Numbers:(”15th”, “50th”)

China boasts of 319 medals on date, India has just 17, of these gold are 112 and 8 respectively.

With India and the US having reached agreement on the 123 nuclear treaty, India’s negotiations to permit it to use nuclear energy will now shift to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in order to ratify the right for India to enter the civilian nuclear market. Members of the 45 strong group are generally behind the Indian position, with key players such as the US, Britain, Russia & France providing strong support. The NSG has previously worked to a concensus, and here the position of China will be key. There are three main areas that influence the Chinese position. First, China will expect the US to negotiate with them over the issue, India’s request alone will not suffice. China will be expecting the US to lift current embargos on high end, dual nuclear technologies. They will also seek American assurances that India’s nuclear status will not threaten China.

Secondly, China has been expressing concern that India’s strategic partnerships with the US, Japan and Australia in the arc of democracy are specifically directed against China within the region and is an attempt to undermine Chinese Communist rule as a ‘containment strategy’ for China. China here however needs to accept a greater transparency for the modernisation of it’s military, and its control of domestic media that do lead countries answerable to democratic opinion to distrust the PRC. China’s complex web of secrecy is an issue here. (more…)

Delhi was awash with Tibetans this Saturday as a much-publicised but unofficial ‘international’ soccer match was due to be played between organisers of the ‘national’ team and a select Delhi All Star XI.

However, with the Chinese Olympic Games just a year away, the Indian authorities were extremely wary of staging the game, being additionally sensitive as parts of Tibet remain disputed territory between the two two countries. Organised from Dharamsala, the Delhi Police revoked the licences of three sports venues to try and put the match off from being held. However, due to swelling numbers of monks and other Tibetans and Nepalese who had travelled to Delhi specifically for the game, the match eventually took place at the grounds of Delhu University for reasons of public safety.

A heavy police presence managed the crowd of about 7,000, with any anti-Chinese protests quickly subdued, although for the most part the supporters were well behaved. As to the final result, Tibet beat the Delhi All Stars, 5-1.

As Tibet is part of China, the match was not ratified by FIFA and Tibet does not appear in the FIFA world rankings. However, the Chinese Football Association have been investigating the possibility of a team from the Tibetan SAR playing in the Chinese First Division, with Tibetan ‘home’ matches possibly being played at Taiyuan in Shanxi Province due to altitude difficulties in Lhasa, with a decision possibly due for the 2008 season.

Following the news reports of large busts in China (pirated Windows Office and Vista programs) and India (computer dealers in Gujarat), Microsoft is feeling pretty good about itself and its battle with its evil nemesis, the IP monster. A blow was struck for capital markets, intellectual property, common decency!�However,�Henry Chesbrough argues today in BusinessWeek that Microsoft should be welcoming rather than discouraging piracy in India and China.

From Gujarat, India, to Santa Clara, Calif., Microsoft is simply doing the right thing for the company and its shareholders, as any company should. But is the giant shortsighted in treating these two situations in the same manner? The answer could be yes.

Chesbrough uses the example of Betamax, the video recording format that, because it was linked to Sony proprietary machines, lost out to VHS which JVC was willing to license to other manufacturers back in the early 80s. The result, VHS won the day and remains to this day (albeit in to a much lesser degree with the rise of hard disc recorders and cheap DVD players - thank you China). (more…)

Numbers:(”14500″, “7516″, “Kms”)

China�s coasts are on the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea while India’s is on the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, surrounding it by water on three sides.

Majority of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API�s) used in manufacturing medicines worldwide are sourced from India and china. A look at the� line graph and you will know the sharp rise in the API filings to the Food and Drug Administration from these two nations since 1997.

The lack of adequate regulatory regime and compliance standards observed on quality and safety of the API�s in the stages of their manufacturing and retailing is whats largely responsible for the dubious reputation the pharmaceutical industry of China and India has been suffering from.

Sam Porteous, head of the Asian offices of Navigant Consulting and friend of 2point6billion shares an interesting piece called the Potent Mix (below) on China and India’s growing role in supplying the world with APIs and the impact both have on consumer safety and existing drug markets. Thanks Sam.

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Potent Mix�Given the recent coverage of the impact of globalized sourcing patterns on food safety it will not be long before consumers and the groups that protect them will be taking a long look at what is inside their medicine cabinets, where it comes from and how it was made.In many cases, the answers will not be comforting.Many of the weaknesses of the current international import and sourcing regime exposed by recent food scandals - inadequate regulatory supervision in both source and importing countries as well as a “not my job” approach to quality control and safety issues among the relevant private sector actors, particularly middlemen, from both developing and developed economies - are set to emerge again.Today, the market for active pharmaceutical ingredients - the chemical substances in medicines that make them work - is becoming increasingly globalized. (more…)

Here’s a recent post from our friends over at the China Briefing�Blog�on a new Asian Development Bank study:

China and India, the two economic powerhouses of a fast developing Asia, are lagging in terms of economic well-being and living standards of their population, a new study�undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) shows.

According to the International Comparison Program (ICP) in Asia and the Pacific: Purchasing Power Parity Preliminary Report, released yesterday, China and India account for 64 percent of the total real gross domestic product of the 23 economies featured in the study.

However, when the size of the economies is adjusted by population, China and India drop to 10th and 18th respectively, out of the 22 economies participating in the full GDP comparison.

China ranks 15th and India 17th when the economies are compared based on “actual final consumption of households” (AFCH), which the ADB says is a better measure of the economic well-being of the population.

According to the ADB, the AFCH is a measure of what households actually consume, comprising of what they purchase and what they are supplied for individual use by the government (principally education and health). The economic well-being of the population is obtained by comparing household consumption expenditure per capita.

The five economies that top the list are Hong Kong,�Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, and Macau. The five economies that are at the bottom of the survey are Nepal, Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. (more…)