India and Pakistan are holding talks for the first time since the Mumbai attacks in November 2008. India blamed Pakistan for harbouring the terrorists who killed 166 people and it cut diplomatic relations. Expectations for substantive agreements are not high for this week’s talks, but they are widely considered a significant step towards improved relations between the two countries which both have nuclear arms and which are vying for influence in Afghanistan. Disputes over Kashmir remains one of the tough issues and India is wary of the US role in supporting Pakistan.
Links to other sites: Reuters UK, Tehran Times, Times of India, Xinhua
Gwalior, India (GenevaLunch) – Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to score a double century in a one-day international (ODI) when he hit 200 not out against South Africa. He took 147 balls to reach his total, hitting 25 fours and three sixes in a faultless display of finesse and power. India posted a massive 401 for 3 in their fifty overs, with captain MS Dhoni hitting 68 not out in just 35 balls and Dinesh Karthik getting 79. Tendulkar, commonly known as “the litttle master,” also holds the records for the most runs and centuries scored in both Test and one-day internationals.
South Africa replied with 248 all out, with AB de Villiers unbeaten on 114.
Links to other sites: cricket.yahoo, Times of India
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sugar stocks may increase in the 2010-11 season if the sugar harvest in Brazil is not spoiled by rains in April, Jonathan Kingsman told the Dubai Sugar Conference 9 February. It is nevertheless unlikely to meet demand. The conference is organized by Lausanne-based Kingsman SA, an international sugar consultancy and brokerage.
World stocks have been depleted by two years of shortages. World sugar demand significantly outstripped supply in fiscal 2009, which ends in March 2010, pushing up the price of the white crystal and eating into world stocks. The price of white sugar rose 9 February for a second day in London trading on speculation that shortages will continue, reports Bloomberg. The price reached almost $724 for a metric ton (mt).
China and India are committed to communicating their emissions reduction targets to the UN by the deadline imposed by the Copenhagen Conference in December, following talks in New Delhi 24 January. The four countries seen as key to any climate deal, Brazil, South Africa, China and India, have indicated that they will submit mitigation goals. But India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, confirmed in a letter to the president of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that the four continued to be bound only by the Kyoto Protocoll and not the Copenhagen meeting’s accord, which was not formally adopted by participants.
Links to other sites: Business Week, The Hindu, Times of India
Durban, South Africa (GenevaLunch) - The England captain showed a previously unseen side to his game when he scored 50 runs in only 49 balls in reply to South Africa’s score of 343 all out in the second test at Durban. The home team made that many largely thanks to the late assault on Graeme Swann’s bowling by Dale Steyn. England ended the second day on 103 for one.
The main interest of the day was focused on the system of referring umpiring decisions to television replay: this led to Mark Boucher being given out lbw to Swann after the umpire’s “not out” was reversed.
Zurich to San Francisco non-stop, from June 2010
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss International Airlines will fly non-stop six days a week from Zurich to San Francisco starting in June 2010, the airline announced 1 December. San Francisco is already the USA’s third biggest air travel market, and the regional headquarters of several major Swiss corporations.
Swiss says that it will use existing airplane capacity to cover the new routes. It is also increasing the frequency of flights to India, Brazil and Canada.
Timetable details:
Zurich – San Francisco LX 38 dep 13:15 arr 16:30
San Francisco – Zurich LX 39 dep 19:25 arr 15:40 + the following day
India’s economy outperformed expectations in the third quarter of 2009, with 7.9 percent growth, its strongest in six quarters. The Bank of India has already begun to shift away from measures to boost the economy as its concern over inflation grows. The $1.2 trillion economy is expected to have year-end (31 March 2010) growth of 7 percent. India is one of the leaders in the rebound of its region’s economies as the “Asia Pacific region leads the world out of the worst recession since the 1930s”, writes Bloomberg.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, The Economic Times, India
India has announced it will withdraw about 15,000 troops from Jammu and Kashmir, in the country’s far north, in a bid to defuse tensions with Pakistan. The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has just concluded a two-day visit to the region, where the Indian army has been battling a separatist insurgency since 1989. Singh told a regional summit in New Delhi Friday 30 October that the countries of the region had “to overcome the burden of history” to achieve peace.
Indian authorities said the region’s security situation had improved to the extent that responsibility could increasingly be left to the police. The Indian army played down the move, saying it had more to do with sending a message to the main separatist group in Jammu and Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, than relations with Pakistan. They pointed out that the redeployment was from the Jammu region, rather than the more conflictive Kashmir area.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars over the region since independence and division in 1947. Pakistan has been criticized for keeping most of its army on the border with India, and ignoring the threat posed to Pakistan itself by Taliban insurgents within its own frontiers. India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of arming and training militants to fight in Kashmir. Singh said 29 October that India was not satisfied with the investigation Pakistan had conducted into last November’s deadly attack on Mumbai, India which was launched from Pakistani territory. Daily Times, New York Times, Times of India
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland will lead efforts to backup a major conference that opens 29 November in Colombia, the Cartagena summit on a mine-free world. The conference marks the 10th anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty entering into force and provides the opportunity for its second review conference to assess progress and how well the convention is being respected.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The worst floods in decades in southern India have killed at least 250 people and left some 2.5 million people homeless. Aid workers from around the globe have “fanned out” across the region, reports the Press Association, to meet the urgent needs of people who only weeks earlier were suffering from severe drought. The torrential rains appear to have been caused by a low pressure zone over the Bay of Bengal and more rain is expected in the next 24 hours, say weather forecasters.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sales of micro-insurance policies to the world’s poor has increased 50 percent since 2008, according to Zurich Financial’s micro-insurance unit. Small policies that cover health events, household contents, life insurance, and fire and flood protection for low-income people are increasing because of innovative ways of distributing insurance products, which the company says are themselves innovative.
Distribution channels include pharmacies in Bolivia that sell scratch cards for personal accident insurance, and post offices in India that offer life insurance. Low-income households in Indonesia can buy flood coverage for about $10 per year through cooperatives.
South Africa (GenevaLunch) – The English batsmen put on a rare display as they beat South Africa in the ICC Champions Trophy. Andrew Strauss won the toss and decided to bat but lost the opening batsmen quickly. Owais Shah (98) and Paul Collingwood (82) then gradually took control and Eoin Morgan added 67 in just 34 balls. England reached an impressive 323 for 8: the second highest score in the tournament’s history.
Swisscube, EPFL, 10cm2 and 83 grams
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s first-ever satellite has begun transmitting from space after its successful launch at 08:22 from India’s Sriharikota space station. The 833-gram, 10 cubic centimetre satellite began sending signals at 09:37. It is equipped with a telescope to allow staff and students to study airglow, described by the university as ” a luminescent phenomenon in the planetary atmosphere caused by cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere and chemiluminescence caused mainly by oxygen and nitrogen reacting with hydroxyl ions at heights of a few hundred kilometers.”
The satellite was built by the EPFL in Lausanne as an educational project, with several government offices and companies as partners.
Genoa, Italy (GenevaLunch) – Roger Federer overcame jetlag, slow clay courts and rain, not to mention Potito Storace, to give Switzerland a winning position in their World Group play-off against Italy. He won 6-3 6-0 6-4 to add to the two Swiss singles victories on Friday, which were followed by a loss in the doubles as Federer was rested.
A tall order for WTO negotiators
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Doha Round talks resumed on the technical level in earnest at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva 14 September after a commitment to conclude the Round by 2010 from ministers from 35 countries meeting in New Delhi, India 3 and 4 September. The Doha Round of trade talks collapsed in July 2008 after trade ministers failed to agree on issues tied to agriculture and industrial import rules.
The blame for the collapse was widely laid on differences between India, China and the US on the special safeguards mechanism, a means to raise tariffs against a sudden surge of imports.
A boy in India’s eastern Bihar state, age 12 or 13, was thrown from a train because he did not have enough money to bribe a guard, CNN reports. “Mohammed Salahuddin’s leg was removed below the knee after it was badly damaged after the fall” the US news service says, because the vendor did not have 10 rupees. The guard denies the corruption charges but admits to throwing the boy from the train. Salon
India’s consumers have the world’s biggest sweet tooth, and are struggling with rising prices for sugar and a dramatic drop in domestic production. For 60 million Indians, sugary milky tea is the main source of carbohydrates. Poor rains in June in India and excess rains in Brazil contributed to the world sugar shortfall, estimated at nine million tonnes, in 2009. It is the second year running that demand outstrips supply. Domestic production in India dropped 43 percent to 15 million tonnes, reports Bloomberg.
The price of refined, white sugar increased four percent in trading 10 September on speculation that India, Indonesia and Pakistan were to import more sugar. The world price of sugar almost doubled in 2009. BBC, Bloomberg, Economic Times, India
Groundwater in three northern Indian states, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, is being depleted at a much quicker rate than previously thought, thanks mainly to irrigation, raising concerns that current farming practices will lead to a severe water shortage in the area. The study, published in Nature magazine, shows that groundwater levels diminished 109 cubic km in the six years from 2002 until 2008 in the region, which has a population of 114 million people.
The water used is equivalent to one and a quarter of the volume of Lake Geneva (89 cubic km) and double India’s largest surface reservoir. Annual rainfall there is about 500 mm per year. The study, using a system of two identical satellites called GRACE which measures slight variations in Earth’s gravitational pull, has allowed scientists to map groundwater use since 2002. Nature, Times of India, VOA News, and background, Indian Express
A passageway to India via Nyon - Photo Jared Bloch
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - If your vacation itinerary doesn’t include a trip to India this year, consider a visit to the Paleo Festival. As part of its offerings, the Nyon based festival is highlighting Indian culture, music, crafts and food this year.
For your passage to India, take the train to Nyon and then the local train. Direction: St Cergue (see GL tips in ”Practical guide to Nyon’s Paleo Festival,” and see GL’s Paleo Photo Album).
The crowd arriving in Nyon on the 17:00 train on Wednesday left no doubt about the tremendous following Paleo has accrued during the past 30 years. In addition to the range of Indian musicians performing on Wednesday 23 July, an array of musical talent from pop/rock dance favorites Franz Ferdinand, to Bonaparte, billed as an “international cabaret burlesque rock show,” and Quebecois Chanteuse Pascale Picard, was on display.
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century was visible along a 155-mile wide stretch of Asia Wednesday 22 July: from India’s holy Hindu city of Varanasi through Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and along China’s Yangtze River to the Pacific. Coastal areas had cloud cover, but much of the rest of the area had clear skies and the eclipse was easily visible. For scientists in India and China the eclipse provided a rare opportunity to do solar experiments, although Chinese scientists said the cloud cover reduced some of the options. Reuters, Times of India, Xinhua
Pakistan and India, meeting in Egypt, have agreed to work closely together to combat terrorism, in a move that puts very strained relations in 2008 in the past. Pakistan has admitted that the 2008 Mumbai bombing that killed at least 160 people was planned at least in part in Pakistan. BBC
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of suspect cases of illegal medicine imports rose by 92 percent in the first half of 2009, with half of them coming from Asia and the majority of those coming from India. “Erectile dysfunction” drugs were the most common, accounting for 24 percent of the total of 568 shipments confiscated by Swiss customs, with slimming drugs and muscle enhancers 14 and 12 percent respectively.
Slimming drugs are being illegally imported at a higher rate and Swissmedic, the body charged with testing products for customs, says that many of these do not contain what they say: vegetable-based products sometimes contain synthetics which can be dangerous and cause serious side effects.
[Times of India video] A bridge for a subway line, under construction in Delhi, India, has collapsed, killing five workers. A pillar supporting part of the bridge gave way. At least 16 people were injured in the accident. Al Jazeera
video, Times of India
Leaders from some of the world’s most important nations agreed at their annual G8 meeting in Italy to limit by 2050 the increase in global ambient temperature to just two degrees C° above levels 150 years ago. They also committed to reduce their countries’ carbon emissions by 50-80 percent by 2050. Any meaningful agreement needs the cooperation of both India and China, whose growing economies are major contributors to the world’s carbon emissions. US President Barack Obama chairs the G8 meeting on climate today 9 July. The feeble world economy was on the agenda Wednesday. The three-day meeting is being held in the Italian town of L’Aquila, which was largely destroyed by an earthquake in April, and is still suffering from aftershocks. Many residents are still living in tents. BBC, CNN, Reuters
Images, Aquila Italy in May 2009: © 2009 G Tosi/Orderofmalta.org
The four emerging major markets known as the BRIC nations are holding their first summit this week in Moscow to discuss common issues, one of which is the idea of an investment alternative to the US dollar. Brazil, Russia, India and China together account for 15 percent of the $60.7 trillion global economy, reports Reuters, which quotes Goldman Sachs as saying that in 20 years the four could “dwarf” the G7 economies and China’s economy could be larger than that of the US.
