Mahmood Elahi's article
Arijit, On e-mail
Apropos to Mr. Elahi's assertion that India cannot match US-China economic relations. Probably he is forgetting a few home truths. The first point is that the US under Nixon agreed to open up its markets completely to China in the 70's. Something that was denied to India till about two years ago. The second point is almost everybody is aware of the fact that due to the inherent trade anomalies of the past, a lot of Indian companies had set up shops across the world in order to beat the US Quota systems which denied India more direct access to its markets. Mr Elahi talks of direct imports by the US totalling USD 18.8 billion. Well, Mr Elahi, if you were to total the imports by the US from Indian companies based outside India, the figure would be grossly misrepresented, just ask the garment communities based in Dubai and Dhaka and you would get a fair picture of what I am talking about. Thirdly, both the US and India do not put software and services under the purview of Import/Export. So add another USD 20.0 billion or thereabouts. The fourth aspect is rather curious, Mr Elahi is of the view that Indo-US bilateral trade has been "hamstrung" by India's crumbling infrastructure, redtape and corrupt bureaucracy! Well Mr Elahi, bilateral trade is well bilateral and not a one-way street. Maybe you would do better to look up the top US based companies who for years have bemoaned the US export control laws (read RED TAPE) which prevented companies from exporting anything more powerful than desktop computers to India. Coming to the point of corruption, please do read up the corruption index as published and see for yourself that while Indians are corrupt, they are not as corrupt as you would make them out to be, especially considering the fact that the Indians actually did better than the Chinese on this scale. And coming to crumbling infrastructure, Mr Elahi, please do come to India and see for yourself the same. We have, like China gone about expanding in a frenzied pace. Today we are adding approximately 2 million subscribers a month in the Telecom sector. Our total sub base is very close to the 100 million mark and by 2010 we should be able to overtake China on this score. Not to mention that we have ordered more aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus than any other country in 2005 and have the fastest civil aviation growth in the world. And finally Mr Elahi, praising the rise of China does not mean denigrating India. We are not in competition with them but rather we are building up our country so that our people can get more opportunities and improve their quality of life. I find it curious that throughout the piece you feel that putting India down on all fronts is credible rationale for your statements. Maybe it is time you got your facts in order.
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