Wednesday, March 4, 2009

India & China in the News

Here are two good articles bannered by Slate today: Foreign Policy's profile on China's leadership, and Newsweek's trend piece on rising religious violence in India.

The trend piece seemed to be a good look into India's religious-political scene. Unfortunately, it failed to meet Jack Shafer's trend story standards. If there is indeed a rise in religious violence, perhaps that would be reflected in number of incidents. However, the author, Sumit Ganguly, failed to include any numbers in his analysis. He simply recounted three "adventures" of two bigoted groups over a two month period. He did not cite an increase in membership of these groups. No number of incidents beyond the three described. Nor a comparison to number of incidents in prior years. Thanks for your public service, Sumit.

The piece on Chinese leadership is interesting. It says that the Chinese leaders are balancing the two interest groups and seeking to expand the solution space. Let's hope they succeed in keeping social harmony.

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