India (Continuación)

MundoAsia,

India's general election, the largest democratic exercise in history, begins Monday. Voters will elect 543 members to the lower house of parliament, which will then select the country's next prime minister. Here are 11 things you need to know about the world's biggest election:

1. Its massive scale. More than 814 million voters are expected to cast ballots over the next month to elect the lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha, up from 713 million voters in 2009. The Indian voting pool is larger than the total populations of the United States and Western Europe combined.

Given the infrastructure in India, an election of this scale can't be done in a day.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

We are now only days away from the start of the greatest democratic show on earth. It is hard to challenge India’s claims to be the world’s biggest living, breathing dynamic democracy. The 814.5 million Indians who will cast ballots at 930,000 polling stations from April 7 to May 12 are the proof of that.

Unfortunately it is a flawed democracy, too much of a tamasha (a show with much singing and dancing) and not enough serious substance. For that, I do not blame the voters: They play their part faithfully enough; the problem is that the message does not get through to those running the country day by day.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Parece que las muy esperadas negociaciones de paz entre la India y Pakistán no tendrán lugar antes de las elecciones parlamentarias de mayo en India; y las perspectivas de conversaciones después de eso no están claras. Diversos factores prefiguran un período de intensa incertidumbre y posibilidad de conflicto: la victoria del nacionalista Partido Popular Indio (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) de Narendra Modi; un resurgimiento de los talibanes tras la inminente retirada de las tropas estadounidenses de Afganistán; y que Pakistán siga siendo incapaz de negociar con los talibanes paquistaníes o suprimirlos. Pero esto no debe ser motivo para abandonar los intentos de lograr la paz.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

I was born in Mumbai, India -- a beautiful country rich in culture and landscape. But for all its wonder and charm, India is also a country where from 150,000 to 200,000 people were afflicted by polio in the mid-1980s and, even as recently as 2009, was home to nearly half the world's new polio cases.

Polio is a debilitating disease. It attacks the nervous system and can lead to partial or full paralysis for life, and in some cases, even death.

But, the great news is that today, India and Southeast Asia were officially certified by the World Health Organization as being polio-free -- a momentous achievement for global public health and the worldwide effort to eradicate polio.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaReflexionesDemocraciaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

Las protestas en las calles perturban democracias en todos lados, desde Bangkok hasta Kiev, y una vez más se vuelve a cuestionar la naturaleza y legitimidad de las elecciones. ¿Son las elecciones populares un criterio adecuado para juzgar el compromiso democrático de un país? A principios del próximo mes, las elecciones que se celebrarán en India y Afganistán avivarán la pregunta.

Afganistán tendrá elecciones presidenciales el 5 de abril. Sin embargo, es poco probable que sea un proceso electoral tranquilo –en especial porque el presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, ha advertido a su homólogo afgano, Hamid Karzai, que los Estados Unidos y la OTAN no tienen opción y tendrán que retirar sus tropas para finales de este año.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

La semana pasada, la Comisión Electoral independiente de la India anunció las fechas de la próxima elección general. El mayor ejercicio en el mundo de la franquicia democrática tendrá lugar durante la impresionante cantidad de 37 días, se realizará en 9 «fases», algunas con una semana entre sí, entre el 7 abril y el 12 de mayo. Aproximadamente 814 millones de personas estarán en condiciones de elegir, por 16.° vez, a un nuevo parlamento y gobierno, emitiendo sus votos en más de 930 000 sitios de votación, después de haber optado entre unos 15 000 candidatos de más de 500 partidos políticos.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

A un mes de la próxima elección general, India tiene motivos para celebrar: por fin la pobreza extrema está en retirada. En 2012 (dos décadas después de que el gobierno lanzó una serie de reformas con el objetivo de abrir la economía) el índice oficial de pobreza llegó a 22%, menos de la mitad que en 1994. Pero ya es hora de que India aspire a más. Salir de la indigencia es un hito importante, pero no es lo mismo que obtener un nivel de vida decente y una sensación de seguridad económica, algo para lo cual todavía falta hacer mucho.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

There was a time, only a few years ago now, when I prided myself as a host of parties — soirees, as some plummy guests called them. Before one such gathering, I was asked: “Are you having another sorry this week?” Rather than correct my guest’s French, I simply furnished the time, and the usual address: my sparse studio in the north Mumbai enclave of Juhu, overlooking a pond and a parking lot dotted with identically hooded black and yellow rickshaws.

This was to be a Sunday brunch, for an artist from Delhi. Around 30 guests appeared, a miscellany of writers, socialites, artists, publishers, venture capitalists and tag-along out-of-towners.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

El invierno es la temporada alta de la diplomacia de la India, pues el tiempo fresco y soleado constituye un telón de fondo ideal para la ceremonia, las sesiones fotográficas en el Taj Mahal o el Fuerte Rojo de Delhi y los acuerdos bilaterales, pero este invierno ha sido particularmente impresionante, pues dirigentes del Japón y de Corea del Sur la han visitado para hacer avanzar la causa de la cooperación en materia de seguridad en Asia.

La primera en llegar fue la Presidenta de Corea del Sur, Park Geun-hye. Pese a contar con un fundamento económico sólido, la relación bilateral ha carecido durante mucho tiempo de una dimensión válida de seguridad, pero la reciente autoafirmación de China –incluida su declaración unilateral en pasado mes de noviembre de una nueva zona de identificación de la defensa aérea, que se superpone en unos 3.000 kilómetros cuadrados a la de Corea del Sur, en el mar del Japón– ha animado a Park a reforzar los vínculos de su país con la India en materia de seguridad.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Este mes, la decimoquinta Lok Sabha de la India (la cámara baja del Parlamento) pasó a la historia de manera ignominiosa, a consecuencia de que los cinco años de este Parlamento fueron los menos productivos de todos los Parlamentos de la India en seis décadas de democracia funcional. Debido a que se perdieron sesiones enteras por interrupciones de la oposición y por los frecuentes aplazamientos que privaron a los legisladores de tener el tiempo suficiente para la deliberación, los miembros del Parlamento elegidos en mayo del año 2009 aprobaron menos proyectos de ley e invirtieron menos horas en el debate en comparación con cualquier otro Parlamento predecesor.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

The word "raga" is central to Indian classical music. A raga is a series of notes played over and over in a sequence of ascending speed, often producing a mood of forbidding austerity, philosophical detachment or otherworldliness. This week, the young Indian politician and prime ministerial hopeful Rahul Gandhi, recently nicknamed "RaGa" by the Indian news media, proved himself firmly in tune with this tradition during his long-awaited debut television interview. For the 80-minute span of the interview, and for days afterward, Gandhi had the whole country discussing his breathtaking and mystifying rehearsal of political notes in all kinds of sequences, rooted in a reason that could only be musical.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The Africans — Nigerians, Ghanaians, Ugandans — began leaving my neighborhood in New Delhi around December. Each week, more and more families exited. Some went to parts of Delhi considered more accepting of Africans; others to areas where the residents were thought to be less interfering in general. I have heard that some of the Ghanaian families had gone back to Africa, but I don’t know that for sure.

For years, they had been a part of the swirl of cultures, languages and races that makes up this part of the capital. The Nigerian women in their bright dresses out for evening strolls and the Cameroonian family with the curious-eyed baby at the ice-cream van had made a life for themselves alongside the Afghans, Tamils and Iranians.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The economist Amartya Sen is -- along with writer Arundhati Roy -- the most prominent public intellectual in India’s English-language public sphere. Even at 80, Sen continues to publish new work around his favorite themes of welfare, human capability, social security and choice theory. He’s also closely involved with a project to set up a new university on the site of Nalanda in Bihar, an ancient center of Buddhist education.

Sen has always been known as a man of the left. But last week, while delivering the keynote address at the Jaipur Literature Festival, one of India's most important forums of literary and intellectual debate, Sen spoke for many when he said that despite his own views, his wish for India was to have “a strong and flourishing right-wing party.”…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

El primer ministro indio, Manmohan Singh, que ha estado en dicho cargo desde 2004, recientemente dio lo que fue apenas la segunda conferencia de prensa de su mandato de cinco años, que se acerca rápidamente a un fin sin gloria. Dejando ver su anhelo de aprobación, Singh dijo a los periodistas que esperaba que la historia juzgara su administración con menos severidad que sus adversarios políticos.

Es improbable que lo anterior suceda, y eso en el mejor de los casos. El alguna vez grandioso Partido del Congreso de Singh, ahora está en un impasse político, que solo podrá superar si elimina su liderazgo dinástico destructivo.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoAsia,

Could the word “Khobragade” soon become a part of the English language?

"Khobragade (kho-braa-guh-dey): Noun. A person whose situation or predicament exposes the gulf in understanding between two cultures. Also, one who seeks relief from a charge under one set of laws by recourse to another, more contentious, legal frame or emotional appeal. Also: The tendency of human institutions, or states, to become hopelessly drawn into and enmeshed in a relatively trivial dispute at the expense of larger matters, leading to outcomes that please neither party, except to the extent that they displease the other side".

That might be just one of the long-term effects across language, law, diplomacy and cross-cultural relations of the Dec.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Indian democracy took a turn toward ancient Athens this week after the Aam Aadmi Party (“Common Man’s Party”) went to the people a second time in an attempt to resolve a political dilemma. The fledgling political outfit that earlier this month won 30 percent of the vote and 40 percent of the seats in elections in the city-state of Delhi brought up the notion of “direct democracy” in defense of its decision to hold a referendum in Delhi on the question of whether it should make a bid to form a minority government in the capital.

In its manifesto, the AAP has borrowed from Brazil’s Porto Alegre model of local government by popular consent.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The mother, an animal herder in the western Indian state of Gujarat, watched in horror as her 3-year-old daughter was snatched from her. The kidnapper, an upper-caste woman from a nearby village who was unable to conceive, had been encouraged by her in-laws to help herself to a low-caste child. The mother pleaded with the village council and police for her daughter’s return. But both were dismissive. So she approached the unofficial Nari Adalat, or Women’s Court.

Five members of the court walked to the village where the girl was being held, and confronted her abductors. They refused to budge until the family let them search their house, where they found the girl hidden beneath a pile of mattresses in a musty storage room.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The Indian Supreme Court’s egregious judgment reinstating a 19th-century law criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults has drawn well-deserved condemnation from international bodies such as the United Nations and even leaders of India’s national governing party. The ruling does, however, offer valuable insights into the fallacious beliefs the court used in its reasoning. These beliefs are harbored by India’s deeply conservative society, whose cultural liberalization has been far outpaced by its economic progress, and would need to be addressed to realize true change, regardless of whether same-sex acts are eventually legalized.

The Dec. 11 ruling overturned a lower-court decision in 2009 that the colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex was unconstitutional.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

At the heart of the fracas surrounding the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York who promised to pay her housekeeper $9.75 per hour, in compliance with United States labor rules, but instead paid her $3.31 per hour, is India’s dirty secret: One segment of the Indian population routinely exploits another, and the country’s labor laws allow gross mistreatment of domestic workers.

India is furious that the diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, was strip-searched and kept in a cell in New York with criminals. Retaliation from the newly assertive but otherwise bureaucracy-ridden nation was swift. American diplomats were stripped of identity cards granting them diplomatic benefits, and security barriers surrounding the American Embassy in New Delhi were hauled away.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

La noticia de que la sonda marciana Mangalyaan, lanzada por India el 5 de noviembre ya ha salido de la órbita de la Tierra y dejado atrás la Luna en camino a su destino final, a 400 mil millones de kilómetros, causó un alborozo temprano en los indios este fin de año. Las misiones espaciales se han convertido en motivo de orgullo para la India, que es ya uno de los principales países del mundo en materia de tecnología satelital y aeroespacial.

El Mangalyaan es el primer satélite interplanetario indio y se construyó enteramente en el país para la misión a Marte.…  Seguir leyendo »