The gemstones of the military controlled Burmese nation are as blood soaked as are the diamonds
The two things which fill the famous Bujo Market in Yangon
are, precious stones & of course, the soldiers cloaked in their traditional Burmese civilian attire. Most of the women in the market, too, are related to the military in one way or the other, because much like the other sectors, the gemstone industry (the third biggest revenue earner for the government), too is controlled by the military junta. The garb under which the Burmese ‘soldiers of fortune’ carry out the dubious trade in gems is, the Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., a holding company fully owned by serving as well as retired military personnel & the state-owned Myanmar Gems Enterprise.
Recently, the Americans stepped up the pressure on military junta to pave the way for democracy in Burma (US prefers to address Myanmar by its old name). The US House of Representatives have approved a legislation foreclosing all routes, which brought the rubies & high-quality jade from Myanmar into the US.
More importantly, even the Human Rights Watch, an international human rights watchdog, has raised fresh concerns about the gems trade (about 90% of the rubies in the world originate from Myanmar) from the country, where democracy is being ruthlessly suppressed by the military government to perpetuate its own corporate interests. The group has urged the international community to ban imports of all gems from Myanmar. “Burma’s rubies and jade are prized for their beauty but the ugly truth is that the trade in these stones supports human rights abuses. The sale of these gems gives Burma’s military rulers quick cash to stay in power,” says Arvind Ganesan, Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. But despite the human rights indictments against the Myanmar Government, some countries in Asia continue to support the regime. Expressing his indignation against such countries which are ready to condone the human rights abuses, Ganesan told B&E that he credits the governments which have refrained from “buying Burmese gems but the rest, have the blood of Burmese on their hands.”
Those who intend to support the continuation of military regime argue that imposing global sanctions on the gems industry would only harm the craftsmen engaged in cutting the stones into fine jewellery. But the moot point is, can the world ignore the conditions of workers in the mining industry & even the poor craftsmen who continue to be exploited by the top military hierarchy for personal aggrandizements, unjust & illegitimate perpetuation of their rule.
Unless Asian nations begin to acknowledge the fact that Burmese military is not Burma, the democracy will continue to elude Burmese nationals.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
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The two things which fill the famous Bujo Market in Yangon
are, precious stones & of course, the soldiers cloaked in their traditional Burmese civilian attire. Most of the women in the market, too, are related to the military in one way or the other, because much like the other sectors, the gemstone industry (the third biggest revenue earner for the government), too is controlled by the military junta. The garb under which the Burmese ‘soldiers of fortune’ carry out the dubious trade in gems is, the Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., a holding company fully owned by serving as well as retired military personnel & the state-owned Myanmar Gems Enterprise.Recently, the Americans stepped up the pressure on military junta to pave the way for democracy in Burma (US prefers to address Myanmar by its old name). The US House of Representatives have approved a legislation foreclosing all routes, which brought the rubies & high-quality jade from Myanmar into the US.
More importantly, even the Human Rights Watch, an international human rights watchdog, has raised fresh concerns about the gems trade (about 90% of the rubies in the world originate from Myanmar) from the country, where democracy is being ruthlessly suppressed by the military government to perpetuate its own corporate interests. The group has urged the international community to ban imports of all gems from Myanmar. “Burma’s rubies and jade are prized for their beauty but the ugly truth is that the trade in these stones supports human rights abuses. The sale of these gems gives Burma’s military rulers quick cash to stay in power,” says Arvind Ganesan, Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. But despite the human rights indictments against the Myanmar Government, some countries in Asia continue to support the regime. Expressing his indignation against such countries which are ready to condone the human rights abuses, Ganesan told B&E that he credits the governments which have refrained from “buying Burmese gems but the rest, have the blood of Burmese on their hands.”
Those who intend to support the continuation of military regime argue that imposing global sanctions on the gems industry would only harm the craftsmen engaged in cutting the stones into fine jewellery. But the moot point is, can the world ignore the conditions of workers in the mining industry & even the poor craftsmen who continue to be exploited by the top military hierarchy for personal aggrandizements, unjust & illegitimate perpetuation of their rule.
Unless Asian nations begin to acknowledge the fact that Burmese military is not Burma, the democracy will continue to elude Burmese nationals.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
Read these article :-
ZEE BUSINESS BEST B SCHOOL SURVEY
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global (Print Version)
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
IIPM Campus
Top Articles on IIPM:-
IIPM makes business education truly global-Education-The Times of ...
The Hindu : Education Plus : Honour for IIPM
IIPM ranked No.1 B-School in India, Management News - By ...
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Moneycontrol >> News >> Press- News >> IIPM ranked No1 B-School in ...
IIPM ranked No. 1 B-school in India- Zee Business Survey ...
IIPM ranked No1 B-School in India :: Education, Careers ...
The Hindu Business Line : IIPM placements hit a high of over 2000 jobs
Deccan Herald - IIPM ranked as top B-School in India
India eNews - IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
IIPM Delhi - Indian Institute of Planning and Management New Delhi ...
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rendra Modi won the state elections in Gujarat. What was projected as a neck-and-neck fight turned out to be a kind of a sweep for the incumbent Chief Minister. According to some experts, Modi won on the development plank. Others, who hate him, contend he fought on the Hindutva issue. There is the third set of experts, who claim Modi evolved his own brand of ‘Moditva’, which won him the elections. So, what was it really that helped him?
US should not impact the long standing ties with Russia. The Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta sings a different note, when he says that Russia’s dilly-dallying over the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov price would almost force India to “ponder where our defence relations are going to’’ with Moscow. All this confusion among the policy makers has been caused by the Russia hiking up the price to refurbish the carrier by staggering $1.2 billion. The 44,570-tonne Gorshkov, was slated to fly the Indian naval ensign by August 2008 as per the $1.5-billion package deal signed in January 2004. This sudden announcement by Russia to increase the rates & to push back the delivery to 2012-13, has in fact, put paid to the naval plans to have a robust blue-water force. And this has led many in the naval circles to look Westwards to fulfill the need. “The American nuclear powered carrier, Kitty Hawk, is likely to be available shortly, India should start looking elsewhere if the Russians are acting tough,” Commodore (retd.) G. Sharma, the MD with Northman Grumman India told B&E.
the Russian electorate in the election to the Duma vindicates the sheer support that Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party enjoys among the common Russians. United Russia eventually ended up with garnering more than 64% of the popular vote. It was also the harbinger of the fact that not just Putin himself but Russia also wants Putin and his pragmatic policies to continue even when he steps down from the post of President. And no wonder incidents have started taking shape on the same lines only. With the announcement of Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, Putin has just made sure of that. It is nobody’s guess as to who would continue to rule Russia from the shadow. And for good perhaps. With Medvedev urging Putin to become the Prime Minster it only makes that proxy rule more prominent. Nevertheless, Putin’s style of no nonsense approach towards rebuilding a decaying society proves that even today if one remains sincere towards the right kind of governance one can become extremely popular. For us it is a lesson that one need not be a populist in approach to beat the anti- incumbency factor. Well Putin just showed that with a resurgent Russia back on track and ready for more of his doses.
out that there was no significant divergence between the policies pursued by Aziz, and the FMs in the earlier regimes. They agree that the distinction lay in the “effectiveness of implementation.” In contrast, Singh was hailed as the new messiah of globalisation by the middle class.
he had handled a wide variety of assignments. He had headed a marketing assignment with the Tea Board. Earlier, he had turned around the UP Transport Corporation, where instead of retrenching the surplus staff, he added more vehicles. Before that he took the UP Cement Corporation to profits after 19 years in the red. As a young District Collector and Magistrate, he had worked in rural development and disaster relief work in Chamoli district for which, his recommendation for a Padma Shri was set aside, only in view of his young age.
has found his better half and is all set to exchange wedding vows next month. So did he use Google search for this too? Well, sounds like a joke but when you run a global search engine with a market share of 58.5% (as per Comscore), the question is not worth nothing. Strangely, even today when everything about this monstrous $211.7 billion worth online giant seems to have changed dramatically; right from its annual revenues – which have shot-up by a teeth-rattling 3,676.77% during the past five years to $16.58 billion in 2007 – to its offerings, the truth is that its ‘child-like simplicity’ (which shows everywhere from its homepage to its engineering team structure) has only started showing some change of late. And going by the fact that Google’s share prices are at all-time high of $747.24 on November 7, 2007 (an appreciation of 779.11% in the past three years) and is estimated to touch $900, as per Credit Suisse, this ‘slow’ change surely seems to working well for Google Inc.
Richard D’ Aveni looked a corpulent sight, a few years ago in a five star coffee shop. A tenure professor of Dartmouth College and a conservative to the core, Richard could make you wince with dismay while holding forth on how America must ruthlessly project its power – even at the cost of “collateral damage”. The now famous Thomas Friedman book about the flat world and the Goldman Sachs report on the BRIC economies had already been published and Richard was on a long journey of discovery into the ‘next big boy of the global arena’. I didn’t agree with most of what Richard said; but one statement of his still resonates when I pick up a newspaper or watch a so called erudite TV show. Taking a huge swig of Coke, Richard had witheringly remarked that Indian policy makers must change their negative and timid mindset. “Do you want to forever remain the Mexico of China? were his words that still haunt me.
and online local information that makes a big difference to people’s lives. There are many grassroots health workers, who are comfortably using hand-held computers for storing medical data and information. And there are students in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, who learn via TV that makes use of EduSat (Education Satellite). “An internet and a dish connection in high schools connected to EduSat facility enables the students to collect information on the subject of their choice, or talk to experts in the related field while sitting in their schools,” says Reddy.
your style statement: serious, funky or sophisticated – take your pick. Everyone wants the latest & the best. And ironically, this is one segment where the latest and best seems to change almost every passing day. In 2007, we witnessed the launch of the second generation of Razr, additions in the N and E series of Nokia & the Walkman range from Sony Ericsson.
came from the door of Godrej was as far back as in the year 1918, when the company decided to venture into the soap industry [Interestingly, Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘swadeshi’ movement made many freedom fighters endorse the ‘desi’ soap]. But since then, the basic premise and the business model of the company have more or less remained the same. Yes, the 90s did have Godrej jumping into an on-now off-now alliance with top class companies like GE. But like we mentioned earlier, Godrej, in the last few weeks, has seen more radical transformation than it had in the past ten decades.
to promote their recent change in brand identity. What’s more? The retail giant has spent an unbelievable Rs.200 million on just the logo change of Shopper’s Stop. So even the poly-bags that you carry with the goodies from Shopper’s Stop sport the new logo. The in-the face campaign has left many wondering what was the need to use such extravagant steps and that too for just a logo change. Well, what most of us don’t know is that the logo change is just a miniscule first step to the massive restructuring exercise that the retail group is planning. Surely in the months to come the Rs.10 billion Shopper’s Stop will ramp up its act and announce more promotional activities and ad campaigns.