Skipping Traditional Infrastructure In Rwanda

Delivery Drones Are Saving Lives in Rwanda and Tanzania | Backchannel https://t.co/3q54m6qoHH via @backchnnl

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) September 19, 2017

Indians skipped landline phones. They went straight to mobile phones. Now looks like Rwanda is going straight to drones, skipping roads and bridges.

“Countries like Rwanda can make decisions fast and can implement new technologies in concert with new regulations fast, so we’re now in a position where the US is trying to follow Rwanda,” says Keller Rinaudo, CEO and co-founder of Zipline. “They’re not trying to catch up to US infrastructure. They’re just leapfrogging roads and trucks and motorcycles and going to a new type of infrastructure.”

In early 2018, Zipline will officially kick off the world’s largest delivery drone service in Tanzania, Rwanda’s much larger neighbor. The Tanzanian government aims to use Zipline’s delivery drones to make up to 2,000 deliveries of medical supplies per day. Those deliveries of supplies such as blood products, medicines, and snake antivenom will go to more than 1,000 hospitals and clinics serving 10 million people. An operation at this scale will dwarf anything previously attempted in the drone-delivery universe.

Trump In Africa

“Among the candidates for the presidents of America, he's the only man who says that once he becomes the president of America, he will fight the dictators — all African dictators including Museveni,” one of the activists, Kizza Hakim, told a local TV station, referring to Uganda’s 72-year-old President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been in power since 1986, after helping to topple dictator Idi Amin, and has shown an increasingly autocratic bent in recent years.

Hakim appeared to be referring to a fake Trump quote that has circulated around East Africa, in which he supposedly promised to not “condone any dictatorial tendencies exhibited by dictators around the world, especially the two old men from Zimbabwe and Uganda.”

"[Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe and Museveni must be put on notice that their days are numbered and that I am going to arrest them and lock them in prison,” Trump is falsely quoted as saying. “If the past American administrations have failed to stop these two despots, I will personally do it.”

A Trump campaign spokeswoman confirmed that the quote is false.

Dictators In Africa

There are a whole bunch of dictators in Africa who can’t understand how Barack Obama can get by on a salary of 200,000 dollars a year. To them it is peanuts. Granted the Secret Service is paid for and the housing is paid for and Air Force One is paid for, but what about miscellaneous expenses?

Fear Of Gun Violence Is Black Slavery Today

Mars is the new Moon. Now we want to go to Mars. Shift happens. Similarly, I think it is fair to say gun violence is the black slavery today. The black neighborhoods of this country have been infested with both drugs and violence. I don't know how much of this is random and how much of this is planned, but the impact is devastating. If there were a racist conspiracy to keep black people down, you would push drugs and guns into The Hood. It works like magic. The black community stands knee-capped. It's a tragedy, because it is such a waste. Black potential is human potential. We would all be better off if black folks had a shot in life.

Mars is the new Moon. And gun violence is the black slavery today. You can not take America into the 21st century without a constitutional amendment that settles the gun debate once and for all. I thought that might happen before gay marriage went national. I am glad gay marriage has gone national, but gun violence also needs to stop. I am glad poor white folks now have health care, but black folks deserve a life without a permanent threat of guns.

I can't think of a better way for the first black president to end his eight years than by steering a constitutional amendment on this topic. This country owes this president this little thing. He has done right by everybody. He saved you from a Great Depression. He gave you health care. The least you can give him back is some gun sanity. You owe him one. It is payback time.

2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top

2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top



Barack Obama’s autobiography Dreams From My Father is full of little references to what Nelson Mandela in his autobiography called “a thousand little indignities.” But one was talking mostly about America, the other about apartheid South Africa. Can one black man’s ascension to the top make up for racist snarls at the highest levels of government like in the US Senate?

It is time we faced the fact the United Nations is not a world government. It is time to call a spade a spade. It is time to see this institution designed by the World War II victors no longer works. This is not a world government by the far stretches of the imagination. Often when we talk of civil rights movements, we think in terms of ordinary people marching out in the streets. But now is the time for a civil rights movement in which the heads of state march.

What we have is essentially apartheid. The leading country remains fundamentally racist, nowhere more evident than in the country’s criminal justice system. There is no world government. There is a need for one. The thorniest global problems, the loftiest trade deals are worked on outside the UN framework.

America itself needs to be reimagined if it is to fulfill its original mission of a total spread of democracy. It needs to become a country where African immigrants are as at home as European immigrants. White is black is white.

In a democracy you get to vote because you are a human being, not because you are literate or rich. But in the community of nations, there are countries that are rich and have guns, and most have neither. The entire continent of Africa stands disenfranchised. This landmass that is the most central of all, from where we all originated, is still in the clutches of a contemporary incarnation of colonization, slavery and apartheid. We don’t have a name for it yet, but the affliction is very real. Its poverty and disease stem from that disempowerment, not the other way round. And so, any voice that seeks to address its poverty and disease without taking stock of its disenfranchisement is shedding crocodile tears.

What is Barack Obama going to do? Leave the White House and do paid speeches? Write books? Launch a foundation? Raise money for AIDS? Share a stage or two with Bono and George Clooney? The guy is still young. This guy who has cleared up half century old cobwebs every year he has been in office is best suited to lead this revolution from the top. And this is not a cry for Africa, although Africa could use some empowerment. This is a cry for the world. Right now we are a species looking down a sinkhole of uncontrolled weather patterns that just might wipe out life and civilization as we know it. We still have immense poverty and disease that Bill Gates says “only a world government can solve,” and Gates is a guy who has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, one of the leading entrepreneurs of the era in whose wake many billionaires have given money to fight basic poverty. We face security threats that no one government can solve. Globalization continues to move at breakneck speeds speeding up as the Internet takes deeper roots everywhere, but we have not done the task of institution building that that globalization requires.

Let’s open our eyes and take a look at the elephant in the room. Yes, what we need is a world government, and there is no person better than Barack Obama to take the lead on it. We are lucky we have a George Washington precisely when we need one. And lucky us that the guy is almost done with his current job where he has been stellar every year. Heads of state across the world should join in this chorus and shape this revolution from the top. Lucky us that our thorniest global problems have solutions in political concepts we have already designed, like one person one vote taken to its logical, global conclusion.

There is always inertia. Every monumental political change that in hindsight looks so obviously positive has faced inertia. And this likely will be no different. But the blueprint has to be made, and it has to be presented to ordinary peoples on all continents, so a groundswell of support can build around it.

We want to live in a world where human beings can feel equal everywhere. We want to live in a world with abundant clean energy. We want to live in a world with abundant water, and food and green space. We want clean air. We want to create the industries of tomorrow. We seek unprecedented rises in productivity, as well equitable distribution. We want people to be happy.

It is time the heads of state across the world came together and created the world’s first world government in the leadership of Barack Obama. In his birth as well as personality and outlook, he bridges the world. In his person the world has a chance to come together to reach new heights. This century can not only be the best ever, it can also be one where we have gone past our existential worries, where we have created a truly global civilization, one grand village where everyone can feel a sense of belonging everywhere, where people can take pride in their heritage and claim the common future at the same time, without hassle.

This is in essence a political struggle, where all you start with is a voice. Ordinary people have done it many times before. Heads of state can do it this one time.

It is still about Hope. It is still about Change.

We need a world government because it is time we established rule of law between nations. That is the civilized way.



राजेंद्र महतो लाई ICU पुर्याउने सरकार राजीनामा दे, काठमाण्डु छोड़, देश छोड़, ये धरती हमारी, ये मुल्क हमारा
E for Education, E for Entrepreneurship, E for Energy
Barack Obama: George Washington
आर्थिक क्रांतिका पाँच पाण्डव: सुशासन, शिक्षा, स्वास्थ्य, संरचना, (उद्योगव्यापार) सुलभता
Barack Obama Is Biologically Superior
An Open Letter To Barack Obama

Mr. Obama Comes To Africa

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo during a meeting with Lula da Silva, President of Brasil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Barack Obama In Kenya
FDR = Keynesian, Barack Obama = Kenyan

What President Obama didn’t see on his trip to Africa

it is unlikely he saw many Africans engaged in modern, high productivity jobs at all. ..... Ethiopia and Kenya, the two countries on this visit, are among the region’s least successful countries in converting economic growth into employment growth. .... One of the enduring “stylized facts” of economic development is that in poorer countries like Ethiopia and Kenya workers generally move from agriculture to higher productivity sectors. This is good for growth and for the workers themselves. In Asia, where poverty has fallen most rapidly over the past quarter century, millions of households have been drawn out of poverty through the rapid expansion of industry. In Africa structural transformation of this type has contributed very little to growth and poverty reduction. As recently as the turn of the 21st century a growing share of African workers found themselves trapped in low productivity, low-wage employment. ....... Four out of five workers leaving agriculture are finding or creating jobs in services such as trade and distribution. These jobs are not the high-tech service jobs celebrated during President Obama’s visit to Kenya. This is movement from low-productivity to marginally higher-productivity employment in markets, on sidewalks, and in food stalls. ..... about 80 percent of Africa’s workers are employed in either agriculture or services. ...... output per worker in manufacturing across Africa is more than six times that in agriculture. Despite the potential that industry offers, it has not been part of the African success story. In 2012, the average share of manufacturing in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa was about 10 percent, unchanged from the 1970s. .........

In Cambodia and Vietnam—two emerging Asian economies that as recently as a decade ago were very similar to Ethiopia and Kenya in terms of income, infrastructure, and human capital—manufacturing has grown to 20 and 24 percent of GDP, respectively.

....... “creating the transparency, and the rule of law, and the ease of doing business, and the anti-corruption agenda that creates a platform for people to succeed.” .......

However, they are also the easy answers of the aid industry.

...... the sad fact that donors—the United States among them—have not been willing to address

the more fundamental constraints to Africa’s industrial development: simple but costly things like infrastructure and skills or politically difficult things like expanding preferential market access.

....... the failure to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act to most agricultural products were notably absent from the president’s published remarks. ..... Africans, especially the young seeking good jobs, deserve something more from the U.S. president than cheerleading and conventional wisdom.

The Five Worst Leaders In Africa

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea ..... Equatorial Guinea is one of the continent’s largest producers of oil and has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into prosperity for its people. The country ranks very poorly in the United Nations human development index; the vast majority of Equatorial Guineans hardly have access to clean drinking water. ......... José Eduardo dos Santos, President of Angola ...... Angola is extremely resource-rich. ....... the second-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa and the seventh-largest supplier to the United States. Angola also has massive diamond deposits and occupies an enviable position as the world’s fourth largest producer of rough diamonds. ........ 68% of the country’s total population lives below the poverty line of $1.7 a day, while 28% live on less than 30 cents. ......... Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe ....... GDP growth in 2011 was over 7% and the Southern African state has experienced single-digit inflation since 2009. .... Mugabe’s government has also recorded significant achievements in education as a result of extensive teacher training and school expansion projects: At over 80%, the country has one of the highest literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. ........ Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is the highest in sub-Saharan Africa: it’s over 60%. ....... King Mswati III, King of Swaziland .... nearly 70 percent of the country’s citizens live on less than $1 a day and 40 percent are unemployed. ...... Omar Al-Bashir, President of Sudan

What Obama Didn't Say in His African Union Address

in his controversial speech, Obama addressed corruption, democracy, and civil rights, yet there was still a lot left unsaid. ...... we have to remember that President Obama is the head of the U.S. empire. .... But all three of their policies have been devastating for the African continent. If we look at President Clinton, he championed a so-called new breed of African leaders, where we focus on Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, where we see Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo and triggered the deadliest conflict since World War II where an estimated 6 million people lost their lives, and the people in the Central Africa still live in a deathtrap, and U.S. policy is playing a key role in that. ....... President Bush egged on the Ethiopians to invade Somalia in 2006, which set back stability in that region that was being developed by the Islam [Accords]. And of course we know with President Obama, he led, along with Sarkozy and NATO, the bombing of Libya and the regime change in Libya that has devastated a country and has had deleterious impact on neighboring countries. ...... Especially if we can, we look into the manner in which the United States has supported so-called presidents for life on the African continent. Probably most prominently and classically is after the U.S. overthrew Patrice Lumumba in 1960, it supported President Mobutu for over three decades. And it was only with the backing of the United States that Mobutu was able to remain in power, and he destroyed the country and ran it into the ground. ....... What we see on the African continent is almost, in his speeches, it's almost like the international version of you know, pull your pants up. Do your homework, and this respectability politics that he pushes domestically, or he has pushed domestically, he pushes on the international level as well. ....... the U.S. role in stifling democracy and stifling the development and the plundering of the African continent, if he was to acknowledge that and then get into some of the policy issues, I think then his proclamations would be a bit more credible, let's say. ....... So we have as a part of his entourage and his administration individuals who have been cozy with quote-unquote friendly tyrants on the African continent. ...... So we see where the United States and the administration and the Congress, they've been cozy with some pretty nasty characters who repressed their people, who restrict the rights of their population. ...... And they continue to do that, because we only have to look at Uganda today with Yoweri Museveni, who's been in office for some 20-odd years. And he's a key ally for the United States. ........... So many Africans have told me, we don't want just aid, we want trade that fuels progress. ..... it really depends whether you're talking about coming from a neoliberal framework, from the idea of the Washington consensus formed for Africa, or whether you're talking about the kind of trade we see in Latin America that is lifting all boats, so to speak. .......

since President Obama's been in office, 2008, trade with Africa has declined by half. I believe we went from about $142 billion to $73 billion. Compared to China, for example, our trade between China and Africa is three times that of the United States. It's valued at around $222 billion.

...... are we talking about trade that benefits the elites in Africa and the elites in the West, where you have some $65-70 billion of illicit outflow of capital from the African continent as a result of the plundering of the continent by its local elites and foreign corporations coming from the West.

Africa to Obama: Mind your own business

United States President Barack Obama is the most admired foreign leader in Africa because he has ancestral roots in our continent. .... we African elites have internalised the ideology of our conquerors that presents us as inferior, inadequate, and incapable of self-government. ..... behind Obama's seeming concern for our good lies the social contempt he holds us in. ..... Why doesn't Obama openly admonish leaders of Western Europe whenever he visits their countries? Is it because they govern better? .... There is a lot of corruption and widespread human rights abuses (especially of migrant minorities) in Western Europe - not to mention the brutality, genocides, forced labour, and racism that characterised their governance of Africa during colonial rule. ...... Humanitarian Imperialism, the US and Western Europe behave like a mafia godfather who, as he grows old, decides to defend law and order and begins to attack his lesser colleagues in crime, preaching brotherly love and the sanctity of human life - all the while holding onto his ill-gotten wealth and the income it generates........

In the US, a black person is killed by the highly militarised police force every 28 hours .

..... Scores of black people in the US are stopped and searched every minute for no other reason than the colour of their skin. ..... Blacks constitute 12-13 percent of the US population but 43 percent of its prison population. Although there are only 33 million blacks in the US, there are one million (nearly four percent) of them in jail. ...... the incarceration rate of blacks in the US is 10 times that of blacks in apartheid South Africa. .... The New Jim Crow, there are double the number of blacks in jail than in college. .....

There are more black people in jail today than were enslaved in 1850; and more blacks are disenfranchised today than in 1875

, when the 15th amendment prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on race was passed. ....... In Obama's hometown of Chicago, the total population of black males with a felony record is 80 percent of the adult black male workforce. ..... The 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa Obama admonishes have a combined population of 961 million and their total prison population is 830,000. ...... If sub-Saharan Africa jailed its people at the same rate as the US jails its black population, we would have 38.4 million people in jail. ..... mass surveillance programmes that allow the federal government to eavesdrop on almost every communication of American citizens and allies ...... The corruption of Washington and Wall Street - where corporate profits are privatised and losses nationalised - goes without saying. ...... Invading sovereign nations and toppling their governments while leaving chaos in their wake, the large scale use of drones which kill innocent civilians in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are the kind of crimes the US commits. ..... Obama's choice to lecture Africa is a product of the social contempt he and his countrymen and women have for black people. ...... Many African leaders do not treat their people with the cruel contempt with which the US treats its black citizens. ...... True some of our leaders use the police against their political rivals. But the US uses its police daily against innocent poor black people who are not even contesting for political power from the white financial, industrial, and military aristocracy that rules that country. ...... Africans fight for more freedom, democracy, and clean government daily...... And in these struggles, the US has consistently sided with our oppressors......... Steven Biko, a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, said that the greatest weapon in the hands of an oppressor is never his guns and armies, but the mind of the oppressed. ..... Like all imperial powers before it, the US seeks to dominate the world in order to exploit it. This is how it sustains her greedy consumption.

Related articles

• AMA Preview: The Physician "Brain Drain" from Sub-Saharan Africa to the US: Reasons, Consequences, Potential Solutions
• Africa's Progress Is Good for America
• All the U.S. presidents' trips to Africa, mapped
• 5 charts on America's (very positive) image in Africa
• Obama Heads to Africa to Promote Trade
• President Barack Obama Advocates More AIDS Deaths and Suffering in Kenya
• Applications Open for the First Google Developers Summit in Sub Saharan Africa
• EU, US to assist efforts to increase access to electricity in Africa

Africa Deserves To Manufacture

In a sane world, this map would bring about a rapid realignment of forces. Manufacturing and installing these solar panels is the next industrial revolution all on its own.

Quagmire in the Sahara: Desertec's Promise of Solar Power for Europe Fades

Supporters hailed the Desertec Industrial Initiative as the most ambitious solar energy project ever when it was founded in 2009. Major industrial backers pledged active involvement, politicians saw a win-win proposition and environmentalists fawned over Europe's green energy future. For a projected budget of €400 billion ($560 billion), the venture was to pipe clean solar power from the Sahara Desert through a Mediterranean super-grid to energy-hungry European countries. ..... Spain recently balked at signing a declaration of intent to connect high-voltage lines between Morocco and the rest of Europe. In recent weeks, two of the biggest industrial supporters at the founding of the initiative, Siemens and Bosch, backed out. And perhaps most tellingly, though last week's third annual Desertec conference was held in Berlin's Foreign Ministry, not a single German cabinet minister bothered to attend. .... Political backing for energy from the desert, in other words, is evaporating. ...... For all the initial enthusiasm, countries have been hesitant about plunging into a large, cooperative grid in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. ....... "We should say we're closing the whole thing down because we have no political support." ...... Renewable energy projects remain more expensive than traditional fossil fuel plants and tend to require government subsidies. And Desertec is an order of magnitude larger and more complicated than the offshore wind parks currently under construction in the North Sea. The idea is to generate a significant percentage of Europe's energy needs using solar thermal plants in sunny North Africa and then transmitting that power via an ultramodern grid across the Mediterranean. ....... Part of the problem is historical distrust. No country wants to import electricity and energy security is often at the top of national objectives. ....... Exporting the green power involves connecting the countries with the sun to consumer countries like Germany by way of long-distance high-voltage power lines. That is expensive, and any country that is to be part of the proposed new grid, like Spain, can throw a wrench in the works.

Related articles

• Dust from the Sahara Desert cools the Iberian Peninsula
• Driving a Ferrari Testarossa to the Sahara Desert. Why Not?
• "Sand Tower" In The Heart Of Sahara Desert
• 1KW 100 Watt 12v Solar Panel 10pcs Solar Module by ECO-WORTHY
• Storing Renewable Energy with Tesla Motors Technology
• The Battle of Solar vs. Conventional Utilities

Africa Can Save The World

Barack Obama And Africa
Barack Obama Africa Foundation

This is mind blowing. Africa has had it this entire time.

Barack Obama Africa Foundation

English: Barack Obama delivers a speech at the University of Southern California (Video of the speech) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have no advice for how Hillary should run for president, but I do have advice on how Barack Obama could retire. I think he should launch, wait. There was speculation somewhere that he could become Supreme Court Justice. I don't believe that rumor. There was a similar rumor in Bill Clinton's final year in office. So I don't believe. But I would like to believe. I think Barack Obama becoming Supreme Court Justice would be awesome, for the black community. The constant reminder that this dude was in the White House might impact an entire generation. Heck, he might even become Chief Justice some day.

But he should do what would make him happy. And, perhaps, just like Billie Clinton, Barack Obama is a little too kinetic to sit on the Supreme Court.

My advice is, he should launch a Barack Obama Africa Foundation. Africa is the last continent. There is still so much political chaos on that continent. Much of the poverty and disease emanates from that chaos. As a former POTUS he might have both the stature and the distance to be able to bring people together. The foundation would be dedicated to (1) a total spread of democracy on the continent through peaceful means, (2) strengthening of democracies, (3) rooting out corruption, (4) attracting large scale FDI into the emerging economies, and to (5) eventually bring about an economic union of the continent.

That is my advice for Barack Obama.

I said very early on, the best thing Barack Obama can do as president for the black people, is to do the very best he can do as president. Just do your job. Now I am saying, in retirement he should perhaps consider giving himself fully to the continent of Africa.

Related articles

• President Barack Obama to appear at White House Correspondent's Dinner
• Clinton's Cash: Bill defends Clinton Foundation, says no wrongdoings
• How is President Bill Clinton doing? new poll ...click
• Slick Willie: We Just Need to Pay the Bills
• Analysis Shows Bill Clinton's Speaking Fees Skyrocketed After Hillary Became SecState
• CNN Reporter: Bill Clinton's 'Pay The Bills' Comment 'Is So Out Of Touch With The Average American'
• 'House of Cards' star Michael Kelly 'would love' to see Bill Clinton make a cameo
• Bill Clinton's plane makes abrupt stop in Africa
• Obama nominates Gayle Smith to lead USAID
• Bill Clinton says nothing 'sinister' in foreign donations to foundation

Barack Obama And Africa

Barack Obama has been a successful president by any measure. But one place where he has missed the mark is in actively being the first black president.

The African American salvation does not lie in America. It lies in Africa. Unless the continent of Africa does what China has done, the African Americans will continue to be a sorry lot inside this country. It is sad that a black man can be in the White House, supposedly the most powerful office on the planet, and apparently be helplessly at the receiving end of the most open, the most stupid, the most crude racist attacks by the white guys in the US Senate. The whole world is watching. The message to black America can NOT be, racism is just reality, just put up with it. That defeats the purpose of putting a black guy in the White House.

Barack Obama can do much to help the continent of Africa try and achieve China like, and now India like, economic strides. He has not done much at all.

You are not white. You are black. Let Africa see that.

ISIS Territory Is The New Rwanda

Map of Rwanda from CIA World Factbook, with province boundaries and names added. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the worst case scenario, the ISIS territory, even if it does not expand -- I mean, it is not like anyone seriously thinks they will take over everything they want to take over -- is a Rwanda in the making. It is selfish to think the ISIS is a problem only if it blows up a cafe in some rich country. The killings inside ISIS territory have to be of concern. Once ISIS has reached its territorial limits and it becomes super hard for it to expand, it is going to turn inwards, and it is going to keep looking for enemies within. Already unacceptable levels of killings are going to go up several notches. What will the world do then? Sit and watch? What is the threshold? Is it half a million dead? At what point does the world intervene?

ISIS is not a religion, it is not a state, it is a cult. It is not even a terrorist organization like the Al Qaeda, it is a cult.

Related articles

• In support of the BBC documentary "Rwanda's Untold Story"
• Rwanda receives €7m from Germany for district development
• World Bank gives Rwanda $70m to help fight poverty
• UN pulls out of DR Congo assault
• Picture of the Day: Team Rwanda Sees Snow For First Time Ever

Connecting China And India By Train

China’s expanding rail network in Tibet nears Sikkim
Qinghai–Tibet Railway
Extension to bring Tibet railway line closer to India
Tibet Train Map
China plans taking Tibet rail network near Sikkim
Extend Tibet railway line to Kathmandu, Nepal tells China
India could take out Qinghai-Tibet Railway to cripple PLA

This is the Asian Century and China is taking the lead. Between them China and India are looking good. And the number one fallout of this new development has to be that hundreds of millions of new people get to get out of poverty. To that end railways connections between the two countries would go a long way. One would go through Sikkim, another would go through Nepal, through Kathmandu, the capital city, and on south to India.

Beijing has plans to become the capital city of the world by forging railway connections to all continents except Antarctica. There is talk of a train route to the continental US through Alaska. Another route to Africa. There is already one to Germany.

You can't go to America, and Africa and ignore India.

There is a huge peace dividend to such railway extensions. Every billion you spend on such railways is a billion you do not have to spend on defense, something like that. Defense expenditures are a one way street, whereas trains make you money.

Related articles

• Strategic Challenges Facing Prime Minister Modi - Analysis
• Will India have its own world media on Modi's watch? (Comment: Special to IANS)
• India's 10-point agenda for LatAm
• China's railway diplomacy steams ahead in West Africa
• Koirala returns from Kunming
• China And South Asia: Contention And Cooperation Between Giant Neighbours - Analysis
• Modi's India And The World He Confronts - OpEd
• Wang visit to add momentum to China ties: India
• The tripolar world that Modi should plan for
• Chinese FM's Delhi visit to test 'love triangle'