New Delhi, India (FT.com) -- India's economy grew 8.8 per cent from April to June compared with the same period last year, driven by a strong pick-up in manufacturing, trade, transport and services.

The growth in the first quarter of India's financial year -- which runs from April to March -- was largely in line with expectations, and was an acceleration of the 8.6 per cent growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The robust growth will encourage the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, to persist with its course of monetary tightening and interest rate normalisation, as it tries to control inflation, which remains high after falling from its peak double-digit levels.

India's economy expanded 7.4 per cent last year, despite a severe drought that hit farm production and caused food prices to rocket. New Delhi is forecasting that growth will exceed 8.5 per cent in the current financial year, and that inflation will drop sharply to more manageable levels.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the influential planning commission, said the pace of growth of India's manufacturing sector -- which expanded a robust 12.2 per cent in the first quarter -- will slow in the coming months for statistical reasons.

But he said farm output, which rose 2.8 per cent this year compared with 1.9 per cent last year, would be substantially stronger this year because of the bountiful monsoon rains. Data indicates that India's sown crop acreage is now 10 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year

Trade, transport and services also grew 12.2 per cent during the first quarter, up from 5.5 per cent last year, buoyed by a rebound in domestic air travel, which fell sharply during the global economic slowdown.

Despite its healthy domestic economic growth, India has recorded a sharp 18.8 per cent drop in its foreign direct investment inflows, to $10.78bn, during the first six months of 2010. The drop was particularly precipitous in June, when FDI fell 46.5 per cent from a year earlier to $1.38bn.




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Editor's note: Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy" and a book on former President Carter and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, to be published this fall by Princeton University Press.
Princeton, New Jersey If current polls are a guide, the midterm elections probably won't be good for President Obama and his party. The Democrats are in danger of losing control of the House of Representatives and of seeing their majority in the Senate diminish.
With Obama's approval rating sagging to 45 percent according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll, even his most ardent supporters admit that he will need a stimulus act for his presidency before 2012 comes around.
One of Obama's biggest challenges has been his reticence about defining a clear agenda and a set of governing principles. Doing so has been at odds with his legislative strategy, which has hinged on avoiding big proclamations to give himself wiggle room with Congress.

But that legislative strategy has had a major political cost. Many Democrats don't feel as if they know exactly what their leader is about. Some conservative critics have been able to paint a rather pragmatic Democrat as a Soviet-style socialist, and sometimes, according to recent polls, as a Muslim.
Video: Midterm battle lines drawn
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To bounce back, Obama will need to do more to articulate his agenda. For guidance, he can look back to two presidents who recovered from difficult midterms, Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton.

In 1982, Democrats gained 26 seats in the House. In 1994, Republicans took control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1954. Both presidents, however, coasted to victory in their bids for re-election.

In both cases, the most obvious factor was economic recovery. For Reagan, the recovery from the 1982 recession made many Americans more confident that his economic policies, namely the tax cuts of 1981, were responsible for ending the economic malaise.

Glenn Beck, consummate showman and talk hound, would have been more honest calling his rally to "Restore Honor" a rally to restore the culture wars.

Despite his splashy show to celebrate the troops, Beck's rally was not about "honor" any more than the controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero is about a building -- or the immigration debate is about fixing the system. Instead, Beck's rally upped the ante on America's social divides, all the while appearing to champion unity. It was a clever head-fake disguising backward conservative zealotry as feel-good inclusion.

"May this day be the change point," said Sarah Palin, the rally's darling. "Look around you. You're not alone. You are Americans!" In his keynote, Beck declared that America is "in the midst of a great war" over its values. "America is at a crossroads," Beck said. "We must decide: Who are we and what do we believe?"

Anxious that the culture war over gay and reproductive rights is suffering setbacks, the right is doubling down. Its revamped culture war, flaunted at the rally, is gaining impressive traction.

Fiery skirmishes in this war abound. Beck and his progressive adversaries clash over this nation's role and purpose in the world, who gets to be American at home, and what our country can afford and should demand of us. The debates over immigration, birthright citizenship, and the scope of public spending are the more visible flashpoints of this clash.
That "Muslim" and "socialist" are the country's two reigning slanders speaks volumes about ... this cultural war.
--Rich Benjamin
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Besides the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the major figure dominating the rally in absentia was President Obama. One rally supporter, typifying the mood, dubbed the president "Chairman Maobama." Another rally participant sported a T-shirt: "If you can't love America, go back to Kenya."

Beck may insist the rally was nonpolitical, but participants and viewers had other ideas.

With each passing day, President Obama stands increasingly as the lightning rod of this morphing culture war. Growing numbers of people believe the president is Muslim. Other data show that a majority of Americans believe that he is a socialist.

That "Muslim" and "socialist" are the country's two reigning scarlet slanders speaks volumes about the psyche behind this cultural war.

Editor's note: Sharjeel Kashmir is an investment banker who works on financial derivatives and banking strategy in New York City. An alumnus of Harvard Business School, he also works with international microfinance institutions, developing their corporate and governance strategies.
It was Pakistan's birthday on August 14, and no one celebrated.
The monsoon floods that engulfed most of the country and affected 20 million people have added yet another burden of misery onto the shoulders of the average Pakistani. More than 4 million people are homeless. Livestock, crops and livelihoods were destroyed.
How far this once-proud nation has fallen.
In Urdu, Pakistan means the "land of the pure." It reflects the noble intentions of its creators to build a nation that enshrined the best of Islamic principles. Unfortunately, that nobility has given way to chaos because of bad luck, incompetent political leaders, corruption and religious extremism.
Pakistan may be a world away from the United States, but instability feeds the extremism that fuels terrorism, so we ignore this crisis at our peril. To find the path forward, we must look back to the past.
During the 1970s, my father packed up our family of five and moved us to Pakistan. He believed Pakistan had higher standards of early schooling and stronger social values than his adopted home of England. Soon after, Russian tanks rumbled into Afghanistan and then came wave after wave of Afghan refugees.
By the mid '80s, the full impact of the war waging next door came home to Pakistan. The U.S. priority was to evict the Russians from Afghanistan at any cost.
Instability feeds the extremism that fuels terrorism, so we ignore this crisis [in Pakistan] at our peril.
--Sharjeel Kashmir
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Pakistan followed along. As a result, educating the masses, dealing with a sea of refugees, nurturing democracy, developing infrastructure and eradicating Afghan heroin all took second place.
The Pakistan my father brought us home to experience was disappearing before our eyes. This was a defining moment. Instead of focusing on its own problems, it chose instead to fight the war for the West, and 30 years later, Pakistan is still paying for this decision.
After Russia withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the Americans walked away. But Pakistan couldn't.
Growing unrest and infighting in Afghanistan gave the Taliban an opportunity to step in. The only thing that mattered to the Taliban was how quickly and crudely the practitioners could inflict their horrifying version of Islam on the Afghan people. Then, all hell broke loose on September 11, 2001.
Since 9/11, Pakistan has supported America's intervention in Afghanistan, the right decision but one fraught with controversy. It has torn Pakistan into factions and triggered suicide bombings. Even before the monsoon hit, the country was an economic, political and social disaster.

Can Pakistan be saved?
I believe it can, but the fortunes of this ailing nation can only be changed with America's help. America may not have intended to hurt Pakistan, but it's clear that Pakistan's support for U.S. policy contributed to its decline.
The good news is that today there is real opportunity for change. Pakistan needs America's help. America needs a stable Pakistan.
The United States was the first nation to offer aid after the flooding disaster, pledging $150 million. This is a positive first step in a much-needed long-term reconstruction plan for Pakistan. But as important as the money is, ensuring that it's spent on the right things is even more critical. The Pakistan government needs to focus on three things to stop the country's downward spiral: education, infrastructure and security.
Educating Pakistan is not a matter of choice, but of utmost necessity.
The literacy rate for men is 61 percent, and for women it's 32 percent. Ignorance breeds poverty and extremism. Education can help break that cycle. Funding must be in place to teach every child to read and write.

Educating the country's Muslim leaders is just as important. These mullahs interpret the Quran for the people, and often they do so in an uninformed, uneducated way that distorts the true teachings of Islam. A national program to certify these religious leaders is needed to address this most pressing challenge.

As for infrastructure, what little was there has been washed away.

The roads are a mess, electricity goes out most days and not enough food is produced. The failure of the government to deliver on the basics has demoralized the population and dampened the spirits of its entrepreneurs.

Pakistan has to fix the electrical grid and improve its agricultural sector. The United States could help by opening its doors to Pakistani exporters and embarking on programs to share knowledge and help Pakistani industrialists grow their companies.

In terms of security, with Afghanistan at war on one side and the barely held truce with India on the other, Pakistan needs to secure its borders, ignore the problems of its neighbors and focus internally.

This means militarizing its border on the Afghan side and closing it to all but legitimate trade traffic. The core source of strife with India is the 63-year-old dispute over Kashmir, where in the past two decades, more than 80,000 Kashmiris have been killed. If America were to assist both countries in solving this issue, it would go a long way to repairing the Pakistan-India relationship.

Education, infrastructure and security: Pakistan must focus on these areas with laser-like intensity and exhibit courage and vision to raise its people out of despair. I believe in Pakistan, as my father did. And with America's support and investment, someday Pakistan may even be able to dream again of achieving its noble destiny as the "land of the pure."

The opinions expressed in this commentary







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