What the world is reading

Jason Overdorf feels that the economic downturn is actually good news in India. With the rich not buying,Indian businessmen are now looking at the bottom of the pyramid,the biggest segment of Indian consumers,as more than just cheap labour. And so there are companies now focusing on building homes for the urban poor,telecom companies pushing to widen their footprint amongst the poor and rural areas,and boosting touch points or wholesalers in small towns and villages. As a managing consultant quoted by the author says,Its a Robin Hood marketing which is going to capture the hearts and the emotive imaginations of the largest numbers of consumers in this country.

TELEGRAPH

Indias middle class must cut its hot air emissions

Its less than a hundred days to the Copenhagen summit. That India is at the forefront of the debate will not be easily admitted by its politicians,the author Dean Nelson writes. The ministers travel in long cavalcades of gas-guzzling Ambassadors,demand executive jets during polls,the lawns of Lutyens bungalows are kept verdant with water drawn from tubewells by inefficient electric pumps and inside,air-conditioners run 24/7. And then they term global warming the white mans burden. Coupled with this is a middle class that cares for itself,its status and image.

THE NATION PAKISTAN

Indias ambitions

In a recent editorial,the author states that India might be using the nuclear controversy raked up by its nuclear scientist K Santhanam to justify new tests. Before New Delhi goes ahead with its plans,it should keep in mind that these are turbulent times for the region and should also think of the horrible consequences the nuclear tests will have on the environment. New Delhis nuclear ambitions,besides being part of the nefarious plan to pressurise Pakistan,are also meant to show the world its nuclear muscle. While warning that India must exercise restraint,the author also says that all this,in reality,points attention to the nuclear flashpoint of Kashmir.

ARAB NEWS

Partition: Winners,losers

You cant be in a party that thrives on the demonisation of Muslims and shower fulsome praise on the founding father of Pakistan, the author Aijaz Zaka Syed states at the outset,and then goes on to praise Jaswant Singh for his seminal work,Jinnah: India,Partition,Independence. Singh has reached that point in life when he couldnt care more for what his party thinks and the adulation and attention that his come his way of late go to prove that his future appears more promising and secure than that of his former party. He then says the Muslims could have played a crucial role in an endless mass of a country. But,they were forced to give up all this for a moth-eaten Pakistan.

TIME

In India: will merit triumph over dynastic ties?

Who will the Congress choose as successor to Andhra Pradesh CM YSR Reddy,who died in a copter crash this week? More than in most countries,politics in India is about family, states the author,Madhur Singh. The author feels the stage is set for yet another round of infighting within the party. Given the fact that any fractiousness in Andhra Pradesh may be bad news for the Congress, Sonia Gandhi will now have to choose between experience and dynastic succession.