March’s job numbers were greeted rapturously by the business press. Scratch the surface of the data and things are not so rosy When the labour department announced that the US economy had created 216,000 jobs in March , it set off a round of celebrations throughout Washington policy circles. The word in the New York Times , the Washington Post and other major news outlets was that the economy was back on course; we were on the right path. Those who know arithmetic were a bit more sceptical. If the economy sustained March’s rate of job growth, it will be more than seven years before we get back to normal rates of unemployment. Furthermore, some of this growth likely reflected a bounceback from weaker growth the prior two months. The average rate of job growth over the last three months has been just 160,000. At that pace, we won’t get back to normal rates of unemployment until after 2022. That’s a long time to make ordinary workers suffer because the folks who run the economy are not very good at their job. In addition to the job growth numbers, the March data also showed that the unemployment rate slipped down by another 0.1 percentage point. It now stands at 8.8%, almost a full percentage point below its year ago level of 9.7%. This, too, was treated as cause for celebration. While that may sound like progress, a more careful look at the data makes this number less impressive. The percentage of the population that is employed has actually fallen by 0.1 percentage point over the last year. In order to be counted as unemployed, you have to say that you are looking for work. The unemployment rate did not fall because the unemployed had found jobs; rather, the unemployment rate fell because people have given up looking for work. Only in Washington would this be hailed as good news. Remarkably, as the mixed basket of economic news in the March employment report was being celebrated, a major piece of unambiguously bad news was almost completely ignored. The commerce department released data on construction spending for February (pdf) . A decline of 1.4 % in spending in February, coupled with sharp downward revisions to the data for the prior two months, left nominal spending in February 6.2% below its November level. The slump in construction is virtually certain to be a major drag on growth in the first quarter. The big culprit this time is the non-residential sector – as a result of the bursting of the bubble in this sector, coupled with a fading out of stimulus spending on government projects. Other recent economic news also suggests that the economy’s momentum is more likely to slow than accelerate in the months ahead. Nominal wage growth has been virtually flat the last two months. With food and gas prices rising sharply, this means that real wages are falling, leaving workers with less money to spend. House prices are again falling rapidly, having declined at the rate of 1.0% a month for the last three months. If this pace of decline continues, by the end of the year, homeowners will have lost more than $2tn in equity compared with peak hit in the summer of 2010. This loss of housing wealth implies a reduction in annual consumption of $120bn. There was also a big jump in the trade deficit reported for January . While the celebrants of recent trade pacts were excited by the growth in exports, people who know economics recognise that the larger increase in imports will be another drag on economic growth. With most of the country’s major trading partners experiencing weak growth, there is little prospect for an improvement in the trade deficit any time soon. And, investment in equipment and software also appears to be weakening. New orders for capital goods (excluding volatile aircraft orders) in February were down 6.8% from the levels reported in December. In addition, the government cutbacks, threatened at the federal level and going into place at the state and local level, will be a further source of drag on the economy. In short, there is little basis for last Friday’s celebrations about the economy. The February jobs report would have been mediocre if the economy were already at normal rates of unemployment. In the context of a badly depressed economy, it is pathetic. We should be seeing jobs growth at two or three times this rate. But the real bad news is that it is more likely to get worse than better. Yet again, the business press is missing the story. US unemployment and employment data United States Housing market Economics Economic policy Dean Baker guardian.co.uk
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Marbella University offers ‘Green MBA’ highlighting ‘lies, deceit and hype’ of business world Let’s play a little game. Please read the following quote and try to guess who said it: Lies, cheat, deceit, distortion, hype, and a blind pursuit of profit have poisoned the business world. The price of this has been the destruction of the planet, its ecosystems and the alienation of humans from their soul and genuine inner needs. Pollution, contamination, climate change, poverty, rising sea level, unemployment, financial crisis, social unrest, war, and a general lack of trust has taken over as a result. Strong stuff. I’m fairly confident that you currently have the image of an angry environmental campaigner in your head. Or, perhaps, a far-left politician waving their fist at the world’s multiple injustices. Well, these are both wrong: the right answer is these words come from the press release of a new MBA course now being offered at Marbella University in southern Spain. Yes, an MBA course: that rarefied habitat that has long been the butt of jokes due to the air of self-importance and unworldliness nurtured within. (The same is often said of the environmental movement, of course!) Perhaps this common perception is unfair, but MBA courses are not usually associated with environmental tub-thumping. Rather, they are often seen as little more than finishing schools for the “corporate leaders” who will go on to pillage the earth in the name of “shareholder dividends” and “quarterly results”. So it comes as something of a shock to see an MBA course being advertised in such a way. Marbella University, the only English-speaking university in southern Spain, was founded in 2009 and, in addition to its MBA, offers courses on communication & public relations, tourism, journalism and psychology. But, for our purposes, it is the ” Green MBA ” that catches the eye. For those still rubbing their eyes in amazement, here’s some more from the press release: The world needs new managers and CEOs; new MBAs. The state of humanity and the planet clearly shows: politics has failed, corporations have failed, and most disturbingly even education has failed. Humanity and the world need new leaders and experts to resolve the global problems. The MBA programs at Marbella University entail a vanguard approach to international business with a strong focus on “human factors” and the complexity of today’s global business world… In the words of the President of Marbella University: “The state of humanity and the planet clearly shows: most Masters programs are unusable, elitist, soulless products, made by people that don’t understand anything about human beings and the values of being human!” Dr Schellhammer adds: “All solutions start with a vanguard education, based on a new understanding of humans and life.” Look at the ” Green MBA ” course description and you can see that issues such as population growth, climate change and “limited resources and raw materials” are all prominently discussed – even if there is still a tendency to slip effortlessly into management speak: “The business world must become aware of such developments and use all vanguard tools to efficiently navigate in such a challenging business environment.” (I’m curious: can business executives get belts to strap around their waists to hold all their vanguard tools?) Is this evidence of enlightenment and hope in the world of big business? Or a desperate attempt by a new university to court attention in the super competitive world of MBA courses? And for those who have actually completed an MBA: how often did these issues ever get discussed on your own course? MBAs Leo Hickman guardian.co.uk
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Deputy prime minister says body will monitor this and future governments in attempts to increase social mobility in UK and reduce child poverty Nick Clegg has sought to ease fears that he is downgrading child poverty targets by announcing the establishment of a child poverty and social mobility commission – a measure charities feared had been shelved. The commission, which will be set on a legal footing, will monitor the government and future governments in their attempts to increase social mobility in the UK and reduce child poverty. The statutory body will be headed by the government’s adviser on social mobility, the former Labour MP Alan Milburn. The official launch of the social mobility strategy was delayed by an hour after Clegg was summoned to the Commons by Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, to make an urgent statement. Harman claimed Clegg “gave up the right” to launch a social mobility strategy when he “betrayed a generation of young people” and told MPs that, for many young people, mobility now meant a “bus down to the job centre”. She said: “I’m afraid you gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility when you abolished Educational Maintenance Allowance [EMA], trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people.” The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) charity is considering launching a judicial review as targets for reducing the number of children living in poverty set by previous governments are missed. CPAG has been disappointed that the commission of experts the government had been legally obliged to set up had not so far been established. Such a commission is intended to draw up the child poverty reduction strategy and set out how targets could be reached. Though the focus is intended to be the government’s strategy to uncouple the link between a child’s life chances and the social class into which they are born, the government has also had to defend itself against charges that reducing child poverty has become a lesser political priority for it. Charities have voiced fears that a new emphasis on social mobility meant a downgrading of existing child poverty figures, with the government newly concerned with improving relative life chances for the poor but bright, suggesting a reduced concern with levels of absolute child poverty. Government officials hope the new commission “more than alleviates” those fears. The bid to put the body on a statutory footing met resistance inside Whitehall, with some in the Cabinet cautious about creating a new legal monitor at a time when it was trying to reduce the numbers of such bodies, but Clegg insisted on the legal standing. The Labour government committed to reducing the numbers of children living in poverty to 10% by 2010. In the last year for which figures were available, 2008-09, 22% – 2.8 million children – were living in poverty, defined as those living in homes where income is 60% less than the median in the UK before taking into account housing costs. In December, the Institute of Fiscal Studies predicted that changes to the welfare system would increase relative child poverty figures by 200,000 in 2012-13 and 2013-14. Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children, said: “Save the Children strongly welcomes the government’s new move to create a severe child poverty measure, but there won’t be social mobility for the poorest children without urgent action to provide extra childcare support, to get their parents Clegg also said the government will aim to end the culture of people being given internships because of “who they know, rather than what they know”. He admitted that improving social mobility was not going to happen “in a few months or a few years”, but stressed that he wanted the present government, and future governments, to be held to account over their attempts to “make Britain a fairer and more socially mobile place”. The push to open up internships is one of the measures outlined to ensure career progression is less dependent on “who your father’s friends are”. The national internship scheme will ask firms to pay young people doing work experience and warn that they could otherwise risk a legal challenge under the national minimum wage legislation. As part of a multi-pronged effort to narrow differences in achievement between social groups, a number of firms have been enlisted to give people without family connections experience in competitive fields of work. The government will encourage firms to use name blank and school blank applications, and will signal that legislation on the payment of the national minimum wage should be taken more seriously. People will be encouraged to blow the whistle on unpaid internships. Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said in a joint article in Tuesday’s Telegraph that many families are seeing their aspirations for their children dashed because private education is out of their reach and they lack the right connections. Denying suggestions that the strategy would involve “social engineering”, they cast their drive to open up internships as a way of preventing “the lucky few grabbing all the best chances”. “This is mobility for the middle, not just the bottom,” they wrote. Social mobility Social exclusion Children Nick Clegg Iain Duncan Smith Harriet Harman Alan Milburn Hélène Mulholland Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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High court told recently imposed controls on judicial review funding would have prevented courts hearing torture allegations The Ministry of Defence lobbied behind closed doors to restrict the provision of legal aid to claimants questioning the treatment of military detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, the high court has heard. At a hearing challenging changes to legal aid made last year, Tim Otty QC said tighter controls on funding judicial reviews now imposed by the Ministry of Justice would have prevented courts hearing torture allegations and the creation of extra safeguards to protect suspects. Repeated representations by the former defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, to the Ministry of Justice during 2008 and 2009 were not disclosed during a public consultation exercise on changing legal aid entitlements, he said. The changes came at a time when the government was suffering successive political embarrassments over claims that al-Qaida suspects had been subjected to torture overseas while being questioned by the intelligence services. There was “no candid disclosure” of the real reasons for restricting funding and the process was therefore “legally flawed”, Otty added. “The Ministry of Justice treated the MoD’s concerns as central to its approach.” In one email sent in June 2009, the high court heard, “there was an express indication that the MoJ ‘supported’ the concerns raised” and would act on them speedily. “The genesis for these [changes to legal aid] rest solely in concerns expressed by the MoD … and in terms of the cost burdens from judicial reviews relating to Afghanistan and Iraq.” The MoD was particularly concerned about a judicial review brought by one claimant, Maya Evans, who had no direct personal involvement in the treatment of detainees. The new legal aid rules introduced following the Ministry of Justice’s consultation process specified that funding would only be provided to claimants who might receive “real benefits”, personally or for the environment. Tuesday’s challenge has been brought on her behalf. The MoD insists that the new provisions introduced by the Legal Services Commission do not prevent judicial reviews being taken by claimants who are personally affected. Sam Grodzinski, counsel for the MoD, argued that there was no general obligation for public bodies to disclose to those being consulted the arguments submitted by other groups or to explain why it started any review of policy. The UK’s obligation to prohibit torture, he said, did not require public funding of cases where “extra-territorial torture by third country authorities is alleged and where the claim is brought by a person wholly unconnected to the individuals said to be at risk of torture”. Judgement is expected to be reserved. Legal aid Military Defence policy Iraq Afghanistan Global terrorism UK security and terrorism Terrorism policy Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Dear Science was the Guardian’s favourite album of 2008 – but what do you make of the follow-up? In 2008, TV On the Radio pulled out all the stops with Dear Science, a record that did more interesting things with guitars than any other since OK Computer. We named it our album of the year and so did many other publications (MTV, Pitchfork, Horse and Hound). The follow-up, Nine Types of Light, is a more relaxed affair – possibly because it was recorded at Dave Sitek’s LA home with BBQ and ping pong every day, and possibly because this is a band who feel they’ve earned the right to take their time over an album and enjoy making it a little bit more. The classic TVOTR sound is still here – cosmic soul, falsetto, shards of guitar – but the mood is mellower and they’re not scared to tackle the humble love song. You can read a full review of the album in Friday’s Film&Music or check out an interview with the band in Saturday’s Guardian Guide. But for now, here’s the exclusive album stream – have a listen and let us know what you think in the comments section below. TV on the Radio Pop and rock Indie guardian.co.uk/music guardian.co.uk
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Libyan leader, or ‘Papa’, is also a generous employer who likes to give gold watches to staff, says Oksana Balinskaya Muammar Gaddafi is in rude health, enjoys Italian food and couscous with camel meat and likes to give gold watches to his aides, according to a nurse who worked on the Libyan leader’s personal staff. Oksana Balinskaya returned to Ukraine after war broke out in the north African country. She said “Papa” – as she calls Gaddafi – was generous, giving watches featuring his image to staff every year. “We had no complaints,” she said. “When [we] were in New York, for example, Papa gave a personal order to give us some money so we could run around the local boutiques.” She denied rumours that another, more senior nurse from Ukraine, Galyna Kolotnytskaya, was romantically involved with Gaddafi. Kolotnytskaya, 38, also returned to Kiev at the end of February but has not given any public statements. She was described in US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in December as a “voluptuous blonde”, one of Gaddafi’s closest confidantes and possibly his lover . However, Balinskaya said that was not true in an interview with the Russian daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda. “Galyna worked in the hospital that serviced Gaddafi’s family for eight years. She had the same responsibilities as the other nurses – there were five of us – but was more experienced. The things that have been written about her are made up.” Balinskaya also rubbished speculation that the Libyan leader is “not entirely well” – another claim made in a WikiLeaks cable. “Despite his age, he’s in better shape than a lot of people,” she said. “He looks after his health and has a check-up every year. As for his [blood] pressure, if only everyone could have that level.” Gaddafi was unfussy about food, she added. “He likes couscous, which is served to him with camel meat or lamb. And like all people in Libya, he loves Italian food, especially pasta.” Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Ukraine Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk
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Life sentence without parole for double murderer who killed girlfriends and left dismembered body parts in canals A carpenter who murdered and dismembered two former girlfriends before dumping their remains in canals in Rotterdam and London has been told he will die in prison. John Sweeney, 54, from Liverpool, was given a whole life tariff at the Old Bailey after being convicted on Monday of murdering Melissa Halstead, 33, a former model from Ohio in the US, and Paula Fields, 31, a mother-of-three living in north London. The women’s remains were found a decade apart, and detectives fear three other women known to Sweeney may also be victims. Sweeney, already serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a third girlfriend whom he attacked with an axe and a knife, refused to leave his prison cell at Belmarsh prison to hear his sentence. Judge Mr Justice Saunders, sentencing him in his absence, said the gravity of the offences was exceptional and only a whole life term was appropriate. “These were terrible, wicked crimes. The heads of the victims having been removed, it is impossible to be certain how they were killed. The mutilation of the bodies is a serious aggravating feature of the murders. “Not only does it reveal the cold-blooded nature of the killer, but it has added greatly to the distress of the families to know that parts of their loved ones have never been recovered.” The remains of Halstead, whose head and hands were missing, were found in the Westersingel canal in Rotterdam after she vanished from her Amsterdam flat in 1990. She was only identified in 2008 after Dutch detectives carried out a cold case review and matched familial DNA. A freelance photographer, she met Sweeney in London and embarked on a tempestuous relationship, with him following her to Europe when she was deported from the UK for overstaying her work visa. Fields, originally from Liverpool, a crack cocaine user leading a chaotic life in north London that involved working as a prostitute, met him in 2000. She vanished three months later and 10 body parts were found in six holdalls in the Regent’s Canal near King’s Cross in February 2001. Her head, hands and feet were missing. Saunders said the killings had been planned. “The method of disposal of the bodies demonstrates that there was a substantial amount of planning. “Why the killings occurred, I cannot be sure, but I am satisfied that this defendant is controlling in his relationships with women and, chillingly, that control extends to deciding whether they should live or die.” The jobbing carpenter, who worked under assumed names on construction sites around mainland Europe and south-east England, had denied both murders. But, the jury heard, he had a hatred of women and turned violent when they tried to reject him. In 1994 he went on the run living under assumed aliases following the attack in Camden on Delia Balmer, a nurse, with whom he had a relationship. He was finally arrested six years later at a central London building site after the discovery of Fields’s remains. Police then realised there was a connection. The identification of Halstead then allowed them to place crucial pieces in a gruesome jigsaw they fear may not yet be complete. Detectives are appealing for information about three other women, about whom they only have sketchy information, who may also have been killed by him. One is a trainee nurse called Sue, from Derbyshire, who was said to have left for Switzerland in the late 1970s or early 80s. Two former girlfriends of Sweeney, a Brazilian known as Irani, and a Colombian called Maria, have not been seen since the late 1990s, when they knew Sweeney in north London. Asked if the three women were thought to have been murdered, Detective Chief Inspector Howard Groves said outside court: “We have some information which would suggest that is a possibility.” Clues to Sweeney’s visceral hatred of women were found in a hoard of more than 300 violent and lurid paintings and poems found at his home, with one, entitled the Scalp Hunter, depicting a female victim and a bloody axe. On the back of a scratchcard he had written a poem: “Poor old Melissa, chopped her up in bits, food to feed the fish, Am*dam was the pits.” They also found a calendar on the back of a minicab receipt with 16 December 2000 circled and then “9 1/2 weeks” and the letter “P” written under it which within three days was the period before Paula’s body was discovered on 19 February 2001. The jury heard that while on the run Sweeney had told his best friend that he found Melissa in bed with two German men and had killed them all. He also told his former wife, with whom he has two children, that the police were looking for him and he had “done something really bad which would make her hair stand on end”. Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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Former news editor and current chief reporter arrested after presenting themselves at separate London police stations The former news editor and current chief reporter from the News of the World are in police custody after being arrested, following allegations of phone hacking. Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck had voluntarily presented themselves at different London police stations this morning and were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to tap into or hack mobile communications. It is expected their homes will be searched by officers at midday. Edmondson, NoW’s former head of news, is being questioned by officers at Wimbledon police station. Thurlbeck, the paper’s chief reporter, is at Kingston police station. The arrests are the first salvo by Scotland Yard’s new hacking investigation, Operation Weeting, whose tasks include establishing whether there are grounds for bringing further prosecutions in the phone-hacking scandal. Edmondson and Thurlbeck will probably be released later this afternoon after the search of their homes is complete. The two men have been implicated in the long-running scandal through documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by the newspaper. Mulcaire says Edmondson was the journalist who commissioned him to hack answerphone messages of the football agent Sky Andrew. Edmondson, who was sacked from NoW in January, denies any wrongdoing. Thurlbeck was interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against either man, both of whom have denied all involvement in criminal activity. The arrests come on the day that Keir Starmer QC, director of public prosecutions, hears evidence at a home affairs committee from witnesses into the unauthorised intercepting of communications. Only one reporter, the former royal editor Clive Goodman, has been convicted of a crime as part of the scandal. He and Mulcaire were sentenced to jail terms in January 2007. No other reporters or executives were questioned by the initial police investigation. It was only after a series of high court cases brought by the actor Sienna Miller, the football pundit Andy Gray and others that the Met were forced to reveal material found on Mulcaire’s computer, during a 2006 raid of his home. Last Friday, a high court judge ordered NoW to make Mulcaire’s notes available to the growing list of people suing the paper. Justice Geoffrey Vos, who is in charge of the hacking cases, ordered “rolling disclosure” to all claimants. Hundreds of thousands of emails will now be handed over to alleged victims. Phone hacking News of the World News International Glenn Mulcaire News Corporation Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Police Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
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Nobel prizewinner who founded microlending bank unable to keep post because of political vendetta, say lawyers Bangladesh’s highest court has rejected an appeal by Muhammad Yunus against his dismissal as managing director of Grameen Bank, the microlender he founded, lawyers said. Associates say the Nobel laureate’s removal is prompted by a government vendetta after he briefly considered a political career to challenge the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina. Yunus, 70, made the plea last month after the high court upheld a central bank order dismissing him from the post of managing director , saying he had overstayed in violation of bank law. The official retirement age for managing directors of commercial banks in Bangladesh is 60. “The appellate division of the supreme court has rejected Muhammad Yunus’s appeal challenging a high court order that upheld his removal as head of operations of the Grameen Bank,” one of his attorneys, Tamim Hussain Shawon, told Reuters. Attorney general Mahbubey Alam told reporters the supreme court had upheld the high court verdict and Yunus no longer had the right to be managing director. “He has lost the battle,” he said. Action against Yunus coincides with growing criticism of microlending in developing countries, including neighbouring India, with officials accusing bankers of exploiting the poor. But analysts said the dismissal would annoy the country’s friends, including the US. Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel peace prize, founded Grameen, which means “village” in Bengali, and has been its managing director since 2000. Lauded abroad by politicians and financiers, he has been under government attack since late last year, after a Norwegian documentary alleged the bank was dodging taxes. Yunus has denied any financial irregularities and Oslo found no evidence of misuse of funds or corruption. Muhammad Yunus Bangladesh Microfinance guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …From India’s prime minister down, the rotten state of the world’s largest democracy has been exposed for all to see Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse the national parliament for weeks on end. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class; the head of government adored by foreign business people and journalists loses his moral authority, turning into a lame duck. This sounds like Tunisia or Egypt before their uprisings, countries long deprived of representative politics and pillaged by the local agents of neoliberal capitalism. But it is India, where in recent days WikiLeaks has highlighted how national democratic institutions are no defence against the rapacity and selfishness of globalised elites. Most of the cables – being published by the Hindu , the country’s most respected newspaper in English – offer nothing new to those who haven’t drunk the “Rising India” Kool-Aid vended by business people, politicians and their journalist groupies. The evidence of economic liberalisation providing cover for a wholesale plunder of the country’s resources has been steadily mounting over recent months. The loss in particular of a staggering $39bn in the government’s sale of the telecom spectrum has alerted many Indians to the corrupt nexuses between corporate and political power. Even the western financial press, unwaveringly gung-ho about the money to be made in India, is getting restless. Early this year, the Economist asked: “Is Indian capitalism becoming oligarchic?” – a question to which the only correct response is “Hell-ooo”. Recently in the Financial Times’ Indian business dynasties have been described as “robber barons” . The intimate details about politicians revealed by WikiLeaks still leave you speechless. What can one say about the former cabinet minister, a fervent spokesman for low-caste Hindus, who demanded a large bribe from Dow Chemical Company, which is being helped by senior American officials to overcome its association with the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal that in 1984 killed and maimed tens of thousands of Indians? Indeed, the cables reveal US business and officials to be as embedded in India’s politics as they are in Pakistan’s. In 2008, the aide to an old courtier of the Nehru-Gandhi family showed a US diplomat two chests containing $25m in cash – money to bribe members of parliament into voting for an India-US nuclear deal , itself a prelude to massive US arms sales to India. Publicly opposed to the nuclear deal, the leaders of the Hindu nationalist BJP are at pains to reassure American diplomats of their pro-US credentials, even dissing their murderous Hindu nationalism as opportunistic, a mere “talking point” . The cables offer many such instances of the ideological deceptions practised by the purveyors of “Rising India”. Virtually all economic growth of recent years, a senior politician admits, is concentrated in the four southern states, two western states (Gujarat and Maharashtra) and “within 100km of Delhi”. But why worry? He has nieces and sisters living in the US, and “five homes to visit between DC and New York”. As for the entry of retailers like Walmart into India, oh, that “should not seriously hurt the mom and pop stores that form a BJP constituency”. Not surprisingly, the Americans have developed contempt for such representatives of the world’s largest democracy, who seem to validate Mahatma Gandhi’s extreme denunciations of parliament as a “prostitute”. Hillary Clinton gets right to the point in a cabled inquiry about Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister widely tipped as India’s next PM: “To which industrial or business groups is Mukherjee beholden? Whom will he seek to help through his policies? Why was Mukherjee chosen for the finance portfolio over Montek Singh Ahluwalia?” – the last named is a reliably pro-US technocrat. But no one stands more diminished by the leaks than the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, one of the former employees of the World Bank and IMF who have helped make India safe for oligarchism. It has long been common knowledge in political circles that Singh removed his oil minister in 2006 for the latter’s allegedly anti-American advocacy of a gas pipeline to Iran. We now know from the cables that the then US ambassador congratulated himself for this “undeniable pro-American tilt” of the Indian government. Visiting the White House in 2008, Singh induced a nationwide cringe when he blurted out to the most disliked American president ever: “The people of India deeply love you.” (Even George Bush looked startled.) This love unblushingly speaks its name everywhere in the WikiLeaks cables; even the racketeers of Pakistani military and intelligence appear dignified when compared with the Indians stampeding to plant kisses on US behinds. Singh has presided over an ignominious surrender of national sovereignty and dignity. There are many more dramatic revelations in store from WikiLeaks and The Hindu; these are tense days and nights for many politicians, business people and journalists. They probably hope the bad news is buried by the cricket World Cup celebrations . They will also try to prove their fealty to the father of the Indian nation – last week politicians vied with each other to threaten a sensitive study of Gandhi by the American writer Joseph Lelyveld with proscription . But there is nothing more un-Gandhian than this supra-national elite’s wild cravings for power and wealth, and its indifference to suffering – a pathology of economic globalisation that Egyptians and Tunisians will soon learn elected governments don’t cure, and even help conceal. India US foreign policy WikiLeaks The US embassy cables United States Pankaj Mishra guardian.co.uk
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