tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128418442024-03-12T21:31:11.812-07:00Latin American Affairs...passionate about latin america...viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.comBlogger452125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-16632042295444156042024-03-09T19:11:00.000-08:002024-03-09T23:16:26.206-08:00 Argentine writer Hernan Diaz’s novel “Trust”<div><span style="font-family: arial;">Hernan Diaz, the Argentine writer settled in New York, was an invitee at the 2024 Jaipur Literature Festival held last month. He spoke about creativity and writing. I was impressed by his brilliant ideas, profound intellect, subversive thoughts and powerful articulation. After listening to him I read his novel “Trust”. The book has exceeded my expectations.<br /></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTeURCe66XkvfGntKpJKzXrGRFDIVI0kYWc191WMkyatzFJw8i8IweQOmzWaE6rmC00by9QcHX3M0HkRdXsWhRmxWoVM4WvggEP_bqQ8uoD3QC3OndA6h7CDiqczckau2awmGVOq2y5kO-FsL-DyM3mCWruaBxDJd3n4AxAS7O7iWexQtBHMvvg/s1560/hernandiaz.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1560" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTeURCe66XkvfGntKpJKzXrGRFDIVI0kYWc191WMkyatzFJw8i8IweQOmzWaE6rmC00by9QcHX3M0HkRdXsWhRmxWoVM4WvggEP_bqQ8uoD3QC3OndA6h7CDiqczckau2awmGVOq2y5kO-FsL-DyM3mCWruaBxDJd3n4AxAS7O7iWexQtBHMvvg/s320/hernandiaz.jpeg" width="205" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-family: arial;">‘Trust’ is not a simple story for passive pleasure of reading. It is a complex and unconventional novel provoking the readers to think, detect, imagine and question. Within the book, there are four different books written by different fictional authors in disparate genres and styles. There are multiple characters at different time periods. The author describes ‘Trust’ as a polyphonic novel. The first section is a novel written by a fictional writer Harold Vanner about New York financier Benjamin Rask and his wife Helen who patronizes arts and culture. Although <span style="background: repeat white;">Harold Vanner is one of the central characters in the book he never appears in it. Vanner opens the book and triggers everything that happens in it: several people in “the real world” react to Vanner’s book, setting the whole plot in motion.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The second part is a memoir of Andrew Bevel, a Wall Street tycoon who wants people to believe that his pursuit of profit was always aligned to the social good. His wife Mildred is a connoisseur of music and a lover of literature. They live together physically but live apart mentally. They find that the living together improves by the vast distance between their minds of which one is obsessed with money and the other arts. At times, Mildred dabbles in stocks and gives valuable advice to her husband which he uses to make more money. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The third part is about Ida Partenza a writer who becomes secretary to the tycoon and ghost-writes his autobiography. Her father is an anarchist and an immigrant from Italy. She is caught between the anti-capitalist rants of her father and working with the wealthy financier who wants her to help with his autobiography spinning a positive image of his business and the cultural activities of his wife who becomes mentally ill. Diaz says in an interview, “ I enjoyed particularly writing the character of Ida. She is like my hero—she’s fearless, effective, crafty, and very bold. I made her all the things that I wish I were. She’s also a very different writer from me, so I had to learn to write like her”. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The fourth part is the personal diary of Mildred, the tycoon’s wife “that is also a sort of a prose poem and a love letter to modernism”, in the words of the author. Midred writes about music, art, philosophy, her illness, the stock market and Swiss mountain slopes among which she convalesces in a clinic.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The connecting themes in all the four books are the Wall Street money-making and the world of art and literature. The author has juxtaposed the two themes with provocative pronouncements challenging the conventional American narratives and myths about money. He has chosen the boom years of the Wall Street in the twenties and the bust in 1929 followed by the years of depression for context. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diaz says he wanted to write about the labyrinth of capital, how it works and distorts the reality around itself in the American value system. He is fascinated by the ‘transcendental and mythical place of money in the American culture’. He explores how wealth creates isolation for the wealthy while giving the person extraordinary outreach to the world of art, culture and politics. According to Diaz “money is also a fiction. It is just that we have all agreed on the terms and conditions and agreed to play it as a game. There is nothing that ties money to real value other than a narrative. Or the trust that we invest in that narrative”. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #414141;">In another interview, Diaz says, “Reading is always an act of trust. Whenever we read anything, from a novel to the label on a prescription bottle, trust is involved. That trust is based on tacit contracts whose clauses I wanted to encourage the reader to reconsider. As you read <em>Trust</em> and move forward from one section to the next, it becomes clear that the book is asking you to question the assumptions with which you walk into a text. I would even say that <em>Trust </em>aims, to an enormous extent, to question the boundaries between history and fiction”.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Here are some vignettes from the novel:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-He became fascinated by the contortions of money—how it could be made to bend back upon itself to be force-fed its own body. The isolated, self-sufficient nature of speculation spoke to his character and was a source of wonder and an end in itself, regardless of what his earnings. He viewed capital as an antiseptically living thing. It moves, eats, grows, breeds, falls ill, and may die. But it is clean. This became clearer to him in time. The larger the operation, the further removed he was from its concrete details. There was no need for him to touch a single banknote or engage with the things and people his transaction affected. All he had to do was think, speak, and, perhaps, write. And the living creature would be set in motion, drawing beautiful patterns on its way into realms of increasing abstraction, sometimes following appetites of its own that he never could have anticipated—and this gave him some additional pleasure, the creature trying to exercise its free will. He admired and understood it, even when it disappointed him.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-The root of all evil, the cause of every war—god and country.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-<span style="background: repeat white; color: #414141;"> History itself is just a fiction—a fiction with an army.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment. A man’s worth is established by the number of these defining circumstances he is able to create for himself. He need not always be successful, for there can be great honor in defeat. But he ought to be the main actor in the decisive scenes in his existence, Whatever the past may have handed on to us, it is up to each one of us to chisel our present out of the shapeless block of the future.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-Every single one of our acts is ruled by the laws of economy. When we first wake up in the morning we trade rest for profit. When we go to bed at night we give up potentially profitable hours to renew our strength. And throughout our day we engage in countless transactions. Each time we find a way to minimize our effort and increase our gain we are making a business deal, even if it is with ourselves. These negotiations are so ingrained in our routine that they are barely noticeable. But the truth is our existence revolves around profit.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Hernan Diaz’s cerebral perspectives, intriguing plots and unconventional literary tools reminds me of Jorge Borges the famous Argentine writer. Diaz says, “Borges has shaped me not only as a reader and as a writer but also as a person. His playfulness with genre, his joyful disregard for taxonomies of any kind and his obsession with framed narratives are some of the aspects of his work that have influenced me”. Diaz has written a book “Borges, between history and eternity”.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #283741;">Diaz believes that "fiction has palpable effects on reality. A lot of the power constraints that we feel in our everyday lives are based on fiction. Think of something that is as inherent and powerful to you as your nationality. That is, at the end of the day, a collection of ideological fictions. There's nothing in it. Nothing. Think about it for a second. There's nothing that makes you American or Belgian or anything aside from what you ascribe to that identity, and that is a series of narratives”.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diaz is a voracious reader. In interviews, he quotes so many writers and points out parts of his novel which have styles similar to some of the writers. After having read 29 books of P G Wodehouse he says, “ I love Wodehouse. Ever-surprising in his repetitiousness, never failing to delight, always making us safe in his breezy world. It is paradoxical that Wodehouse should give me so much comfort when he also makes me feel how mean and shabby my life is each time I emerge from one of his novels”.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Some authors write well but not impressive in speeches and conversations. Diaz is spectacular and mesmerizing both in writing and talking with his spontaneous thoughts and reflections. I have read some of his interviews which are as fascinating and inspiring as his book. He revels in abstract concepts and subversive thoughts. He calls wr<span style="background: repeat white; color: #414141;">iting as a monstrous act because it implies a metamorphosis. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXMpC3XH-wNmlpnl4Xqhg92TJMhVxs1es5S6C0Jl7uzRJskSTaDKwyq7VYz0ycCcO_xIWChyphenhyphen_C2MZS7Y-lQI1FHtCw1CKpnmTkq16BWVh4pHZvJIlTGCZXTJjggmr3CDbtIHU3lcwQh5yH27ZM2T9ic-3PMUdLYlZ780r8epGs0E1XaFfrjaZPA/s2250/hernandiaz2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXMpC3XH-wNmlpnl4Xqhg92TJMhVxs1es5S6C0Jl7uzRJskSTaDKwyq7VYz0ycCcO_xIWChyphenhyphen_C2MZS7Y-lQI1FHtCw1CKpnmTkq16BWVh4pHZvJIlTGCZXTJjggmr3CDbtIHU3lcwQh5yH27ZM2T9ic-3PMUdLYlZ780r8epGs0E1XaFfrjaZPA/s320/hernandiaz2.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diaz says, “I write with a fountain pen (received as gift twenty years back) in large format notebooks. I enjoy the feeling of flowing ink and the rumor of the pen on the paper. With a pen, you create your own geography, with its islets of thoughts and streams of associations”. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">‘Trust’ has won the 2023 Pulitzer prize for fiction. It is the second novel of Diaz. I cannot wait to read his first novel “In the Distance”. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Hernan Diaz is a potential candidate for Nobel Prize.<br /></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #414141;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-80341708276581457002024-01-28T20:49:00.000-08:002024-01-28T22:46:11.969-08:00“Where there was fire” – Costa Rican novel<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> "Where there was fire" is the first Costa Rican novel I have read. It is also the first novel written by John Manuel Arias, the Costa Rican author, published in 2023.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFj-PaHHyV-pqan8PnBuicDpF5ZrwbSXp5SBwMjtxQVsaOJR6EkHHN8EFoPzrl_W3IOR3g1w_calG8ye5tZ0ZZpd-4al5vlogzZqmVLFcmpGhHU5ZzBTsUvuA4L0QiD_IRP6KzHm6_KwwKsl2zP17fyDZiUBU3PYDc_vwcgroheeiucPK-zub2Q/s522/costaricanovel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFj-PaHHyV-pqan8PnBuicDpF5ZrwbSXp5SBwMjtxQVsaOJR6EkHHN8EFoPzrl_W3IOR3g1w_calG8ye5tZ0ZZpd-4al5vlogzZqmVLFcmpGhHU5ZzBTsUvuA4L0QiD_IRP6KzHm6_KwwKsl2zP17fyDZiUBU3PYDc_vwcgroheeiucPK-zub2Q/s320/costaricanovel.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The novel brings out the life and situation in Costa Rica during the time of domination of American banana companies in the sixties. The companies exploit the workers and the country. Their use of chemicals to spray on the banana plants cause sterility among men. To hide this, the company's Gringo doctor falsifies medical records to show that the men were already sterile. He is foolish and arrogant enough to tell one of the worker Jose Maria that his two children might not be his own. The angry husband tries to kill his wife Teresa but murders his mother- in-law who fights back. Then he goes to the house of the Gringo doctor and sets it on fire. The doctor and the whole banana plantation as well as the arsonist are burnt and turned into ashes. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Teresa runs away to US leaving her two kids Lyra and Carmen. The latter, who is traumatized after witnessing the murder of the grand mother and the burning of the plantation, commits suicide leaving her son as orphan. The boy is adopted by Lyra, the sister of Carmen. But she does not tell the kid about the tragedy till he becomes an adult. Lyra does not let her mother Teresa meet the grandson when she comes back from US. The boy comes to know just before Teresa dies of cancer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The author has added many other fascinating typical Latino characters and sub plots in the novel. The three Marias, the spinster sisters who are involved in the life of Teresa family, are memorable with their quaint characteristics and playful dialogues. The author has added some magical realism which makes the novel more interesting and familiar for the fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.</span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-50778790590327061072024-01-07T21:50:00.000-08:002024-01-08T19:49:26.809-08:00Latin America’s economic and political outlook in 2024<p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Latin America’s GDP growth in 2024 is projected at 1.8%, down from 2.1% in 2023, according to the annual December report of ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean). </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">This lowering of growth is due to the general slow down of global growth and in particular the decline in Chinese growth and the fall in commodity prices exported by the region. The modest 4.2% of Chinese GDP growth in 2024 will impact particularly Chile, Panama, Peru, Brazil and Uruguay. China absorbs 39% of Chile’s goods exports, 32% of those of both Panama and Peru, and 27% of those of Brazil and Uruguay. Latin America’s exports of agro products and minerals and metals are projected to fetch less revenue in 2024 with the anticipated reduction in prices of these items by 4% and 2% respectively.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8vupEVb7Vl8nS8XxRFNWZ451Cc_XzKMAu6cGUPLeypbnooAOls-1rFIDrUJtBPxEtWHZeYulQszui0XC1iiN9Yt6ddFgMh2OVnpd2wcGXgk2HrBnjJk7Uxfz7C1LMbyO3Pbip93YSv6QQzGwCHdK6tyWzLLWoam0A1FhCGRjw6FhmKa0bKRJ4Q/s587/latam%20map%20new.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8vupEVb7Vl8nS8XxRFNWZ451Cc_XzKMAu6cGUPLeypbnooAOls-1rFIDrUJtBPxEtWHZeYulQszui0XC1iiN9Yt6ddFgMh2OVnpd2wcGXgk2HrBnjJk7Uxfz7C1LMbyO3Pbip93YSv6QQzGwCHdK6tyWzLLWoam0A1FhCGRjw6FhmKa0bKRJ4Q/s320/latam%20map%20new.jpeg" width="273" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Brazil’s GDP is expected to grow by 1.6% (down from 3% in 2023), Mexico’s 2.5% (down from 3.6% in 2023), Colombia’s by 1.7% (up from 0.9% in 2023, Chile’s by 1.9% (up from 0.3% in 2023) and Peru’s by 2.4% (up from 0.1%). Central America’s GDP is expected to increase by 3.2%, down from 3.4% last year.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Surprisingly, Venezuela will have the highest growth among the major economies of the region with 4% (up from 3% in 2023). The country which had gone through historic economic crisis due to mismanagement and US sanctions in the last several years has now recovered. The US has recently loosened some sanctions on export of oil and investment of American and other foreign companies in Venezuelan oil production.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Unsurprisingly, Argentina will have a negative growth of 1% (better than the 2.5% contraction in 2023). It is the only country in the region to suffer economic contraction. All the other 18 countries will show positive growth. Poverty in Argentina increased from 21.5% in 2016 to 30.1% in 2022.The new President Javier Milei who took office in December 2023 has already started some reforms such as cutting down expenditure and privatization of public sector companies. He has postponed implementation of his radical proposals such as closure of the Central Bank and dollarization of the economy. In the coming months, there will be more economic and financial difficulties for the government and sufferings for the people. The country could recover next year.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Milei will cause some minor disruptions in the process of deepening of integration of Mercosur with his anti-Lula rhetoric. However he will not have accomplices for destabilization of the region as a whole with his anti-Left policies since all the other major powers such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Venezuela are ruled by Leftist governments.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Latin America’s sovereign risk reached the level of 410 basis points in October 2023, as measured by the J. P. Morgan EMBI Global Diversified Index (EMBIGD) of emerging markets. This indicator measures the spread between interest rates on a country’s debt obligations and those of the United States, which are considered risk-free. The countries with the lowest sovereign risk index are Uruguay (about 90 basis points since the second half of the year), followed by Chile and Peru (both below 200 basis points). At the other extreme are countries with the highest credit risk namely Venezuela (15867), Argentina(2576) and Ecuador(1755) followed by Bolivia (1599)</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Average inflation of the region was 5.2% in September 2023, down from 8.2% in September 2022. It has remained in single digit for the last two decades. Exceptions are Venezuela with inflation of 318% ( down from 138000 percent in 2018), Argentina 140% and Cuba 37%. The only other country with double digit inflation is Colombia 11%.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">The region's ratio of gross external debt to GDP was 42% in September 2023. The region has relatively comfortable position of foreign exchange reserves with 860 billion dollars. But Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba have acute shortage of forex reserves.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Average lending rate (Q3 of 2023) was the highest in Argentina at 108%, followed by Venezuela at 48.6%, Brazil (42%) and Mexico at 32%.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">In 2024 there will be presidential elections in Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. However, these will not bring out any dangers such as Bolsonaro or drastic changes and challenges.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">In the Mexican elections in June, the current president Lopez Obrador’s protégé Claudia Sheinbaum is leading in the opinion polls and expected to win and continue the policies of the current government with more pragmatism but without the eccentricities of Obrador. In El Salvador, the Cool Dictator Nayib Bukele is expected to win in the June elections. He has consistently high popularity ratings with his successful containment of crimes and murders. The popular incumbent President Luis Abinader of Dominican Republic is poised to get a second term in the June elections. The elections in Panama and Uruguay are open but there is no polarizing radicals among the leading candidates. President Maduro will ensure his reelection by hook or crook in the last quarter of the year. He and his top political and military leadership have no other option. They cannot afford to let power pass to the hands of the opposition. The US government has announced (in 2020) a bounty of 15 million dollars on the head of president Maduro and several million dollars on other political leaders of Venezuela on trumped charges of drug trafficking and other crimes. So Maduro and other top leaders will certainly be killed or deported to US prisons immediately. If Maduro is reelected, the US will make some pro forma noises about rigged elections but will get on with its resumption of business with Venezuela. The US will not repeat its regime change policy, after having failed miserably in the last several years.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Latin America will continue to be a large market for India’s trade and investment in 2024 and in the coming years and decades. India’s exports to the region were 22.5 billion dollars in the financial year April 2022-March 2023. Indian companies have invested around 12 billion dollars in the region. The region is contributing to India’s energy and food security with supply of crude oil, edible oil, pulses and fresh fruits. India is exploring opportunities in the region for mining and production of Lithium, needed for electrification of vehicles. India will continue to source copper, gold and other minerals from Latin America which has abundant reserves of them.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">In 2024, India will deepen its engagement with Latin America and work closely with Brazil, the current president of G-20. Argentine President Milei has switched teams. He will play for Team USA while his predecessors played in BRICS and Global South teams. But this will not make any difference to India or BRICS since Argentina is completely mired in the economic crisis from which it will take time to get out. </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"> </span> <br /></span><span style="color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #212121;">ECLAC report<span class="apple-converted-space"> <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #212121;"><a href="https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/16783e9f-6195-433d-9a5a-4c38c47432b9/content" style="color: #954f72;" title="https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/16783e9f-6195-433d-9a5a-4c38c47432b9/content"><span style="color: #0078d7;">https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/16783e9f-6195-433d-9a5a-4c38c47432b9/content<br /></span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #212121;"> <br /></span></span><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-3994679691914935362023-12-17T20:59:00.000-08:002023-12-17T20:59:47.668-08:00 Chile, an authentic laboratory for democratic experiments<div><span style="font-family: arial;">In a referendum held yesterday, 56 percent of the Chilean voters defeated a draft centre-right constitution.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Last year, the voters defeated a leftist constitution, which was drafted by the constitutional assembly which was dominated by social activists and idealists. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Chileans decided in a referendum held in 2019 to go in for a new constitution to replace the existing constitution imposed by the military dictatorship of Pinochet. Although this has been amended many times, still it perpetuates inequality and social injustice. The students and masses had risen in violent protests in 2019 seeking reforms in education, health care and pensions. It was because of these protests that it was decided to change the current constitution.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Both sides have now realized that they cannot impose their agenda on the other. So there is need for compromise and mutual give and take. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The voters have also learnt that neither Left nor the Right has the exclusive solutions. So they have exercised smart choice in the presidential elections of the last two decades. They have voted the Left and the Right to power alternately in each of the last five elections since 2006. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The current President Gabriel Boric, a Leftist, is the youngest to be elected at the age of 35. He was one of the student union leaders who lead the protests for equality and justice. He is trying his best to advance his leftist agenda but has only limited success due to the strong opposition of the conservative forces. He has also realized that he needs to be more pragmatic and realistic.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHH7fTsPvP74PYKLLv5StajWZx6hWx0fwIUxCmOueNBkMejxMwOZMJHBdjtVsrnEQsj9HlavKrt56fqau0s_VxvaEV-vbBsCUyVhBuzVVdKzOB22pnacISDO9NKv_xsUwq11YGKUFO09RB2Xo_5KySVykT4p8F0lgfFOTwqaTkx2eM9-SSHUOgg/s980/boric.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="980" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHH7fTsPvP74PYKLLv5StajWZx6hWx0fwIUxCmOueNBkMejxMwOZMJHBdjtVsrnEQsj9HlavKrt56fqau0s_VxvaEV-vbBsCUyVhBuzVVdKzOB22pnacISDO9NKv_xsUwq11YGKUFO09RB2Xo_5KySVykT4p8F0lgfFOTwqaTkx2eM9-SSHUOgg/s320/boric.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQHSuzskgXPQWgvlvlITg-irWlsTQw1beGqE7-sTmtorQ1hqfSFvIaE0RxohcaEIkffgHKx1kyEZ-qiyRachHjJlTyAqTtYFpuywWRqE6PUK5GCEk031Iy_JHHEDQOHbLe2dDuimJzCt34ifhhyphenhyphenozd9fSd73TW7fTF_uSuEd_TCdKgqeHYCDBzg/s400/boric2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="400" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQHSuzskgXPQWgvlvlITg-irWlsTQw1beGqE7-sTmtorQ1hqfSFvIaE0RxohcaEIkffgHKx1kyEZ-qiyRachHjJlTyAqTtYFpuywWRqE6PUK5GCEk031Iy_JHHEDQOHbLe2dDuimJzCt34ifhhyphenhyphenozd9fSd73TW7fTF_uSuEd_TCdKgqeHYCDBzg/s320/boric2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Chilean constitutional experiment is a lesson for many other democracies of the world which are also struggling to balance the demands and interests of the haves and have-nots.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-47481974772734558242023-11-23T20:59:00.000-08:002023-11-23T20:59:42.255-08:00Panama’s economy doing fine without a Central Bank in the last hundred years.<div><span style="font-family: arial;">Panama’s economy doing fine without a Central Bank in the last hundred years.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Javier Milei, the President-elect of Argentina, has promised to close the central bank and dollarize the economy to get the country out of its crisis. Many people consider this as yet another crazy proposal of the Mad Milei. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">But there is a Latin American country whose economy is doing well without a Central Bank. It is Panama. It does not have a Central Bank since its independence in 1903. <span style="color: #494e54;">Panama is the only country in Latin America that has not experienced a financial collapse, high inflation or currency crisis in the last hundred years. </span>On the other hand, the economy has experienced stable and resilient growth with low inflation and interest rates. This is even more amazing in view of the fact that the country has suffered with political crises and corruption cases. Panama’s unique economic management without a central bank is an intriguing case in global economics. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90FUiq5VCnGlJVMx-5Ytv7LlhgvJNa8CEwPWmjT65lsWsQTY-itupYZoX_wX8gqOA6C9LlyrKhyqPW3PjI_Sdzv1khrbZh6wPVho1QG2-BXFf8FVW9kDjBMLGEFvfapgGVB7Mh5qwdpHHllrXe59YQQXMLYwKSkjPqV75VcCnIzadBJxNwW45pw/s900/panama.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="900" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90FUiq5VCnGlJVMx-5Ytv7LlhgvJNa8CEwPWmjT65lsWsQTY-itupYZoX_wX8gqOA6C9LlyrKhyqPW3PjI_Sdzv1khrbZh6wPVho1QG2-BXFf8FVW9kDjBMLGEFvfapgGVB7Mh5qwdpHHllrXe59YQQXMLYwKSkjPqV75VcCnIzadBJxNwW45pw/s320/panama.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The country does not print currency and has adopted US Dollar as de facto currency. The absence of a central bank has resulted in a completely market-driven money supply and interest rates. There are no capital controls despite the presence of a large number of foreign banks. <span style="background: white; color: #494e54;">There is no deposit insurance and no lender of last resort, so banks have to act responsibly at their own risk. No bail out or rescue by government. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br /><span style="background: white; color: #494e54;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; color: #494e54;">Of course, Panama is a small country of 5.5 million people with a special historical link to United States which built and controlled the Panama canal for a long time. Panama’s model may not work with large economies and it might be complicated for Argentina which has its own unique crisis with excessive external debt and severe shortage of foreign exchange.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">More in the article… <a href="https://mises.org/library/panama-has-no-central-bank" style="color: #954f72;">https://mises.org/library/panama-has-no-central-bank</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 9.4pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-39199148726658327702023-10-26T23:15:00.026-07:002023-10-28T08:15:23.493-07:00 Argentine voters have made smart choices in the elections of 21 October<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;">Argentine voters have made smart choices in the elections of 21 October</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Before the elections on 21 October, there was a hype by the anti-left western media that Argentina was going have its own Bolsonaro/Trump by electing Javier Milei, the far right radical anti-establishment candidate as President. But the Argentine voters proved to be smarter. They </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;">shocked Javier Milei and his choreographers by humbling him into the second position with 30% votes. Sergio Massa, the leftist candidate of the ruling coalition came first with 37% votes. The centre-right candidate Patricia Bullrich came third with 24%, She is out of contention for the second round of elections to be held on 19 November between Massa and Milei.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC33hZxBDU8nruU8aOeLg-YdaKA3b62hk0myxwfREBuTcV3oqlCJCtXlMAxC_28AWhTqAMX0ghHM1UUCeozGA-Oc863VaJuR7UV1v2xHil_p5ce0Hk3XlEwly9ScW1fd36UoAv1TGHqOZafuJjTA7kkg2p1L3HphIIQxdd_ZyIlb0wOjkHYdcPgA/s1200/milei.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC33hZxBDU8nruU8aOeLg-YdaKA3b62hk0myxwfREBuTcV3oqlCJCtXlMAxC_28AWhTqAMX0ghHM1UUCeozGA-Oc863VaJuR7UV1v2xHil_p5ce0Hk3XlEwly9ScW1fd36UoAv1TGHqOZafuJjTA7kkg2p1L3HphIIQxdd_ZyIlb0wOjkHYdcPgA/s320/milei.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Argentina is going through yet another cycle of crisis with three digit (138%) inflation, steep currency depreciation, increased poverty and unemployment, shortage of foreign exchange reserves and huge unbearable burden of external debt. Part of the blame lies with the leftist Peronist governments in power for most part of the last two decades. So, the voters elected the centre-right Mauricio Macri as President in 2015. However, his government also failed to arrest the deterioration of the economy. Macri made it worse by sinking the country in a huge debt trap by taking a 43 billion dollars IMF loan towards the end of his term. These billions were not used for any productive or revenue generating projects. The money simply disappeared, leaving the country with a severe burden of debt. During the Peronist rule between 2003 and 2014 the country was virtually debt free since the Wall Street cartels and their Washington DC accomplices kept Argentina isolated from the international capital markets. They wanted to punish Argentina for its audacious debt structuring on its own in 2002 ignoring IMF, the US Treasury Department and the Wall Street. President Nestor Kirchner pulled off a financial coup by making the creditors (over 93%) agree to receive 30 cents to a dollar. This way he reduced the debt from 90 billion to 30 billion dollars. He and his wife Cristina Fernandez, who succeeded him as President, refused to be blackmailed by the American vulture funds who did not accept the debt restructuring formula and insisted on full payments. So the Wall Street mafia blockaded Argentina from the western financial capital markets. This was a blessing in disguise. Argentina remained free from external debt since there was no one to extend credit except for the Chinese who came to the rescue occasionally with some credit and financial swaps. Argentina struggled but remained free from the curse of external debt, which had caused many crises in the past. But this situation was changed by the pro-US Macri who made a deal with the vulture funds and took the disastrous step of taking in 43 billion loan from IMF. This was irresponsible and unpardonable. This IMF debt of 43 billion dollars has become an unbearable burden for the country which has severe shortage of foreign exchange reserves. This has aggravated the economic crisis of the country. This is the reason why the voters punished Macri and defeated him in the 2019 elections when he sought reelection. His candidate Bullrich was given the same punishment in the 2023 elections. The electors are not yet ready to forgive the grave sin of Macri.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Obviously, the country needs a change from the leftist Peronists who have failed in economic management and the rightists who worsened the crisis by adding the the debt burden. It was in this context that the situation was ripe for an outsider. Javier Milei, the Libertarian candidate, was the natural choice at this time of anti-incumbency. Milei, a professional economist, promised a shock treatment and radical free-market reforms. His angry attacks against the political caste which got the country into the mess, resonated with the public. He got the most votes in the primaries held in August this year. This boosted the confidence of Milei who went overboard with extremist statements, crazy outbursts and attacks against those whom he did not like. He <span style="background: repeat white; color: #4a4a4a; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">derided Pope Francis as “a malignant presence on earth,” “filthy leftist”, “a donkey”, “a jackass” and </span>“a leftist sob”. This has not gone well in the catholic country which is proud of the first Argentine who has become Pope. <br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Milei proposes to close down the Central Bank, dollarize the economy, shut down 10 of the 18 ministries and cut social expenditure. He has taken disturbing and unrealistic foreign policy positions. He attacks President Lula and admires the disgraced ex-president Bolsonaro. He is critical of Mercosur, the regional economic bloc as well as China, the most important economic partners of Argentina. He considers global warming as a “socialist lie”.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">The masses struggling with poverty and economic difficulties realized that Milei has no agenda for them. Their situation would only worsen with Milei’s proposal to cut social expenditure. So they have ditched Milei and voted for the leftist candidate Massa, a known devil. In any case, Massa is a pragmatic and moderate leftist unlike the Kirchners who were extremists and confrontational.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Milei has got the message of the voters now and is toning down his rhetoric. He has realized the need for support of the moderate centre-right voters. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">I believe that Argentina needs a change from the traditional left and right. An unconventional shock treatment by an outsider would be good at this time. So Milei is a natural choice. But he needs to moderate himself and become more realistic and pragmatic. Only then he has a chance in the second round of elections on 19 November. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">In any case, even Milei gets elected as president he cannot impose his crazy proposals and become a monster like Bolsonaro or Trump.. His party does not have the legislative majority. In the Congressional elections held simultaneously with the Presidential elections on 21 October, the leftist Peronist coalition has won the maximum seats. They got 34 seats in the House of deputies and 12 in the Senate. Milei’s party got 8 deputies and 8 senators while the centre-right coalition got 24 deputies and 2 senators. With these results, the new (Lower) House of Deputies will have 108 leftists, 38 Libertarians and 93 rightists out of a total of 257. In the Senate of 72 members, the leftists will number 34 while Libertarians will be 8 and rightists 24. So, Milei will need the support of the moderate rightists to pass his legislative reforms. He will have tough time in contending with the Leftist coalition which has the largest number of Deputies and Senators.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">Milei would also have to live with another reality. The leftist incumbent candidate Axis Kicillof has been reelected as governor of Buenos Aires, the largest province with 17 million people out of the total country’s population of 45 million. There are also several other provinces with leftist governors. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;">If Milei gets elected as president, the country would get a much-needed shock therapy. At the same time, he would not be allowed to become disastrous like Trump or Bolsonaro since the voters have built firewalls of opposition with their smart voting. It would not be bad either if the leftist Massa wins. He is mature, balanced, pragmatic and has the much needed political experience of crisis management in recent times. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> <br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-81189958331009391182023-10-17T21:23:00.007-07:002023-10-18T06:47:20.685-07:00Ecuador elects a well-qualified and wealthy but millennial and moderate Daniel Noboa as President<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ecuador elected <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;">Daniel Noboa </span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;">as President in the elections held on Sunday. </span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;">At 35, he is the youngest to become the President of the country. <u1:p></u1:p>His wife Lavinia Valbonesi, age 25, will be the youngest First Lady. She is a Social Media Influencer with interests and investment in health food, fitness and fashion. The dashing young, athletic-looking, entrepreneurial and successful couple have attracted the votes of the youth.</span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWB_4thhSdpPFwcEOwzGLEV0hN4yWiUamWhXZ2K6otU8yDD6JKAiBngAhYG79VS2lZRQkZ_KyAKTK9Fn8if7HVFDpQEYQMTwghzhU7nQJQhHVBQTNjM1z9on_TTBkPxUUD1agU5iGvmbfo52LEf4pVmHgEpqKSC4gpHp7sclmdn6eCAifxmLpKjQ/s800/noboa.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWB_4thhSdpPFwcEOwzGLEV0hN4yWiUamWhXZ2K6otU8yDD6JKAiBngAhYG79VS2lZRQkZ_KyAKTK9Fn8if7HVFDpQEYQMTwghzhU7nQJQhHVBQTNjM1z9on_TTBkPxUUD1agU5iGvmbfo52LEf4pVmHgEpqKSC4gpHp7sclmdn6eCAifxmLpKjQ/s320/noboa.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa has an MBA from Kellogg School, Masters in Public Administration from Harvard and another Masters in Political Communication and Strategic Governance from George Washington University. He started his own company at the age of 18, before joining his family business later. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa is born into one of the wealthiest families. His grandfather became a millionaire exporting bananas and other products. His father expanded the business and built a large group with dozens of companies in various areas including in exports, logistics, fertilisers, fishing and real estate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In fact, his father Alvaro Noboa was a presidential candidate five times in the past but unsuccessfully. Even in this election he put up his candidature but withdrew it in favour of his son. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Predictably, Daniel Noboa is pro-business, but not at the expense of inclusive development. He wants to increase social spending on poverty alleviation, employment, healthcare and education. His wife is in favour of allowances for single mothers. While his conservative father used to call his leftist opponent Rafael Correa as “communist devil”, the son avoided harsh words, confrontation and hate speech. His calm and responsible comportment and pragmatic approach during the TV debates endeared him to the voters. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa’s opponent, the leftist Luisa Gonzalez got more votes than him in the first round with 34% as against his 23%. But in the second round she got 48% while he had secured 52%. She took the defeat gracefully and issued the following statement, <span style="color: #505050;">“To those who did not vote for us, also our congratulations, because the candidate they chose has won and as Ecuadoreans we also embrace them. And of course to the candidate, now President-elect Daniel Noboa, our deepest congratulations because it is democracy. We have never called to set fire to a city nor have we ever gone out shouting fraud. Enough of hatred, enough of polarization, Ecuador needs to heal. And count on us for a common agreement for our country,”. <u1:p></u1:p></span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #505050;">What a graceful gesture in comparison to the ugly and undemocratic shenanigans </span>of the <span style="color: #505050;">defeated candidates of Brazil and US in their recent elections. Even during the campaign and election debates, the two candidates did not indulge in hate speeches, indecent comments or or lies like those of Trump/Bolsonaro. The discourses of the two candidates were civilized and proper. <u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #505050;">This </span>kind of <span style="color: #505050;">democratic maturity </span>should be a lesson f<span style="color: #505050;">or the rest of </span>Latin America and the US<span style="color: #505050;">. <u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="css-k3zb6l-paragraph" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa will assume office in November 2023 and govern until May 2025, completing the shortened term of President Guillermo Lasso who resigned as President in a confrontation with the National Assembly which proposed to impeach him on corruption charges. He dissolved the Assembly and his presidency as provided in the constitution. <u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="css-k3zb6l-paragraph" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa’s top priority is to tackle the unprecedented high level of violence and crime unleashed by the drug cartels which use Ecuador as a hub to ship drugs to Europe and US. Two weeks before the first round of elections in August, the gangs assassinated a presidential candidate Fernando Villavicenio who promised tough action against them. They went on to murder five more politicians. Later they killed all the seven who were in jail accused of involvement in Vicenzio’s murder. <u1:p></u1:p>Noboa was wearing bullet-proof vest during his campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">His second priority is to revive the economy which has not yet recovered from the pandemic hit. The main income of the country is oil exports but part of the oil shipment goes to service the Chinese debt. Ecuador is a dollarized economy since 2000. <span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">After the severe economic crisis of 2000, the country abandoned its national currency 'Sucre' to deal with hyper inflation, fall in exchange rate and capital outflow. Even the extreme leftist anti-US Correa did not try to change the system of using US dollars as the national currency. This means that Ecuador does not print its own bank notes. Panama and El Salvador are the other two Latin American countries which are also dollarised. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><u1:p></u1:p></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">Noboa’s main challenge would be lack of legislative support. His party has only 11 members in the 137 strong unicameral National Assembly. The leftist party of Gonzalez, </span><span style="color: #2c2f34;">Revolución Ciudadana (RC</span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">), is the largest with 42 members. The party is controlled by ex-President Rafael Correa who ruled from 2007 to 2017. He is in exile in Belgium with his Belgian wife. He has been convicted to prison on corruption charges. He calls the charges as politically motivated and wants a Presidential pardon to get back to the country. It was he who was responsible for the downfall of the centre-right President Guillermo Lasso. He will continue to cause instability until he is rehabilitated. This will be the biggest challenge for the young President Noboa who has political experience of just two years as member of the Assembly in 2021-22. Rafael Correa turned around the country during his ten-year rule with his successful Inclusive development policies and programmes. But he was a polarizing figure within and outside the country. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Noboa would be the toast of Washington DC which is desperately looking for centre-right leaders in Latin America which is dominated at present by leftist Presidents. In 2009, President Rafael Correa kicked out the Americans from the Ecuadorian military base in Manta, in the Pacific Coast. The Americans used the base for drug interdiction and surveillance of the region. But Correa’s successor signed an Agreement with US for resumption of American airforce activities in Ecuador. The US started cultivating Ecuadorian armed forces with supply of equipments and training. The US will push Noboa to open more doors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;">Although Ecuador is a relatively small market of 17 million people, India’s bilateral trade was </span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;">substantial at </span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;">1.4 billion dollars in 2022-23. Crude oil is the main item of imports out of a total of 1016 million from Ecuador. India’s exports were 400 million dollars and there is good potential to increase the exports. Given the high level of trade, there is a need for India to open an embassy in Quito. Ecuador has one in New Delhi. <u1:p></u1:p></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u1:p><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;"> </span></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u1:p><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;"> </span></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #505050;"> </span><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-51625874726411914872023-09-01T21:07:00.025-07:002023-09-01T21:14:41.835-07:00 Mexican choice for President between two admirable women; one a scientist and the other an engineer <div><span style="font-family: arial;">Mexico has two leading candidates for the presidential elections to be held in June 2024. Both are women. Claudia Sheinbaum is from the ruling Morena party and Xochitl Galvez is from the opposition coalition.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Sheinbaum is a scientist. She has a PhD in energy engineering and is the author of two books and over one hundred articles on the subjects of energy, environment and sustainable development. She is from a family of scientists. Her father is a chemical engineer, mother a biologist and brother a physicist. She has proved her competence in governance as mayor of Mexico city and as secretary of the environment in the federal government.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jSUlLa2LdPnlfCZvmU1Wv2mzDGhU0Bqdj-ZieYcKdly9r7z9j1RuuCKNgJv2SosWdQlq9cKFQOliagLFKeHiAC0HCs7jQ9Dh_cnDcaA0Zi7ZrrZYbH8hm6uWMHtnaispwy4JWj3mrkPHpFyGwrkcYrF78gMDxsPK91DTL082p6bBC84qQvTF-g/s1920/claudia.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1920" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jSUlLa2LdPnlfCZvmU1Wv2mzDGhU0Bqdj-ZieYcKdly9r7z9j1RuuCKNgJv2SosWdQlq9cKFQOliagLFKeHiAC0HCs7jQ9Dh_cnDcaA0Zi7ZrrZYbH8hm6uWMHtnaispwy4JWj3mrkPHpFyGwrkcYrF78gMDxsPK91DTL082p6bBC84qQvTF-g/s320/claudia.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Galvez is an engineer and entrepreneur. She has a<span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"> degree in computer engineering and founded two tech firms. She is a senator and was head of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples during the administration of Vicente Fox (2000–2006). Ideologically she is a free-spirited independent with a mix of conservative and progressive policies.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9gP0b5-e-tig395z0eO6Bfh5N2gDSwWftbqyOpMk3Dee37WAdrC_neTLF1dvmMCUKAO3SOwu9H6fPtPi-yvYj8Aoefn0QCR-C-pi6_LjnZClCVR54KGKAPyvh7np5YtBPf6r1kH_HgnO25IpsMoxopXUy898yyIG5WLETioGXp-nIzGuvieX1g/s900/galvez.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="900" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD9gP0b5-e-tig395z0eO6Bfh5N2gDSwWftbqyOpMk3Dee37WAdrC_neTLF1dvmMCUKAO3SOwu9H6fPtPi-yvYj8Aoefn0QCR-C-pi6_LjnZClCVR54KGKAPyvh7np5YtBPf6r1kH_HgnO25IpsMoxopXUy898yyIG5WLETioGXp-nIzGuvieX1g/s320/galvez.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;">She is an indigenous Mexican from a poor family. She used to sell tamales in the streets as a kid. </span><span style="background: repeat white;">Her father was an Indigenous Otomi schoolteacher. She learned to speak her native ñähñu language as a child. She rides E-bikes in Mexican streets wearing the loose embroidered indigenous blouse known as a huipil.</span> She has a sense of humour and enjoys engaging with the public.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">According to opinion polls, Sheinbaum has better chances than Galvez.</span><br /></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;">Both the Mexican </span>candidates are mature, cultured and competent. <span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;">They talk sense, use proper language and respect opponents. Both the candidates have similar agenda such as poverty alleviation, employment, women’s empowerment, clean energy and sustainable development. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Mexican choice is agreeable and pleasant in contrast to the ugly choice faced by the Gringos between the obnoxious Donald Trump and the senile Joe Biden. The Mexican political discourse is serious, polite and civilized unlike the American campaign smeared with <span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;">lies, hate speech and fake news. <br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-37239072355158931262023-08-22T20:22:00.054-07:002023-08-23T00:12:54.838-07:00Guatemala’s election result is a good sign of the health of democracy <div><span style="font-family: arial;">In the elections held on Sunday, the Guatemalan voters elected Bernardo Arevalo as president with 58% of the votes. This is significant for three fundamental reasons in the context of the Guatemalan and regional political history.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGP6hYtBpEVNB5x1gEz0VEUHltTobPfH4XtOKS3zgPLGr56GO6o-xZq8nfBA3iRkXbPY_TDMPl1NhC3xOdvVsmWXJl444vgct2BMk4N3QL_OgsLq6XhHKFIOKgipZb-aAwNrc9JeONV_YiqWaO_05BpRD1-hOI4jFWqfOJGkCdTXHf0DFAPnCVMQ/s225/arevalo.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGP6hYtBpEVNB5x1gEz0VEUHltTobPfH4XtOKS3zgPLGr56GO6o-xZq8nfBA3iRkXbPY_TDMPl1NhC3xOdvVsmWXJl444vgct2BMk4N3QL_OgsLq6XhHKFIOKgipZb-aAwNrc9JeONV_YiqWaO_05BpRD1-hOI4jFWqfOJGkCdTXHf0DFAPnCVMQ/s1600/arevalo.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Firstly, this clear and decisive election of an anti-establishment outsider is a victory for democracy. The current ruling establishment of President Giammattei had tried a lot of dirty tricks and prevented some candidates from contesting in the elections. They even went after the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement) party of Arevalo with accusations of irregularities. Sandra Torres, the rival of Arevalo was favoured by the incumbent administration. This situation lead to fears that the elections might be derailed or Arevalo himself might be prevented from contesting in the second round. These concerns went beyond the borders of the country to regional and international levels. The Organization of American States and the US State Department as well as the Congress members had issued statements. It is against this backdrop that Arevalo’s election with a convincing margin of 16% (against 37% of Sandra Torres) has given a clear message that democracy in Guatemala is safe, healthy and resilient. The elections were held peacefully without any major incidents. President Giammattei has already congratulated the winner and has invited him for talks for a smooth transition. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">More importantly, there has been no violent attacks against the electoral system or outcome as done by Trump and Bolsonaro and their thuggish followers</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> in US and Brazil, the largest democracies in the hemisphere.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Secondly, Arevalo is a centre-left progressive leader. He has promised to give priority for elimination of poverty and inequality. He proposes reforms in education and health care to make them more accessible and affordable for the poor. This is essential since a large part of the population is poor. Most of these are the indigenous people. The country has still not recovered from the 36-year civil war which ended in 1996. Several hundred thousand people were killed by the security forces of military dictatorship in the name of fighting left-wing guerillas. Criminal gangs have taken over many slums and indulge in murders, extortions and crimes. Poverty, insecurity and lack of economic opportunities are the main drivers of illegal migration of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to to the United States. Although Sandra Torres is also left-of-centre candidate, she had started moving to the right aligning more with the ruling oligarchy. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Thirdly, Arevalo’s election is a boost to the anticorruption movement. Corruption and impunity have been the major issues after povery and insecurity. The common people accuse the elites of having a "Pact of the Corrupt". In 2015, the Guatemalan justice had sent a sitting president Otto Perez Molina directly from the Presidential palace to jail on corruption charges, In December 2022, Molina and his Vice president President Baldetti were sentenced to 16 years in prison.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Arevalo has an excellent resume for the job. He has a cosmopolitan background of studies and living. He was born in Uruguay where his father and ex-president Juan Jose Arevalo lived in exile after the 1954 military coup in Guatemala. His father was the first democratically elected president of the country in 1945. His family moved later to Venezuela, Mexico and Chile. He was in Guatemala for the first time at the age of fifteen. He went to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel for his graduation in sociology. His father was ambassador to Israel at that time. He got his doctorate in philosophy and social anthropology from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He became a diplomat in the Guatemalan foreign ministry and had served as ambassador in Spain. He left the diplomatic career to work with regional and international organisations. He has written a number of books on history, politics, sociology and diplomacy. He joined a group of intellectuals to form Semilla, a think tank which became a political party. He was elected to the Congress in which he served from 2020 to 2022. When he started his presidential campaign in 2023 his polling rate was in single digit. But he succeeded in getting the second position in the first round of elections and became eligible to run in the seond round on 20 August. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In foreign policy, Arevalo is pragmatic. Although he is left-of centre, he has condemned the leftist regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as authoritarian.<u1:p></u1:p> He seeks more business with China while maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The clean election process and the clear outcome in Guatemala should be an inspiration to other countries in Central and South America some of which also face similar political situations. Anti-establishment outside candidates would feel encouraged to take on established and entrenched political parties which control political power.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">While Arevalo has a serious agenda for reforms of governance and socio-economic development, he does not have enough votes in the Congress to pass progressive legislations. His party has only 23 seats in the 160 member Congress. President Giammattei’s conservative party Vamos has 39 members and the UNE party of Sandra Torres has 28.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Sandra Russo, who has lost the presidential race for the third time, has an interesting history. She was the <span style="color: #333333;">wife of Alvaro Colom when he was President in the period 2008-12. She manipulated and intervened in the administration to raise her profile and image. She was seen as the real power in the presidential palace. She acted like Evita of Argentina. She became head of a charity organization and got plenty of government funds to distribute to poor people, as Evita did. Sandra wanted to be seen as protector of the poor with her leftist agenda.<br /><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;">There was a constitutional obstacle to Sandra’s dream to become President after her husband. The Guatemalan constitution prohibits immediate family members of sitting president from contesting presidential elections. So what did Sandra do? She tried Magical Realism. She divorced her husband a few months before the election and proclaimed that she was “the first woman in history to divorce husband to marry the country”. Hmm..she was already divorced before marrying Colom for whom she became the third wife.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;">But some judges in the constitutional court had the courage to reject her claim saying that her candidature was a violation of the spirit of the constituition even if she was technically correct. <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto;">After the disqualification of her candidature in 2011, Sandra waited four years and contested against the comedian Jimmy Morales in 2015. . </span>His promise to the voters was, “I have made you laugh for so many years. I promise I will not make you cry as President.” But his government had some corruption scandals and he left the office crying. He beat her to presidency with his jokes and promise. Later </span>Colom was arrested on corruption charges in 2018. <br /></span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">Guatemala was the first country in Latin America to be destabilized by US in the so called war against Communism during the Cold War. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a coup against the democratically elected leftist president Jacob Arbanz and installed a military dictatorship. While the coup was carried out in the name of the war on Communism, the real reason was to protect the interests of United Fruit Company which owned hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land. The company was likely to lose some land to the land reforms initiated by Arbanz government. It had absolute monopoly in banana plantation and trade and pursued exploitative labour policies with impunity. Its revenue was bigger than that of the government of Guatemala. John Foster Dulles, the CIA chief, had close business ties with the company. When the rightist military dictatorship was resisted by the leftist political movements, the regime unleashed a wave of terror, with the support and encouragement of US. The civil war continued till 1996 in which over two hundred thousand people were killed. In March 1999, President Clinton made a formal apology for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Guatemala by the US-backed military dictatorship. But those who got US weapons to fight communism took to gangsterism and criminality after the end of the civil war. To escape this US-supported violence and crime, Guatemalans started emigrating to US, which has a moral responsibility to give asylum to the victims of its past sins.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: repeat white;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: repeat white;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">It was in Guatemala that Che Guevara got to see first-hand the excesses of the empire and became an anti-imperial leftist guerrilla crusader. Thereafter he joined Fidel Castro and succeeded in liberating Cuba from another military dictatorship supported by US.<br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Guatemala is the largest and most important market in Central America. In 2022-23, India’s exports to Guatemala were 465 million dollars, The exports were 552 million dollars in 2021-22. This more than India's exports to some neighboring countries such as Cambodia or Kazhakstan. Motorcycles, cars, generic medicines are the leading items of India’s exports. India is the #2 supplier of medicines to Guatemala. Some Indian IT, pharma and motorcycle companies have established successful operations in the country. There is good scope for increasing India’s business with this country of 18 million people. </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-70053453116486962412023-07-06T20:14:00.001-07:002023-07-06T20:14:24.126-07:00 Venezuelan novel “It Would Be Night in Caracas”<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a name="_MailOriginal"> Venezuelan novel “It Would Be Night in Caracas”<br /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the first novel by a new Venezuelan author Karina Sainz Borgo, who has escaped from the misery of Venezuela and has settled in Madrid for the last several years. While the Latin American writers who were in exile from their countries during the sixties wrote Magical Realism novels, Karina Sainz has written a realistic account of the difficult life of Venezuelans under the Chavista regime.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpVH5tGXgTbLOtfcC3V1tcXvt1wq6JqrDy7j-cLv7kbKz3njMmrePgafXCQIBehoWvHh_V4OlwoiHAplGjnY-i9P2slTYjRWGhK5zBV0w9yA2oIjwZuCqJRYIf5rAlYMEc6ZL6T9F_SyHWPUDDjCKvj8SOJZKZ_6o8f37N70qDWJq58Kb9mvWEQ/s445/caracas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="305" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpVH5tGXgTbLOtfcC3V1tcXvt1wq6JqrDy7j-cLv7kbKz3njMmrePgafXCQIBehoWvHh_V4OlwoiHAplGjnY-i9P2slTYjRWGhK5zBV0w9yA2oIjwZuCqJRYIf5rAlYMEc6ZL6T9F_SyHWPUDDjCKvj8SOJZKZ_6o8f37N70qDWJq58Kb9mvWEQ/s320/caracas.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The author has given a graphic account of the ongoing political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela. She has narrated the struggle of ordinary people amidst the shortage of food, medicines and other necessities. The Chavista gangs do a roaring business of selling goods in the black-market. The militias control the streets and unleash violence at will. The author calls the gangs as " Sons of the Revolution". The security forces and intelligence services harass, detain and torture the opponents of the regime. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The protagonist Adelaida Falcon has no other option but to go to the black market to buy medicines at exorbitant prices for her mother undergoing cancer treatment in a clinic. Since the Clinic has perpetual shortage of essential items, she has to buy from the black market everything from syringes and saline bags to gases and cotton buds. Her apartment is taken over by a Chavista female gang, who throw her out brutally. They beat her up and threaten to kill her if she returns to her apartment. Her friend’s brother is kidnapped during an anti-government protest march, detained, tortured and eventually killed by the Intelligence Services.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">After losing her apartment, Adelco moves into another apartment which becomes vacant after its owner dies unexpectedly. She takes over the Spanish identity of the owner and escapes from Venezuela to Spain. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The author brings out an important part of the Venezuelan character which attaches too much importance to appearances. She says, “Nobody wants to grow old or appear poor. It is important to conceal, to make over. Those are the national pastimes: keeping up appearances. It does not matter if there is no money, or if the country is falling to pieces: the important thing is to be beautiful, to aspire to a crown, to be the queen of something … of Carnaval, of the town, of the country. To be the tallest, the prettiest”<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Venezuela, which has the potential to be one of the richest countries in the world, is in a deep political and economic crisis in the last two decades. The crisis has got aggravated by the US sanctions and attempts for regime change. More than four million Venezuelans have gone out of the countries as refugees. Although the economy seems to be turning a corner, it will take some time for the country to return to democracy and normality. Till then, there will be a boom in the novels of Venezuelan exiles like Karina Sainz.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-27436397903866005082023-07-03T18:59:00.007-07:002023-07-03T19:01:42.546-07:00 Mexican muralist Diego Rivera <div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <a name="_MailOriginalBody">Mexican muralist Diego Rivera – biography by Gerry Souter<br /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diego Rivera is an iconic artist of Mexico. He is celebrated for his famous murals which drew inspiration from Mexican indigenous culture and the ideals of Communism. He was also controversial for his personal adventures and misadventures. The author of the book Gerry Souter gives an objective narration of the evolution of Rivera as an artist and the circumstances and trends which shaped his art.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMR-sk6ortLhdYQ0alQogYNLyn6B4nmlwvo027OXXh3zu4PeXV48CUk7CXxBSAvoWMd1ZQ8YzrL72sDBOZa7QOAF3oZ17_b30xpehmdeAsC6V4VPMWB1vDBKY9-lPMemCYi3lH27VHtYe-ik09ucLrufyg3WUiuXO0C_83AWgKHBn16AHirASB-A/s500/diegorivera.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="403" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMR-sk6ortLhdYQ0alQogYNLyn6B4nmlwvo027OXXh3zu4PeXV48CUk7CXxBSAvoWMd1ZQ8YzrL72sDBOZa7QOAF3oZ17_b30xpehmdeAsC6V4VPMWB1vDBKY9-lPMemCYi3lH27VHtYe-ik09ucLrufyg3WUiuXO0C_83AWgKHBn16AHirASB-A/s320/diegorivera.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Rivera’s art and personality were influenced by the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and the Russian Revolution (1917-23). Mexico, which was going through a crisis of identity after the Revolution, started recognizing and becoming proud of its indigenous culture. The country wanted to strike out an image of its own, free from the European inheritance and North American shadow. Secondly, Communism was becoming a fashion among artists and intellectuals of the country. Rivera became a believer and activist. Besides these external influences, Rivera’s own personality as an adventurer had guided his destiny. His life was filled with many women and scandals. But there was one woman who had the most decisive impact on him. It was Frida Kahlo who matched his adventures and recklessness with her own. She married him, divorced and remarried him.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Like other artists of his time, Rivera went for art studies and tours in Spain, France, Italy and Netherlands where he saw European art and interacted with his counterparts. He came across famous contemporaries such as Picasso and imbibed various styles and schools of thought. Rivera visited Picasso’s studio in 1914 and was awestruck by the quantity of Picasso’s paintings scattered around the walls. They had long conversations over lunch and dinner. Later, Picasso came to see Diego’s work, approved of what he saw and made Rivera part of his circle Rivera lived the typical austere and struggling life of an artist in the Left Bank in Paris. After this, he came back to Mexico which offered him opportunities to try out mural and fresco work in public buildings. His success in Mexico had opened the doors for commissions in US in cities such as San Francisco, Detroit and New York. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides having an extraordinary artistic talent, Rivera put in long hours of hard work in his projects. The scaffolding in front of the panels became his home where he worked, ate and often slept. Once he fell asleep, rolling off the scaffold and plummeting to the concrete below. The plastering crew found him unconscious with head injuries. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Rivera was fascinated by Communism and let it influence his paintings and murals. He was a life-long believer in the ideal of Communism and mostly in denial concerning its ruthless reality. He joined the Communist party and their activities and meetings. He visited USSR where he was initially celebrated as a communist artist and was promised a mural work to be done in Moscow. However, the hosts turned hostile to him because of ideological and power struggles within the party. Later, Rivera was expelled from the Mexican Communist party accused of betraying the proletarian ideals. His membership was eventually restored. Rivera hosted Trotsky when he took refuge in Mexico and put him up in his own house for two years.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Rivera considered himself as a “people’s artist”. He was critical of the easel paintings which ended up in rich people’s homes. He believed that murals were the true People’s Art, painted where the public could see them. But he realized that he needed to make paintings for living. So he made lot of paintings and sold to rich people and took commissions of work from American capitalists. But his work with Rockefeller ended up as a failure. He was commissioned to make a mural work in the iconic Rockefeller building in Manhattan, New York. Rivera’s inclusion of Lenin in the murals incensed Rockefeller who got the half-finished mural demolished, although he paid Rivera the full amount as contracted. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In his personal life, Rivera lead a colourful and adventurous life. He spent six months in the Mexican civil war fighting at the side of Emiliano Zapata and his southern army. Diego’s specialty was blowing trains off their tracks with explosives. For many years, he used to carry a large-calibre Colt revolver ostensibly to fight off attempts on his life. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Many women had passed through his life including Russian, Mexican and American. He had numerous affairs with his models and even with the sisters of two of his wives. But one woman matched and impacted him the most. It was Frida Kahlo. In her first meeting with him she told him, “I haven’t come here to flirt, even though you are a notorious ladies’ man. Some of your good friends have advised me not to put too much stock in what you say. They say that if it’s a girl who asks your opinion and she’s not an absolute horror, you are ready to gush all over her. I just want to show you my pictures and seek your comments and advice”. Frida was eighteen and Diego forty-three when they got married in 1929. Frida had many affairs with both women and men including Trotsky. She used the house of her sister to meet Trotsky while the sister had an affair with her husband. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diego Rivera is part of the three greatest <span style="background: repeat white; color: #4d5156;">"los tres grandes" Mexican muralists along with José Clemente Orozco and David Siqueiros. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #4d5156;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #4d5156;">Satish Gujral, the famous Indian painter, </span><span style="background: repeat white; color: #202122;">received a Mexican government scholarship to study for two years (1952-54) at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico city, where he was apprenticed to Diego Rivera.</span> Gujral worked with Rivera in the mural painting of “ Teatro de los Insurgents” in 1952-53. Later Gujral joined the studio of Siqueiros and collaborated with him in his mural works. After his return to India, Gujral had arranged an Indian government invitation to Siqueiros to visit India in 1956. The Mexican influence is evident in many of Gujral’s murals and paintings. <br /></span><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p><span><span style="background: repeat white; font-family: arial; letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">Gujral was one of the earliest beneficiaries of the Mexican Cultural Exchange Programme started by their embassy in New Delhi established in August 1951 with ex-president Emilio Portes Gil as the first ambassador. The interview board of the embassy which interviewed various Indian artists including Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral had included the famous poet and writer Octavio Paz, who was the cultural attache in the embassy.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-8912882772529486472023-06-28T20:04:00.004-07:002023-06-28T20:04:28.516-07:00 Isabel Allende’s latest novel “The wind knows my name”<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> Isabel Allende’s latest novel “The wind knows my name”<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">This novel is about Anita, a girl child from El Salvador and Samuel, a Jewish boy from Austria who are orphaned because of the violence perpetrated by Mara gangs and Nazi thugs. The Salvadorean kid suffers further physical and emotional trauma in the American border security system of separating the children from their parents who try to enter US illegally. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGvmaOhIWAKACs2VA_EQXz593bv_WDnGTorlkdEFgmZs-SBol4O_TEO7iSSslIBN7r83Z7bot9451FFvRG1cMjbhh3emp7LDwi0VnT9W0SzeoAh2pSP97Mso1ugBp32d5zivK5fTzCJ_HzS_BzA6YY0saL6-vB6GnqMqELpV70fTsN5Vq7G8stHw/s500/allendelatest.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGvmaOhIWAKACs2VA_EQXz593bv_WDnGTorlkdEFgmZs-SBol4O_TEO7iSSslIBN7r83Z7bot9451FFvRG1cMjbhh3emp7LDwi0VnT9W0SzeoAh2pSP97Mso1ugBp32d5zivK5fTzCJ_HzS_BzA6YY0saL6-vB6GnqMqELpV70fTsN5Vq7G8stHw/s320/allendelatest.jpeg" width="208" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Anita’s family has a precarious and dangerous life in a slum in El Salvador where rival criminal gangs fight and cause misery to the residents. Anita’s mother is harassed by a security guard involved in human trafficking. She escapes taking Anita with her. She tries to enter US through the Mexican border. The US authorities catch her and separate the mother and daughter. They put the daughter in a detention centre and deport the mother to Mexico. The mother is eventually killed by the security guard. Anita suffers abuse and ill-treatment by the guards and the private contractors who run the detention centres. She is rescued by Selena, a volunteer working with such separated kids. Anita gets asylum to stay in US.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Anita is sent to her aunt Leticia, working as house keeper in a large mansion in San Francisco. Leticia was born in a remote Salvadorian village called as El Mozote. When she falls sick in the village, her father takes her to the hospital in the city. When he returns, his family and the other villagers have been massacred brutally by the military which wanted to teach a lesson to the indigenous people for their alleged sympathies to the leftist guerilla fighters. He then decides to leave the country and tries to enter US illegally carrying his daughter on his back. He is caught and deported to Mexico while Leticia is lucky to get asylum. She finds work as a house keeper in the San Francisco mansion.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Samuel’s parents in Austria are sent to their death in concentration camps by the Nazis. However, they let the boy go to England, arranged by a charity organization along with other kids separated from their parents. The boy goes through series of foster homes and ultimately ends up with a caring family. He studies music and goes to US to join the San Francisco orchestra. The hippie daughter of a rich family marries him but later she divorces and dies leaving a large house for Samuel. His house keeper Leticia is the aunt of Anita. Samuel who has suffered as an orphan is moved by the story of Anita, lets her stay in his house and teaches her music.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Isabel Allende, the author has fictionalized the real life tragedies suffered by Jews under Nazis and the sufferings of the indigenous people in El Salvador during the civil war in the eighties during the Reagan era. El Mozote massacre happened actually in December 1981. Allende rightly blames the US which supported the military dictatorship in El Salvador and trained their security forces to fight ruthlessly against leftists. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #333333;">The US is responsible, to a large extent, for the civil wars in Central America. To protect and promote the commercial interests of the American corporations in the region, the US administration had converted the Central American countries as ‘banana republics’ by undermining democracies and encouraging and installing right wing military dictatorships. In 1954, CIA overthrew the democratically elected leftist government of Arbenz in Guatemala and installed pro-US military dictatorship. The immediate reason for the coup was the Guatemalan government’s land reforms which affected the interests of United Fruit Company, the single largest land owner in Guatemala and which had over three million acres of land in Central America. Incidentally, Che Guavara got his anti-imperialistic revolutionary inspiration after seeing personally the destruction of the Guatemalan democracy by the US. Using the pretext of anticommunism, the US had forced the governments and security agencies of Central America to persecute leftist parties and liberals. When Sandinistas came to power in 1979 after defeating the US-supported Somoza dictatorship, the Reagan administration turned its guns against Nicaragua and involved the other Central American countries too in the dirty and illegal “ Contra War” against the Sandinista government. The US sent arms, trained local militias and paramilitary death squads and waged an all-out war to hurt Nicaragua and tried to bring about regime change. These atrocities of US destabilized Central America causing deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;">During the civil war, over a million people had fled to US to escape the violence. Many of them went to Los Angeles. Unable to fit in the social milieu, the poor and marginalised illegal immigrant youth joined the criminal gangs in LA. The Reagan administration denied refugee status to these Central American immigrants, who were forced into clandestine lives. In the nineties, the US authorities cracked down on the gangs and deported thousands of the gang members to Central America. But many of the deported, who were born or brought up in US, found it difficult to adjust in Central America and continued with their LA gang culture. They regrouped themselves locally with guns smuggled from US and scaled up their crimes, taking advantage of the weak law enforcement and justice system of these countries<span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;">El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala in Central America have the highest homicide rates in the world caused by gangs such as Maras and Barrio-18, who originated from Los Angeles. The rivalry between these two became so violent at one stage in 2012, the government of El Salvador intervened and brokered a ceasefire between the rival gangs. In order to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, the government relaxed conditions in the prisons in which the members of the two gangs were held. Following this peace deal, the murder rate had dropped immediately. But this truce broke down in 2014 and crime has gone up again. </span> Earlier this month about 50 women prisoners were killed in the fight between female gangsters in a prison in Honduras. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Central American gangsters and Mexican cartels use guns illegally trafficked from the US. But the US, which complains about trafficking of drugs from Latin America, does not do anything to stop the trafficking of weapons to Mexico and Central America. There are about 7000 gun shops in the US side of the 2000 mile border with Mexico. These are the sources of guns which kill hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans every year.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The flood of illegal immigrants from El Salvador as well as Guatemala and Honduras is the harvest US is reaping for sowing the seeds of destabilization and violence. <br /></span><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-56252946694559981902023-06-22T19:26:00.001-07:002023-06-22T19:26:56.434-07:00Colombian novel “Retrospective” by Juan Gabriel Vasquez<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">Colombian novel “Retrospective” by Juan Gabriel Vasquez<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">This is a novel about guerilla wars, revolutions, dictatorships, communism and ideological fanaticism with many heroes and villains in three continents. It starts with the Spanish civil war and goes on to cover the Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic, Colombian guerilla wars, the Soviet communist outreach, the Chinese cultural revolution and the 1968 student protests in Paris. The Columbian guerilla war is the center-piece and Sergio Cabrera is the protagonist.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvWZOvPQlScG3LkS4mB_esZQ0guTAfnpIpjd5rKf80TFhoqW2L-UfvOGdPZfn4a1uR80JOPFvVoe7F2r2m7SE5rCWUy9pP0UE9TLEX4S19VTu75yMsPwfIy02IdV2XS_VlXx2IrDG5lIkbO27jgyVSD3JvdBa7yUcyCwIVIOs0Gl9QkdHaGnFYg/s1000/retrospective.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="653" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvWZOvPQlScG3LkS4mB_esZQ0guTAfnpIpjd5rKf80TFhoqW2L-UfvOGdPZfn4a1uR80JOPFvVoe7F2r2m7SE5rCWUy9pP0UE9TLEX4S19VTu75yMsPwfIy02IdV2XS_VlXx2IrDG5lIkbO27jgyVSD3JvdBa7yUcyCwIVIOs0Gl9QkdHaGnFYg/s320/retrospective.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">The wars, struggles and movements are woven into the story of the family of Sergio Cabrera, whose grandfather is a Spaniard who fights against the Fascism of Franco. He escapes to Dominican Republic but the Trujillo dictatorship is as bad as Franco’s. He moves on to Colombia where he settles down. The violence unleashed by the deadly conflict between the Colombian liberals and conservatives is as deadly as the Spanish civil war. Sergio’s father is attracted to communism and jumps at the opportunity to teach Spanish in China. After some years, he returns to Colombia and joins the EPL (Popular Liberation Army) the Maoist guerilla group. His wife from a rich and respected family helps the guerilla group secretly. Cabrera leaves his teenage son Sergio and daughter Marianella in China to continue their education in Beijing. They take fancy to Maoism and volunteer to work with peasants and factory workers and eventually undergo even military training with the Red Army. They are caught up in the cultural revolution but they are not discouraged by the atrocities committed during the cultural revolution. They return to Colombia and join as fighters in the Colombian jungles for the EPL guerilla group. Their day to day life in the jungles is marked by hardship, diseases and dangers. This is aggravated by the petty rivalries, jealousies and dictatorial decisions of the EPL commanders who mistreat and punish the cadres according to their whims. Ultimately, the two leave the guerilla group disappointed and disillusioned. Marianella gets married to a fellow guerrillero and settles down to a normal life. During his return to Bogota from Beijing, Sergio stops for some days in Paris and witnesses the student protests against the Vietnam war among other issues. After leaving his guerrillero career, he studies film making in London and becomes a celebrated director of films in Colombia. He goes to Barcelona for a retrospective show of his films when he gets the news of death of his father in Colombia. During this time, Sergio looks back on the adventures, misadventures, sufferings and idealism of his family members.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">In Beijing, Marianella, the teenager falls in love with Carl Crook, the son of David Crook a British communist. He joins the fight for the International Brigade against Fascism in Spain. There the Soviets recruit him as spy to report on the Trotskyites, which included George Orwell. Later they send him to Beijing on a spying mission. He settles in China as an English teacher and marries Isabel, the daughter of Canadian missionaries. Isabel is born and brought up in China. During the cultural revolution Crook is arrested and jailed for some years and eventually released. While the Chinese Communists welcome and encourage foreigners to learn and spread the Chinese model, they also cultivate a strong anti-foreigner sentiment among their people and cadres. The families of Cabrera and Crook are caught in this contradiction and the Crook family becomes victims despite their fluency in Chinese, adaptation to Chinese culture and unswerving loyalty to Mao.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">The author Vasquez has based his novel on the real life stories of the families of Sergio Cabrera and Peter Crook. He has interviewed Sergio Cabrera himself besides members of both families. He has quoted from their biographies and archives. While fictionalizing the actual stories, Vasquez has given vivid details and political and social comments on the resistance against Fascist Franco in Spain, the Colombian guerilla wars and the upheaval in China during the cultural revolution. He has brought out the emotional struggles and personal feelings of the guerrilleros and fanatic party cadres who are manipulated and controlled by the ruthless guerilla commanders and communist leaders. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">Here are some examples of Vasquez’s vivid narration..<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-The Red Guards consider the red colour as their symbol and that of the Cultural Revolution. For them, red is the colour of progress. They argue,“the red of our flag symbolizes the blood of our heroes, don’t you? The blood of millions of comrades who gave their lives for the Republic. Think about what a revolutionary feels when he sees that someone else, in another country, has decided on a whim that the colour red, the colour for which we are ready to give our lives, should become an order to stop. And if we accept it, if we accept that red should be the signal for cars to stop, we would also have to accept that pedestrians should stop at red . . . at pedestrian crossing lights. And we are not just pedestrians, we are revolutionary combatants! And we cannot accept foreign interference in the Revolution!”. So they change the traffic lights to red for ‘go’ and green for ‘stop’. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-Marianella writes in her diary, “ Oh, great Chairman Mao! Your ideology has thrown a brilliant light on my heart. Oh, beloved Chairman Mao! You really are the reddest red sun of my heart!!!! I am determined to always obey your words! To take your great ideology to Colombia. To propagate it, because it is the greatest truth, our Colombian people will never turn away from it!!! Chairman Mao, I love you most! I can do without my father and mother, but I cannot do without your great ideology!”.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">-Colombia was sinking in a sea of blood. The guerrillas were killing, the paramilitaries were killing and the army was killing. When the 1992 peace negotiations in Mexico failed, a guerrilla leader stood up from the table and said, “We’ll see you after another ten thousand deaths.” <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">“Retrospective” is the fourth novel of Colombian Juan Gabriel Vasquez, I have read after <span style="background: white;">" The Informers", "The secret history of Costa Guna" and “ The sound of things falling”. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">The real life Sergio Cabrera is a successful film maker after quitting from EPL. He was also an elected member of the Colombian Congress. He has made some remarkable films on the guerilla wars and social issues of Colombia. I enjoyed seeing one of his films “ Golpe de Estadio” in which the guerilleros and the police forces agree to a few hours of ceasefire in order to watch a football game between Argentina and Colombia. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white;">Sergio is now the Colombian ambassador to China since 2022, appointed by President Gustavo Petro, another ex-guerrillero. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-83022367096557568152023-06-07T21:30:00.011-07:002023-07-07T19:07:45.416-07:00 India’s exports to Latin America increase by an impressive 19% in 2022-23<p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> I</span>ndia’s exports to Latin America increase by an impressive 19% in 2022-23</b></span></p><div style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><p style="background: repeat white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">India’s exports to Latin America reached a record high of 22.41 billion dollars in 2022-23 (April-March), according to the Commerce Ministry of India. The exports have increased by an impressive 19% from 18.89 billion dollars in 2021-22</span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; color: black; line-height: 1.2;">, exceeding the 6.86% increase of India’s global exports.</span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">There is more good news: </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p style="background: repeat white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">India’s exports to some of the distant Latin American countries are more than the exports to neighboring countries or traditional</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">ly important</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> trade partners</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">.</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> This is a trend of the last several years not just a one-year-wonder. Examples:</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">-India’s exports to Brazil (9.9 bn) are higher than to the traditional trade partners such as Japan (5.46 bn), France (7.6 bn), Italy (8.7 bn) and neighbors such as Thailand (5.7 bn), Nepal (8.01 bn) and Sri Lanka (5.11 bn)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">-Exports to Mexico (5.2 bn) are more than the exports to Russia ( 3.15 bn), Canada (4.11 bn), Spain (4.66 bn) and Egypt (4.1 bn)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">-Exports of 273 m to the remote Honduras are more than the exports of 220 m to nearby Cambodia. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">-Exports of 465 million dollars to the distant Guatemala are more than the exports of 437 m to Kazakhstan</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">-</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Exports of 1.45 billion</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> to Colombia and</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> 1.17 billion to Chile are also higher than the exports to some other neighbors and traditional trade partners.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Car exports</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Car exports to Latin America were </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2225 million dollars (up from </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">1793 m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> in 2021-22).</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> This was </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">one third </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">of India’s global car exports of </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">6.68</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> bn dollars. Mexico was the second largest global market for Indian cars with 9</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">73</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m. Other major destinations: Chile 3</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">5</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">7 m and Peru </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">203</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">, Colombia 110 m, Ecuador 97 m, Panama 75 m and Guatemala 50 m.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Motorcycles</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Exports of motor cycles were 9</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">21</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> million dollars. This is 3</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> % of India’s global exports of 2.</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">79 </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">bn.</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Colombia was </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">the # 1 </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">global market for Indian motorcycles</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> with 308 million dollars</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Other major </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">destinations </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">in the region </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">were</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">: </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Mexico 1</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">95</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m, Guatemala </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">89</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m and Peru 4</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">5</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">m. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Ind</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">ia </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">i</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">s the second largest supplier of motorcycles to Latin America.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pharmaceuticals</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Pharma exports </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">were </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">1</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">.45</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">b</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">illion dollars</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Major destination of India’s pharma exports: Brazil 3</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">45</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> million dollars, </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Mexico 130 m, Chile 117 m, Venezuela 87 m, Colombia 75 m, </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Peru </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">67</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m, </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Guatemala 54 m, </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Dominican Republic </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">53</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">and Ecuador 34 m.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">India ranked as #6 supplier of pharmaceuticals</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> to the region</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">. But India was # 1 supplier to Nicaragua, # 2supplier to Guatemala, # 3 for Honduras and # 4 for Chile.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Major exports</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Petroleum Products </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">4.7 bn (up from</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> 2</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">.</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">1</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> bn last year)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Vehicles </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">4.33 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">(i</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">ncreased from </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3.84</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">b</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">illion dollars</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> last year)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Chemicals 3</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">.4 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">( India is # 3 top supplier to Latin America)</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Machinery </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.73 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Pharma 1</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">.45 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Iron and steel </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">763</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Aluminum products 6</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">62</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Textiles </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">630 m</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Rubber products 4</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">70</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Cotton. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">431 </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">m </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Plastics. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">409</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Imports</span></b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">India’s imports from Latin America were 25.59 billion dollars, marginally lower than 25.62 bn 2021-22. </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Major suppliers were: Brazil </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">6.67</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> bn, Mexico </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3.87</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> billion, Argentina </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3.93 </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">bn, Colombia </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.63</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> bn, Bolivia 2.55 bn, Peru </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.25</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> bn, Chile 1.</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">44</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> bn, </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Ecuador 1.02 bn and Dom Republic 360 m, Panama 283 m and </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Venezuela </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">253</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Main import items</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">:</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Crude oil </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> 7.6 billion dollars</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Gold. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">6.6 bn </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Veg</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">etable</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> oil </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">5.7 bn </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Copper</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">1.87 bn </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Machinery </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> 245 m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Wood </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">562 m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Chemicals </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">392 m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Iron and steel 321 m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Fruits& veg</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">etables</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">210 m</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Crude oil imports which reached a peak of around 15 billion dollars in 2013-14 has come down drastically due to US sanctions on Venezuela and the bounty of less expensive Russian crude.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Main s</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">ources of crude oil imports: Mexico </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.8 billion dollars</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">, Brazil </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">1.9 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">, Colombia </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">1.8 bn, </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Ecuador </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">775</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">illion and Venezuela 123 m. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Venezuela used to be the major source of </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">oil </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">imports in the region for the last fifteen years. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">But the </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">US sanctions</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> have drastically cut down the </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Venezuelan supply from its peak of around 10 billion dollars</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> in 2013-14</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Gold import sourcing: Bolivia </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.54 bn,</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> Peru </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">1.79 b</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">illion dollars, </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Brazil 744 m, Colombia 675 m, Dom Republic 272 m, </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Argentina </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">254</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">, </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Mexico 1</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">63</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> m</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> and Ecuador 128 m. The imports are unrefined raw gold.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Latin America is the main source of soy oil imports of India. </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Argentina</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">, as usual,</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> was the </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">#1 global </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">supplier of </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">soy</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> oil with </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3.3</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> billion dollars, followed by Brazil </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2.4 bn</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chile, the main supplier of copper and other mineral concentrates from the region supplied 1.03 bn, followed by Peru 391 m, Panama 204 m and Brazil 141 m. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Main suppliers of wood from the region: Uruguay 177 m, Ecuador 103 m, Brazil 76 m, Argentina 53 m, Panama 49 m and Costa Rica 25 m. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India was the eighth largest destination for the global exports of Latin America. The region exported more to India than to Germany, UK, Italy and France.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Trade 202</span></b><b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">2</span></b><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">-2</span></b><b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">3</span></b></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">Figures in millions of US Dollars</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><div align="center"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Country</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">exports</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">imports</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Total trade</span></span></b></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Brazil</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">9920</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">6673</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">16593</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mexico</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5196</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">3868</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">9064</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Argentina</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">960</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">3929</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">4889</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Peru</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">866</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2251</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">3117</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Colombia</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1448</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2634</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">4082</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chile</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1166</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1436</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2602</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Venezuela</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">178</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">253</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">431</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bolivia</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">77</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2550</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2627</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ecuador</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">400</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1016</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1416</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dom Republic</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">330</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">360</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">690</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Panama</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">315</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">283</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">598</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Guatemala</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">465</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">21</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">486</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Uruguay</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">155</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">199</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">354</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Honduras</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">273</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">15</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">288</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Costa Rica</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">193</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">61</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">254</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Paraguay</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">156</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">20</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">176</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">El Salvador</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">127</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">129</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nicaragua</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">109</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">11</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">120</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Cuba</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">79</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">84</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Total </span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">22413</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">25587</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">48000</span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">T</span></b><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">rade from 2010-11 to 20</span></b><b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">22-23</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">The annual India-Latin America trade </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">in 2022-23 is the highest ever in Indo-Latin American trade.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">India’s exports had increased from 10.04 billion dollars in the beginning of the decade to 13.7 bn in 2014-15. But the Latin American recession and economic difficulties caused a dip in India’s exports in 2015-16. Since then the exports have increased steadily </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">and in 2021-22 spectacularly.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India’s imports reached a peak of 31.38 billion dollars in 2012-13 due to the high crude oil prices and large volume of India’s imports from Venezuela. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><div align="center"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Year</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">exports</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">imports</span></span></b></p></td><td style="border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-image: none; border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Total trade</span></span></b></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2022-23</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">22.41</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">25.59</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">48.00</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2021-22</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">18.89</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">25.62</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">44.50</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2020-21</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12.74</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">14.92</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">27.66</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2019-20</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">13.18</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">20.67</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">33.85</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2018-19</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">13.16</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">25.7</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">38.89</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2017-18</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12.1</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">24.4</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">36.45</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2016-17</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10.4</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">19.6</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">30</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2015-16</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">19.7</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">29.7</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2014-15</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">13.7</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">29.3</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">43</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2013-14</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12.77</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">31.31</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">44.08</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2012-13</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12.48</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">31.38</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">43.86</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2011-12</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">11.33</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">18.42</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">29.75</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">2010-11</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10.04</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">14.01</span></span></p></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">24.05</span></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext; border-image: none; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td><td style="border-color: currentcolor windowtext windowtext currentcolor; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Target - 50 billion dollars</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">Latin America</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> is a substantial market with </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">19</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">countrie</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">s</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">, population of 620 million and GDP of </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">6</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">t</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">rilion dollars</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> with a per capita income close to 10,000 dollars</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">. </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">The Indian exporters are still in the early stage of discovery and exploration in the last two decades. In 2022, Latin America’s total imports were 1.4 trillion dollars. The imports from India were just 1.6%. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India could set a target of 5<span style="color: #333333;">0 billion dollars in the next </span>five<span style="color: #333333;"> years. This is easily achievable if the Indian exporters, export promotion councils, industry bodies (such as CII and FICCI) and the government intensify their export promotion seriously and systematically</span> with adequate investment. It is good to see the emphasis on trade and business made by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar during his visit to the region last month. He has visited more countries in Latin America than any of his predecessors.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Latin America contributes to India’s energy and food security as well as minerals needed for “ Make in India”. The Lithium Triangle of South America can supply Lithium and other minerals such as Cobalt and Nickel for India’s ambitious Electrification of Vehicles Plan.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">T</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">he Latin Americans seek to reduce their overdependence on China with which there is </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">a huge</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;"> trust </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;">and trade </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.2;">deficit.</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"> As part of their diversification strategy, they attach importance to the benign, large and growing market of India. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India should open embassies in Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Uruguay which accounted for 1.33 billion dollars of exports. Opening of embassies in these seven countries can be done with a mere one percent of the total export earnings from these countries. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India should join as member of the Inter-American Development Bank to enable Indian companies to participate in the projects of the Bank. In recent years, Indian companies have started making entry in projects in the region in sectors such as power transmission and renewable energy. For example, Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd of Mumbai got a single EPC contract of 431 million dollars In Chile. More such contracts will be possible if India becomes member of the InterAmerican Bank.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: repeat white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The upcoming India-Latin America Business Conclave to be hosted by CII in August this year should be organized in scale to reflect the growing trade and the large potential for more. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 1.2;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-91662691417321628522023-05-31T18:19:00.042-07:002023-05-31T19:14:17.636-07:00 Chilean Neoliberalism: Born in Chicago and Buried in Santiago<p><span style="font-family: arial;">“The Chile Project: The story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism” is the title of a book just published in May this year. The author, Edwards Sebastian. has narrated the story of the genesis of neoliberalism in the academic world in Chicago, its imposition on Chile by the military dictatorship and its final burial in Santiago after the anti-neoliberal protests. He has given an objective analysis of the experiment, the events, the cost and consequences. </span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPHkITJ41dGCh7ai-9v-GtwvVh-J9flTru26eb4Ofc01ksDPdf6Vgn31N4oWRn-B1JCavLTEW3jM4l0mjmroHI5d0xZD-unWJpR_YAZfhhkmRqaA6wp7VMhiNvQQa5B0_HMfS70uE9FFSGxEwgnKt694mJpg_tMBglf2HFoq4y_pQRlg7doE/s500/chileproject.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPHkITJ41dGCh7ai-9v-GtwvVh-J9flTru26eb4Ofc01ksDPdf6Vgn31N4oWRn-B1JCavLTEW3jM4l0mjmroHI5d0xZD-unWJpR_YAZfhhkmRqaA6wp7VMhiNvQQa5B0_HMfS70uE9FFSGxEwgnKt694mJpg_tMBglf2HFoq4y_pQRlg7doE/s320/chileproject.jpeg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In November 1970, when Salvador Allende became the first Marxist politician to be freely elected as a head of state in any country, almost no one would have predicted that a few years later Chile would become the poster child for neoliberalism under a brutal dictator Pinochet. But after the restoration of democracy, the protestors assembled at Plaza de la Dignidad (Plaza of Dignity) in Santiago called for the end of the social injustice caused by the neoliberalism. The protests lead to the election of a leftist student union activist Gabriel Boric as president of Chile in Decemebr 2021. <span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">Boric declared, “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave.” </span>So the circle has been completed. Allende should be smiling in his grave.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chile used to be a relatively stable country politically and economically since its independence in 1810 for about 160 years. In November 1970, the Chileans created history in the world by electing Allende, a Marxist, as President in a proper democratic election. Allende had invited Fidel Castro, the icon of the Latin American Left, who spent a month in Chile in 1971. He had treasured an AK 47 gun gifted by Castro. Allende had certainly gone too far and asked for trouble by his blind idealism and provocation. He should have known that Chile was not ready for such an extreme leftist experiment at that time. The anti-communist America did not want this first democratic Marxist experiment to succeed in Latin America and set an example for others. So the Gringos set to work with their bagful of dirty tricks in collusion with the Chilean oligarchs who had much more to lose by Allende’s progressive programmes. They got the military to overthrew Allende by bombing the presidential palace. Allende used the AK 47 given by Castro to commit suicide. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pinochet brought in the Chicago Boys (students of the free market fundamentalism of Milton Friedman of the Chicago University) to build a fundamentalist capitalist state to protect, promote and perpetuate the interests of the oligarchy at the expense of the masses at large. At the heart of the Neoliberalism was the “subsidiarity principle” according to which the state should not be directly involved in the delivery of any services that could be provided efficiently and effectively by the market. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">CIA had financed the leading rightist daily newspaper El Mercurio whose owner was conspiring with the military and oligarchs. On September 15, 1970, barely ten days after the election of Salvador Allende, Agustín Edwards, the owner of El Mercurio met with President Richard Nixon, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Richard Helms to discuss the future of Chile. These meetings were followed by significant amounts of money transferred from the CIA to Edwards’s newspaper.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Church provided the platform for the Chicago Boys with its Catholic University. So it was not just a military coup. It was a consortium of the Chilean Oligarchs, Catholic Church, Economists and media on the one side and CIA, Chicago University and the State Department on the other side. It was a joint project planned and executed over a period of 35 years from 1955 to 1990. The Chilean business had colluded with the CIA to “make the Chilean economy scream”, after Allende came to power. The CIA had financed trade union strikes which paralysed the economy. It was an economic war before the airforce bombing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pinochet did not have to search or wait for Neoliberalists after coming to power. The US government had anticipated the need and had prepared and kept ready a group of neoliberal economists in the previous fifteen years. In 1955, during the peak of the Cold War, the US Department of State launched the “Chile Project”. The purpose was to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago, the bastion of capitalist thought of Milton Friedman. Once they returned to Chile, the young graduates were put to work to tout the principles of free markets in the increasingly ferocious war of ideas that raged in Latin America at that time. Their adversaries in these intellectual battles were leftist economists who believed that the only way to defeat poverty and backwardness was by increasing the role of the state through nationalization, planning, and socialism. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In June 1955, professors of the University of Chicago travelled to Chile and signed an agreement with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, commonly known as Católica) in April 1956. Under this, Chilean students arrived in Chicago to study economics and after graduation went back to Chile to be the evangelicals of neoliberalism. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In November 1970, when Allende took over as President, the Chicago Boys connected to the military and the business oligarchs and prepared a a blue print for turning the Chilean economy right. As planned, when Pinochet took over, he called the Chicago Boys, put them in positions of power and let them implement their neoliberalism. In March 1975. Milton Friedman travelled to Chile, met General Pinochet and spoke to industry groups and the military officers offering his vision of economic development. During the period of dictatorship of seventeen years, the Chicago Boys had a free hand to experiment on the Chilean economy. They privatized hundreds of state-owned enterprises, handed them over to the oligarchs close to the dictatorship, reduced the state’s role in education and healthcare and let the market have a free run.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When democracy was restored in 1990, the country looked very different from how it had looked in 1973, when President Allende was overthrown by the military. In less than two decades the Chicago Boys had created a modern capitalist economy with the highest per capita income in Latin America. Chile became a member of OECD and the country looked more like a southern European country, such as Portugal or Spain, than a Latin American nation. Chile was hailed as a ‘miracle’.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But ‘the miracle’ had an original sin: it was put in place by a bloody dictatorship, a regime that violated human rights and systematically and brutally persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and assassinated its opponents. It was precisely for this reason that most observers were surprised when after the return to democracy in 1990 the model put together by the Chicago Boys was not scrapped by the country’s new leaders, many of whom had been persecuted by Pinochet. Instead of undoing the free-market policies, successive left-of-center governments tried to reform incrementally. For one thing, the civilians were still afraid of the barracks and the oligarchs. Secondly they learnt from the mistake of Allende and decided not to do anything too fast or revolutionary. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But the masses were impatient and started protests against the high cost of education, transport and healthcare since 2011. They were also upset with the slow incremental loosening of neoliberalism by the leftist governments since 1990. The protests intensified and erupted violently in 2019. There were graffiti everywhere saying “ Neoliberalism was born and will die in Chile! No more Chicago Boys!”. The protests were not only about income inequality. It was also about social segregation, racism, and the way common people were treated by the elites. That’s why many of the protesters talked about “dignity” as a key goal. The protestors renamed the Plaza Baquedano, the main square in Santiago and the centre of protests as the Plaza de la Dignidad (Plaza of Dignity).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv0F6GmgczYu7KMX_QZKOxwih3jmD8qQr80E9JxUv2xhQToavawjFJ6njLPJ-mGY_aa859o60nMVzJNk41Spcf33aH32XVTlL_DQkuWCdFXQB0W4dJe2rFagV4lWK5mIoOQ6uvdhWuoWI84VfUOsKskV1XKahPalY_9LRXEI7qrI2zyWHCA-I/s512/chileprotest.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="512" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv0F6GmgczYu7KMX_QZKOxwih3jmD8qQr80E9JxUv2xhQToavawjFJ6njLPJ-mGY_aa859o60nMVzJNk41Spcf33aH32XVTlL_DQkuWCdFXQB0W4dJe2rFagV4lWK5mIoOQ6uvdhWuoWI84VfUOsKskV1XKahPalY_9LRXEI7qrI2zyWHCA-I/s320/chileprotest.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The right-wing president Sebastian Pinera agreed to the demand of the protestors to change the constitution. A new Constituent Assembly, elected in 2021 drafted a document which went overboard with idealistic aspirations and unrealistic goals with its anti-neoliberalistic draft constitution. . This was defeated in a referendum in September 2022. There is a new council now doing the drafting. But this consists mostly of rightists, in an ironic twist.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In December 19, 2021. Gabriel Boric, a thirty-five-year-old former student activist and a member of the leftist coalition Apruebo Dignidad (Approval and Dignity), was elected as president. <span style="background: repeat white; color: #333333;">Boric said, “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave.” Boric has pledged to reduce inequality by raising the minimum wage, reducing the cost of education and healthcare, expanding social safety net, fighting climate change and extending rights to native peoples.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sebastian Edwards, the author of the book, is a Chilean economist himself. He had studied at the University of Chile, where he was a student activist affiliated with Salvador Allende’s Partido Socialista de Chile (Socialist Party of Chile). After the coup, the economics department was closedbecause, according to the military, it was a “nest of communist rats.” All students were suspended, some were expelled, and a handful just disappeared into the torture chambers of the dictatorship. Edwards had emigrated to the United States and went to the University of Chicago where he had interacted with a number of Chicago Boys. He has personally interviewed a number of Chicago Boys for this book. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Edwards clarifies that that Neoliberalism is used loosely as a catch all term for partisan perspective, either praising or criticizing. According to him it is not just black and white. There are variations and nuances. He defines neoliberalism as a set of beliefs and policy recommendations that emphasize the use of market mechanisms to solve most of society’s problems and needs. He has described how the neoliberalism had evolved in Chile sometimes as pragmatic and other times as inclusive. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Edwards has made a point that a neoliberal economic revolution of the magnitude practised in Chile could not have been possible under a democratic regime. In 1982, Hayek, one of the fathers of neoliberalism, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher suggesting that the United Kingdom follow Chile’s path in implementing deep market-oriented reforms. The prime minister’s reply was polite but very clear in making a distinction between the United Kingdom and Chile: “I am sure you will agree that, in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">After reading the book, I saw a documentary which has live interviews of some of the Chicago Boys. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMNyFrH8jQ" style="color: #0563c1;" title="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMNyFrH8jQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMNyFrH8jQ</a>. Sergio da Costa, one of the main Chicago Boys who was the finance minister of Pinochet from 1976 to 82, says in an interview, “I do not know of anyone murdered or mistreated by the dictatorship”. He goes on to say “ it was alegria infinita” (immense joy) when he watched the bombing of the presidential palace during military coup. Costa has perhaps showed the true colour of the bloody neoliberalism in Chile.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is interesting that both the imposition of Neoliberalism and its ending have been done by the Chilean students themselves. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-40455503818791740422023-05-23T21:26:00.034-07:002023-05-23T22:10:23.008-07:00 “Muerte Cruzada (mutually assured death) in President vs Congress battle in Ecuador<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Ecuadorian Congress, dominated by leftist parties tried to impeach the centre-right President Guillermo Lasso last month on corruption charges. But the amount involved was insignificant and the alleged crime did not warrant impeachment. It was clearly a Congressional coup attempt to remove the president, democratically elected by millions of voters for a four year term from May 2021 to May 2025. The Congress wanted to get rid of him because they had the power to do so. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">It was an attempt to undermine the presidential mandate and abuse of power causing unnecessary political </span><span style="font-family: arial;">instability.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This was the second impeachment attempt of the Congress. They tried one earlier but could not manage the two third majority. But this time they got the numbers. Faced with this congressional threat, President Lasso resorted to "Muerte Cruzada" (mutual death) provision of the constitution and dissolved the Congress on 17 May, before they could pass the impeachment resolution. After this, he is obliged to leave the office at the end of six months and new elections are to be held within six months both for the presidency and the congress. The newly elected Congress and President will stay in office for the remaining period of the original mandate upto 2025 when the next regular elections are due. The elections are likely to be held on 20 August. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The popularity ratings of President Lasso, a centre-right businessman is very low, given the ongoing crime wave, economic problems and protests of indigenous communities. He had held a referendum earlier to push through some reforms. But the referendum was defeated and his party lost seats in the local elections. Lasso has announced that he would not stand for reelection. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8aic8cHlQVK7uBfJ5vLNt6Zl54D-fdM989jZOh0oyNO1OVqholoIOzAUcqyo_DKCVHafTqy_QPQzbE6qSCgbC5tduifBQq5_W79OeQtTiMb7wlB7ryH4Qo0Mr-4TvM_T9ZVi6WMPlEs7YlKimfqZhgMkHgpRYTTluok6VN6o3bRLCk9aX-I/s275/muerte%20cruzada.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8aic8cHlQVK7uBfJ5vLNt6Zl54D-fdM989jZOh0oyNO1OVqholoIOzAUcqyo_DKCVHafTqy_QPQzbE6qSCgbC5tduifBQq5_W79OeQtTiMb7wlB7ryH4Qo0Mr-4TvM_T9ZVi6WMPlEs7YlKimfqZhgMkHgpRYTTluok6VN6o3bRLCk9aX-I/s1600/muerte%20cruzada.jpeg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In recent years, the Ecuadorian Congress had tasted blood by impeaching two presidents. It had impeached President Abadalla Bucaram in 1997 for “mental incapacity” within six months after his assumption of office in August 1996. He was a colourful and loud leftist. But he did not commit any serious crime warranting impeachment. In 2005, the Congress had impeached President Lucio Gutierrez for “abandoning his position”. He had stayed in power for just two years.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Since 1979, when democracy was restored after military dictatorship, five presidents of Ecuador had their terms cut short. In view of this history, President Rafael Correa had got the constitution amended in 2008 with the new provision of Muerte Cruzada to empower the presidency against a hostile congress. President Lasso was the first one to exercise this power. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Some other Latin American countries have also witnessed unfair and unjustifiable impeachment of presidents by rogue congresses.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Paraguayan Congress impeached the leftist President Fernando Lugo in 2012 on a trivial charge when a few protestors were killed by police during a protest. It was a hurried <span style="color: #212529;">24-hour express impeachment. </span>The real reason for the removal of President Lugo was that the rightist oligarchic Colorado party which has been ruling Paraguay continuously for the last seven decades wanted to nip in the bud emerging Leftists seeking social justice with pro-poor policies. Lugo was the first and last leftist president in the last seventy years of one party dictatorship. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Brazilian President Dilma was impeached unjustly because she refused to bail out Eduardo Cunha the president of the Lower House who was caught red-handed with several million dollars of illegal deposits in a Swiss bank account. She thought she had the moral right to let him face the law while the crooked Cunha had exercised his right to gang up his corrupt Congressional colleagues to pass the impeachment resolution. Rouseff was naïve and arrogant and refused to follow the established system of presidential deals with congressional leaders. Cunha was later convicted and jailed for corruption. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Pedro Castillo, the Leftist President of Peru was removed from power in December 2022 by the rightist Congress when he had just completed 18 months of his four year term. The rightwing Congress was gunning for him from day one. Frustrated by the machinations of the Congress, he made an amateurish and feeble attempt to dissolve the Congress. But the Congress was faster and removed him from power before he could dissolve it. He has been imprisoned for his constitutional crime of attempt to dissolve the Congress. Poor Castillo was naïve and did not have the skills to deal with the corrupt and crooked law makers. He was played and trapped into a wrong decision and punished. He was a mere victim of the Congressional coup. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: repeat white; color: #4d5156;">Before Castillo, three other Peruvian presidents have been impeached: Billinghurst, Fujimori and Vizcarra. Of course, the authoritarian and abusive Fujimori was the most suitable candidate for impeachment The Congress had many other unsuccessful impeachment attempts against other presidents.. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In the presidential system of the Latin American countries, Congress becomes the biggest challenge for presidents who do not have their own party with majority in Congress. With the fragmentation of political parties in the region, very few Presidents have their own parties in majority in the Congress. In such cases, the Congressional members start blackmail and extortion from day one. They threaten impeachment and refuse to pass bills unless they are given back room deals. So most presidents make deals with influential Congress members and let them indulge in corruption. In the notorious Petrobras corruption scandal, it was revealed that all the major political parties and leaders had got their share of the loot, besides the ruling Workers Party of Lula. In fact, President Lula had introduced during his first term “under-the table monthly payment” to Congressional members to get their agreement to pass legislation needed for the country. This was called as the Mensalao scandal. But when this became a public scandal, Lula managed to come out of it with more bribing of the Congress.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Brazilian Congress should have impeached President Bolsonaro who had committed serious crimes by subverting democracy and causing thousands of deaths by not taking action during the Covid crisis. He mocked and imposed obstacles against vaccination. But the Congress loved him because he gave them a free pass for corruption. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">"Muerte Cruzada” could be a solution to other Latin American countries where presidents had become victims of the rogue congresses abusing their power for impeachment. It will deter the impeachment-trigger-happy Congresses from undermining democracy by unjust impeachment of duly elected presidents. It will bring back the balance between president and the congress, prevent political instability and strengthen democracy.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-84873261216273968672023-05-12T19:51:00.096-07:002023-05-12T21:09:16.443-07:00"Optic Nerve", an art novel by Argentine writer Maria Gainza<div><span style="font-family: arial;">Argentine writer Maria Gainza in her novel “Optic Nerve” offers a kind of art lesson and appreciation for the readers. The protagonist is an art connoisseur, critic and guide. She frequents the art galleries and shares her feelings from seeing the paintings and art works of Argentine, European, Japanese and American artists. She weaves narratives connecting the beauty of the art with its power over emotions.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYTZf2AE0jC2jppxM1jXF5TTCUkBUx7fxAUZ8Bt6zWr7qIwW-HcpWVi0G8BVwpuDXPB4gGt41WJWjAsdysF03q-GXnCXqEsgZe_c8A8PntpAOCTvpwZg_yVvO9btScN1sRRzsImdOkkVWSjOsNTEZUDS9WRaXvqxKch6_2CgxDI2uJzn4-6c/s346/opticnerve.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="217" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYTZf2AE0jC2jppxM1jXF5TTCUkBUx7fxAUZ8Bt6zWr7qIwW-HcpWVi0G8BVwpuDXPB4gGt41WJWjAsdysF03q-GXnCXqEsgZe_c8A8PntpAOCTvpwZg_yVvO9btScN1sRRzsImdOkkVWSjOsNTEZUDS9WRaXvqxKch6_2CgxDI2uJzn4-6c/s320/opticnerve.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Gainza has filled the novel with real life stories of many artists and their adventures and eccentricities. She narrates the story of Argentine artist Candido Lopez who paints bloody scenes of the Triple Alliance War (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay against Paraguay in the 1860s resulting in the killing of two thirds of the Paraguayan males) after he loses his right hand while fighting in the war himself. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">According to Gainza, “all of art rests in the gap between that which is aesthetically pleasing and that which truly captivates you”. Besides the artistic protagonist, Gainzo has created some fascinating characters who are colourful, funny and intriguing. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Gainza explores the impact of art on life through her own experience and the way it is felt by other characters in the novel. Here are a few examples of the emotions evoked by some paintings:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">How does it feel seeing a painting of Courbet? One is being gripped by the urge to go running off down the streets, to incite the people, to have sex, or to eat an apple. The viewer is sent into a pictorial fever. Pictures which saturate the senses. When you stand before his painting “The Stormy Sea”, art disappears and something else rushes in: life, in all its tempestuousness. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Alfred Dreux’s works pulses with atavistic symbolism: the struggle between good and evil, light and dark.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The works of Hubert Robert are like a premonition: a painter seeing what’s on the horizon and transferring it to the canvas in loose, open-ended brushstrokes.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Rothko’s works give “a sense of work that seeps into you bodily, not so much through your eyes as like a fire at stomach level. At points it even seems to me that Rothko creates not so much works of art as smouldering, endless blocks of fire; akin to the burning bush from Exodus. Something inexhaustible”. Gainza goes on to say, “often the most powerful aspect of any work of art is its silence, and that – as they say – style is a medium in itself, its own means of emphasis. Perhaps there is something spiritual in the experience of looking at a Rothko, but it’s the kind of spiritual that resists description: like seeing a glacier, or crossing a desert. Rarely do the inadequacies of language become so patently obvious. you might reach for something meaningful to say, only to end up talking nonsense. Standing before a Rothko, All you really want to say is ‘fuck me’.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Forget about standing before The Dream, one of Rousseau’s great works in MoMA which is capable of making the earth move. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto in Monterchi, Italy would apparently cause a German governess to emote. </span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">El Greco creates a struggle with oneself. As teenagers, we fall for him. As we become more informed and cynical, El Greco's unwavering dogmatism and his sensuality exasperates us. We have difficulty accepting their coexistence in a single image; the mutual exclusivity of flesh and spirit has been drummed into us by now.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Gainza has enriched the novel with interesting quotes of a number of writers, poets and artists. She quotes T.S. Elliot, " The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind that creates"<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">It is interesting to know that the translation of this novel from Spanish to English (by Thomas Bunstead) has been done with the support of the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Gainza, like most Argentine novelists, goes deep in analysing the psychology of human beings intricately and intellectually. It is a typical characteristic of Argentine writers as well as the Argentine public in general. Every Argentine is a psychiatrist by nature and economist because of the periodic cycle of economic crisis. Argentines are the most well-read in Latin America. After reading, they sit in cafes for hours reflecting over what they have read and debating fiercely and loudly with others. Argentines have solutions to all the problems of the world, except to their own dear Argentina.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">When the protagonist sees painting of a girl who looks like herself, she feels like throwing her arms around the picture. She then asks herself, " Isn't all artwork a mirror? Might a great painting not even reformulate the question 'what is it about to what I am about'? Isn't theory also in some sense always autobiography?<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The heroine in the book goes to teach Spanish to a Japanese woman living in the twentieth floor of a building overlooking the Hippodrome (race course) in Avenida del Libertador in Palermo area of Buenos Aires city.. Hmm.. I stayed in the 40<sup>th</sup> floor of the same building for four years and watched races through the front windows and polo matches from the windows on the right side. The wandering of the protagonist in the elegant parks and avenues of the city and her frequenting of the famous bars, cafes and restaurants made me feel nostalgic for Buenos Aires, the best city in Latin America.</span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-77761144011378939822023-05-02T05:35:00.027-07:002023-05-02T08:43:54.119-07:00 Conservative Colorado party comes back to power in the elections in Paraguay<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the elections held on Sunday, Santiago Pena of the ruling Colorado party got elected as president of Paraguay with 43% votes. The opposition party candidates Efrain Alegre got 27% and Paraguay Cubas got 23%. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The elections were peaceful and the results were accepted by the losers promptly unlike what happened in US or Brazil. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Pena, relatively young at 44, was finance minister from 2013 to 2018 when his mentor Horacio Cartes was President. He was a member of the board of the Central Bank of Paraguay. He was also in the board of a bank owned by Cartes who is the current chairman of the Colorado party. He had taught economics in a university in Paraguay and had worked in IMF. He went to Columbia University, New York for his post graduation.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcy3_gVafmPGvXrk0FhnYQ7q3Na8j0c2NncUAEcTbuRwtCCNRu160RaskeQGJ-hei4tJz75KoOffSBPtsFjQ7xmmL67CPRxlLK4OL7Rxl2GQn__4zr2CkonGWXaE3ew8Twg6sOwjJ7BVAqlpCz7Mzvi5-7O3Zc0sWj8mC3aQfgZl5fYDqoFsI/s1200/paraguayelection.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcy3_gVafmPGvXrk0FhnYQ7q3Na8j0c2NncUAEcTbuRwtCCNRu160RaskeQGJ-hei4tJz75KoOffSBPtsFjQ7xmmL67CPRxlLK4OL7Rxl2GQn__4zr2CkonGWXaE3ew8Twg6sOwjJ7BVAqlpCz7Mzvi5-7O3Zc0sWj8mC3aQfgZl5fYDqoFsI/s320/paraguayelection.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Pena’s Colorado party has got majority in the senate with 23 out of 45 seats and in the lower house as well with 47 out of 80. The party has also won 15 of the 17 governorship of the provinces. This means that President Pena will rule comfortably for the next five years without any fear of impeachment by opposition parties in the Congress, as has happened in some Latin American countries including in Paraguay. President Fernando Lugo, the leftist president was impeached by the Congress dominated by Colorados in 2012 on a flimsy charge. He was the first and last outsider to be elected in 2008 as president of Paraguay which has been ruled by the Colorado party for the last seven decades. The Colorado party is a rightist conservative party of the oligarchs which has perpetuated inequality in the society. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Paraguay, with a population of 6.7 million, is relatively a poor backward country. Its economy is stable with a vibrant agribusiness sector. It has surplus electricity from the Itaipu dam jointly owned with Brazil. It exports electricity to Brazil.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The victory of the ruling Colorado party stands out against the recent trend of anti-incumbency results in Latin America. The right-wing Colorado party’s win also goes against the regional trend of election of Leftists to presidencies of many countries in the region. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The United States had publicly accused Cartes as corrupt and banned entry for him and his family into USA. The accusations include money laundering and links to Hezbolla terrorist organization. Although this had come in handy for the opposition campaign, it did not make any difference to the voters who are used to the corrupt political system of the country. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Paraguay is the only South American country which continues to recognize Taiwan. The opposition candidate Alegre had promised to change recognition from Taiwan to China. In early April, the outgoing president had inaugurated a Taiwan-financed road project for 24 million dollars. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Paraguay is a member of the regional group Mercosur whose members include Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. India has signed PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement) with Mercosur. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Last year, India’s exports to Paraguay were 211 million dollars and imports 16 million. The trade will go up in the coming years with the recent opening of Indian embassy in Paraguay. <br /></span><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-54568739029330101662023-03-11T22:37:00.060-08:002023-03-13T21:41:57.841-07:00 Latin America Study Centre in the University of Kerala<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Last week I was invited to give a series of lectures on Latin American politics, markets, culture and Indo-Latin American relations at the Centre for Latin American Studies, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The brain behind the Centre for Latin America Studies is Mr Balagopal who is the current Finance Minister of Kerala. He was the one who persuaded the University of Kerala to open the Centre. When he was member of the Rajya Sabha, he had donated his MP fund for building a hall for the Centre in 2015. As Finance Minister now, he has allocated 2 crores of Rupees to the Centre. During my meeting on Friday, he expressed his interest in promotion of relations with Latin America.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEike9XgsLcMZsi3cBRz4B7AeUDLKdPf4ewVlbdkhb8SAudfpwYL4b_VIcgSKfLL-G_NWVfG9ZLcPHOGCo4ioa8vx-C9q-3EfCdt4nsctaVr4n2udG63EfrshuTQkIXuJwK22D3WEvoG1hfknH5Ep1s-RSlngk92v1KKnzb_iq4XHzMF16Z0LU8/s1200/ministerbalagopal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="987" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEike9XgsLcMZsi3cBRz4B7AeUDLKdPf4ewVlbdkhb8SAudfpwYL4b_VIcgSKfLL-G_NWVfG9ZLcPHOGCo4ioa8vx-C9q-3EfCdt4nsctaVr4n2udG63EfrshuTQkIXuJwK22D3WEvoG1hfknH5Ep1s-RSlngk92v1KKnzb_iq4XHzMF16Z0LU8/s320/ministerbalagopal.jpg" width="263" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Mr Balagopal has visited Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba when he was an MP. He has fond memories of the visit. As a Marxist, he is, of course, fascinated by the Pink Tide in Latin America. <br /><br />Prof Girish Kumar, the first Director of the Centre, is enthusiastic about Latin America. He is in the process of working out strategies for research, student and faculty exchanges and seminars. There are already some PhD students doing research on Latin America. Soon, the Centre will offer Spanish language courses. The Centre offers grants for translations from Malayalam to Spanish and vice versa. The Centre proposes to hold a Latin America Fiesta with seminars, cultural programs, film festival among other events.<br /><br />Kerala is an apt place for the Latin America Study Centre. The Malayalees have have a Triple M connection to Latin America: Marquez, Marx and Messi. <br /><br />The book "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia was a bestseller in the state some years back <span style="background-color: white;">and had fifteen editions in Malayalam</span>. <span style="background-color: white;">Latin American authors are familiar to Keralite readers thanks to prolific translations. Marquez is a household name in the state. When he was diagnosed with cancer, about 200 people in Kozhikode had held a prayer meeting. </span><span style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> When Marquez died, the Keralite media paid homage saying," Marquez leaves an indelible mark in Malayalee hearts". </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">Some even claim that "Magical Realism was</span><span style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> invented by O V Vijayan in ‘Khasakkinte Itihasam’, much before Garcia Marquez had published a word". Khasak in Vijyan's novel is similar to the mythical place Macondo in Marquez's works. </span><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Latin America is my favorite destination for travel", says Dr Natarajan Pillai, the ENT surgeon from Kochi, who has made six trips to the region.</span> <span style="background-color: white;">Dr Pillai has been to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. He has spent a tot</span><span>al of around 130 days in the<span style="background-color: white;"> region. He has plans to visit the remaining eight Latin Americans in the future. He has written three books in Malayalam on his Latin American journeys: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #4b4f56;">1. Dakshinaayana Kaalam ( Southward Bound ') - about his trip to Sao Paulo and Santos in Brazil. Published in December 2010. </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #4b4f56;">2 Samkrama sooryante Nizhal (The shadow of Transiting Sun), March 2012. It </span><span>covers Rio and Foz de Iguazu in Brazil besides Ciudad del Este and a Guarani village in Paraguay<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #4b4f56;">3.Ven Samkholikalude Pranaya Theeram ( echoes from the white conch in the shore of love) - about his journey through Chile and his 'love affair with poems of Pablo Neruda and Hispanic literature'. Published in July 2014, this book got him the ' KV Surendranath ' Award of Achutha Menon Foundation for the Best Travelogue.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #4b4f56;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeIWNUENrku4g8OlqscaydBLgFtGt5f5yAb4Mucna3KmCv1aYmAFGS5QIpAnRhZWNFoTfo8rx3F-hDAe3rPrdDKLfyW0NLL03Q4__Wy8kgJcGSbrKynKaURcSNRc9bR3u_rf61VYSHBJ3Q0ia8VLF8HGUv8GKa-QC51WyGnJOKubpAZS9wKg/s1600/natarajan.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeIWNUENrku4g8OlqscaydBLgFtGt5f5yAb4Mucna3KmCv1aYmAFGS5QIpAnRhZWNFoTfo8rx3F-hDAe3rPrdDKLfyW0NLL03Q4__Wy8kgJcGSbrKynKaURcSNRc9bR3u_rf61VYSHBJ3Q0ia8VLF8HGUv8GKa-QC51WyGnJOKubpAZS9wKg/s320/natarajan.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #4b4f56;">During football World Cups, Keralites are divided in their rivalry for support to Argentina or Brazil. F</span><span>lags of Brazil and Argentina and posters and banners of Messi and Neymar go up on roadsides and rooftops. There are quite a few Latin Americans who play for the Keralite football teams.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrGQqE_fCQpv21Bo4xwpJELzpmsCV7kF8VSC7xvDYOi_-zyuWaDpDy9D3y77W2Jc2ED7g6z16NOrnFYAOK3MVdFhj1jJds8t7U96niRvfqCHMjF2qsNFF6YgTvKpHqSNhX-saNfRD4kOK3NB8AMCE7h-D2t8WsE9La2kY_IXIycx-B4jrQrw/s2048/messi.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2048" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrGQqE_fCQpv21Bo4xwpJELzpmsCV7kF8VSC7xvDYOi_-zyuWaDpDy9D3y77W2Jc2ED7g6z16NOrnFYAOK3MVdFhj1jJds8t7U96niRvfqCHMjF2qsNFF6YgTvKpHqSNhX-saNfRD4kOK3NB8AMCE7h-D2t8WsE9La2kY_IXIycx-B4jrQrw/s320/messi.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span>Maradona had visited Kerala in 2012 at the invitation of Bobby Chemmanur Group of Kannur which had made him as their brand ambassador. The Chemmanur Jewellery </span><span style="color: #222222;">released a gold coin with Maradona’s picture on one side and his signature on the other. </span><span>The </span><span style="color: #262626;">suite number 399 of Hotel Blue Nile in Kannur, where Mardaona had stayed, has become so famous that the management has converted it into a museum. </span><span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">The CPI(M) puts up posters of Fidel Castro, Che Guavara and Chavez in their party conferences. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yy2rSW5RggDwqVyMhB-2xhZj-1X4C2IEcSjQIFk6E2HwaP8Oi3__BKDhFnViMxKBtcUjxvb5FtL0XX-jFEYoUmMvtwFB56BVDVNaI7C10tnLOocWR-pEUtQvfDxuprmrVCLs0H9wWVInHFcvdEo7g0vUU8lZINtodkqAo3hCd8bxRgFHQnA/s1136/marxistposter.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1136" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yy2rSW5RggDwqVyMhB-2xhZj-1X4C2IEcSjQIFk6E2HwaP8Oi3__BKDhFnViMxKBtcUjxvb5FtL0XX-jFEYoUmMvtwFB56BVDVNaI7C10tnLOocWR-pEUtQvfDxuprmrVCLs0H9wWVInHFcvdEo7g0vUU8lZINtodkqAo3hCd8bxRgFHQnA/s320/marxistposter.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">The party members keep track of developments in Cuba and Venezuela. They cheer the Left which has come back to power in the leading countries of Latin America.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56;">Despite the political, literary and sporting connections, Malayalees have not ventured out to settle in the region except for about a hundred catholic priests settled in the region. They connect the Latin Americans to Jesus in fluent Portuguese and Spanish across the region. There are a few professionals married to Latinas and settled there. The most prominent is Mathew Kodath, who has become a leading producer of Honduran films. He has married a Honduran and settled there. I liked his film "Amor y frijoles"( love and beans).</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>Cardamom, exported from Kerala, has a competition in global markets with the Guatemalan cardamom. Guatemala, which got the plant from Kerala in the early twentieth century, now exports more cardamom than India.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>Rubber had come to Kerala from Brazil. Recently, a Keralite company exported natural rubber to Brazil. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>UST, a prominent IT company from Thiruvananthapuram, has operations in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Some years back UST had brought ex-Mexican president Vincent Fox on a trip to India. He was helping the company to enter and expand in Mexico.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>Muthoot Finance group from Kerala has invested in a beach resort in Costa Rica.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>Ayurveda is becoming popular in Latin America. A number of Latin Americans visit Kerala for Ayurvedic treatments. The Latin American doctors who practice Ayurveda are keen to have exchange programmes for training.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>A former Venezuelan ambassador Walter Marquez is among the many Latin American followers of "Amma" from Kerala.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span>Given these already existing connections and the intellectual interest of Keralites in Latin America, the Centre for Latin America Studies can do much useful work.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p>There are over sixty Latin America Study Centers in China which does ten times more trade with the region. China remains an influential and important partner and presence across the region. The Thiruvananthapuram Latin America Centre is the only one in India. </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p></span>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-8173580847712215682023-03-05T20:07:00.049-08:002023-03-05T20:49:36.630-08:00 External dimensions of Peruvian political crisis<div><span style="font-family: arial;">Mexican President Lopez Obrador has refused to recognize the government of the Peruvian interim president Dina Boluarte. He calls the new government as unconstitutional and Boluarte as a puppet of the oligarchs which plunder the country’s natural resources. He has criticized the imprisonment of ex-president Pedro Castillo as a farce and injustice. He has given asylum to the family of Castillo. He has confirmed that he would continue to support Castillo who was “unjustly and illegally removed from office” in December. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The strong language of Obrador is surprising. He never used such words against Trump who threatened American democracy and disparaged Mexican immigrants.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Boluarte has reacted understandably accusing Obrador of interfering in the internal affairs of Peru. She has withdrawn Peru’s ambassador to Mexico and has declared Mexican ambassador in Lima as persona non grata.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2ugU_xpP6PG8v-PbtMOnM8CVsE9BfeaEGroTGWo00isbEFin98C72wkUXRZ_rBGtVu-rhunllbg8le2majv_A_t0yc4cuCOjOrfKQNcdBQq_9c9XlQeiGuyALZiER6ueyyOrEzCNCcpyVxjz49F4i7mMl1HUX_yRY34TE-K6qYYOObwE7HY/s300/peruexternal.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2ugU_xpP6PG8v-PbtMOnM8CVsE9BfeaEGroTGWo00isbEFin98C72wkUXRZ_rBGtVu-rhunllbg8le2majv_A_t0yc4cuCOjOrfKQNcdBQq_9c9XlQeiGuyALZiER6ueyyOrEzCNCcpyVxjz49F4i7mMl1HUX_yRY34TE-K6qYYOObwE7HY/s1600/peruexternal.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">President Obrador has refused to pass on the presidency of Pacific Alliance to Peru. He says he will let the Rio Group to decide on the matter. When President Castillo was to travel to Mexico to take over the presidency of Pacific Alliance, the Peruvian Congress refused to permit the travel of Castillo. Yes..in some countries of Latin America, the president needs the approval of the Congress for foreign travel. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Colombian and Argentine governments have also been critical of the removal of President Castillo. Bolivia’s ex-president Evo Morales has expressed solidarity with Castillo and has refused to recognize Boluarte government. In response, the Peruvian authorities have banned the entry of Morales into Peru.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">President Lula, the iconic leader of the Latin American left has taken a moderate and neutral position. He is conscious of the similarity of the removal of President Dilma Rouseff by the Brazilian Congress through a constitutional coup. Gabriel Boric, the fresh face of the Latino Left has followed Lula’s lead in neutrality. They are unable to defend Castillo who made the unpardonable mistake of proclamations to dissolve Congress and Judiciary. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I believe that Castillo was wrongly advised, mislead and trapped into political suicide by others. Castillo is not a typical caudillo like Fujimori or Bolsonaro to pull off a coup. He did not have the competence, courage or network to do a coup. He did not make proper plans for a coup by lining up support from military or political parties or leaders. With his background as a school teacher from a remote rural area he had no understanding of the power brokers of Lima. He was simply naïve and clueless.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The US is having fun watching the removal of a leftist president in Latin America which has seen a resurgence of the Left. For the first time in the history of the region, all the six major countries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile) are ruled by leftist presidents. Theoretically even Peru is in this list since President Dina Boluarte belongs to the same leftist party of Castillo. But she has made a deal with the rightists in the Congress for her own survival.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The only consolation is that there is no existential threat to Peruvian democracy as there was in Brazil from Bolsonaro and in USA by Trump. There is no dangerous political extremism in Peru as we see even now in Brazil and US. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">In any case, it is an internal matter of Peru which needs to be resolved by its Congress and the President of the country. There have been widespread protests calling for early elections and constitutional reforms. But the Congress is not in a hurry for elections or reforms. They hope that the protestors will get exhausted after some time. So the stalemate will continue through this year and hopefully there might be elections next year. Meanwhile President Boluarte will continue to struggle on three fronts: the protestors, the Congress and the external pressure from Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Bolivia had undergone a similar crisis when the leftist president Evo Morales was overthrown in a coup in 2019 and was replaced by a rightist government. Evo Morales had invited the trouble for himself by his own hubris when he tried to hang on to power beyond the constitutional limit of two-term mandates. Mexican President Obrador gave him asylum and helped him. In the elections held in 2020 Luis Arce, the candidate of Morales' party MAS was elected as president. The country has regained its political stability under the pragmatic rule of President Arce. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-50312103622046318732022-12-11T19:14:00.014-08:002022-12-11T19:32:29.674-08:00India from Latin America: Peripherisation, State Building and Demand-led growth- book by Manuel Gonzalo <div><span style="font-family: arial;">Latin America and India have been emerging as significant trade, investment and political partners to each other since the beginning of the new century. The old assumption that these two are marginal to each other because of distance and other barriers is no longer valid. India exports more to the distant Guatemala than to the nearby Cambodia. Brazil takes more exports from India than Thailand or Japan. Latin America is the destination for one third of India’s global exports of vehicles. Mexico is the second largest market for India’s car exports while Colombia is the # 2 destination for motorcycle exports. India’s trade with Latin America was 45 billion dollars in 2021-22 and is poised to reach 100 billion in the next five years. India was the third largest market for Latin America’s exports in 2014 and was the seventh in 2021. A Mexican company Cinepolis is the fourth largest operator of multiplexes in India and another Mexican firm Grupo Bimbo is one of the top bread makers in India. UPL, the largest Indian agrochemical company does more business in Latin America than in India. Latin America and India have many common development challenges and aspirations. The two sides work together on many global issues of interest to each other.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimooEomxmllBAXLfL9h5Ubo0lp0s7PsXXT2mIMX-QfcmzWuj4eg8SkDjQ7rZGPKpy-JLj0Aj_ZHPT13fhnOuqkuzsBdd6Bh81T1TrwvQfSgyV33DobmMIsjAanSpXlyCNEejOyy6ZxyS--QrvnufDuRnhrHAQSYA4mNLBy9yNHTCo6Gm313b8/s499/manuelo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimooEomxmllBAXLfL9h5Ubo0lp0s7PsXXT2mIMX-QfcmzWuj4eg8SkDjQ7rZGPKpy-JLj0Aj_ZHPT13fhnOuqkuzsBdd6Bh81T1TrwvQfSgyV33DobmMIsjAanSpXlyCNEejOyy6ZxyS--QrvnufDuRnhrHAQSYA4mNLBy9yNHTCo6Gm313b8/s320/manuelo.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But the Indians and Latin Americans have been getting information and opinion about each other through western channels such as CNN, BBC, New York Times and Financial Times as well as through books and article of western authors who give biased and condenscending picture. There is need for direct study and exchange of opinions about each other. It is in this context, I welcome the book “ India from Latin America: Peripherisation, State Building and Demand-led growth” by Manuel Gonzalo, the Argentine author and Professor of Development Economics. Gonzalo gives a Latin American perspective of the history of India’s economic development. This is the first academic work of its kind. Gonzalo has seen India with his own eyes and read Indian books. He has direct experience of having lived in India and working with Indian scholars. He was visiting researcher at the Center for Development Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kerala. Gonzalo’s book has a Foreword from Dr. K.J. Joseph Director, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation and President of Globelics, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Gonzalo’s view of India is shaped largely based on the Latin American Structuralist theory of a fellow Argentine economist Raul Prebisch, who was also known for the Dependence Theory of the 1950s. Gonzalo has looked at India from three angles: Peripherisation, State Building and Demand-led growth. He has narrated the development path of India comprehensively with extensive research and detailed data. He has placed the economic development within the context of historical, political and social history as well as the foreign policy of India.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Peripherisation<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Centre-Periphery divide is the essence of the Latin American Structuralist theory with focus on the consequences of the external sector constraints: the relevance of terms of trade, the structural inflation dynamic and “import” inflation and the challenge of achieving industrial competitiveness. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">India was the second-most important manufacturer with 25% share of global manufacturing and the main textile producer of the world. The British reduced India into a periphery during the colonisation. But since independence, India is moving steadily back to the centre with increasing emphasis on manufacturing. On the other hand, Latin America has been turned peripheral since its independence by a process of forced peripherisation. India’s per capita endowment of natural resources is extremely low unlike Latin America which has pursued an export-led model of growth<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">During colonization, the European powers had structured the global trade network determining the peripheral role of the Southern Hemisphere in line with their financial and trade needs. They inserted Latin America into their global trade network as a mineral exporter. These minerals went first to Europe but were then re-oriented in the form of bullion to Asia, to pay for the Chinese tea and porcelain and the Indian textiles. it was silver from the Americas that greatly contributed to the making of Asian trade. The Spanish conquest had made silver cheaper in Europe than in Asia. These events, together with the almost inexhaustible demand for silver from India, made it possible to continue the purchases of Asian goods until the mid-eighteenth century. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">State Building<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The second part of the book analyses the emergence of the Indian state and the Indian National System of Innovation. These are divided into three phases: Nehruvian phase, Indira Gandhi’s phase and the third by her son, Rajiv Gandhi. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The author has highlighted the direct interest taken by Nehru in science and innovation. Nehru had created the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs in 1948 and took on the portfolio himself. The building of Science and Technology infrastructure with new universities, science agencies and national laboratories came under the control of this ministry. Nehru had used his annual full-day attendance at the Indian Science Congress every year to strengthen his association with the scientific community. Some of the main science agencies created and expanded were the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with a network of 38 national laboratories in physical, biological, mechanical, and chemical sciences; the Department of Atomic Energy; the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Gonzalo says, quoting some experts, that such large number of institutions for science and technology had no rival in the third world and even among several developed countries. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Demand-led growth<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The third part deals with the period since liberalization of 1991. The author has done a scholarly analysis of the different dimensions of India’s higher growth based on consumption, global capital inflows and government and private investment in infrastructure factors. He has also highlighted the revolution in the IT and Telecom sectors and their contribution the economy. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">More India-Latin America studies<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Gonzalo’s book is an eye-opener for Latin American policy makers and academics to see India based on their own experience and perspectives. It would be good if it gets translated into Spanish and Portuguese to reach out to a larger audience. I hope this book would inspire more Indian books on Latin America and vice versa. India and Latin America, faced with many common developmental problems have much to exchange experience and learn from each other. For example, India could learn from Brazil’s success with the use of sugar cane ethanol as fuel and the country’s iconic firm Embraer which has become the third largest passenger aircraft manufacturer in the world. Latin America could get inspiration from India’s space research and IT success. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Global South<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Gonzalo hopes that his book will help not only to a better understanding of India by Latin Americans but will also contribute towards the development of a common economics development research agenda oriented to the Global South. The Ukraine crisis has highlighted the need for a louder neutral voice of the Global South in these days of repolarisation of the world by US, Europe, China and Russia. The election of Lula in Brazil and India’s G-20 presidency are timely for the Global South to advance its own agenda.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The book is available from Amazon, India.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also from the publisher </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.routledge.com/India-from-Latin-America-Peripherization-Statebuilding-and-Demand-Led/Gonzalo/p/book/9780367542023">https://www.routledge.com/India-from-Latin-America-Peripherization-Statebuilding-and-Demand-Led/Gonzalo/p/book/9780367542023</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-70012342561750365132022-12-07T18:40:00.177-08:002022-12-07T21:14:09.974-08:00Peruvian Congress impeaches President Pedro Castillo <div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Peruvian Congress has impeached President Pedro Castillo and made his vice president Dina Boluarte as the new president. Castillo had tried to dissolve the Congress in a desperate and unconstitutional bid after the Congress made a third attempt to impeach him. H</span><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-size: var(--ds-type-scale-2); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">e</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141414; font-family: ReithSans, Helvetica, Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141414; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">declared a state of emergency and announced </span></span><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-size: var(--ds-type-scale-2); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: arial;">that he would close Congress, convene a new one with powers to write a new constitution, and reorganise the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office. But the </span></span><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: arial; font-size: var(--ds-type-scale-2); orphans: 2; widows: 2;">Congress convened a quick emergency session and voted by 101 votes to six, with ten abstentions, to dismiss him. Thereafter he was arrested. </span><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: arial; font-size: var(--ds-type-scale-2); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br />This is not a surprise. The Congress, dominated by the centre-right party of Keiko Fujimori, has been threatening impeachment since the beginning of the term of President Castillo in July 2021. The Congress had earlier made two impeachment attempts but did not get enough votes. It has been relentless in obstructing the functioning of President Castillo. They vetoed even his foreign travels in recent months. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Since Keiko Fujimori has been narrowly beaten three times in the past presidential elections, her party in the Congress keeps giving hell to the elected presidents. According to analysts, it was the anti-Keiko Fujimori sentiment which made people vote for Castillo, who was a new comer to politics. She is still identified and stigmatized with the authoritarian and abusive rule of her father Alberto Fujimori.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Castillo is a political outsider and is naïve. He was a school teacher and came from a rural poor family. He lead a teachers’ strike and that’s how he came to national attention. Castillo did not have the personal political skills nor party strength to survive the treacherous Congressional politics of Lima. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xFEDTJvZnhQDVYlCoCrJNcBqYZ_eYbh4HC0d5ckX5w-hLBuw7bHZqRNnvTwRnglDe2uolUa5G46IPau07ZwYvkKTboYfivlLR8dr9dlPycLuoqWLLt4njZrvcESg7h_4DLLIDxGMQygxY6y9u3k0ElqwOSSpDiPT_PaKSiAXGEHSfFRZyfQ/s2560/pedro%20castillo.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xFEDTJvZnhQDVYlCoCrJNcBqYZ_eYbh4HC0d5ckX5w-hLBuw7bHZqRNnvTwRnglDe2uolUa5G46IPau07ZwYvkKTboYfivlLR8dr9dlPycLuoqWLLt4njZrvcESg7h_4DLLIDxGMQygxY6y9u3k0ElqwOSSpDiPT_PaKSiAXGEHSfFRZyfQ/s320/pedro%20castillo.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Castillo promised to give priority to rural development and address the chronic issues of inequality and poverty in the country. But he had no clue how to go about it. He did not have competent advisors or political allies to help him implement his agenda. He changed ministers several times but it did not help.<br /> <br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The reason for Congressional impeachment was corruption charges against President Castillo besides his attempt to dissolve the Congress in an institutional way. He might have been involved in some small corruption cases but nothing serious enough to warrant an impeachment. Simply, he was not smart enough to indulge in big time corruption. In any case his alleged corruption is nothing in comparison to those of many members of the Congress. It is important to note that Keiko Fujimori herself faces corruption charges and was arrested and jailed for some time in 2018.<br /> <br />Some media commentators have accused President Castillo of having tried a coup through his attempt to dissolve the Congress. But the fact is that he was driven to the wall and had no other alternative. He would have been impeached in any case..It was just a matter of time. . President Martin <span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Vizcarra </span>had dissolved the Peruvian Congress on 30 September 2019, when he faced a similar situation of Congressional impeachment. The Congress retaliated by refusing to recognize the president's actions and declared Vizcarra as suspended from the presidency. It named Vice President Merceds Araoz as the interim president of Peru. But she resigned later. The Congress took its revenge on Vizcarra on 9 November 2020 by impeaching and removing him from office on the grounds of "moral incapacity". Vizcarra’s successor Manuel Merino, who was the president of the Congress and the prime mover of impeachment, lasted as President just for six days.<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">The real presidential coup was done by Keiko’s father Fujimori on 5 April 1992 when he shut down Congress, suspended the constitution and ruled as a dictator. He changed the constitution, got reelected in 1993 and continued as President till 2001 when he was forced to resign after a huge scandal. Later he was convicted for corruption and abuses of human rights and is in jail.<br /></span> <br />Congressional impeachment is a familiar story in some of the Latin American countries. The Paraguayan Congress had impeached the politically naïve Fernando Lugo in 2012 in a constitutional coup. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was yet another victim of a Congressional coup in 2016. She also paid a price for her lack of political skills. <span style="background-color: white;">Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso has survived an attempt by opposition lawmakers to oust him</span> in June 2022.<br /> <br />Dina Boluarte is the sixth president of Peru in six years since 2016. But despite the political volatility, the country’s economy is relatively stable and growing with solid macroeconomic fundamentals. It is interesting to know that the chairman of the Peruvian Central Bank <span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Julio Emilio Velarde Flores<span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;"> has remained in his post for the last sixteen years since 2006 despite the frequent changes of governments. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">From the country's larger perspective, the removal of President Castillo is not at all a bad development. He does not have the administrative competence or political skills to implement his political agenda for which he was elected. Nor does he have much support from the mainstream public which is disappointed with his failure to govern or deliver on his development agenda. If he had continued, his presidency would have continued to be mired in constant fight with the Congress. His administration would not have been able to achieve anything positive. So the country is better off without Castillo as President. <br /></span><o:p></o:p></span> <br /> <br /> </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-88879116211917770942022-11-01T00:16:00.003-07:002022-11-01T03:00:29.562-07:00 Lula’s win is a victory for Brazil’s Democracy and good for Latin America and India<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lula’s win is a victory for Brazil’s Democracy and good for Latin America and India<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">By electing Luiz Inacio de Lula as President, the Brazilians have restored the country from the aberrations of the last four years. Brazil is back to civilization. Vulgar and crude words will no longer be heard in the Presidential remarks and cabinet meetings.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">President Lula will resume his pragmatic and balanced mix of pro-poor and market-friendly policies. He will bring out many more millions of people from under the poverty line, as he did before with his signature Bolsa Familia program. The amazon can now breathe freely. The indigenous people will feel safer. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The young Brazilian democracy -restored after the end of military dictatorship in 1985- has been saved from the coup- mongering Bolsonaro who did not hide his yearning for the bad old days of brutal dictatorship. The country’s democracy has now become stronger after having successfully withstood his anti-democratic attacks. This is an inspiration for the other democracies of Latin America.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglJf-vTRaQN_aRdMFcy3ZG27998F9V80TpJgLji7vrfqnQOFRNazmEEsVEmnbgdhVVoKAQx3JIt6uMxaBJfFMpRcNwEZMLIwp6rpGE8mTOtp4MGeM9_ph9ybPQ90OVYtAPbLArJLwA9_QY9I7h41d5EJH1fXJodm6uzZyIrE4WgBADcQS8b7I/s2945/lula2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1926" data-original-width="2945" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglJf-vTRaQN_aRdMFcy3ZG27998F9V80TpJgLji7vrfqnQOFRNazmEEsVEmnbgdhVVoKAQx3JIt6uMxaBJfFMpRcNwEZMLIwp6rpGE8mTOtp4MGeM9_ph9ybPQ90OVYtAPbLArJLwA9_QY9I7h41d5EJH1fXJodm6uzZyIrE4WgBADcQS8b7I/s320/lula2022.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Although 49.1% of the electorate has voted for Bolsonaro it is to be noted that these are the constituents of Bible, Beef and Bullet. The evangelicals, who form about 30 percent of the population, have been indoctrinated by their partisan pastors on issues such as abortion and gender equity. The landed interests and the security forces, who have benefitted from Bolsonaro’s policies of encroaching of Amazon forest and easy access to guns, have forced lot of people under their influence to vote for their benefactor. These conservative forces will continue to be a force in Brazilian politics with or without Bolsonaro. And many from these constituencies do not like the leftist agenda as it is happening in US and Europe.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">What about political polarization? In contrast to Bolsonaro, the army captain who was trained to fight and kill, Lula, as a trade unionist, had practiced and mastered the art of negotiation. As President, he had got many bills passed in the legislature through deal-making with the opposition. So this time too, Lula will work with the other parties and succeed in implementing his progressive policies.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Clearly, Brazil has got a second chance to realize its potential and reemerge as a regional and global leader. Brazil has the largest population, land area and economy in Latin America. It has world’s largest surplus land available for agriculture and is blessed with abundant fresh water reserves. It has a strong manufacturing and technological base with a sizeable young population. Despite having borders with ten countries, it does not have a single dispute. It is the only major power which has not fought a war with another country in the last 150 years. It is free from the curse of terrorism unlike most of the other major powers of the world.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">For the first time in the history of Latin America, the seven largest economies of Latin America- Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Chile- have gone Left together. This is relief for the millions of poor who were ignored by the rightist governments of the past. Latin America, which has the highest disparity in the world, has a chance to bring down inequality.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">With Lula’s leadership, Latin America will resume its process of regional integration which was disrupted by Bolsonaro’s divisive discourse. The region will regain collective strength through groups such as MERCOSUR, UNASUR and CELAC which will move forward integrating their markets and facilitating more intra-regional trade and investment. Through these forums, the leaders of the region will coordinate their positions on external issues. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The leftist leaders of Latin America will put up a strong united front against the traditional US hegemony. There are no more significant countries or leaders in the region who will be the proxies for Uncle Sam. Colombia and Mexico used to bat for US in the past. Latin America will voice its interests and concerns on regional and global issues assertively in the coming years. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Lula’s voice will strengthen the neutral and independent position of many of the developing countries who do not want to take sides with the US and NATO which are trying to repolarize the world on the Ukraine issue. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Lula’s victory is great news for India. It was President Lula who took many initiatives seeking strategic partnership with India. He had encouraged his government officials and businessmen to visit India and explore collaboration and joint ventures. Even after leaving the presidency Lula had visited India with business delegations and promoted trade and investment. But the bilateral interaction was subdued during the term of Lula’s successors. India did not figure in the narrow worldview of Bolsonaro. Although PM Modi had invited Bolsonaro to visit India and had interacted with him, he was uncomfortable with the isolationist approach of Bolsonaro.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Under Lula, the Indo-Brazil relations will get a new momentum. Business and partnership will grow more in the coming years. Brazil is India’s largest trading partner in Latin America. India’s exports in 2021-22 were 6.5 billion US Dollars and imports 5.7 bn. Indian companies have invested in Brazil in sectors such as oil fields, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, aluminum plants, autoparts and IT. Brazilian companies have also invested in India in electrical motors, autoparts and IT. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">President Lula shares wholeheartedly India’s vision for South-South cooperation and a multipolar world. Brazil will now restart working with India in UN, WTO and other multilateral fora. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-47761036692970360222022-09-23T23:17:00.079-07:002022-09-24T03:13:05.216-07:00Ecuador restructures Chinese debt<div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ecuador has reached a deal with China this week to restructure $4.4 billion of outstanding debt. The period of repayment has been extended with some discounts on the amount due.<br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #58585a;">The deal was reached directly with China’s policy banks, China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, which together have provided over $18 billion in loans to Ecuador since 2010.<br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The loans were used to build roads, hospitals, schools and hydroelectric projects, often by Chinese construction companies. Most of the loans were taken by the leftist president Rafael Correa during his term between 2007 and 2017. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6tkrIhk7AJa-9lQjLqFED6rp4WnIx36S3mSX1Mgz-vXqLHGYapJ9Y3r0r2m1aKO-Y47b3f08msraz28xwUcKTrE0a3uE3hgwSdaZEgorhmWpfmSkzSSSpXh91Sdc7-vPbQMToRsaruLBTKYeMxFlVyb50D80vh5mj8DWrx69q6JiWCG462s0/s2400/ecuadordebt.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1349" data-original-width="2400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6tkrIhk7AJa-9lQjLqFED6rp4WnIx36S3mSX1Mgz-vXqLHGYapJ9Y3r0r2m1aKO-Y47b3f08msraz28xwUcKTrE0a3uE3hgwSdaZEgorhmWpfmSkzSSSpXh91Sdc7-vPbQMToRsaruLBTKYeMxFlVyb50D80vh5mj8DWrx69q6JiWCG462s0/s320/ecuadordebt.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">President Correa had refused to honour some of the debt incurred by his predecessors on the ground that they were illegitimate loans taken by corrupt politicians for non-productive purposes from greedy bankers. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Calling foreign creditors "monsters, he declared a default in 2008 on his country's foreign bonds and called for a restructuring of Ecuador's foreign debt</span><b><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> So the international financial mafia ostracized Ecuador. Thereafter Correa had no other option but to turn to China which had seized the opportunity quickly with large loans. But the centre-right government which succeeded President Correa </span><span style="color: #313132;">had accused him and his officials of violating public debt regulations by negotiating up-front payments for future oil deliveries without registering the operations as indebtedness.</span> There are also allegations of defects and poor quality in the hydroelectric dams built by China. The largest portion of the Chinese credit has gone into six hydroelectric projects amounting to three billion dollars.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Some of the debt was also tied to future oil sales. PetroEcuador, the government company has been supplying oil to China’s state-run PetroChina at a discount towards debt settlement. Last week, PetroEcuador announced a deal with China on the price formula and got extension of the remaining oil deliveries to 2027 from 2024. This allows Ecuador to sell more of its crude on the spot market</span>.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Ecuador is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China and aims to sign it during the China-LAC business summit in December. </span>Ecuador’s exports to China were 3.64 billion dollars and imports 6 billion in 2021. China is the second largest trading partner of Ecuador and the #1 source of imports.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The centre-right but pragmatic President Guillermo Lasso is trying his best to reduce overdependence on China. He has called for transparency in the terms of Chinese contracts and projects. He has expressed interest in a FTA with US, the largest trading partner of Ecuador. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Details of the Chinese loans to Ecuador are in the link…<a href="https://www.thedialogue.org/map_list/" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.thedialogue.org/map_list/<br /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="-webkit-standard" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ecuador is the third largest recipient of Chinese credit to Latin America after Venezuela ($62.5 bn) and Brazil ($30.5 bn). Argentina is the fourth largest recipient with 17 billion dollars.<br /></span></span><span face="-webkit-standard" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="-webkit-standard" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Ecuador restructuring will be noted carefully by the other countries in Latin America which has received a total of 138 billion dollars of Chinese credit. Argentina and Venezuela will be the next candidates for restructuring. Argentina, which owes 17 billion dollars to China, will be the next country to look for restructuring. Argentina is currently struggling to repay its bigger debt of 40 billion dollars owed to IMF. The country faces shortage of foreign exchange reserves besides high inflation and currency depreciation. Venezuela, which is in a worse economic situation than Argentina, will have a greater challenge to repay the Chinese debt.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></span></o:p></span></span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12841844.post-15501849193268359532022-09-10T21:24:00.001-07:002022-09-10T21:24:08.628-07:00<div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><a name="_MailOriginal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Santa Evita – Argentine TV serial<br /></span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The new Argentine Television serial “Santa Evita” has just been made available in India by Hot Star+ Disney. It was released on 26 July which marks the seventieth anniversary of Eva Peron’s death. She is worshipped as a Santa (saint) by her followers who call her affectionately as Evita.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">The serial narrates the bizarre story of the corpse of Evita, wife of President Peron, who died in 1952 due to cancer at the age of 33. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Her body was kept waiting for three years for the construction of a monumental memorial, which was never built. In 1955, the military overthrew Peron and hid the body for nineteen years to prevent the use of her ‘martyrdom’ as a rallying cry to overthrow the military regime. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGp1yO5cQUadNk_NZt9W2GawgLrDYZbHaARYBm9RVoiwjFJTjYTO5G4UiaHErt922QX__-uzRAkgYBpBZ58wCW1mbZ0HFgt13kQzoqlrN7JYpcJzyiC0b_l77DdC3GjKxKWd7NETbzmEaYkPodzVNW1CFsUI5KSQEy1k3kYrer52VmvU2i3HY/s1200/santaevitaserial.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGp1yO5cQUadNk_NZt9W2GawgLrDYZbHaARYBm9RVoiwjFJTjYTO5G4UiaHErt922QX__-uzRAkgYBpBZ58wCW1mbZ0HFgt13kQzoqlrN7JYpcJzyiC0b_l77DdC3GjKxKWd7NETbzmEaYkPodzVNW1CFsUI5KSQEy1k3kYrer52VmvU2i3HY/s320/santaevitaserial.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The serial is based on a novel “Santa Evita” by an Argentine writer Tomas Eloy Martinez, published in 1995. I have read this novel as well as some other books of Martinez. He has used ¨magical realism¨ to tell the story. He weaves facts and fiction in and out and one does not know what is real and what is imagined. In any case, the way Evita´s body was dealt with by her supporters and opponents is like a mystery thriller fiction. Martinez has added more mystery by his fantastic story-telling.<br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Colonel Moori Koenig from the military intelligence service is given the responsibility to hide and make the body disappear. He moves it from one hiding place to another in Buenos Aires city. But he and his colleagues involved in this macabre venture, as well as their families meet with one disaster after another. He and his accomplices, who hated the power wielded by Evita as first lady, are hypnotized by the body and become obsessed with it. Even the embalmer Dr Ara spends a lot of time alone with the body taking care of it possessively and intimately. He makes wax replicas of the body to confuse others. The Colonel discovers the embalmer’s trick and sends the original and the copies to different places for burial to mislead the Peronists who were tracking the body.<br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here are some real-life facts which followed Evita’s death:<br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">- Her body was kept for public homage for fifteen days after her death on 26 july 1952.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">- The timing of evening state news broadcast was changed from 8.30 pm to 8.25 pm, the exact time when she passed into "immortality"<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">-Primary school children recited prayer songs from their text books, "Evita, I promise to be as good as you wish me to be "</span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">-The military regime, which overthrew Peron in September 1955 was afraid of the subversive influence of the body. They banned the "possession of photos of Evita or Peron or use of the expressions Peronism or Peronist" and made them a punishable offence with imprisonment. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">-They sent it secretly to be buried in a cemetery in Italy. The whereabouts of the body were written and put in sealed envelope by president Aramburu who gave it to his lawyer with instructions that it should be opened only after his death. To confuse investigators, many dummy coffins were sent to Argentine embassies in other European countries to be buried.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">-Monteneros, the left wing guerillas, kidnapped Aramburu in 1970, tried to get the information on Evita's body unsuccessfully and executed him. In 1974 the same group kidnapped the cadaver of Aramburu from his family's vault and demanded the return of Evita's body as ransom. Eventually, in November 1974 the body was brought back to Argentina.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">-The body found its final resting place in the Recoleta cemetry in Buenos Aires. The coffin was put behind two trap doors with the only key given to Evita's sister.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">Both the novel and the serial bring out vividly the politics and culture of the Argentines. Evita's real life story was inspiration for the masses. It is the story of a girl born outside marriage from a poor village family, running away to the city and trying to earn living as an actress. Her life is transformed after her chance encounter with Peron. With her organizational, oratorical and acting skills, she mobilized the masses to support and vote for Peron as president. As the first lady, she ran a foundation to help the poor people with money, housing and healthcare. There were large crowds queuing up in front of her office daily seeking her help and intervention. She empowered the Descamisados (shirtless- meaning lumpen workers) and became a champion of the poor, women and the underprivileged. She got the right to vote for women and fought for the rights of the workers. She was the first political leader to reach out to the poor, respect them and help them. She received lepers and diseased, showed affection and kissed them without batting an eyelid. This is the reason why the masses worship her as a Santa (saint) and she has become a political legend and icon. Peronism has taken full advantage of this legacy to get the votes of the masses in the elections in the last five decades. The legacy of Evita continues to be a vital and potent political force even today. The two-time President and current vice-president of the country Cristina Fernandez Kirchner fancies herself as the inheritor of the legacy of Evita with her pro-poor policies.<br /></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Evita has been the most polarizing figure of Argentina for the last seven decades. She is scorned, hated and demonized by the military and the right-wing political elements and critics who use the choicest abusive words against Evita. The oligarchic society of the country had treated the upstart Evita with contempt and condescension. The right wing accuses the Peronists of perpetuating the vote bank of the poor with populist policies which have hindered the growth of the country. The visceral hatred of Evita is brought out in a scene in the serial in which the military officers celebrate the death of Evita with champagne and the cheering words </span><span style="color: #2a2c32;">"Long live cancer"</span>.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">It is a pity that the serial is so short with just seven episodes. There is so much more story and legend from the life and afterlife of Evita which could be fascinating. I wish the producers consider making more episodes to bring out the rest of the drama and impact of Evita. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">I am delighted to see that the Argentine serial has emerged as a Latin American project with the Uruguayan Natalia Oreiro acting as Evita, Mexican actress Salma Hayek as coproducer and the Colombian Rodrigo Garcia, the son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as one of the directors.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div>viswanathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833490711270796608noreply@blogger.com0