President Pervez Musharaff’s Views

re:#8 by rsaxena
Not just signing trade treaties, India is also putting diplomatic pressure on Pak. It is India`s way of saying`` if i can have trade with my enemy, forgetting about the border problem, what is wrong with Pak having trade with India and shelve the Kashmir issue for the time being``.
It makes eminent sense to tackle easy issues first and then go to the most vexed issue, which is Kashmir. But Mushy is no diplomat. Imagine this guy wanting to have a dialogue telling Pranab Roy that another Kargil cannot be ruled out. What was he thinking? The guy is a fukcing moron.
Sridhar

re:#12 by Romair
As India forges strategic alliance with US, improves trade with China and forges military alliance with Israel, it will be more difficult for Pak to extract anything out of India. India will simply wait for the day when Pak would be taken over by jehadists. That day will come when Mushy`s rule ends. India would not compromise on anything until jehad ends. Jehad won`t end because ending it would mean end of Mushy. So, wait until eternity.
Sridhar

re:#16 by hamidm2
India really does not need the kind of aid it used to get in the past. PL-40 or whatever that was is fresh in some people`s memory. There used to be a Aid India Consortium that would meet yearly in Paris to decide how much aid India needs.
All that is history. India`s economy is booming today. Money is coming in as investments. India still needs huge investments and aid related to infrastructure. For eg the idea of linking canals to connect major rivers in India is strongly being considered for implementation. S.C of India has given its opinion that this should be completed by 2020. A dedicated NRI in US is helping in technical matters but the cost runs into many billion dollars and cannot be completed without foreign aid.
India does not need aid for food or other essentials. With a booming foreign exchange (more than 80billion $ on last count), India has already paid off debt from smaller nations.
Sridhar

Here is another interesting piece of news. The MMA maybe in big trouble, if the Supreme Court upholds this:

``Court removes Pakistan politician


Islamic parties say their qualifications are valid
A court in Pakistan`s North-West Frontier Province has removed a member of the national assembly in a row over his qualifications.
Peshawar High Court`s Election Tribunal ruled that the qualifications of Mufti Ibrar Sultan - a member of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) - are inadequate.

Mr Sultan`s degree was obtained from an Islamic seminary and was not equivalent to a university degree, as required by Pakistan`s Election Commission.

Justice Tariq Javed, who made the judgment, has ordered a new election in the constituency.

Mr Sultan was the successful candidate in the elections for the national assembly in the NA-14 Kohat constituency of NWFP.`` (www.bbc.co.uk/urdu)

...good ole deluded pakis at it again...


...get this trough your head romair uncle:

...bush tossing aid to buy guns into mushraf`s beggin bowl is a LOT different from capital investments in economic growth, which is what india gets...

#30 by arjun_m on June 30, 2003 2:02pm PT

You are reading too much into the Bush-Musharraf meeting. I don`t think Bush was trying to please India here. After all, Bush is an American President, not Indian President. As a rule, the Americans follow an independent foreign policy guided by American national interests. They never let one ally dictate their relationship with another ally.

Example: Israelis have been lobbying against Saudi Arabia for decades yet America never lets its oil interests be affected by its friendship with Israel. And vice versa. America will never let Saudi Arabia to use oil for blackmailing America into ditching Israel.

To put it succintly, India/Pakistan are America`s friends.. not masters.

If Bush wanted to please India, he would have made demands that would be unpalatable to Pakistanis such as ``forget-about-Kashmir``, ``rollback-nuclear-programme``, ``reduce-military-size``. He did not make any such unreasonable demands. He simply echoed the demands that Pakistanis are themselves making of Musharraf. And in the same order:

1: Democracy
2: Kashmir
3: Sectarianism and Extremism
4: Afghanistan

If you add TIFA and Science & Technology program to the overall picture, it is clear that Americans want to be friends with Pakistan, despite Indian attempts to prevent such a friendship through propaganda. Ultimately America will neither let India threaten Pakistan nor let Pakistan create mischief in Kashmir. Keeping both countries in its circle of friends is crucial to American goal of gaining a strong foothold in Asia (and keep China under check).

re: harimau #40

...dont` be too harsh on hamid uncle...he is from some phony consulting firm and gets easily confused, hence his difficulty understanding that a state can decline aid due to plump forex reserves but urge that it be sent directly to NGOs...

arjun_m #32

I would not quote Eric Margolis. He is a mouthpiece for Pakistani Islamic Jihadists. He is trying to undermine Musharraf among Pakistani expatriates.

#16 by hamidm2 on June 30, 2003 10:23am PT

[harimau,

......... don`t be ridiculous! ....... india, a donor nation - how silly can you get! ........ let`s not get carried away and start giving away money to norway and sweden .........i think there are plenty of folks in india who need the money more than the starving scandinavians ........... this is almost as silly as pakistan giving ``aid`` to bangladesh.........]

Dear Sri Hamid,

Your points are well-taken. Yet, I knew I wan`t dreaming when I saw the news last night. So, I did a quick google search on India and the IMF and the attached news item popped up at the top.

As Urstruly would like to point out, India is doing this in the typical bania tradition of money-lending at usurious interest rates, contravening the Quranic sanctions against riba and thus confirming its status as a kaffir nation, notwithstanding its huge Muslim population, thus further infuriating 12-Head/Tipu/Studebaker who is already incensed that Farzana Versey`s Didi is being diddled by a Hindu brahmin just like that Muslim-basher VS Naipaul is diddling a Pakistani Muslima, both against all teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Please allow yourself a double dose of Macallen tonight. I am sure Srimathi Hamid will understand.

Regards.

Harimau



Forex reserve boosts India`s image as creditor

IANS[ MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2003 03:55:26 PM ]

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by a strong foreign exchange reserve, India is striving to project its stature as a creditor to other countries and multilateral lending agencies, reversing its decades-old role of an aggressive borrower.

Analysts say India`s emerging image as an international creditor sends strong signals regarding the country`s strength and resilience of its external sector to the global community.

``When you have a very comfortable foreign exchange reserve, the very first thing you do is to stop borrowing from others and pay back all outstanding loans, which India did in recent years,`` said economist D H Panandiker.

``After doing that, it is also a prudent move for a country like India to extend credit to other countries and agencies that are likely to give higher rate of returns,`` Panandiker said.

``It`s a good investment move than keeping the foreign exchange locked up inside the country.``

According to Panandiker, a large chunk of India`s foreign exchange reserve is parked in government securities of developed nations, mostly in US treasury bills, which fetch barely two percent interest annually.

``On the other hand, India can get an interest rate of nearly five per cent by lending to multilateral lending agencies.``

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Saturday said the country had joined the International Monetary Fund`s (IMF) pool of lenders in view of its comfortable foreign exchange reserves position.

IMF has selected India to become a member of its financial transaction plan (FTP) from the September-November quarter of 2002. Countries under this plan help the IMF finance the balance of payments needs of other nations.

``The IMF selects countries with strong balance of payment and foreign exchange reserves position for contributing to the FTP,`` said an RBI statement.

India`s foreign exchange reserves touched a record high at $82.120 billion in the week to June 20. The country`s foreign reserve has risen rapidly in the last few years on strong inflows from overseas and rising portfolio investment.

Enthused by the strong reserve, India has decided to put a curb on excessive borrowing and prepay all outstanding loans. The country paid back all its IMF loans by 2000.

New Delhi also reportedly prepaid foreign loans aggregating $1.67 billion to World Bank and another $1.3 billion to the Asian Development Bank last fiscal.

The government is also likely to prepay another $3 billion worth of costly foreign loans this fiscal in continuance of the exercise for reducing interest burden and fiscal deficit.

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had indicated in the fiscal budget for 2003-04 that the government would continue to prepay foreign loans.

India has also framed a new set of guidelines for taking bilateral loans from other countries that would help minimise the federal government`s commitment in repaying loans.

``Becoming a creditor to multilateral lending agencies and other countries will also boost India`s credit rating status in the international market,`` said Panandiker.

#1 by Inquirer on June 30, 2003 7:04am PT
He has to first neutralize the radical and uncultured tribes of NWFP before he can address controversial issue of India-Pakistan policies.

People from the NWFP are not really pushed about Kashmir; it is primarily the population from Punjab that is the most concerned about Kashmir.

hamidm2 #16

There is Indian state, Indian companies and Indian citizens. Indian state has money - a lot of FOREX reserves. They can either collect 1% in a money market account or they can loan it for a higher rate of return. Indian citizens do not need money per se. They need job opportunities which can pay for food, housing, education and health care. It is hard for commies to understand.

Romair #12

India is not making any territorrial concessions to Pakistan. India is 5-10 times stronger than Pakistan. Pakistan has one real option which is to start a full scale war. There are problems in Indian Kashmir. They would have to resolved between Indian leaders and Kashmiri leaders. There is no way Indian leaders will negotiate under the threat of force. Pakistani and Kashmiri leaders will not get anything through violence. The quicker people realize it the better.

There are too many variables in Indian economy long term outlook. Pakistani economy will have long term problems. You have political issues, no energy reserves, high illiteracy rate, high population growth rate, no govt spending on human resources/infrastructure and dependence on a single river system for water. It is not difficult to guess where you go.

hamidm#16
What you say is true, but so incredibly is also what Harimou says (according to The Economist of June 21). The two statements are not mutually exclusive.
During his last budget, India`s Finance Minister told several (but not all!) donor countries that it will not accept any more govt-to-govt grants or loans. He also announced a $600 million aid to selected Asian and African countries.
I am not against this policy. History has proved that that there is an inverse relationship between a country receiving aid and the effort it makes to improve its economy on its own. Moreover, the administrative costs of loans from smaller countries, such as Norway and Sweden are too high to be of any practical use.
With respect to becoming a donor country, maybe Indians have found out that a substantial proportion of the bilateral aid by the developed countries to the developing gets recycled back to the donor countries through consultants, feasibility/assessment studies and assorted contracts. Indians are perhaps thinking of doing the same in the countries they are going to aid (e.g., give aid to African countries to buy CILPA`s aids drugs) and leveraging this aid for other politico-economic interests.

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#12 Hot-Air Commodore Romair

{{And Pakistan`s economy has stabilized, and is picking up. If the current financial team continues for another five years, it will reach 6% or higher.}}

If the Pakistan’s current economic managers and statisticians continue for another two years, the GDP growth rate will soar to 12% or higher. Read how they fearlessly finagle fiscal figures in the following article by Andleeb Abbas in the News:

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-weekly/nos-29-06-2003/pol1.htm#1

What lies beneath?

[Behind the fanfare of a glowing economic performance lies the sad reality that the exaggerated figures in the recent budget will mislead the public for a short period, until realisation hits that they have been taken for a ride again]

“For the last few years, our economic managers have been consistently flaunting a higher provisional estimate of growth in our gross domestic product (GDP) at budgeting time, and subsequently, reducing this growth rate by the next June, so as to lower the base line. This enables them to blow the trumpet of a higher growth achieved in the next year.

In June 1999, the budget for fiscal year 1999-2000 fixed the target for growth at 5%. The nation was told in June 2000 that the actual growth achieved was 2.6% and the target for FY 2000-2001 had been fixed at 4%.

In June 2001, the provisional figure of 2.6% was depressed to 2.2% in order to show the growth for FY 2001-2002 at 3.6%, to bring it closer to the target of 4%.

In June 2002, the GDP growth target for FY 2002-2003 was fixed at 4.5%, while the achievement, as it was proclaimed in the provisional estimate for FY 2001-2002, was 3.6%.

The National Income Accounts Committee this year once again depressed the figure for FY 2001-2002 to 3.4%, to project the growth for next year FY 2002-2003 at 4.9%.

But that was not all. A few days prior to the presentation of the Finance Bill before the parliament, the NIA Committee once again met to revise the estimate of five items to raise the GDP growth even higher to 5.1% for FY 2002-2003. If the past trend is to be maintained, we shall see the GDP growth for FY 2002-2003 depressed once again in June 2004.

Manipulation of data for public consumption, to get a favourable response from the general public, may bring temporary laurels, but it is the real situation on the ground that changes public perception of governance. Faith in government estimates, by and large, is non-existent, as far as general public is concerned. There are no independent institutions to verify or check the Federal Bureau of Statistics` claims.”

…

“Another area touted as a strong economic recovery indicator is the official reserve account. A ten and half billion-reserve account has been widely hailed as proof of a strong economy. Unfortunately, it is not trade, but aid and foreign remittances that are responsible for this increase. Most of it is caused by a rise in remittances from overseas Pakistanis, who, under compulsion of circumstances, are forced to send money through official channels instead of hundi.”

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