On the subcontinent, following the huge transfer of populations during partition, which reshaped deeply multicultural societies, we have been busily rewriting ourselves. Unlike nation states, artistes have no vested interest in borders, and perhaps understand them even less than ordinary people. When quawwals Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad travel to the shared past of our subcontinent, not an idyllic or uncontested past but certainly a rich and complex one, how many of us will be able to accompany him?

In the 1960s and 1970s, the informal economy was widely expected to shrink with economic growth. Yet in spite of strong global growth and a massive increase in international trade, informal activity appears all the more pervasive. But the sector is diverse, notes Martha Alter Chen, who teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and coordinates the global research-policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

In 2011, I spent the 26th of January -- India's Republic Day -- in Srinagar. Kashmir is one of the most militarized places on earth and, unsurprisingly, the national holiday unfolded very differently from the way Republic Day celebrations take place in, say Mumbai or even New Delhi ...

It’s official: the other WTO has pronounced India an open-air defecation superpower. “These rooms are clean to both you and us. The delegates want certain standards in hygiene and cleanliness which may differ from our perception. What is good for us may not be good for them. See, everyone has a different standard of cleanliness.”.

Seven years on, another visit to New York City’s most famous streetside dosa stall reveals a Thirukumar Kandasamy who has retained everything that made him great, except the modesty. Not unlike Bob Dylan, whose renown had humble origins in a Greenwich Village gig in New York, the unassuming food cart of Thirukumar Kandasamy, ‘the Dosa Man’, has a fan following far beyond its immediate neighbourhood—in New York suburbs and adjoining states, for a start.

India’s largest slum is built on the creative zeal of entrepreneurs who had no access to finance from banks. Officials of Indian Bank were nervous in February 2007. Their first branch was opening in Dharavi, and they were uncertain of the reception awaiting them. This was before Slumdog, and Mumbai’s largest slum was considered avoidable at best and downright dangerous by banks. It soon became clear something had gone wrong, but it had nothing to do with security or law and order. Staff at the branch were flooded with demands to open accounts or remit money to far-flung families. Clients and potential clients would materialise even if it was 10:30 pm, when the lights were on because staff had stayed late to close the books.

Companies may fund police to deal with raising violence By Atiya Hussain, Reuters, 09/07/99 NEW YORK - US oil companies doing business in Nigeria are considering an unusual role - providing funding and training to the police. The idea comes at a time of rising violence in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, as groups protest environmental damage and unequal distribution of oil wealth. Oil companies face increased scrutiny into their roles in the West African country. Two of the biggest oil operators, Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch/Shell Group, face lawsuits in US courts on charges of complicity with Nigerian security forces in the deaths of protesters. ''US companies are considering some modest efforts to provide training and nonlethal support for Nigerian police officials for their area of operations, and we are investigating ways'' to include nongovernmental organizations ''and outside police associations into that effort,'' said David Miller, board member and former president of the corporate umbrella group Corporate Council on Africa, in congressional testimony on Aug. 3. Miller turned down a request for an interview. Oil industry sources said that there has been talk about taking on a bigger role in training and funding Nigeria's police. Such a move, they say, will help foster democracy in the country and is crucial in light of the modest sums of aid the US government has promised Africa's most populous country. US oil companies doing business in Nigeria include Chevron, Mobil Corp., Texaco Inc., and Exxon Corp. Human rights groups, noting that the United States never imposed oil sanctions on the late dictator, General Sani Abacha, argue that Washington has been a corporate facilitator. Abacha's sudden death in June 1998 ended his reign of 4 1/2 years, paving the way for elections. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who heads Nigeria's first democratically elected government in 15 years, faces resentment in the southern Delta, source of 90 percent of its 2 million barrels per day of high quality crude oil. Kidnappings are on the rise, as are disruptions of company operations by residents protesting the Delta's environmental degradation and lack of economic development. Human rights groups say oil companies will face even more criticism if they take a direct role in training and funding police operations. ''We would be extremely resistant. They have not displayed any remorse or regret, particularly over the use of military force in Nigeria,'' said Steve Kretzmann of Project Underground, an environmental group. In February, after Human Rights Watch accused both Chevron and Shell of having aided the military in abusing human rights and killing Nigerians, Ohio Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich called for a government investigation into whether oil companies hindered the democratic process in Nigeria. The companies have denied the allegations. In May, US human rights groups filed suit against Chevron in San Francisco, charging that it was responsible for the deaths of two protesters who had confronted Nigerian soldiers and police at a Chevron-operated oil rig off the Niger Delta in May 1998. Shell, whose US subsidiary, Shell Oil Co., is one of the biggest operators in the United States, is fighting a suit that accuses it of complicity in the hangings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and John Kpuinen by the Nigerian military. Saro-Wiwa was leader of the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People and Kpuinen was deputy president of the group's youth wing. Rights groups agree Nigerian police require training but are wary of corporate involvement. ''Other than possibly providing resources to a broader effort at police training, one which was carefully crafted and carefully monitored and which vetted out those implicated in abuses in the past, I'm not sure what other role these companies would have to play,'' said Janet Fleischman, Africa director at Human Rights Watch in Washington. This story ran on page A04 of the Boston Globe on 09/07/99. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Almost a decade after it was conceived by the World Bank, a plan to build a $400 million project to convert Nigeria's wasted natural gas into badly needed revenues and carry much needed energy into other parts of West Africa is finally moving ahead. According to economists' estimates, about two billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, or approximately the consumption of a major Western economy, are "flared" or burned off in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer and most populous nation. At the same time, some of Nigeria's neighbours, such as Ghana, are suffering crippling power shortages as a persistent drought has drained hydroelectric power in West Africa. The reform government of General Abdusalami Abubakar, who came to power in June following the death of dictator Sani Abacha, combined with the rising cost of pollution to oil companies caused by burning off the gas, has paved the way for the project to get under way. Abubakar's ascension to power is seen as the biggest catalyst for reviving the West Africa gas pipeline project, oil industry and West Africa experts say. Environmental policy changes within and outside Nigeria also have given the project a high priority. Chevron Corp. , the third-largest U.S. oil company, is taking the lead on the 620-mile-long West Africa Gas Pipeline. A pipeline feasibility study is scheduled to be complete by the end of January 1999. Once completed, the study's corporate sponsors and the World Bank hope to get down to the more complex negotiations on the pipeline's route and the financing details for its construction. The pipeline is scheduled to be operational by 2001. Sources close to the project have attributed much of the delay in getting the project started to the political uncertainty in Nigeria under the notoriously corrupt Abacha. Abubakar, who has impressed the international community with his country's willingness to change, has promised to hand over power to a democratically elected president next May. Financial incentives under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are also seen as providing a positive impetus. Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) gives financial credits for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed to cause global climate change. "It could have done," said Mourad Belguedj, the World Bank's project director for the West Africa Gas Pipeline, when asked whether the prospect of earning CDM credits may have helped move the project along. "Just as we have seen that tax on flaring gas in Nigeria could also have been a factor," Belguedj added. In January 1998, Nigeria increased the penalty for flaring natural gas to 10 naira, or 8.6 U.S. cents based on recent exchange rates, per thousand cubic feet of gas - a 20-fold increase. While Chevron does not support the Kyoto Protocol, company officials stressed that the company is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as long as it is makes economic sense. "We support CDM. We would like to see CDM credits used," said George Kirkland, chairman and managing director of Chevron's Nigeria division. Kirkland stressed the pipeline project's environmental benefits, both in terms of reducing gas waste in Nigeria and the use of more polluting wood-burning, which results in deforestation in Ghana, Benin and Togo. Besides Chevron, the feasibility study for the West Africa Gas Pipeline is co-sponsored by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.; Ghanaian National Petroleum Co.; Societe Beninoise de Gaz; Societe Togolaise de Gaz; and Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch/Shell , the world's second-largest publicly traded oil company and Nigeria's largest crude oil exporter. In October, Chevron signed a 20-year deal to supply a power company in Ghana with 40 million cubic feet of natural gas once the pipeline is completed. Economists view that agreement as an "anchor deal," making the pipeline feasible. "We really see the West Africa Gas Pipeline as being economic," said Chevron's Kirkland, "We really don't see, at this point in time, the World Bank involved in financing." It is still not clear whether the gas that will be transported to Ghana, Benin and Togo will be Chevron's or Shell's, since both companies currently flare gas in Nigeria. "Up to this point, we have been competitors. I think each of us would like our gas to go to Ghana," Kirkland said, when asked about Shell's involvement. "I think it's premature to say which way it will go." The pipeline is expected to carry a maximum of 180 million cubic feet of gas a day. But Chevron officials are hopeful that regional demand will justify an expansion. "Our view is that once we get the gas in place, we would hope demand increases," Kirkland said. "It has a developmental effect much bigger and much larger in the long term," agreed Belguedj, explaining that the Nigerian natural gas project will ensure a stable source of energy for industry in neighbouring Ghana, Benin and Togo. The gas pipeline could even be extended further east to Senegal, he added. But some observers sound a note of caution on the project and the involvement of the World Bank, which has faced criticism before from environmental and human rights groups for its projects. Noting that the World Bank had to delay its approval for the Chad-Cameroon pipeline several times because of problems with the bank's environmental impact assessment, Korinna Horta of the Environmental Defence Fund urged the World Bank to consider the local impact of such a large construction programme. "Because of the very bad record that the World Bank has in monitoring its own projects, it is critical that the World Bank has a monitoring system accepted by the local people and in which they can participate," Horta said. ((Atiya Hussain, New York Energy Desk +1 212 859 1848; fax 859 1629; e-mail nyc.energy.newsroom@reuters.com)). (C) Reuters Limited 1998.

Backgrounder on Currency Trading for the Initiative for Policy Dialogue

A coin, a blade, and in the balance, life. What dais -- India's traditional midwives -- have to teach modern medicine a thing or two. A good dai can tell false labour pains from the real thing. She will help pace the woman through labour and ensure delivery of the placenta. She can tell if the after-birth is out or still in the womb—a potentially fatal development—and even help deal with a prolapsed uterus. Skilled in traditional knowledge, a dai is typically equipped with twine to tie the umbilical cord, a razor blade to cut the cord, and a coin on which to rest the cord as she cuts it once she is sure the newborn is out of danger.

Basharat Baba was selected to train in Brazil. It was only once his passport was rejected that he learnt his father was a former militant. “My coach said, ‘If I can find a club in Brazil, will you go?’” The young footballer could not understand why his father thought he would not get a passport, but that is exactly what happened. Six months elapsed. Basharat went to the police to find out about the delay. Frightened by the odd questions asked by officials at the police station, he quickly left. “They knew that my father was a militant. I didn’t,” Basharat says. The Blacklist that is holding up some 60,000 passport applications is a fact of life in Kashmir, so much so that activists have launched a campaign for the right to travel. For an ordinary Kashmiri such as Basharat, however, the blacklist meant that his spot went to one of his friends from the ISAT team.

In 1987, when the first auction of Indian contemporary art was held in India, Maqbool Fida Husain’s Mother Teresa sold for Rs 5 lakh. Two years later, his Tribute to Hashmi sold for Rs 10 lakh. In 1992, Amrita Shergil’s Village Group sold for Rs 11 lakh at Sotheby’s auction in New Delhi. Thereafter, the market lost a bit of its buzz, but sentiment recovered after Sotheby’s auction in 1995 of works from the private collection of Chester and Davida Herwitz. At that time, Tyeb Mehta’s work was estimated around $8,000-12,000, while M.F. Husain’s work was estimated at $20,000-30,000. And then came [Masanori] Fukuoka’s buy. It was his 2002 purchase of Tyeb Mehta’s Celebration for $317,500 (Rs 1.5 crore) at a Christie’s auction in New York that broke the psychologically important Rs 1 crore barrier, and raised the bar for Indian art sales. And yet, in 2006, Fukuoka says that funds for his private collection are limited, and so to buy a work he wants, he has to sell another. Until that point, according to Vadehra, prices of Indian modern art had been much lower than those from other developing countries. Fukuoka’s purchase paved the way for a climb in prices that has benefited masters and younger artists alike. “When everyone says the same thing, it’s time to withdraw,” says Masanori Fukuoka, director, Glenbarra Museum in Japan. Fukuoka has built a private collection of over 100 works of Indian art over the past 16 years, including those of M.F. Husain, V.S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta and Akbar Padamsee. This is one of the biggest collections of Indian modern and contemporary art in the world.

BOMBAY, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Behind India's $700 billion economy lie a host of unregistered companies that pay no taxes and legions of workers who have no benefits, an informal economy that makes up more than half the country's gross domestic product. More than a decade into India's liberalisation drive, which has seen its average growth rate accelerate to 6 percent a year from 4-5 percent, formal employment, which gives workers benefits such as pensions, has stood still.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are coming under heavy fire, yet increasingly, the most dramatic protests are not on the streets, but in academic quarters. After stinging criticism of the two organizations by Nobel Prize winner and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, a new book from a Cambridge University professor challenges the very bedrock of these institutions -- that globalization and free trade are a sure-fire path to prosperity. (An interview with Ha-Joon Chang, Assistant Director of Development Studies at Cambridge)