13th April

Casting a New Order

The article talks about the paradigm shift in the foreign policy of US post-Obama which aspires to restore the image of US as a truly world leader in a more respectful manner. 

While the first step went towards making amends with Iran, Obama also made sure Iran participates in resolving the Middle-East crisis especially in its neighborhood Afghanistan. Obama also asserted that Tehran should be accorded its true place on the international table. Iran has also responded positively to Obama’s overture. Besides that Obama’s team, lead by Hillary Clinton, also reached China and Russia since US had a very rough time with these two economic giants during the Bush era. Collaboration with these two countries is necessary for the Af-Pak strategy to succeed, especially China since it has the muscle to bring out US from this deep economic crisis. Obama is also negotiating with the European powers to find the way out of the mess as during the G-20 summit. However, his recommendations were treated with caution. He is also expected to improve relations with Cuba.

With no boasting of a messiah and a realpolitik, Obama is ought to succeed owing to the honesty in his diplomacy and it is evident that the new world order is taking shape under his leadership.

The XX Factor

The article expresses concern over the increasingly skewed gender ratio in China which has 32 million more male babies then females. The author then shifts the discussion of the problem in India’s perspective where the problem is acute irrespective of educational or financial affluence. 

With strict once child policy in China affective from 1979, Chinese parents are seeing girl child as a burden and have resorted to abortions till their first child is male. With 1/6th of the world population residing in China, the problem is huge. Although the government in China has relaxed the one child policy, there is still a huge market for male babies who are kidnapped and sold later on. With respect to China, India also needs to put its house in order. Both the countries have almost similar gender ratio of 10:7. Even in the affluent areas of Punjab and South Delhi the gender ratio is worse then other parts. Rich can afford the expensive technology-aided tests to determine the sex of the unborn. At workplace, equal pay to women employees is yet a distant dream. The awareness about gender equality has to come from education at primary and secondary level. 

At the end, more needs to be done with respect to financial incentives and ensuring inheritance rights to women rather then just tax reliefs.