Tag Archives: India

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Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper seeks increased trade with India

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

 

Story here from CTV News.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent his first day in India selling Canada as a desirable place to invest and highlighting the need for greater trade ties between the two countries.

Harper visited the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi on Monday, the first stops on a high-profile, three-day tour of the country that is home to 1.2 billion people. It is his first visit to India as prime minister.

[…]He spoke about the advantages of investing in Canada, and he recited the many ties that the two countries share — including pluralistic parliamentary democracy, federalism and more than 1 million Canadians who claim Indian heritage.

Canada, said Harper, has “one of the most welcoming environments for investment in the world and has the resources necessary to meet India’s growing energy and infrastructure needs.”

While Harper talked much about investment opportunities in Canada, he downplayed any suggestion that he would be signing two anticipated bilateral deals that have been expected for some time.

“On the subject of nuclear energy, it is my sincere hope that our two governments will complete our bilateral nuclear co-operation agreement soon,” said Harper, alluding to a pending deal that was first announced back in January.

Harper said Canada is also “keen” to complete a foreign investment protection deal, but that too remains under negotiation.

Stephen loves his country, he doesn’t apologize for Canada when he goes abroad. He wants to reach out to other countries by signing trade deals, so that Canadians will be able to pay the lowest prices for imported goods, and will be able to export Canadian products to more markets. Meanwhile, Obama screws American consumers by shunning free trade deals and raising tariffs against other countries.

Stephen Harper on stage again, in Mumbai

In other news, Blue Like You reports that Harper also took part in a dance on stage at a popular Indian reality TV show.

Now, if only Canada could get a cricket team to participate in all the tournaments, as well as a rugby team, and a soccer team.

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Indian and Canadian governments defiant against global warming alarmism

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Story from the UK Guardian. (H/T Celestial Junk)

Excerpt:

Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would “challenge the conventional wisdom” about melting ice in the mountains.

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.

Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: “There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers.” The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not “historically alarming”.

However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”

Ramesh said he was prepared to take on “the doomsday scenarios of Al Gore and the IPCC”.

Jairam Ramesh has gone above and beyond the call of duty in denouncing global warming hysteria. He is from the Congress Party, and from Andhra Pradesh, the same state as YSR Reddy, who I wrote about before. The Congress Party recently passed income tax cuts and Ramesh is an economist.

And Canada is also skeptical of global warming alarmism

I notice that Joanne over at Blue Like You has a round-up of articles, and this quotation from the Conservative Party Environment Minister Jim Prentice:

…Canada will not sign any deal that doesn’t force India, China and Brazil to meet negotiated targets for their own greenhouse gas reductions — a demand that may well be rejected by those countries.

“These countries are responsible for 97 per cent of the growth in emissions,” he says. “Canadians don’t want us to sign on to something that obliges us to reduce emissions, but doesn’t impose obligations on principle emitters.”

So it’s not just India, it’s Canada, too, although Celestial Junk says that India is a lot more defiant than Canada.

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US lawmakers urge India to protect Christians from Hindu militants

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Story from Agence France Presse.

Excerpt:

US lawmakers urged authorities in India’s eastern state of Orissa to prosecute perpetrators of violence against Christians, saying the nation’s reputation for tolerance was at stake.

In a letter to the state’s Chief Minister Navin Patnaik released Friday, the lawmakers voiced concern that many perpetrators of last year’s violence were still at large and intimidating their victims.

More than 100 Christian were killed and thousands more left homeless between August and October 2008 following the murder of a revered Hindu holy man, which was blamed on Christians.

While praising recent statements by India’s central government, the lawmakers said that local authorities have sometimes turned away victims seeking redress.

“Such attacks on the fundamental freedom of religion threaten not only India’s reputation for religious diversity, but also the very stability of India’s secular democracy,” the 21 lawmakers, led by Republican Trent Franks, wrote in the letter sent late last month.

“Given the recent experience with religiously inspired terrorism, we are concerned that if Hindu extremists can act with impunity toward religious minorities in India, these extremists and their ideologies will begin to affect international security as well.”

Christians account for 2.3 percent of the billion-plus population in India, which is majority Hindu but officially secular.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan official advisory panel, in August placed India on its watch list, citing violence against Christians in Orissa and Muslims in the western state of Gujarat.

The move brought swift condemnation from India, an emerging US ally, which said the nation had an independent judiciary and vigilant media to pursue any aberrations from its secular, multi-religious principles.

It may be useful to listen to the recent debate between Hindus and Christians that I summarized, in which two Hindus explain their view of human rights and how religious minorities should be treated. In some parts of India, if you do not accept the Hindu concept of polytheism, then you are opening yourself up to violence from Hindu extremists. On the other hand, the election of the Congress Party and the rejection of the BJP Party was a good sign that the bulk of Indians are more tolerant that the militant Hindus.

Deepak Chopra and intolerance for Christianity

In a related story, Hugh Hewitt had a post up about Deepak Chopra, who often writes against Bible-believing Christians.

Excerpt:

Still more Chopra invective surfaced in The Washington Post this September, again targeting [Rick] Warren and reflecting the charm of the Left. “The abuse delivered by right-wing Christians is such an old story that we are long past irony,” Chopra wrote, before moving on to his favorite target.

“The Rev. Rick Warren has a record for trying to smooth the waters, but he also flirts with intolerance — toward gay marriage, for instance — and since his rationale is that a ‘loving’ God shares the same prejudices, what’s to stop others with worse tempers from following the same logic? When your God hates, you have permission to hate,” Chopra wrote.

When your guru hates, I guess that gives you permission to hate as well?

I think it’s encouraging that the bulk of Hindus seem to be moving away from the view of intolerant extremists like Deepak Chopra and the Hindu militants in Orissa.