakistan has always used the assistance given to it by the West to bolster its military strength against India. The increasing Chinese assertiveness in global affairs is also bound to come up during discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama.

She emphasised that there has been an unprecedented cooperation between the two countries in the area of counterterrorism. In this connection, she also pointed out that India had been provided full access to David Coleman Headley, who has confessed to his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks.

On the civil nuclear energy accord, she said India was willing to address the concerns expressed by US nuclear companies over the liability clause in the civil nuclear liability bill, passed by Parliament. A commercial delegation, comprising representatives of American nuclear companies, would be visiting India shortly. India wanted to provide a level-playing field to all players in the nuclear energy field. “We hope there will be participation by US companies in the civil nuclear energy field.”

Asked if the US proposed to lift restrictions on the export of dual use technology to India, she said the two countries were discussing the issue and have covered a lot of ground. “We are reasonably optimistic about the outcome.”

The issue of outsourcing on which Obama has come in for sharp criticism in India and the hike in H-1B visa will figure prominently during his visit. He might use the occasion of his meeting with business honchos in Mumbai to clarify his administration’s position.

New Delhi, November 4
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan and award-winning music maestro AR Rahman are likely to be invited to the dinner being hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for US president Barack Obama at his residence on November 7, which was originally billed to be a private meal, but is now threatening to become a much larger affair.

While the guest list for the Sunday dinner is being kept under wraps by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), UPA sources indicated that pulls and pressures from various quarters had forced them to expand the number of invitees.

Obama had sought a private dinner with the PM on the first evening in Delhi and initial plans were to limit the guest list to about 25-odd VIPs, which included UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and senior Cabinet Ministers Pranab Mukherjee, AK Anthony, P. Chidambaram and SM Krishna. Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also figure in the list of invitees.

Minister-in-waiting Salman Khursheed and officials like National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao are also slated to attend the dinner. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will also be present. Wife Michelle and senior officials including US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer will accompany Obama. It was disclosed that the guest list could even touch 80 with 40 invitees each from the Indian and US sides. In case, the PMO fails to keep the numbers down (which appears highly unlikely), the dinner will be hosted on the lawns and not indoors as originally planned.

While Cabinet Ministers and officials figure high on the list, efforts have also been made to put together a diverse group, including representatives from the world of arts and cinema. Aamir Khan and Rahman are being mentioned as probables along with scriptwriter-lyricist Javed Akhtar and actor wife Shabana Azmi. Akhtar is also a Rajya Sabha Member, while Shabana carries the tag of activist, having spoken up on various social and political issues. 

New Delhi, November 4
India is ranked 119 out of 169 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) of the UNDP’s 2010 Human Development Report released globally today.

This marks an improvement of just one rank between 2005 and 2010 though the report, a special 20th anniversary edition, places India among top 10 performers globally in terms of HDI measured on income growth. The category is led by China. India comes 10th after Botswana, South Korea, Hong Kong, even Malaysia and Mauritius.

China has improved eight notches (from 2005 to 2010) to secure the 89th position. In South Asia, Nepal has gained five places to reach the 138th rank. Maldives has risen four places to 107; Sri Lanka at 91 too has pipped India in the rankings though Pakistan has lost two ranks to fall to 125, while Bangladesh is up one at 129.

Though high on GDP growth, India reports severe inequalities (the report for the first time measures inequalities, gender gaps and multidimensional poverty as markers of human development) while several low-income nations have posted huge profits by investing in education and health. Nepal is the only South Asian country, which despite low income, stands as the third best performer in the top 10 movers the report highlights.

These movers are the 10 nations (out of 135 studied for development indicators) that made the largest HDI improvements over the past 40 years. Oman leads the pack having invested its energy earnings in health and education. Except China, which is second on this list thanks to income gains (recording 21 fold jump in per capita income since 1980), all other nine countries are top movers due to health and education benefits. These are Nepal, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lao PDR, Tunisia, South Korea, Algeria and Morocco. India is 16th in the category.

While the Congress-led UPA Government can take heart from the fact that India’s HDI value has increased from 0.320 in 1980 to 0.519 in 2010, higher than South Asia’s average of 0.516, India still lags behind among medium HD nations. South Asia, particularly India, post shocking percentage losses in HDI values if inequalities are counted.

South Asia loses 33 per cent of its HDI value if health, education and income disparities are factored in. This is the second largest loss after sub-Saharan Africa’s. India fares particularly poorly here, losing 30 per cent overall on the inequality-adjusted HDI. This loss includes 31.3 per cent loss on inequality-adjusted life expectancy index; 40.6 per cent loss on education but only 14.6 per cent loss in income-adjusted HDI index.

The best HDI ranker in the world, Norway, loses just 6.6 per cent to inequality while China loses 23 per cent and Bangladesh 29.4 per cent.

On all major markers of human development, India’s neighbours Bangladesh and Pakistan beat it, something Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu today noted with concern. India’s life expectancy at birth is among the lowest, 64.4 years as against China’s 73.5; Bangladesh’s 66.9, Pakistan’s 67.2 and Nepal’s 67.5. In mean years of schooling too, India lags behind recording 4.4 years while China has 7.5; Pakistan 4.9 and Bangladesh 4.8. On female labour force participation too, Bangladesh with 61 per cent is much ahead of India, which has just 31 per cent.

“Bangladesh is making a much better statement of social progress than us. There’s bad news for India on the social indicators though our growth story is incredible,” Basu said today after Patrice Coeur-Bizot, UN Resident Coordinator released the Report titled, “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development”. Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed was so anxious, she said she didn’t sleep last night after reading of the extent of inequalities in India.

The 2010 report uses several new methodologies; hence its indicators are not comparable to those in the earlier reports. 

New Delhi, November 4
With all its gender stereotypes, Pakistan stands ahead of India in gender equality, concludes the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2010, which for the first time measures gender inequality index (GII) and multidimensional poverty index to bare the real face of human development in any nation.

Analyses of the report shows that South Asia is characterised by relatively weak female empowerment with an inequality loss of 35 per cent (in HDI value) as compared to 16 per cent in developed countries.

India ranks 122 out of 138 countries on the GII based on 2008 data, nine per cent parliamentary seats here are held by women and 27 per cent of adult women have secondary or higher levels of education compared to 50 per cent adult men.

Compare this with Pakistan whose GII is 112, better than India’s. The latter posts better gender gains than only Afghanistan, where increasing Talibanisation has been pushing women to the margins. Afghanistan ranks 134 on GII, while all other South Asian nations are better ranked than India- Bangladesh (116), Nepal (110), Maldives (59) and Sri Lanka (72). China is ranked much better at 38 on the front.

The GII, which captures gender gaps in reproductive health, empowerment and workforce participation in 138 countries, further shows that six countries of East Asia and the Pacific fall in the lower half on gender inequality with Papua New Guinea among the lowest 10.

The top 10 most gender equal nations in the world are The Netherlands (first in the list), followed by Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Italy and Singapore.

Kolkata, November 4
Mamata Banerjee denied she was hankering after chief ministership. On the contrary, she claimed she herself had offered the Chief Minister’s chair to veteran Pranab Mukherjee for heading the Congress(l)-Trinamool government in West Bengal after the forthcoming Assembly elections, which, he declined.

Talking to a private Bengali TV channel here last night, the Railway Minister said she was unhappy and aggrieved at the odd stand of the Centre on the deployment of para-military forces at Lalghar and Jangalmahal even after knowing that the joint action force had been misued by the CPI(M) for re-capturing the areas they lost after the recent elections.

She said during a meeting in New Delhi in the presence of Dr Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee, the Home Minister P Chidambaram himself admitted they had reports of setting up cadres camps in the Lalghar-Jangalmahal areas where illegal firearms were being stored for using these in the CPI(M)’s area-capturing drive. Still Chidambaram was silent on this, she alleged. The Trinamool supremo said they were dissatisfied but still like the CPI(M) they would not betray and blackmail the Manmohan Simgh government by withdrawing support from the UPA.

“We are committed to be in the UPA government for five years term and we will remain so”, she declared, adding that TMC, as usual, will be opposing the UPA’s anti-people decisions, whenever, necessary. But their alliance with the Congress(l) in the state would remain and they would jointly fight the elections against the CPI(M) for ending their prolonged 34 years of misrule, she asserted. Mamata alleged after their debacle in the last Lok Sabha, panchayat elections and several other civil polls and Assembly elections, the CPI(M) had became desperate and trying to destabilise the democratic set-up and destroying the government properties and establishments.

The Railways have been their soft targets where criminals and anti-social elements are engaged in sabotaging the railways movements. She alleged the Gyneshwari train accident and the train accident at Sainthia were the acts of the saboteurs which had been established by the Safety commissioner’s report and the CBI probe. 

West Midnapore, November 4
One person was killed and 18 security personnel were injured when a clash broke out between joint forces and Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) supporters in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district today.

Police fired several rounds after a group of people, mostly comprising PCPA supporters, attacked the security force, which went to the area on a tip-off that some Maoists were hiding there. Three policemen, including the officer-in-charge of police station Uttam Debnath, were seriously injured.