Boeing set to grab $6-bn India order

[Bhaisahab]

NEW DELHI: This would, probably, be the biggest corporate victory for the US in India. State-owned behemoth Air-India is planning to award its over $6 billion mega order for purchasing 50 aircraft to the US-based aircraft-maker Boeing.

Together with its low-cost start-up A-I Express — which has already selected Boeing for its comparatively smaller $1-billion order for 18 planes, this would make the biggest order bagged by any single aircraft manufacturer in recent times.

If the Cabinet clears the order, it will be the strongest message yet to the US that India is willing to play hard for great power stakes. Washington’s recent avowals to enable India become a great power in the 21st century have strong economic underpinnings, and for the first time, India is in a position to leverage its economic clout for strategic ends.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1073897.cms

[bloodyjack]

1. Interesting article and worthy of a bump out of the beyond

"Washington’s recent avowals to enable India become a great power in the 21st century"

If such is the case—that our encouragement of India as a sort of wakened giant has "strong economic underpinnings" along w/ the obvious need to engender something striking a balance with China, then why has the US been balking at expansion of the UNSC which would possibly include India among a host of emerging and established economies such as Brazil and Japan, respectively? and why has the US effectively kept Pakistan's current government on life support thereby further entangling the country in the hopeless corruption and domestic strife of decades past and future? could this have something to do with the previously discussed plans regarding a natural gas pipeline extending from Iran through Pakistan to India (and later perhaps China), because I kind of doubt it. Then again, I have no idea what is going on here; I should think that the US would be doing everything within reason and decorum to encourage Indian prominence on the global/continental/subcontinental stage, since India is a potentially liberalizing influence of such magnitude, socially and economically—greater than any other Asian countries that immediately spring to mind, aside from Japan I guess

Judging by your username and your posts in this forum you are an Indian who follows more closely than most other posters various political developments in India and the rest of S. Asia, so maybe you can enlighten me about US-India dynamics. What I wish to know is: is there a definite pattern of Indian opposition to American policy in whatever region we've happened to fuck over as evidenced through the past 60 years—or more relevantly, after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Funny thing is, that's when the US and India realized, or should have realized, a shared interest in the gradual liberalization of neighboring countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, even Indonesia etc., as well as threats to each country's regional dominance (albeit to different degrees and for wildly divergent reasons)

In any case, wouldn't inclusion in the UNSC amount to useless symbolism, as none of the countries admitted would be conferred veto power, per the conditions set by current members of the UNSC? this is according to something I read somewhere on the internet some time back.

In conclusion: if I recall correctly, Air India's in-flight vegetarian meals aren't COMPLETELY disgusting

edit: OH GOD THIS WAS PRETTY OFF-TOPIC FOR A FIRST RESPONSE :-(

[saigon68]

2. A GREAT POWER has to get millions of homeless beggars off the streets.

Indian is a cess pool of poverty. Mother Teresa didn't go there for no reason.