Yesterday Pakistan became the first South Asian nation to adopt daylight - saving time, pushing clocks forward by one hour. The three-month experiment although aimed, as elsewhere, at cutting energy costs by taking advantage of long summer days, will create chronological confusion in Asia, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Consider this: Pakistan lies west of India and is usually half an hour (yes, half an hour) behind its political archrival. But by winding its clocks forward today, Pakistan is now half an hour ahead of India, whose time remains unchanged. The situation seems a little absurd, like California being ahead of Utah.

Or take India and its little neighbor Bangladesh. Imagine India as a friendly country with its arm slung over Bangladesh’s shoulder. The hand on the shoulder is India’s northeast corner, a sizable chunk of territory connected to the rest of India by a thin arm of land.

Now, a Bangladeshi who crosses his country’s western border finds himself in India, whose time is set to half an hour behind Bangladesh. So far, so good. But if he goes in the opposite direction, across the eastern frontier, he finds himself in India yet again, and still has to turn his watch back 30 minutes, even though the sun will rise earlier than it did when he was at home.

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43 years after India and Bangladesh snapped rail ties, the two nations bridged the gap, by resuming train services between Kolkata and Dhaka yesterday, marking the begining of the Bengali new year. The train, named ‘Maitree’ or friendship in Bengali, will ply between Kolkata on India’s eastern seafront and Dhaka the capital of Bagladesh, a distance of 406 kms. The train is expected to help rebuild ties with India’s neighbor to the east, Bangladesh (earstwhile East Pakistan), just as the Samjhauta (Hindi for understanding) Express did in the west, with Pakistan last year.

At least 10,000 people braved hot and humid weather to “welcome the passengers with flower petals and bouquets as they arrived,” Bangladesh Railways chief commercial manager Abdul Haq told the AFP.

While pasenger train links between the two countries were suspended following the India-China war in 1965, cargo links continued, and in the 1990s a passenger bus service was launched between Dhaka and Kolkata.

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The Indian Embassy will start an India Tourism Office in Beijing on Monday the 7th of April. The ITO in Beijing follows the successful opening of the China Tourism Office in New Delhi in August last year. The inauguration will also coincide with Ms Ambika Soni - Indian Minister of Tourism and Culture’s visit to Beijing and Shanghai and a week long food festival in both Beijing and Shanghai. The tourism office will be responsible in promoting India as a tourist destination in China.

People are at the heart of any relationship. China’s outbound tourism sector has skyrocketed in recent years, with the number of Chinese traveling to India reaching 68,000 last year and the number of Indians flying to China almost seven-times that totaling more than 462,000. Comparatively, the number of Chinese going abroad reached 37.5 million in 2007, up from 34 million in 2006, and 12 million in 2001. China has surpassed Japan to become the biggest source of outbound tourists in Asia.

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In an age of practicality, nations aren’t purchasing blessings

Recent events in Tibet and the ethnic Tibetan parts of Western China this past couple of weeks have lead to much press about the China-Dalai Lama conflict and the apparent struggle for control of the region. It’s a complicated issue, fraught with deceit, mystique, sadness and an apparent inability to see towards a solution. Perhaps, however, when a solution is already to hand, it is no longer necessary to search for it.

The question of Tibet goes way back, to the middle ages, and the Mongolians. A rejuvenated Altun Khan, a direct relative of Genghis and Kublai Khan, reuniting the Mongolian empire following the death of Genghis and a factional Mongol war amongst its territories, was reclaiming parts of its Empire lost.

Tibet, always at risk from invasion from Mongols at the time, had bought off an invasion and retained autonomy by agreeing to provide blessings and salutations to Mongolian kings (khans) over the preceding centuries. Accepting Buddhism as being the closest thing to Mongolia’s own shamanistic beliefs, the Mongolian Khans, who ruled much of China at this point, where all too happy to be officially ‘anointed’ by the spiritual leader of the religion, adding a divine acknowledgement of their right to rule.

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FINALLY!! there’s relief for frequent flyers between Mumbai and Shanghai! No longer will passengers have to wait at unearthly hours at airports during stop overs, or suffer 12 hour journeys, for an otherwise 7 hour flight. After two days of negotiations in New Delhi, Jet announced it would start flying the Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco route from May 4th. Insiders also say there is a strong possibility Jet will soon start flying Mumbai-Beijing as well. Air India, which currently only flies to Shanghai is also expected to start flying to Beijing and Guang Zhou soon. India currently operates four flights to Chinese cities. China operates 18 flights to India.  

On Thursday, negotiations between Indian and Chinese aviation authorities concluded that airlines of both sides can fly on to a maximum of two cities each in three regions. While India asked for Canada-US; Australia-New Zealand and Asia. China has asked for — Africa, Middle-East (including Gulf) and Europe — as the three regions for its carriers.

A month ago 2point6billion.com, had reported that the deal would be signed, sealed and stamped in Jet’s favour in a month (http://www.2point6billion.com/2008/02/18/jet-setgo/)

The much awaited direct flights are expected to boost economy and cultural ties between the two silk route nations. Trade between India and China has only ballooned from the begining of this century. During the year 2000-01, the bilateral trade volume was barely US $ 2 billion. This increased to US $ 11.3 billion in 2004-05, current bilateral trade stands at an excess of US $ 15 billion. Since 1997-98, Indo-China trade has registered a growth of 260% i.e., average yearly growth of around 33%.

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If you were planning on climbing Mt Everest this summer, make alternative plans. In a bid to allow the Olympic torch to safely scale the summit of the world’s highest peak, both approach routes, to the Mt Everest peak - from the Nepal side and the Tibetian side will be off limits.

Nepal’s tourism minister, Prithvi Subba Gurung, told the New York Times in a telephone interview on Thursday that the Chinese government had appealed to his administration to help prevent disruptions to the Olympic torch ceremony. “Expedition teams will not be allowed to ascend Mount Everest from the base camp” on the Nepal side, he said.

Nepal’s decision underscores its vulnerability to pressure from its large and powerful neighbor to the north, even if it involves forsaking lucrative earnings from expedition permits. The tourism industry is among Nepal’s most important revenue streams, and the tourism ministry says permits to scale Everest put $4 million into government coffers last year, a significant amount for one of Asia’s poorest countries.

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Boosting Indo-China ties through tourism seems to be the new topic government officials are talking about. Expected no sooner than in a months time, Jet airways will start flying Boeings 777 between Mumbai and Shanghai. A much awaited move, the flight is expected to give further impetus to trade between the two countries. Currently, only one airline - Air India runs that route direct, however it takes an awfully long 12 hours with stops in New Delhi and Bangkok. While a lot has been said on the lack of flights, people in both countries seem optimistic of late.
For those that are curious to know whats stalling the flight, its the fifth freedom rights in the air bilateral services agreement. — During Dr Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Beijing, both countries decided to restrict the right of one carrier of each country to fly to three regions beyond the two countries. Currently Jet has asked for permission to fly Mumbai - Shanghai -San Francisco - one region beyond the two countries, however in a meeting scheduled for next month, China wants to reach an agreement on the three specific regions carriers can fly to from each other’s territories before giving the final green signal.
The deal might also sour India China relations to some extent as India was prompt in allowing Chinese cargo carrier - Great Wall airlines to fly to Mumbai and Chennai despite security concerns raised by the National Security Council Secretariat and other agencies. This gesture was expected to be reciprocated by Beijing allowing Jet to ply the Mumbai - Shanghai route smoothly.

We’ve had a lot of emails about the 2point6billion event we held last week in Beijing and specifically the content about the new air, rail and road links that China and India are currently developing. Chris always uses powerpoints as prompts rather than as the full text for his speech, and he never pre-writes what he’s going to say anyway, he speaks off-the-cuff. However, what we can do is present some of the data for you in this thread, which includes parts of his debate.

Chris started off by going through a fair amount of China-India trade history, from ancient silk road routes, Roman times to WW2. Part of this was the point made that Chinese-Indian trade has been going on for centuries, and that the slow down over the past 60 years due to war and political problems is now coming to an end, and normality of trade between the two countries is in the ascendancy. To demonstrate this he provided copies of old trade routes.

 China to Rome

The Overland Silk Road, with it’s spurs into India – the Uttarapatha route across Northern India and West China, through Bactria and onto Constantinople, and the Dashinpatha Route, which connected from this and brought goods down to the Western ports of India, and then to Arabia and Africa, thus providing a steady stream of Chinese and Indian product through to the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago.

As part of this, samples of 1,500 year old Chinese silk were shown, from sites in North-Western Europe that traveled the Silk Road, in addition to ancient paintings showing Chinese, Indian Buddhist and Muslim traders riding on horseback together.

Old Sea Routes

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