India should seek to play the role of honest broker to defuse the threat of military hostilities, which would most likely shut down the world’s most important oil-export route, the Strait of Hormuz (a danger that Iran has said is also implicit in an oil-export embargo against it).	印度应当试图扮演一个真诚协调人角色来消除军事敌意所带来的威胁，因为这一威胁很可能会切断世界上最重要的石油出口通道——霍尔木兹海峡（伊朗声称如果对其执行石油禁运的话显然也会引发这一危机）。


But, far from being able to play the role of bridge-builder between the US and Iran, India is being forced to walk a policy tightrope, and its desire to chart a neutral course has annoyed both sides.	虽然没有能力在美伊之间牵线搭桥，印度却被迫走上了政策的钢丝绳，而走一条中立路线的意愿却又两头不讨好。


Every time a senior Indian delegation visits Iran, or vice versa, the US warns India that its cozying up to Iran “raises obstacles” to building a closer strategic partnership.	每当有印度和伊朗有高级代表团互访，美国就会警告印度说这种对伊缓和行为会为美印结成更紧密战略伙伴关系“制造障碍”。


Yet, by voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board meetings in 2005 and 2006, India invited Iranian reprisal in the form of cancellation of a highly favorable 25-year, $22 billion liquefied-natural-gas deal.	但在2005年和2006年连续两次在国际原子能机构理事会会议上对伊朗投了反对票后印度遭到了对方的报复，一份利益极大，为期25年价值220亿美元的液化天然气交易就此取消。


The Iran issue, in effect, has turned into a diplomatic litmus test: Will India stand up for its strategic and energy interests in the region, or will it be co-opted to serve the short-term interests of its friend, the US?	伊朗事务事实上已经变成了一项外交上的石蕊试纸测试：印度究竟应该坚持其区域战略和能源利益，还是选择为其伙伴美国的短期利益服务？


The US, for its part, must reconcile its Iran-related pressure on India, which is likely to continue, despite the sanctions waiver, with the imperative to build deeper defense ties with India, thereby giving strategic heft to its declared “pivot” to Asia.	而美国则必须减少印度在伊朗事务上所承受的压力，因为即便移除了制裁这些压力依然会继续存在，同时也有必要与印度建立更深入的防务联系，并因此给印度这个美国口中的亚洲“枢纽”更多的权重。


India’s Burma Dilemma	印度在缅甸问题上的两难境地


The world has been horrified by graphic images of the latest crackdown by Myanmar’s military junta.	世界被缅甸军政府最新一次镇压的画面所震惊了。


But the bullets and clubs unleashed on Buddhist monks have worked.	但是飞溅到僧侣身上的子弹和棍棒起到了作用。


The monks have retreated, and an eerie normalcy has returned to Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar’s principal city and former capital.	僧侣们退了回去，而仰光（缅甸的主要城市和首都，以前名为Rangoon，后更名为Yangon）又恢复到了一种阴森恐怖的正常状态。


That crackdown continues under cover of darkness.	镇压在夜色的掩盖下继续进行着。


When the sun sets in Myanmar, fear rises.	当太阳在缅甸升起时，人们的恐惧也上升了。


Everyone listens half awake for the dreaded knock on the door.	每个人都在半梦半醒中听着令人恐惧的敲门声。


Any night, the military’s agents can come for you, take you away, and make sure you are never heard from again.	代表军方的人会在任何一个夜晚来到你家，把你带走，并且确保此后没有人再听到你的消息。


In recent nights, the junta’s henchmen have burst into monasteries, lined up sleepy monks, and smashed their shaved heads against the walls, spattering them with blood.	在最近这些天的夜晚，军政府的走狗冲进寺庙，把尚在睡意中的僧侣排成一排，然后把他们剃度过的头撞向墙壁，把他们撞得血肉模糊。


Scores of others, perhaps hundreds, have been carted off for interrogation, torture, or execution.	其他几十人，也许是几百人，被装运去遭受审讯、折磨或者处决。


The nighttime assault on a United Nations employee and her family made international news, but hundreds of less well connected Burmese have been similarly abused.	对一位联合国工作人员和她的家人在夜晚的袭击令国际哗然，然而不太为人所知的是还有数以百计的缅甸人也遭受了同样的虐待。


For 45 years, Myanmar’s people have been subjected to the junta’s reign of terror.	45年来，缅甸的人民一直生活在军政府的恐怖统治下。


My father was born in Rangoon long before the 1962 coup that brought the current regime to power.	我的父亲是在1962年爆发的那场使现政权掌权的政变之前很久出生在Rangoon的。


Afterwards, many of my relatives, prosperous Indian merchants who had been settled in Myanmar for generations, abandoned homes and businesses in order to save their skins as chaos enveloped the city, later renamed Yangon.	后来，我的许多亲戚，他们都是在缅甸居住了数代的富有的印度商人，为了在这座城市（后来被更名为Yangon）的骚乱中保全性命不得不放弃他们的家园和生意。


A relative who now lives in Bangkok, but who returned part-time to Yangon in response to overtures from Myanmar’s cash-starved rulers, recalled those days: “We lived through hell.	我的一位现在生活在曼谷、但是为了响应缅甸严重缺乏资金的统治者的提议曾经回仰光住过一段时间的亲戚回忆起那些日子时说：“我们生活在地狱中。


We never knew when we woke up each morning what would happen.	我们永远不知道当我们每天早晨起来时会发生什么事情。


People were being denounced left and right.	人们受到来自各个方面的告发。


They could just come and take you away and take everything away from you.”	他们会直接走进你家把你带走，并且带走你的所有财物。


Those who couldn’t leave Myanmar, or didn’t want to, have lived with this fear ever since.	”那些无法离开缅甸的人或者不想离开的人，从此以后一直生活在恐惧中。


The United States and Europe have issued strong statements condemning the crackdown and calling upon Myanmar’s neighbors, especially India and China, to exert their influence on the regime.	美国和欧洲都发布了强硬的声明谴责镇压行径，并且呼吁缅甸的邻国，尤其是印度和中国，对它的政府施加影响。


The response from both has been muted (as it has from Thailand, which also has strong economic ties with Myanmar).	但是两国对此都保持沉默（与缅甸保持很强的经济联系的泰国也是如此）。


China balks at interfering in the “internal affairs” of a neighbor from whom it gets precious natural gas and potential access to the sea.	中国不太愿意干涉一个它可以从中获得宝贵的天然气并且将来有希望获得入海通道的邻国的“内政”。


India, which “normalized” bilateral relations a few years ago, is reluctant to alienate Myanmar’s military, with which it has worked closely to counter rebels in India’s northeast who had been using the common border to tactical advantage.	刚刚在几年前与之双边关系“正常化”的印度也不愿意疏远缅甸军方，因为它们曾密切合作打击利用两国的共同边界作为战术优势在印度西北部活动的叛乱分子。


To this end, India has provided aid, including tanks and training, to Myanmar’s military.	为了这个目的，印度一直在向缅甸军政府提供援助，包括坦克和训练。


But the main reason for India’s good relations with Myanmar’s ruling thugs is the country’s vast and still largely unexploited energy reserves, which India desperately needs to fuel its economic boom.	但是印度与缅甸执政的暴徒保持良好关系的主要原因在于这个国家庞大以及还有大片未被开发的能源储备，印度急切地需要这些能源来推动它的经济增长。


India has invested $150 million in a gas exploration deal off the Arakan coast of Myanmar, and India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Gas Authority of India Ltd. have taken a 30% stake in two offshore gas fields in direct competition with PetroChina, which has also been given a stake.	印度已经在一份对位于缅甸阿拉干湾边的天然气进行开发的协议中投资了1. 5亿美元，而印度国有的石油天然气公司和印度天然气管理局有限公司在与中石油的直接竞争中获得了两个海上气田30%的股份，后者也得到了部分股份。


India and China are simply doing what the US and European countries have done for so long: trump rhetoric about democracy and human rights with policies that serve their strategic and energy security interests.	印度和中国现在所做的不过是美国和欧洲国家做了很长时间的事情：大肆鼓吹民主和人权，同时却实施旨在保护它们的战略和能源安全利益的政策。


US relations with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are two examples, and America’s Chevron and France’s Total, two of the world’s oil giants, continue to do a brisk business in Myanmar, thanks to loopholes in the sanctions.	美国与巴基斯坦和沙特阿拉伯的关系就是两个很好的例子，而美国的雪佛龙公司和法国的道达尔公司两大世界石油巨头得益于制裁中的一些漏洞，在缅甸的业务依然进行很红火。


But the rise of India and China means that the time-tested posture of Western democracies toward emerging states to “do as we say, not as we do” will become less tenable.	但是印度和中国的崛起意味着西方民主对新兴国家受到时间验证的姿态，即“按照我们说的去做，不要按照我们做的去做”，已经不再那么站得住脚了。


If the EU and the US want democratic India to act according to its stated moral values and not its vital national interests when these appear to conflict, they had better be prepared to do the same.	如果欧盟和美国希望民主的印度在两者发生冲突时根据它所宣称的道德价值观而不是它的重大国家利益行事，它们最好自己也先这么做。


Feeling the heat, including threats from some US senators to link America’s nuclear deal with India to its actions in Myanmar, India has announced that it is asking for the release of Burmese democratic opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.	在感受到美国和欧盟的愤怒，包括一些美国的参议员威胁把美国与印度的核协议与它对缅甸所采取的行动联系起来后，印度宣布它正要求释放被软禁在自己家中的缅甸民主反对派领袖和诺贝尔奖获得者昂山素季。


But the credibility of all democratic regimes, not just India’s, is at stake in what unfolds in Myanmar.	但是所有民主政权——不仅仅是印度的民主政权——的可信度面对缅甸的局势发展正面临巨大的威胁。


India’s Dalai Dilemma	印度在达赖喇嘛问题上的两难抉择


As the world reacts to China’s crackdown in Tibet, one country is conspicuous by both its centrality to the drama and its reticence over it.	当全世界对中国在西藏的镇压做出反应的时候，有一个国家由于其处于事件的中心位置及其保持缄默而尤其引人注目。


India, the land of asylum for the Dalai Lama and the angry young hotheads of the Tibetan Youth Congress, finds itself on the horns of a dilemma.	作为达赖喇嘛以及西藏青年会头脑冲动、怒不可遏的头领们的庇护国家，印度处于两难境地。


On one hand, India is a democracy with a long tradition of allowing peaceful protest, including against foreign countries when their leaders come visiting.	在一方面，印度是一个民主国家，具有允许和平示威、包括在外国领导人来访的时候向外国示威的悠久传统。


It provided refuge to the Dalai Lama when he fled Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959, granted asylum (and eventually Indian citizenship) to more than 110,000 Tibetan refugees, and permitted them to create a government-in-exile (albeit one that India does not recognize) in the picturesque Himalayan hill town of Dharamsala.	达赖喇嘛1959年逃离中国占领时印度为他提供了庇护，批准向11万多印度难民给予难民资格 (最终给予印度国籍) ，并且允许他们在风景优美的喜马拉雅的达兰萨拉山镇建立了流亡政府 (尽管印度政府并不承认这一政府) 。


On the other hand, India has been cultivating better relations with China, which humiliated India in a brief border war in 1962.	在另一方面，印度一直培植与中国的良好关系。 中国在1962年的边界战争中羞辱了印度。


Though their bitter border dispute remains unresolved, and China has been a vital ally and military supplier to India’s enemies in Pakistan, bilateral relations have grown warmer in recent years.	尽管两国怀恨在心的边界争端还有待解决，而且中国还是印度在巴基斯坦的敌人的主要盟国和军火供应国，双边关系在最近几年已经变暖。


Trade has doubled in each of the last three years, to an estimated $40 billion this year; China has now overtaken the US as India’s largest single trading partner.	在最近三年中两国贸易翻番，今年达到大约400亿美元。 中国已经超过美国成为印度的最大贸易夥伴。


Tourism, particularly by Indian pilgrims to a major Hindu holy site in Tibet, is thriving.	旅游业蓬勃发展，特别是印度朝圣者前往西藏的一个主要印度教圣地。


Indian information technology firms have opened offices in Shanghai, and Infosys’s headquarters in Bangalore recruited nine Chinese this year.	印度的信息技术公司已经在上海开设了办事处，而Infosys公司在班加罗尔的总部今年录用了九个中国人。


India has no desire to jeopardize any of this.	印度无意损害这些关系。


India’s government has attempted to draw a distinction between its humanitarian obligations as an asylum country and its political responsibilities as a friend of China.	印度政府试图区分作为庇护国家的人道主义义务及其作为中国友邦的政治义务。


The Dalai Lama and his followers are given a respected place but told not to conduct “political activities” on Indian soil.	达赖喇嘛及其追随者获得尊重，但是也被告知不要在印度领土上从事“政治活动”。


When young Tibetan radicals staged a march to Lhasa from Indian soil, the Indian police stopped them well before they got to the Tibetan border, detaining 100.	年轻的西藏极端主义者从印度领土游行前往拉萨的时候，印度警察在他们到达西藏边界之前就阻拦了他们，并且拘捕了100人。


When Tibetan demonstrators outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi attacked the premises, the Indian government stepped up its protection for the Chinese diplomats.	当西藏示威者在新德里的中国大使馆外袭击馆舍的时候，印度政府提高了对中国外交人员的保护。


Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee – who was noticeably less forthcoming on Tibet than his American counterpart during a press conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – has publicly warned the Dalai Lama against doing anything that could have a “negative impact on Indo-Sino relations.”	印度外长慕克吉在于美国国务卿莱斯会晤的时候明显在西藏问题上较为低调。 他公开警告达赖喇嘛不要做任何“对印中关系造成负面影响”的事情。


The Dalai Lama’s curious position has complicated India’s diplomatic dance with China.	达赖喇嘛好奇的立场将印度与中国之间的外交关系复杂化了。


He is simultaneously the most visible spiritual leader of a worldwide community of believers, a role that India honors, and a political leader, a role that India permits but rejects in its own dealings with him.	他是全世界信仰者社区最为瞩目的精神领袖，印度尊重这一作用。 同时，他还是一个政治领导人，印度允许这一角色但是在与他打交道的时候拒绝接受这一角色。


As a Buddhist, the Dalai Lama preaches non-attachment, self-realization, inner actualization, and non-violence; as a Tibetan he is admired by a people fiercely attached to their homeland, with most seeking its independence from China and many determined to fight for it.	作为佛教徒，达赖喇嘛宣扬不追随、自我实现、内在实现以及非暴力。 作为西藏人，他受到强烈热爱国土的人的敬仰，其中的大多数人寻求从中国独立，而且许多决心为此奋斗。


He is the most recognized worldwide symbol of a country that he has not seen for nearly five decades.	他远离故土五十多年，然而人们把他认可为这一国家在全世界最为人知的象征。


The Dalai Lama’s message of peace, love, and reconciliation has found adherents among Hollywood movie stars, pony-tailed hippies, Irish rock musicians, and Indian politicians.	达赖喇嘛的和平、友爱以及和解的教义在好莱坞影星、梳着马尾辫子的优皮士、爱尔兰摇滚乐手以及印度政坛人物中赢得了追随者。


But he has made no headway at all with the regime that rules his homeland, and he has been unable to prevent Tibet’s inexorable transformation into a Chinese province.	但是在与统制他的国土的政权关系上他没有取得任何进展，而且他无力避免西藏不可避免地转化为中国的一个省。


His sermons fill football stadiums and he has won a Nobel Prize, but political leaders around the world shirk from meeting him openly, for fear of offending China.	他的布道可以赢得整个足球场的听众并且获得诺贝尔和平奖，但是全世界的政治领导人却担心冒犯中国而回避与他公开会见。


Indians are acutely conscious that, on this subject, the Chinese are easily offended.	印度非常清楚，在这一问题上中国很容易就被冒犯。


While India facilitated the highly publicized visit by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala last month, it almost simultaneously canceled a scheduled meeting between him and Indian Vice-President Mohammed Hamid Ansari.	美国众议院领袖佩鲁希上个月高调造访在达兰萨拉的达赖喇嘛、印度予以便利之时，它也几乎同时撤销了原定副总统安萨里和达赖喇嘛的会见。


When China summoned India’s ambassador in Beijing to the foreign ministry at 2 a.m. for a dressing-down over the Tibetan protests in New Delhi, India meekly acquiesced in the insult.	中国在凌晨两点召见印度驻华大使抗议藏人在新德里示威的时候，印度温和地忍受了这一羞辱。


Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has publicly declared the Dalai Lama to be the “personification of nonviolence,” India has let it be known that it does not support his political objectives.	尽管印度总理辛格公开宣布达赖喇嘛是“非暴力的象征”，印度表示并不支持他的政治目标。


Tibet, India’s government says, is an integral part of China, and India lends no support to those who would challenge that status.	印度政府说，西藏是中国的一部分，而且印度不支持那些质疑这一地位的人。


That position is not without detractors.	这一立场并非没有招致批评。


The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, which led the previous government) has criticized the current administration for not “expressing concern over the use of force by the Chinese government” and instead “adopting a policy of appeasement towards China with scant regard to the country’s national honor and foreign policy independence.”	印度反对党人民党(上届政府)批评现任政府“没有对中国政府使用武力表示关注”，而是“对中国采取绥靖政策，对于本国的民族荣誉和外交独立不管不顾”。


But few observers believe that the BJP would have conducted itself differently.	但是，观察家们相信，人民党自己会有所不同。


The stark truth is that India has no choice in the matter.	严酷的事实是，印度在这一问题上别无选择。


It cannot undermine its own democratic principles and abridge the freedom of speech of Tibetans on its soil.	它无法决定其自身的民主原则并且在印度的土地上限制言论自由。


Nor can it afford to alienate its largest trading partner, a neighbor and an emerging global superpower, which is known to be prickly over any presumed slights to its sovereignty over Tibet.	它也无法承受远离其最大的贸易夥伴、邻国以及新兴的全球超级大国，而世界知道中国对于西藏主权的任何假定的冒犯都极为敏感。


India will continue to balance delicately on its Tibetan tightrope.	印度将继续在西藏问题这一钢丝绳上保持微妙的平衡。


What’s Troubling India?	什么在困扰印度？


CAMBRIDGE – India’s recent fall from macroeconomic grace is a lamentable turn of events.	美国剑桥—印度最近在宏观经济方面的萎靡表现可堪哀。


After many years of outperformance, GDP growth has slowed sharply.	在多年的卓著表现后，GDP增长率开始大幅放缓。


Annual output will most likely rise by less than 5% this year, down from 6.8% in 2011 and 10.1% in 2010.	今年年产出增长很可能低于5%，而2011年为6. 8%，2010年为10.


Reform has stalled amid profound political paralysis.	改革因为没完没了的政治僵局而陷入了停顿。


All of the major emerging economies face weakening external demand, but India’s slowdown has been exacerbated by a drop in investment that reflects a deeper loss of official direction and business confidence.	所有主要新兴经济体都面临着外部需求疲软的状况，但印度的减速因投资下降而被放大了，而投资下降又反映了正式方向的迷失和商业信心的滑落。


Even the International Monetary Fund’s forecast of a modest improvement in 2013 is predicated on the government’s ability to breathe life into a spate of stalled economic reforms.	就连IMF也预测，2013年印度经济只会略有改善，因为政府难以令陷入停顿的一系列经济改革重获生机。


India’s recent torpor has underpinned a remarkable shift in global opinion.	印度最近的堕落反映了全球观点令人注目的变化。


Just a couple of years ago, India was developing a reputation as the cool place to invest.	几年前，印度还是最酷的投资目的地。


Heads of state tripped over one another to meet business leaders in Mumbai, hoping to pave the way for a significant expansion of trade and investment.	各国首脑一个接一个地来到孟买会见商业领袖，希望外请贸易和投资大扩张的障碍。


Now their interest has faded, along with the macroeconomic numbers.	如今，他们早已意兴阑珊，宏观经济数字也随之一蹶不振。


And yet changes currently afoot might just turn things around.	目前出现的变化也许将改变局势。


India’s octogenarian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has recently awakened to the desperate need for renewed momentum.	印度年近耄耋的总理辛格最近终于警醒，意识到了重获动力的迫切需要。


Economists around the world have taken note of the arrival of Raghuram Rajan as chief economist in the finance ministry.	全世界经济学家都对拉古兰·拉詹（Raghuram Rajan）出任财政部首席经济学家翘首以待。


Rajan is a superstar academic researcher, a brilliant writer on political economy, and a former chief economist for the IMF.	拉詹是学术研究的超级巨星，政治经济学领域的天才作家，也是IMF前首席经济学家。


But it is far from obvious that Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress and the country’s most powerful politician, shares Singh’s reform agenda.	但印度国大党主席、印度最有权力的政治家索尼娅·甘地是否同意辛格的改革计划还远未可知。


True, the cabinet is being reshuffled to elevate younger ministers.	诚然，内阁已被洗牌，为提拔年轻不长做好了准备。


But the process points to a continuation of the tradition whereby most ministers are appointed on the basis of their loyalty to the Gandhi family rather than their merit and accomplishments.	但这一过程延续了一个传统，即大部分部长被任命的原因并不是是否能够胜任和所取得的成就，而是他们是否对甘地家族忠诚。


Unfortunately, for a country as poor as India, only sustained rapid growth can lead to enduring development gains.	不幸的是，在印度这样一个穷国，只有持续的快速增长才能持续产生发展的果实。


India’s poverty rate (an indicator that is admittedly both conceptually and practically difficult to measure) fell by half between 1981 and 2010, to just under 30% – a remarkable achievement.	1981—2010年间，印度的贫困率（该指标被公认只是个概念性的指标，而且极难测量）下降了一半，降到了30%以下——一个令人瞩目的成就。


But faster-growing East Asia has experienced significantly greater progress, with the poverty rate falling from 77% to 14% over the same period.	但增长更快的东亚的进步更大，同期贫困率从77%降到了14%。


Why has India’s growth acceleration fizzled?	为何印度增长加速势头减弱了？


For many years, India benefited from the long-lasting impact of economic liberalization in the early 1990’s.	多年来，印度一直在从20世纪90年代早期实施的经济自由化的长期影响中获利。


Back then, Singh, as finance minister, played a central role.	但此后，担任财政部长的辛格开始成为中心人物。


He could count on the IMF – which had real policy leverage, owing to India’s need for a bailout program in 1991 – to provide external support to counter the huge internal obstacles to reform.	他可以指望IMF——由于在1991年时印度曾求助于援助计划，因此该机构拥有真正的政策杠杆——提供外部支持来战胜改革的巨大内部障碍。


Today, however, there is no external counterweight to the domestic political pressure that is stalling further liberalization.	但是，如今，印度不再有外部力量可以制衡阻碍进一步自由化的国内政治压力。


True, India’s government must now consider growing threats to the country’s investment-grade credit rating.	确实，印度政府必须认真考虑该国日益增加���失去投资级信用评级的风险。


The major ratings agencies are increasingly complaining about the country’s lack of a growth strategy and its outsize budget deficits.	主要评级机构越来越多地指出印度缺少增长战略，其预算赤字也越来越大。


But the impact has been limited, owing to the authorities’ ability to stuff debt down the throats of captive local banks, insurance companies, and pension funds.	但这样做的影响力有限，因为当局有能力强迫本地银行、保险公司和退休基金吞下债务。


Indeed, this “financial repression” tax on domestic savers remains a huge opaque source of funding for India’s debt-ridden government.	事实上，国内储蓄者的“金融抑制”税是印度重债政府的一大隐秘资金源。


It also prevents funds from being channeled to private-sector investment projects with far higher rates of return than the government can offer.	这一金融抑制税还防止了资金流入私人部门投资项目，后者的回报率远高于政府。


The good news is that, from an economic perspective, there is still plenty of low-hanging fruit for restoring growth.	好消息是，从经济角度看，要让印度经济重塑增长，还有充分的现成策略可用。


Although India is right to avoid taking financial liberalization to the extreme that the United States did in the decades before the recent meltdown, it can do quite a lot without assuming inappropriate risks, as a commission headed by Rajan detailed a few years back.	印度在避免像此次危机前几十年的美国那样实施金融自由化，这是正确的。 尽管如此，印度可以在不用承担不必要风险的情况下做很多事情，以拉詹为首的委员会在几年前便给出了详细的计划。


The retail sector is a huge source of inefficiency that effectively places a massive tax on India’s poor by driving up prices.	零售部门是低效率的一个巨大源头，该部门通过让价格提升而给印度穷人造成了极重的实质税负。


Instead of suing foreign retailers like Wal-Mart, India should be finding ways to emulate and benefit from their hyper-efficient methods.	印度不应该谴责沃尔玛等外国零售商，而应该找出模仿并从这一效率极高模式中获益的办法。


Infrastructure is slowly improving, but roads, ports, water access, and the electricity grid are still horrific across large parts of the country.	基础设施正在缓慢改善，但道路、港口、水供应以及电网在印度的大部分地区仍然严重不足。


Of course, India’s democratic government cannot simply bulldoze through people and the environment to create infrastructure.	当然，印度国内政府不能简单地不顾平民和环境创造基础设施。


But the obstacles also include layers of corrupt bureaucrats and politicians – a vast network of resistance to reform.	但障碍还包括各级腐败官僚和政客，他们组成了一张阻碍改革的大网。


Some argue that central-government paralysis is inevitable in a democracy of 1.2 billion people, and that the only way to re-energize India is to establish a looser confederation of its constituent states.	有人认为，对一个12亿人口的民主国家来说，中央政府的瘫痪在所难免，让印度重获生机的唯一办法是在各邦之间建立一个更松散的联邦。


Devolution would unshackle the economically more successful states.	权力下放能放松较成功邦的经济束缚。


And, by combating the culture of aid dependency in economically weaker states, India’s poorer regions might benefit in the long run as well.	此外，通过解决经济疲软邦依赖援助的文化，从长期看印度贫困地区也可以获利。


As dysfunctional as a decentralized Europe seems to be these days, India might benefit from moving a few steps in that direction, even as Europe itself struggles to become more centralized.	如果印度像如今的欧洲那样各自为政、权力分散，那么它可能从迈向这个方向的步骤中获利，尽管欧洲本身正挣扎着想要集中化。


Devolution might sound unrealistic, but once upon a time so did the European Union.	权力下放可能听起来不太现实，但欧盟曾一度这样做过。


If Singh’s new reform agenda is again blocked, perhaps it will be time for a more radical assessment.	如果辛格的新改革计划再次受阻，或许应该采取更激进的打算了。


India’s Hillary Clinton?	是印度的希拉里·克林顿吗？


As Americans debate their readiness to accept a woman such as Hillary Clinton as president, India has already done so, with the election of Pratibha Patil.	正当美国人辩论他们是否准备好接受一名像希拉里·克林顿那样的女性担任总统的时候，印度通过选举普拉蒂巴·帕蒂尔已经这样做了。


Although India’s presidency is primarily a ceremonial post that carries less weight than that of prime minister (the position once held by Indira Gandhi), it is symbolically significant.	尽管印度的总统职位是礼仪性的，重要性不如总理(总理这一职务曾经由英吉拉·甘地担任)，但是这具有象征性意义。


Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the ruling Congress Party, who pushed hard to promote Patil’s candidacy primarily on gender grounds, calls this election “a special moment for women across the country.”	执政的国大党领导人索尼亚·甘地主要出于性别原因竭力推动帕蒂尔当选，她称这一选举为“全国妇女的特殊时刻”。


Moreover, India can claim a great deal of pride in the fact that the last two presidents were from minority populations – one from the lowest of castes (Harijan, formerly referred to as “untouchables”), and another one from the Muslim community.	而且，前两任总统都是来自少数人群，一个来自最低贱的阶层(也就是贱民，以前被称为“不能碰的人”)，而另一个来自穆斯林社区，因此，印度可以大为引以为荣。


As a daughter of a woman who fought for women’s rights during the independence movement and was instrumental in starting one of the first women’s institutions in India, I should feel a genuine sense of pride in the election of Patil.	作为一名在独立运动中为女权斗争、并且为开创印度第一个妇女机构立下汗马功劳的女子的女儿，我应当为帕蒂尔当选感到由衷的骄傲。


But at best I have mixed emotions.	但是我最多也就是有复杂的感觉。


Both of India’s last two presidents had distinguished themselves in professional careers before being elected – one in the Foreign Service and the other in nuclear physics – and their reputations were above reproach.	印度的上两位总统在当选之前本人都在专业事业领域取得杰出的成就，一个在外交部，另一个在核子物理方面。 而且他们的的声誉都是无可指摘的。


Patil, on the other hand, is a controversial figure, with questionable qualifications.	而在另一方面，帕蒂尔却是具有争议的人物，其资质令人生疑。


Most of India’s major news outlets highlighted in their coverage of the story charges of corruption and ineptitude.	大部分的印度新闻机构都在其报导中突出了腐败和不称职的指控。


One well-respected publication even called Mrs. Patil’s selection “embarrassing.”	一个受人尊重的政坛人物甚至称帕蒂尔的当选“令人难堪”。


Women hear over and over that we have to be twice as good as men to be perceived as successful, deserving leaders.	女人们一直听到这样的说法，就是我们的品质必须要超出男人两倍才能被人视为是成功的，值得担任领导人。


Even if we disregard some of the accusations against Patil as baseless, it is hard to imagine a less powerful candidate for the highest ceremonial post in the largest democracy in the world.	即使我们对帕蒂尔的指控置之不理，说是毫无根据，也很难想象出由一名更为逊色的候选人担任世界上最大民主国家的最高礼仪性职务。


All the same, I applaud Sonia Gandhi for her commitment to appointing a woman to this important position.	尽管如此，我赞赏索尼亚·甘地致力于任命一名妇女担任这一重要职务。


In a country full of contradictory attitudes toward women – ranging from the worship of the powerful goddess Durga to the killing of innocent young brides – such gestures can be very powerful.	印度充满了对妇女的矛盾态度，从对女神的崇拜到杀害无辜的年轻新娘。 这样的姿态是非常有力的。


But gestures cannot be a substitute for real action, or for the hard work that is necessary to empower all Indian women.	但是姿态并不能取代实际行动，或者取代赋予所有印度妇女权利所必要的艰苦工作。


Indeed, one could argue that such symbolic acts may even create a blind euphoria that obscures the fact that, as a result of less education and lower pay, young females in India continue to have far fewer resources than their male counterparts.	确实，人们可以说这样的象征性举动甚至会制造一种盲目乐观情绪，从而掩盖这一事实，也就是，由于教育和收入都比较低，印度的年轻妇女与其对应的男子相比继续占有少很多的资源。


While India’s president may be only a ceremonial head of state, during periods of political instability – especially in the current age of coalition governments – it is the president who makes crucial decisions about governing parties.	尽管印度总统可能仅仅是一个礼仪性的国家元首，但是在政治动荡、特别是在目前的联合政府时代，是由总统来做出有关执政党派的关键决定。


Many past presidents have also used the position to throw their intellectual weight behind such important issues as education and India’s cultural diversity.	许多前任总统也利用了这一职位来将他们的智力能力用于到诸如教育和印度的文化多样性等重要问题上。


So President Patil has large shoes to fill.	所以，帕蒂尔总统任重道远。


One can only hope that she will prove her critics wrong.	人们只能希望她能够证明她的批评者们是错误的。


For those women in India who have proven themselves to be effective leaders in all segments of society, it would be wonderful if she can demonstrate early on that she has the intellectual and professional gravitas that befits the position.	对于那些证明自己是社会各方面有效领导人的印度妇女而言，如果她能够早日证明她具有符合总统职位的智力和专业能力，那就再好不过了。


India Shines On	印度的光芒


MUMBAI – Every day, a small Japanese jet brings another 60 businessmen from Tokyo to sniff out new commercial opportunities in Mumbai and the heart of the Indian economy.	发自孟买——在孟买，每天都有一班来自东京的商务客机，满载着60名渴望商机的日本商人，徐徐降落这个印度经济的心脏地带。


Naturally, there may be a touch of geopolitical calculation about this. As Japan grows increasingly nervous about China’s rise, the case for increasing investment in the other Asian giant strengthens.	当然伴随着日本人的还有地缘政治方面的考虑，因为随着日本对中国崛起的日渐忧虑，在另一亚洲大国身上投资下注的必要性也逐渐凸显出来了。


But there is more about this than politics.	但政治显然不是重点。


Japanese businessmen may be a little puzzled by the creative chaos of India; the argumentative culture can seem alien to them.	日本商人可能会被印度国内那种创造性的混乱搞得有点糊涂了——这种总喜欢提出自己想法和质疑别人的文化对于他们来说简直是天方夜谭。


They know, however, a chance for making good profits in a rapidly expanding market when they see one.	但他们同时也看到了一个在迅速扩大的市场中大笔淘金的机会。


And they see one in India’s glorious Technicolor – the Bollywood version of Adam Smith.	商人们已经目睹了其中壮丽的一幕——堪称亚当·斯密在宝莱坞灵魂附体。


When the Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo paid $4.6 billion for majority control of the Ranbury pharmaceutical group in 2008, they were placing a bet on continuing corporate success.	当2008年日本第一三共株式会社一掷46亿美元拿下了印度兰伯西制药集团的控制权之时，该公司显然是为自身未来的发展下了一笔赌注。


Given India’s growth rates, who would seriously question their decision?	而考虑到印度的经济增长率，试问谁又有什么理由来质疑他们的决定呢？


So the lobby of Mumbai’s Taj hotel, just across the road from the gateway built to welcome Britain’s King George V and Queen Mary on their visit to India in 1911, is once again thronged with visitors, many of whom have arrived to see if India is living up to its image as the next great power.	于是乎，孟买的泰姬陵酒店（该酒店就坐落在1911年印度专门为迎接英王乔治五世和玛丽皇后而修建的拱门附近）大堂又再次挤满了到访者，其中许多人都是想看看印度究竟能否真能符合一个未来世界大国的形象。


The grand old Taj deserves all the business it is getting, after being the target of a terrorist attack in 2008. The bravery of the staff in trying to protect the hotel’s clients deserves the applause of every world traveler.	而对于这座古老的酒店来说，如今顾客盈门的好生意是他们应得的，须知在2008年酒店遭受的那场恐怖袭击中，该酒店员工舍身保护客人的勇敢精神应该值得全世界每一位旅客的赞赏。


The business leaders you meet in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, and the other buzzing commercial centers of India demonstrate the challenge of building national and global brands and businesses.	而你在孟买，德里，班加罗尔，浦那以及其他欣欣向荣的印度商贸中心所碰到的商界领袖们都向你展现了树立国内和国际品牌所遇到的挑战。


No wonder they have started to crowd into the premier league table of the world’s rich.	毫无疑问，这些人都开始跻身国际富人俱乐部之中。


There is also an uninhibited self-confidence about them. They take double-digit growth in their own companies for granted.	而他们也拥有超乎寻常的自信，每年两位数的公司增长对他们来说是家常便饭。


The task is to push sustainable growth much higher.	而他们的目标则是把可持续增长率推向更高。


Of course, they know much better than any visitor the many problems India still must tackle – social, environmental and economic, with many accompanying issues in the security domain.	很显然，相对于那些国外来客，这些本地商人对于印度所面对的问题——社会，环境，经济，以及来自安全领域的一系列派生问题——更加心中有数。


If you want a novelist’s view of this world in Mumbai, read Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, one of the best and most exciting novels written anywhere in the last few years.	如果你希望以一个孟买小说家的视角来解读这个世界，那么最好就找维克拉姆·昌德拉（Vikram Chandra）的《神圣游戏》来看看，这本书堪称这几年以来最好最精彩的小说之一。


What is interesting is that Indian businesspeople no longer dwell on what India’s government needs to do.	更有趣的是，印度商人如今已经不再把眼光放在政府身上了。


They do not expect much from the state and are not surprised when it fails to deliver.	他们不再对国家有太多期望，如果国家提供不了支持，商人们也不会感到吃惊。


A government initiative is something that they seem to regard as an oxymoron.	一项政府法案对于他们来说只不过是一堆自相矛盾的文字罢了。


This does not mean that they criticize the macro-management of the Indian economy very much.	但这并不意味着他们对印度经济的宏观管理有很多怨言。


They support the almost two decades of reform that have stripped away much of the “license raj.” They recognize that India has the most economically literate leadership in the world.	他们对20年以来打破了大部分“许可证统治”的改革表示支持，也意识到印度是世界上经济最自由的国家。


They expect reforms to continue, albeit at a rather gentler pace.	他们希望改革能继续下去，即便改革的进程往往会过于缓慢了。


They note the infrastructure improvements – airports, for example – while sighing over what remains to be done and drawing invidious comparisons with China.	在感叹很多没有做的事并愤愤不平地跟中国作比较之外，他们也注意到了基础设施的改进——比如机场。


But there is no impatience for a bigger government role.	但他们并不寄望有个大政府来包办一切。


It is not that they have given up on government; they are just realistic about what it can achieve.	这并非由于商人们已经对政府彻底失望，而是对政府所能做的事持一种现实主义的态度。


Indian society seems to have become more globalized than its government.	如果要论国际化程度，印度民间似乎比其政府更高。


There is a marked difference in tone here from debates in much of the Western world.	在印度，人们辩论的内容跟大部分西方国家有明显的不同。


In many rich OECD countries, the financial crisis and recession have made government intervention popular again.	在大多数富裕的经合组织国家，经济危机和衰退使政府再次介入民间事务。


Governments bail out banks, rush to the aid of manufacturers, and claim primacy in averting national catastrophe and personal hardship.	政府拯救银行，忙于扶持制造业，把避免国家危机和个人困难放在首位，虽然手头现金紧张，政府依然发放补助来安慰公众。


Although increasingly strapped for cash, governments offer the solace of public subsidy.	戏称“政府不是解药，而是病根”的年代已经过去了。


Gone for the moment are jokes about government being the problem, not the solution.	收税者曾经被视为头号人民公敌；


Tax collectors used to be Public Enemy Number One; now bankers have usurped that role.	如今银行家已经取而代之了。


In India, by contrast, even when you might think that government should be expected to deliver more, expectations are not high.	反过来在印度，即便是你认为政府应该有更多作为时，人们的期望值也不会很高。


India needs better and much more education, as its young population grows.	随着年轻人口不断增加，印度政府需要提供更多教育服务。


But, with terrible figures for teacher truancy in state-run schools – as high as 25%, according to the World Bank – families increasingly turn to the private sector to educate their children.	但公立学校令人汗颜的教师缺勤率——据世界银行统计高达25%——迫使家庭把自己的子女送进私立学校接受教育。


Many successful businessmen are putting some of their wealth into foundations that run schools and colleges.	许多成功的商人则拿出钱来投入到那些运作学校和学院的基金会中。


Two big issues remain for government, in addition to keeping reform moving forward.	而如果印度政府想继续推动改革的话，就必须完成两件大事。


First, as India’s middle class expands, more must be done to ensure that economic growth is inclusive.	首先是随着印度中产阶级不断扩大，必须采取更多的措施来确保全社会都能分享增长的成果。


This is bound to involve greater redistribution if the hundreds of millions of Indians who remain extremely poor are not to become alienated from their country’s success story and pulled toward populist extremism.	这一定要包含更大范围的重新分配以避免数亿极端贫苦的印度人被排斥在国家的经济成就之外，并被推向极端民粹主义。


The second challenge is today’s violent manifestation of this alienation: the Naxalite insurrection in rural central and eastern India.	第二个挑战则是这些被排斥者的暴力反抗：印度中部和东部农村地区的纳萨尔派（主张通过农民武装斗争夺取政权的共产党人）暴乱。


Interior Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, a tough reformer, has this problem in his sights, but it cannot be solved by better policing alone.	内政部长帕拉尼亚潘·奇丹巴拉姆这位坚定的改革者已经注意到了这个问题，但这个问题是不能单靠增加警力来解决的。


Ending the insurrection will also require better government, whatever the low expectations of business leaders.	不管商界领袖对政府的期望值有多低，结束这场骚乱都需要更好的政府管制。


And, to be fair, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, a poor state that previously was a byword for corruption and incompetence, has shown what can be done by beginning a serious transformation of his state in just five years.	而比哈尔邦的首席部长尼替什·库玛尔就通过启动认真改革，仅仅5年时间就在这个曾经以腐败和无能闻名的穷邦做出了成绩。


If India’s other states – and the central government – can follow this example, then the polish of India will not lose its shine.	如果印度的其他各邦——以及中央政府——可以把这个邦作为榜样的话，那么印度将永放光芒。


India’s Illiterate Revolution	印度的文盲革命


The United States has long been divided over what it calls “affirmative action,” a system of racial preferences intended to overcome the lingering consequences of slavery and discrimination against black Americans.	针对所谓的“平等权利法案”，即一项旨在消除奴隶制度和歧视美国黑人带来的挥之不去的阴影的制度，美国社会长期以来一直争论不休。


India is now becoming divided in much the same way, and for much the same reason – the emerging system of “reserved places” aimed at redressing centuries of caste discrimination.	印度社会现在正以极其相似的方式走向意见分野，并且原因也极其相似，也就是旨在矫正存在几个世纪之久的种姓歧视的新兴“保留地”制度。


But India’s good intentions, like America’s affirmative action policies, are misguided.	但是印度的美好意图如同美国的平等权利法案政策一样误入歧途。


The underlying question is whether merit as a criterion for advancement is doomed when legacies of racial and caste discrimination exist.	根本问题是，社会存在种族和种姓歧视遗产时，唯才是举作为进步的标准是否在劫难逃。


Are those who agitate for affirmative action fighting for something that is more a quack remedy than a real solution?	那些鼓动平等权利法案的人是否为庸医劣方而不是真正的解决方案而斗争？


In fact, India’s “reserved places” scheme operates as a deliberate smokescreen, for it allows the government cleverly to mask the real issue, which is access to primary education for India’s disadvantaged.	事实上，印度的“保留地”方案是一个故意释放的烟幕，因为它允许政府巧妙地掩盖问题的真相，也就是让印度弱势群体获取接受初级教育的机会。


Were adequate primary education available to India’s poor – or, for that matter, to America’s poor urban blacks – there would be no need for reserved places in higher education and elsewhere.	假如印度的穷人能够享有充分的初级教育或者，就此而言，美国贫穷的城市黑人能够享有的话，就没有必要在高等教育和其它领域设置保留地。


Indeed, any Indian able to read this article should consider himself lucky, because India’s politicians have succeeded in keeping a majority of the country’s population thoroughly illiterate (as well as poor and unhealthy).	因此，任何一个能够阅读这篇文章的印度人都应该感觉到自己是幸运的，因为印度的政客已经成功地将这个国家的大多数人口停留为十足的文盲（穷人和病人）。


Instead of providing quality elementary education for all, our policymakers are more concerned with enacting caste-based measures aimed at short-term political gains.	决策者不是考虑如何为所有人提供高质量的基本教育，而更关心颁布基于种姓的措施来获取短期政治利益。


Since India gained independence 58 years ago, billions of rupees have been doled out in numerous educational policies, but general primary education remains abysmal.	印度自从58年前独立以来，已经投资了数十亿卢比来实施五花八门的教育政策，但是普通初级教育仍然糟糕透顶。


According to a report released by the National Institute for Educational Planning Administration (NIEPA) in 2005, 8.1% of primary schools in India have no classrooms, while 17.5% have only one teacher.	根据国家教育规划与管理研究所2005年发布的一份报告，印度8. 1%的小学没有教室，17.


In addition, 76.2% of schools do not have clean drinking water, while 14.6% lack electricity.	此外，76. 2%的学校没有干净的饮用水，14.


Less than 4% of all primary schools have computers.	6%却电。 有电脑的小学不到总数的4%。


Likewise, the Mumbai-based NGO Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report 2005 , which was prepared after a survey in 28 states and union territories, reveals that 35% of children in the 7-14 age group are unable to read simple paragraphs, while 41% failed to solve a simple two-digit subtraction problem or a division problem.	同样，设立在孟买的非政府组织“布拉罕”在对28个邦和联邦属地进行调查之后发布了2005年度教育状况报告。 报告显示，7至14岁年龄段的儿童35%不能进行简单的阅读，41%不会解答简单的两位数减法题或除法题。


Instead of preparing a pool of educated workers for the future, the government’s policies have given rise to an illiterate and innumerate population.	政府的政策不是为未来准备受过教育的劳动大军，反而导致了文盲和不识数人口的增加。


These findings raise damning suspicions about the literacy levels that successive Indian governments have claimed to achieve.	这些发现不可避免地引发了对历届印度政府宣称达到的识字率的严重怀疑。


If the state of primary education is this bad, will the disadvantaged classes ever stand a chance?	如果初级教育的情况如此糟糕，弱势阶层还将会有什么机会吗？


Moreover, according to Vinod Raina, a member of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), 80 million of India’s 200 million children between 6-14 years of age are not in school at all.	而且，据中央教育顾问委员会成员Vinod Raina声称，印度2亿6到14 岁的儿童中有八千万根本就没有上学。 剩下的1.


Of the remaining 120 million, only 20 million are expected to reach the tenth year of school, with the rest dropping out along the way.	2亿中，只有两千万预计会上到10年级，其余的都会在不同的年级相继辍学。


Indeed, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently expressed dismay over the fact that “only 47 out of 100 children enrolled in class I reach class VIII.”	实际上，总理辛格也于近期表示对“一年级的儿童中只有47%能够上到八年级”这一事实沮丧。


The government has pledged in its National Common Minimum Program to raise public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP.	政府已经在国家公共最低保障项目中保证将教育财政支出增加到国民生产总值的6%。


However, recent years have witnessed a steady decline in educational spending, from 4% of GDP in 2001-02 to 3.8% in 2002-04 and 3.5% in 2004-05.	然而，近年来教育支出却稳步下降，从2001到2002年度占国民生产总值的4%下降到2002到2004年度的3. 8%，2004到2005年度则降到3.


Quality education is the single greatest asset that a nation can give to its people.	高质量的教育是一个国家能够给予其人民唯一最好的资产。


It also happens to be the least expensive and most cost-effective support that government can provide.	它也是政府能够提供的费用最低成本效益最高的支持。


But Indian politicians’ interests appear to lie elsewhere.	但是印度政客们的兴趣看起来在别处。


After all, with the rate of functional literacy at only 37.5%, they can easily manipulate the votes of uneducated people with alcohol, pop slogans, and intimidation.	毕竟，具备实际读写能力的人口比例仅仅是37. 5%，他们可以通过酒精、通俗口号和恐吓来轻易操纵没有受过教育的人的选票。


So the protests by highly educated Indians against “reserved places” is not only wrongheaded, but dangerous as well.	因此，接受过高等教育的印度人反对“保留地”的抗议活动不仅仅是判断错误的，而且也是危险的。


Unless India’s highly educated stand up for better schools for all, protests against caste preferences will only succeed in heightening tensions and selling newspapers, rather than improving the lives of India’s destitute.	除非接受过高等教育的印度人站起来为所有的人争取更好的学校，否则，反对种姓优先的抗议活动将只会增加局势的紧张程度，出售更多的报纸，而不会改善印度贫穷人口的生活。


The government is probably happy with these protests, for they divert attention from the real issue – the authorities’ utter failure to address the fundamental problem.	政府可能乐于见到这些抗议活动，因为抗议会转移人们注意力，使之无法关注真正的问题，即当局处理基本问题的彻底失败。


As in America, the issue is not racial and class reservations and preferences, but ensuring high-quality primary education for all, rich and poor alike.	正如美国的情况，问题不在于种族和种姓保留和优先，而在于确保所有人，无论贫富都能接受到高质量的初级教育。


As India’s educated revolt against preferences, they should not do so in a way that reinforces illiteracy.	印度接受过教育的人反对优先，他们不应该通过这样一种加大文盲比例的方式来进行抗议。


India’s Israel Envy	印度嫉妒以色列


NEW DELHI – As Israeli planes and tanks exact a heavy toll on Gaza, India’s leaders and strategic thinkers have been watching with an unusual degree of interest – and some empathy.	新德里--在以色列的战机和坦克横扫加沙地带之际，印度领导人和战略分析家们不禁有点不同寻常的兴趣以及同情。


India’s government has, no surprise, joined the rest of the world in calling for an end to the military action, but its criticism of Israel has been muted.	并不出人意料，印度政府也如同世界各国一道呼吁结束军事行动，但是它并未批评以色列。


For, as Israel demonstrates anew its determination to end attacks on its civilians by militants based in Hamas-controlled territory, many in India, still smarting from the horrors of the Mumbai attacks in November, have been asking: why can’t we do the same?	这是因为，在以色列重新表现出决心结束在哈马斯控制领土上的武装人员对其平民攻击的时候，印度有许多人还在为去年十一月发生在孟买的恐怖袭击而心痛不已并且在问：我们为何不也这样做呢？


For many Indians, the temptation to identify with Israel was strengthened by the terrorists’ seizure of Mumbai’s Jewish Center (the Lubavitcher Chabad house) and the painful awareness that India and Israel share many of the same enemies.	对于许多印度人而言，恐怖分子占领孟买的犹太人运动社区，同时他们痛苦地意识到印度和以色列具有许多共同的敌人，因此他们对以色列更为同情。


India, with its 150-million strong Muslim population, has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and remains staunchly committed to an independent Palestinian state.	印度的穆斯林人口超过一点五亿人，他们一直强烈支持巴勒斯坦事业并且坚定于建立独立的巴勒斯坦国家。


But the Mumbai attacks confirmed what has become apparent in recent years: the forces of global Islamist terror have added Indians to their target list of reviled “Jews and crusaders.”	但是孟买惨案确认了最近几年以来变得显而易见的事实，那就是，全球伊斯兰恐怖势力已经把印度加入到令人痛恨的“犹太人和十字军”攻击目标之中。


Just as Israel has frequently been attacked by rockets fired from across its border with Gaza, India has suffered repeated assaults by killers trained, equipped, financed, and directed by elements based next door in Pakistan.	如同以色列经常受到从加沙交界地区发射的火箭攻击一样，印度也反复遭到在邻国巴基斯坦训练、武装、得到资金并且指挥的屠杀者的攻击。


When President George W. Bush’s press secretary equated members of Hamas with the Mumbai killers, her comments were widely circulated in India.	布什总统的发言人把哈马斯成员与孟买的杀手相提并论，她的这一言论在印度广为传播。


Yet there the parallels end.	但是相同之处到此结束。


Israel is a small country living in a permanent state of siege, highly security-conscious and surrounded by forces hostile to it; India is a giant country whose borders are notoriously permeable, an open society known for its lax and easy-going ways.	以色列是一个小国，永久性地遭到包围，具有高度的戒备心理，而且受到敌对势力包围。 印度是个大国，其边界松散不堪，又是一个开放社会，生活方式松懈，轻松自由而闻名世界。


Whereas many regard Israel’s toughness as its principal characteristic, India’s own citizens view it as a soft state, its underbelly easily penetrated by determined terrorists.	许多人把以色列严厉视为其主要特点，而印度人则把自己的国家视为软弱可欺，铁心的恐怖分子很容易就击破它的软肋。


Whereas Israel notoriously exacts grim retribution for every attack on its soil, India has endured with numbing stoicism an endless series of bomb blasts, including at least six major assaults in different locations in 2008 alone.	以色列对每次攻击其领土都是以牙还牙，而印度对于无休止的炸弹爆炸事件则是忍气吞声。 仅仅在2008年，印度就在不同地方至少发生了六次重大的袭击事件。


Terrorism has taken more lives in India than in any country in the world after Iraq, and yet, unlike Israel, India has seemed unable to do anything about it.	在世界范围内，恐怖主义在印度夺走的人命仅次于伊拉克。 而且，与以色列不同的是，印度好像对此无能为力。


Moreover, whereas Israel’s principal adversary is currently Hamas, India faces a slew of terrorist organizations – Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and more.	而且，以色列目前的主要敌人是哈马斯，而印度则面对一系列恐怖组织，例如虔诚军、穆罕默德军以及布道党等等。


But, whereas Hamas operates without international recognition from Gaza – its legitimacy questioned even by the Palestinian Authority – India’s tormentors function from Pakistan, a sovereign member of the United Nations.	哈马斯在加沙兴风作浪，国际社会并不承认这一组织，甚至连巴勒斯坦权力机构也质疑它的合法性。 而印度的杀人者却是从联合国成员、主权国家巴基斯坦进行活动。


And that makes all the difference.	这就是所有的区别所在。


Hamas is in no position to repay Israel’s air and ground attacks in kind, whereas an Indian attack on Pakistani territory, even one targeting terrorist bases and training camps, would invite swift retaliation from the Pakistani army.	哈马斯根本无力报复以色列的空中和地面攻击，而如果印度攻击巴基斯坦领土、哪怕是恐怖分子基地和训练营也会招致巴基斯坦军队的迅速报复。


Israel can dictate the terms of its military incursion and end it at will, whereas an Indian military action would immediately spark a war with a well-armed neighbor that neither side could win.	以色列可以决定其军事入侵的方式并且随意终止，而印度的军事行动将会立即触发一场与装备精良的邻国的战争，哪一方都无法取胜。


And, at the end of the day, one chilling fact would prevent India from thinking that it could use Israel’s playbook: the country that condones, if not foments, the terror attacks on India is a nuclear power.	而且最终，还有一个冷酷的事实将会阻止印度考虑效仿以色列，那就是，这一即使不是策划也是宽容对印度实施恐怖袭击的国家是一个拥有核武器的国家。


So India has gone to the international community with evidence to prove that the Mumbai attacks were planned in Pakistan and conducted by Pakistani citizens who maintained contact with handlers in Pakistan throughout the operation.	所以，印度已经向国际社会出示证据表明孟买的袭击事件是在巴基斯坦策划、由巴基斯坦人实施的，这些人在整个事件中都与巴基斯坦境内的指挥者保持联系。


While India’s government had briefly hoped that the proof might enable Pakistan’s weak civilian government to rein in the malign elements in its society, the Pakistani authorities’ reaction has been one of denial.	尽管印度政府一度希望这些证据或许会让巴基斯坦软弱的民官政府收紧其社会中的不良分子，但是巴基斯坦当局的反应却是否认抵赖。


Yet no one doubts that Pakistan’s all-powerful military intelligence has, over the last two decades, created and supported terror organizations as instruments of Pakistani policy in Afghanistan and India.	但是没有人怀疑巴基斯坦一手遮天的军事情报系统在过去二十年里建立和支持了恐怖组织，以作为该国对印度和阿富汗政策的工具。


When India’s embassy in Kabul was hit by a suicide bomber last July, American intelligence sources revealed that not only was Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence behind the attack, but that it made little effort to cover its tracks.	当印度在咯布尔的大使馆在去年七月遭到自杀性炸弹袭击的时候，美国的情报来源揭露说，巴基斯坦的三军情报局是袭击幕后人，而且根本就没有掩盖其踪迹。


The ISI knew perfectly well that India would not go to war with Pakistan to avenge the killing of its diplomatic personnel.	巴基斯坦三军情报局完全清楚，印度不会与巴基斯坦开战来报复其外交人员被害。


The fact is that India knows that war will accomplish nothing.	事实是，印度知道战争无济于事。


Indeed, it is just what the terrorists want – a cause that would rally all Pakistanis to the flag and provide Pakistan’s army an excuse to abandon the unpopular fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the west for the more familiar terrain of the Indian border in the east.	的确，这就是恐怖分子想要的东西，也就是让巴基斯坦人团结一致，给巴基斯坦军队以口实来放弃在西部与塔利班和基地组织不得人心的作战而调换到地形更为熟悉的与印度接壤的东部。


India’s government sees no reason to play into the hands of those who seek that outcome.	印度政府并不打算落入这些人的圈套之中。


Yet, when Indians watch Israel take the fight to the enemy, killing those who launched rockets against it and dismantling many of the sites from which the rockets flew, some cannot resist wishing that they could do something similar in Pakistan.	但是，当印度看着以色列把战事推进到地区、干掉发射火箭的人并且拆毁火箭发射点的时候，有人不禁希望他们也可以在巴基斯坦这样做。


India understands, though, that the collateral damage would be too high, the price in civilian lives unacceptable, and the risks of the conflict spiraling out of control too acute to contemplate such an option.	但是印度知道，这样做的附带损害会很大，平民生命代价令人难以接受，而且冲突失去控制的风险过大，因此无法考虑这一选择。


So Indians place their trust in international diplomacy and watch, with ill-disguised wistfulness, as Israel does what they could never permit themselves to do.	所以，印度就寄希望于国际外交努力并且毫不掩饰地看着以色列如何做自己永远也不会做的事情。


India’s New Path to Greatness	印度走向辉煌的新道路


SINGAPORE – It is unwise to underestimate the near-metaphysical significance of the recent Indian elections.	新加坡——如果我们低估印度近期选举所取得的成果，那就非常的不明智了。


The Indian electorate decisively pushed world history in the right direction with the re-election of the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi partnership.	莫汉·辛格和索尼娅·甘地组合的再次当选将会把印度带入正确的发展方向，从此印度进入了一个新的历史时期。


They now have the mandate and power to press for greater economic reform and liberalization.	他们现在可以放手进一步来实施经济改革和市场自由化。


The incipient tiger in the Indian economy will be released.	印度之虎开始松绑，走向经济振兴之路。


The simultaneous rise of China and India will strengthen the forces of modernization and moderation globally.	中国和印度的同时崛起增强了全球的繁荣和稳定。


At a time of global crisis, the world should celebrate this new burst of energy.	正值全球金融危机之际，整个世界更应该为两国的崛起而感到庆幸。


Virtually no one predicted this spectacular outcome.	事实上，没有人会预测到选举的结果会是这样。


Most observers underestimated the Indian electorate, which understood the many benefits of the Singh-Gandhi partnership.	绝大多数观察家低估了印度选民的智慧。 辛格甘地的组合给人民带来很多的好处。


First, their Congress government revived the moderate secular traditions of Jawaharlal Nehru and brought India back firmly to the political center, wresting control from communal and ideological extremists.	首先，辛格甘地组合领导的国大党继承了迦哇内卢·尼赫鲁的传统的温和务实主义政策。 他们将印度政治带入中间路线，有效地抑制了地方势力和极端主义势力的抬头。


Second, the electorate grasped the importance of re-electing a modest but wise and determined leader who understood the direction India needed to take.	其次，印度选民认识到辛格再次当选的重要性。 他们认为辛格是一位温和聪明而且立场坚定领导人，有了他的领导，印度将会进入一个正确的方向。


Singh will open up India’s economy even more than he has so far.	辛格会在已经取得的成绩上，更加开放印度的经济。


As he once said, “Although India has a large domestic market, our experience with earlier relatively insular policies, as also the global experience in this regard, clearly bring out the growth potential of trade and economic cooperation with the global economy.”	正如他曾经说过的：“虽然印度有一个巨大的国内市场，但我们早期的政策还是过于狭隘，全球化经验不足，我们应该积极发展贸易和加强全球化的经济合作。 ”


Finally, Singh will continue to re-engage India’s Asian neighbors and push for greater regional cooperation.	最后，辛格会继续加强和亚洲邻国的合作，推动区域间的合作机会。


As far back as 1995 he said, “It is this vision, of a resurgent India taking her rightful place as an economic powerhouse in Asia, which has inspired our economic policies.”	早在1995年他就说过：“我们应该设定目标，重新找到印度在亚洲经济中的合适位置。


Just as China has signed a free-trade agreement with ASEAN, India will seek to do so.	”正如中国和东盟国家签订了自由贸易协定那样，印度也应该效仿。


A process of competitive economic liberalization will sweep across Asia, further guaranteeing the region’s continued resurgence.	具有竞争性的经济自由化将席卷整个亚洲，亚洲的振兴指日可待。


All this will be propelled by India’s new cultural confidence.	这一切都来源于具有自信的印度崭新文化。


In the 1950’s and 1960’s, few leading Indians believed that their country could compete with the industrialized economies.	在1950和60年代，印度人几乎不该相信本国能和工业化经济的国家展开竞争。


Hence, the Mumbai industrialists’ club used to be inherently protectionist.	孟买的工业家于是实行着封闭的贸易保护主义。


Today, the same industrialists, convinced that India can compete with the best, support Singh’s reforms.	但如今，同样是工商业者，他们都认为印度的经济在全球化中不会输给其他国家，因此完全支持辛格的改革。


Yet India continues to face many challenges: nearly 300 million people living in poverty, the spreading Naxalite insurgency, the danger of terrorist attacks ala Mumbai, and sprawling urban slums.	当然，印度现在也面临着问题重重：还有大约3000万的印度人生活在贫穷之中； 纳萨尔派游击分子势力的扩张；


In addition, how will Singh balance the trade-off between pro-market and pro-poor policies?	孟买恐怖袭击的危险和城市贫民窟的不断膨胀。


How will he manage the growing middle class’s expectations of better infrastructure, expanded access to health care and education, uninterrupted electricity and water supplies, and more efficient transport facilities?	此外，辛格如何在亲市场派和左派之间取得平衡也是个问题，如何满足新兴崛起的中产阶级的要求，这包括更好的基础设施，更完善的健康医疗和教育，畅通的水电能源供应以及更加便捷的交通设施等。


These problems will not be solved overnight.	当然，这些问题不可能一蹴而就地解决。


But the growing conviction that tomorrow will be better will keep India’s polity stable.	不过目前，大家对未来都充满信心，这也是保持印度政策稳定性的基础。


This may well be the most important result of the Indian election: five more years of political stability and economic reform will create an irreversible and virtuous cycle of economic growth and political moderation.	本次选举最为重要的成就在于：有了另一个五年时间的政治稳定和经济改革，印度的政治经济将会进入一个不可逆转的良性循环。


The Indian middle class will grow rapidly, providing the country with valuable ballast that will keep it on an even keel in the next few decades.	印度的中产阶级迅速崛起给国家带来了宝贵的资产，这在未来的几十年内尤其重要。


One statistic is worth noting. At the current stage of development of many Asian economies, a 10% increase in the median income can lead to a doubling of the middle class.	这里，还有一个重要的数据值得关注：在目前一些亚洲经济体国家中，中等经济收入每增加10%，中产阶级的人数就会翻一倍。


And such an increase is eminently achievable.	这些增加都是可以预期的。


It was purely coincidental that the extremist Tamil Tigers leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed and his movement decimated at the same time as India was voting. But the significance should not be missed.	正当印度开始投票大选的时候，极端组织泰米尔猛虎组织的首领韦卢皮莱·普拉巴卡兰被击毙，他所领导的组织被瓦解，虽然是时间上的巧合，但这个事实还是不能被忽视。


Prabhakaran, not Al Qaeda, invented suicide bombing. His elimination shows the futility of the river of terror that he unleashed on history.	是普拉巴卡兰，而不是塔利班发明了“人肉炸弹”，他的死亡也预示着他所领导的恐怖主义活动已经成为历史。


But if Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa wants to eliminate the spirit of Tamil separatism, he must emulate Singh’s culture of political moderation.	不过如果斯里兰卡总统马欣达·拉贾帕克萨想要清除泰米尔分离主义分子的思潮，他还得效仿辛格政治现代化的改革思想。


Rajapaksa was wise to speak a few words in Tamil while announcing the victory over the Tigers.	在宣布对猛虎组织的胜利之时，拉贾帕克萨在泰米尔发表的讲话令人赞赏。


He must now follow up by creating an open, inclusive environment, like India’s, that will enable both Sinhalese and Tamils to thrive.	现在，他必须一鼓作气，仿效印度，在本国创造出一个公开的，具有包容性的氛围。 让僧伽罗人和泰米尔人共荣共生。


Pakistan remains India’s single biggest challenge.	巴基斯坦仍然是印度最大的挑战。


There can be no doubt that Singh has the right instincts.	我们相信辛格知道该怎么做。


He wants Pakistan to succeed as a moderate, modernizing country.	他希望巴基斯坦成为一个繁荣稳定的国家。


He wants no more wars.	他更希望永久的和平。


But these instincts can be bolstered by wise long-term policies.	而要实现这些目标需要长期的政策努力。


India could take a leaf from China’s success in handling the Taiwan problem.	印度应该效仿中国处理台湾问题的成功经验。


At the height of tensions, when China found the governments of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian intolerable, it never ceased its policy of embracing the Taiwanese people and Taiwanese businessmen.	即使在李登辉和陈水扁执政的两岸紧张关系的时期，中国大陆也没有放弃对台湾人民和台湾商人的怀柔政策。


Over time, this created a rich web of economic interdependence, which promotes stability.	随着时间的推移，经济的相互融合能带来政治的稳定。


It would be equally easy for India’s people to embrace Pakistan’s people.	同样，印度人民也应该友好地对待巴基斯坦人民。


They are the same people.	他们其实同根同族。


As an ethnic Sindhi, I feel an affinity to both.	作为少数族裔的信德族人，我对两者都有感情。


When I attend international gatherings, I am amazed how easily and naturally Indians and Pakistanis gravitate toward each other.	当我参加国际会议的时候，我很惊奇地看到印度人和巴基斯坦人相互间有着天然的亲近愿望。


The political divisions are artificial.	政治的对立是人为的 。


The cultural unity is natural.	共同的文化才是自然地流露。


The Pakistani population can easily work with the political moderation of Singh’s government.	在辛格政府现代化政治运动中，巴基斯坦人可以充分地和印度人合作。


Indeed, the open spirit of both President Barack Obama and Singh toward the Islamic world has probably provided the best political opportunity to find a lasting political solution for the India-Pakistan problem.	实际上，巴拉克·奥巴马总统和辛格总理对伊斯兰世界的开放态度，为印巴两国问题的永久政治性解决提供了一个最有利的机会。


In short, the re-election of the Singh government has made the world a less dangerous place and has opened up many political opportunities.	总之，辛格政府的连任使得这个世界变得更加太平，同时也创造了很多政治机会。


It is hard to imagine India with a better prime minister.	他是目前的最佳人选。


Singh is one of the best economists in the world.	辛格是当今世界上最好的经济学家之一。


At the same time, he demonstrated that he has a spine of steel when he refused to buckle under to severe pressures to renounce the India-United States nuclear deal.	同时，在面对要求放弃印度和美国的核协定问题上，他态度鲜明的拒绝立场显示出他的钢铁意志。


Singh stood his ground and achieved victory.	最终他取得了胜利。


The benefits of his resolve will now be enjoyed by India and the world.	印度乃至整个世界都因此而受益。


India’s New Ruling Caste	新诞生的印度执政种姓


CAMBRIDGE – The largest election in history, involving more than 700 million voters, has resulted in the victory of India’s ruling alliance, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Indian National Congress.	坎布里奇——在超过7亿选民参加的有史以来最大规模的选举中，由印度国大党曼莫汉·辛格总理领导的印度执政联盟获得了胜利。


The verdict disproved gloomy predictions of a hung parliament and the further strengthening of regional parties.	最终的选举结果驳斥了议会不会出现多数党派、地区政党势力将进一步增强的悲观预测。


The new government will be far more stable than many of its predecessors, so the election results have elicited profound relief.	新一届政府的稳定性将远超以往多届政府，因此这样的选举结果也让许多人松了一口气。


But the fact remains that, like previous governments, the new administration will consist mostly of politicians unfit to hold ministerial office.	但现实情况依然是，像以往历届政府一样，组成新一届政府的政客多数并不适合在内阁任职。


While several provincial satraps have been cut down to size, new, aspiring ones have garnered significant support.	虽然有几位省级总督逐渐丧失了威望，但也有雄心勃勃的新政治家得到了很多人的支持。


Despite the manifest success of Indian democracy, its parliamentary system is not succeeding in giving India good governance.	虽然印度民主的成功有目共睹，但议会系统并没有成功地在印度推行善政。


Obviously, India is not a failed state.	显而易见，印度并不是一个失败的国家。


Lant Pritchett of the Harvard Kennedy School has coined a new name for India: a “flailing state” – a state where the government’s extremely competent upper echelons are unable to control its inefficient lower levels, resulting in poor performance.	哈佛大学肯尼迪学院的兰特·普里切特为印度发明了一个新专属名词：“失控的国家”——在这个国家里，能力卓著的政府高层无法控制低效的底层人员，从而影响了执政效率。


But this analysis gives credit where none is due: India’s problem is its top political leadership’s lack of competence.	但这种分析却赋予了印度高层不该有的荣誉：印度的问题是最高政治领袖 缺乏 必要的能力。


The inability of India’s current political system to provide effective government places the country in a different category: a non-performing state.	印度现有的无法组建有效政府的政治体系把这个国家打入另类：这个国家根本无法顺畅的运行。


The idealism of India’s freedom movement quickly evaporated after independence in the face of the opportunities for patronage that came with power.	实现独立后，面对着伴随权力而来的任命机会，印度自由运动的理想主义色彩很快就消失殆尽。


The way India’s political system evolved has made politics the surest path to wealth.	印度政治体制的发展让政治成了通往财富的最稳妥的道路。


The money spent to win elections (often including the purchase of a party’s nomination) is recouped many times over once the winner is in office.	一旦获胜者上任，他花在赢得选举上的钱（这通常也包括购买政党提名）就会得到数倍的补偿。


Half of India’s legislators who stood for reelection this time around had tripled their assets in the last five years.	在此次谋求连任的印度议员中，有半数的资产在过去5年中增长了3倍。


Increasing corruption within governments run by the Congress party, which led India to independence and monopolized political power for decades, showed what a lucrative career politics had become.	在领导印度独立并独掌大权数十年的国大党执政政府中愈演愈烈的腐败现象表明政治已经成为一个怎样有利可图的职业。


Given India’s religious, caste, and linguistic divides, politicians saw how easily they could leverage even a small following into votes.	由于印度的宗教、种姓和语言方面存在很大隔阂，政治家们认识到把哪怕很少一群追随者发展成为选民有多么容易。


Soon, Indian political parties began to break up, giving rise to a large number of regional and caste-based parties.	很快，印度政党就开始分裂，进而诞生了大批以地区和种姓为基础的党派。


Most of these parties are led by political dynasties that prize loyalty over merit.	这些党派中多数由政治家族领导，比起实际能力来，这些家族更看重忠诚度。


Because of the splintering of political parties, India has had only one single-party government and eight coalition governments in the last two decades.	由于政党分裂，印度在过去20年间仅有过1届一党政府和8届联合政府。


Members of the coalition governments have treated the ministries allocated to them as fiefdoms, to be milked for their benefit.	联合政府的成员们把分配给他们的政府部门当作封地，用来为自己谋求利益。


Over time, India’s government has become primarily a tool for advancing the personal interests of politicians rather than the entity responsible for running the country.	长此以往，印度政府就成了谋求政治家个人利益的工具，而不是治理国家的组织。


The opportunity for personal gains through public office has made electoral politics an automatic career choice for Indian politicians’ progeny.	通过担任公职谋求个人利益的机会让选举政治成为印度政客后裔们自然而然选择的职业。


Record numbers of sons and daughters of political leaders and millionaires (and people with criminal backgrounds) contested this election.	数量创纪录的政治领袖和百万富翁子女（和身负犯罪记录的人）积极参与这场选举角逐。


We are seeing the formation of a new Indian caste – a caste of rulers different from India’s traditional Kshatriya caste – before our very eyes.	一个新的印度种姓就在我们面前成形——这是个不同于印度传统刹帝利种姓的统治者阶层。


Like existing castes, the new caste specializes in one occupation: political office.	像已有的种姓一样，新种姓只专注于一种职业：政治任职。


Just as someone became a carpenter or a trader in an earlier era merely through birth, members of India’s ruling caste now become leaders of parties, members of legislatures, and cabinet ministers solely because of their parentage.	正如早年间有人生而成为木匠或商贾一样，印度执政种姓的成员现在之所以成为政党领袖、议会议员和内阁部长，只是因为出身和门第。


And, as with the older castes, there is no need for any qualification for the vocation; birth alone is sufficient.	而且像旧有的种姓一样，根本无需任何从业资质； 出身足以说明所有问题。


Lack of vocational competence never barred Indians from remaining in their caste, and how well one performs in political office is, likewise, not a criterion for politicians to continue in positions of power.	不具备职业资质从来没有阻止印度人留在种姓内部，因此某人在政治任职期间的表现好坏也并不成其为裁定政治家能否继续掌权的标准。


India’s parliamentary system requires ministers to be members of the legislature.	印度的议会体制要求部长成为议会议员。


Party leaders select family members and other loyal followers as candidates for elections, with absolutely no consideration of their abilities to fulfill ministerial responsibilities, resulting in cabinets that are simply not capable of managing the problems confronting the country’s national and state governments.	政党领袖选择家庭成员和其他忠心耿耿的追随者参与选举，根本不考虑他们履行部长职责的能力，从而导致内阁根本无法管理国家和地方政府所面对的问题。


Even with the best political leadership, governing India is no easy task.	即便拥有最好的政治领袖，治理印度也绝非易事。


Successive governments staffed with unqualified politicians have failed dismally to carry out the core governmental functions of maintaining law and order, providing the basic services expected of modern societies, and promoting economic growth.	充斥着不合格政客的历届政府根本无法完成维护法律和秩序的政府核心任务，无法推动经济增长并为现代社会提供基本服务。


India’s high-performing private sector has so far masked the failure of the Indian state.	印度生机勃勃的私有部门迄今为止掩盖了政府无能的事实。


In its current form, India’s parliamentary system can produce only non-performing, corrupt governments.	按照目前状况，印度议会系统只��产生完不成任务的腐败政府。


It rewards ambition, promotes office-at-any-cost politics, and devalues merit.	当前议会体系鼓励野心勃勃、助推不惜一切代价当选的政治，同时贬低价值和资质。


Taking away the prize of ministerial office from elected representatives might discourage wealth-maximizing politicians from entering politics.	取消当选代表的部长任职回报可能阻止追求财富最大化的政客进入政治领域。


It is time, therefore, for India to consider introducing a presidential system of government, which would reduce the scope for “horse trading” and allow the country’s leader to select competent people for cabinet positions.	因此，印度是时候考虑引入政府总统制，这样可以缩小“讨价还价”的范畴，让国家领导人选择有能力的人进入内阁任职。


India’s Nuclear Conundrum	印度的核难题


NEW DELHI – Japan’s nuclear disaster has fueled fear and uncertainty among all of the world’s producers of nuclear power.	新德里——日本核灾难引发了世界所有核电生产国的恐惧和疑虑。


For India, an energy-starved country, much is at stake.	对印度这样一个能源匮乏的国家，这的确是个事关重大的问题。


That fear factor has two main causes.	有两个主要原因造成这种恐惧。


Although nuclear power ranks as a “clean” source of energy, it is accompanied by the terrible shadow of nuclear war, which emerged from Japan’s last reckoning with nuclear catastrophe, 65 years ago at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and which lends it an automatic association with mass destruction and death.	虽然核电被列为“清洁”能源，但却始终无法摆脱核战争的可怕阴影，这种阴影的源头可以追溯到65年前日本广岛和长崎上次面对核灾难的经历，那次经历让人们自然而然地将核与大规模毁灭死亡联系在一起。


Moreover, the secrecy that attends all things “nuclear” has left people not knowing enough to feel confident.	此外，“核”问题的神秘感让人们无法了解足够的信息，因此自信心也很难建立。


The fear inspired by the Fukushima Daiichi disaster will be reflected in soaring costs for nuclear power worldwide, largely owing to demands for improved safety and the need to pay more to insure the potential risks.	福岛第一核电站事故所引发的恐惧将会体现在全球核能应用成本激增，而成本的上升主要因为必须加强安全和为防范潜在风险缴纳更多保费。


Indeed, nuclear plants are prone to a form of “panic transference.”	事实上，全球核电站很容易感染恐慌情绪。


Should a reactor of one design go wrong, all reactors of that type will be shut down instantly around the world.	只要有一种设计的反应堆出了问题，全球范围内其他同类反应堆都会被立刻关闭。


India’s dilemma is this: it has 20 nuclear plants in operation, with an additional 23 on order.	印度的两难之处在于：目前有20座核电站正在运行，此外还有23家正在筹建过程中。


With the country desperately short of power, and requiring energy to grow, concerned citizens are asking if nuclear is still the answer for India.	发展所需的能源极度短缺，但忧心忡忡的公民正在对核能是否是恰当的解决办法产生疑问。


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has cautiously announced that a “special safety review” of all plants will be undertaken.	曼莫汉·辛格总理小心翼翼地宣布要对所有核电站进行“特别安全审核”。


“Not enough,” say roughly 50 eminent Indians, who at the end of March demanded a “radical review” of the country’s entire nuclear-power policy for “appropriateness, safety, costs, and public acceptance.”	大约50位印度名人认为这还不够，他们在3月末提出要对印度总体核能政策的“适用性、安全性、成本状况和公众接受度”进行全面的审核。


The group also called for an “independent, transparent safety audit” of all nuclear facilities, to be undertaken with the “involvement of civil-society organizations and experts outside the Department of Atomic Energy.”	这些人还呼吁在有民间组织和非原子能部隶属专家参与的情况下，对所有核设施开展“独立、透明的安全审核”。


Until then, there should be “a moratorium on all…nuclear activity” and “revocation of recent clearances.”	在此之前，应“暂停一切…核活动”，“撤回最近的项目审批”。


This is as explicit as opposition can get.	反对意见已经再明确不过了。


How have other countries reacted?	其他国家对此作何反应？


France, which is around 80% dependent on nuclear energy, and is a big exporter of nuclear-plant technology, initially avoided most of the global anti-nuclear concerns.	核能依赖度高达80%也是核能技术最大的出口国法国，起初对绝大多数全球核顾虑采取回避的态度。


But now it, too, is promising to draw the necessary lessons from the Japanese experience and upgrade its safety procedures, including a reassessment of the potential effects of natural disasters on nuclear-plant operations, conceding that the occurrence of more than one natural disaster simultaneously had not been considered previously.	可现在法国也承诺要从日本的经历中吸取必要的教训，对安全程序进行升级，包括重新评估自然灾害对核电厂运转的潜在影响，并承认多种自然灾害齐发的状况以前没有考虑过。


China, which has 77 nuclear reactors at various stages of construction, planning, and discussion, has said that it will “review its program.”	有77座核反应堆处于不同建设、规划和讨论阶段的中国已经表态要“对项目进行审核”。


Though Russia has formally announced that it will go ahead with its program, former President Mikhail Gorbachev – on whose watch the Chernobyl meltdown occurred 25 years ago – is not so sanguine.	尽管俄国已正式宣布将继续核项目，25年前切尔诺贝利核熔毁发生时在任的前总统米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫却没有这么强的信心。


While the US is the principal exporter of reactors, it currently has just two under construction on its own territory.	尽管是核反应堆的主要出口国，美国目前在建的核电站只有两座。


Denmark, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal are strongly anti-nuclear, and Switzerland has stopped all nuclear-power projects.	丹麦、希腊、爱尔兰和葡萄牙反核氛围浓厚，瑞士也停建了所有核能项目。


All of this will lead to cost evaluation and escalation.	所有这一切都会导致成本评估和提价。


According to a study conducted by the former Indian government minister Arun Shourie, the price of uranium could rise to $140 per pound, close to its record high.	前印度政府部长阿伦·绍里耶的研究结果显示，铀的价格可能攀升至每磅140美元，接近历史高点。


A change of much greater consequence concerns the price of reactors.	对远超预期严重后果的忧虑拖累了反应堆价格。


Pre-Fukushima, a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “The Future of Nuclear Power, 2003,” as well as a study by researchers at the University of Chicago, established that nuclear energy was 50-100% more expensive than energy from coal or gas.	福岛核事故发生前，麻省理工学院报告“核能的未来，2003”以及芝加哥大学研究报告认为，核能比煤炭或天然气能源贵50-100%。


The report of the Working Group on Power of the Planning Commission of India puts the cost of energy from the country’s coal-based plants at about one-third lower than nuclear power, with gas 50% cheaper.	印度能源规划委员会工作组报告认为印度燃煤电厂的能源成本约比核电厂低三分之一，燃气电厂则能节约50%成本。


Energy security and public safety should be of equal importance in determining future policy on nuclear power.	在确定未来核能政策时能源和公共安全应视为同等重要的考量因素。


Indeed, experts like C. M. A. Nayar have said that the Fukushima accident “could have happened even if there was no tsunami.”	事实上，像纳亚尔这样的专家认为“即使没有发生海啸”福岛事故也无法避免。


Nayar suggests that it has long been known that the reactor’s design contained basic flaws, though only the Japanese authorities can verify this.	纳亚尔认为人们早就知道反应堆的设计存在根本缺陷，尽管只有日本当局能够证实。


So, what is to be done?	那我们该怎么做？


Clean energy at a time of global warming is obviously necessary.  But so is the safety and security of humans, animals, and plants.	全球变暖时代的洁净能源显然不可或缺。 但是人和动植物的安全也同样重要。


India has set itself on a path of virtually doubling its nuclear-power output.	印度已经走上了一条实际核能产出倍增的道路。


This is deeply troubling, for India’s supply of nuclear fuel, technology, and reactors is almost entirely dependent on imports from manufacturers who refuse liability for any malfunction.	这个问题让人深感不安，因为印度核燃料、技术和反应堆的供应几乎完全依赖从拒绝承担一切故障责任的国外制造企业处进口。


There is, of course, no single correct response that would simultaneously and uniformly deal with resource scarcity, fossil-fuel depletion, climate change, and the risks of nuclear power.	当然，没有哪种方案能把资源稀缺、化石燃料消耗、气候变化和核能风险问题同时解决好。


A choice will ultimately need to be made about how to meet India’s energy demands.	我们最终需要为满足印度的能源需求做出抉择。


At a minimum, a thorough reexamination and full public debate must precede the construction of any new nuclear plant.	至少，新核电站动工之前必须进行彻底的复查和充分的公开辩论。


But the current emphasis on nuclear power must be objectively reassessed, and dependence on it thereafter reduced.	但必须对目前重点发展核能的态势进行客观的重估，并逐步降低对核能的依赖度。


With nuclear safety suddenly becoming a global imperative, the costs are simply too high to do otherwise.	在核安全一夜间成为全球当务之急的今天，我们无法承受反其道行之所付出的代价。


India’s Olympic Also-Rans	印度的奥运失利


NEW DELHI – As the world awaits the Beijing Olympics, many wonder whether China’s grand coming-out party will also mark the occasion when it wrests dominance of the medal tally from the United States.	新德里－在世界等待着北京奥运会开始的时候，许多人也想知道中国的盛大露面舞会是否也是其扭转美国在奖牌数上优势的场所。


China’s dedicated athletes are widely assumed to have dozens of gold and silver medals in their grasp.	人们普遍认为，中国具有献身精神的运动员有把握获得几十枚金牌和银牌。


Whether or not they overtake the US, however, one thing is certain: China’s neighbor and regional geopolitical rival, India, will be lucky to win even a single medal.	但是，不管他们的奖牌数是否赶得上美国，有一件事是肯定的：中国的邻居兼区域地缘政治对手印度，即使获得一枚奖牌，那也是它运气好。


International sport is, of course, an exercise in national chauvinism by other means.	当然，国际体育赛事是通过其它方式进行的国家沙文主义。


At some level, we all pretend to tune into the Olympics to admire human athleticism.	在某种程度上，我们都假装投入奥运并赞美人类的体育精神。


But none of us can deny the attraction of the flags under which those athletes compete, the anthem that is played for the winners, and, ultimately, that impossible-to-ignore, regularly-updated medal tally, listing the gold, silver, and bronze medals awarded to each country, the Games’ real honor roll.	但是，我们中没有人否认这些东西的吸引力：运动员竞赛时代表的国家、对获胜者的赞美以及最终不可能忽略的经常更新的奖牌数。 奖牌数列出了每个国家获得的金牌、银牌以及铜牌的数量，这也是比赛真正的光荣榜 。


Every Indian who follows the Olympics has cringed scanning the daily list of medal winners, eyes traveling down past dozens of nations big and small before alighting on a solitary Indian bronze in tennis or wrestling.	每一个关注奥运会的印度人在浏览每日的奖牌名单时都心有悲戚，他们的眼睛在扫过了几十个大大小小的国家之后才最终落在了一个孤零零的印度获得的网球或摔跤铜奖上。


Worse yet, we have all known the shame of waiting day after day for India to appear on the list at all, as countries a hundredth our size record gold upon gold and Indian athletes are barely mentioned among the also-rans.	更糟的是，当只有印度百分之一大小的国家在一个接一个的获得金牌而印度运动员只有在失利中才被提到时，我们都感受到了一天又一天等待印度出现在奖牌榜上的羞耻。


Indians like to think we can hold our own against the best in the world in any field: our Kalidasa can stand up to their Shakespeare, our Ramanujan to their Einstein, our Bollywood to their Hollywood and, these days, our Infosys to their Microsoft.	印度人喜欢认为我们能在任何领域内和世界上最好的国家竞争：他们有莎士比亚我们有迦梨陀娑，他们有爱因斯坦我们有拉玛奴金，他们有好莱坞我们有宝莱坞，现在，他们有微软我们有印孚瑟斯（Infosys）。


In sport, however, it is a different story.	但是，在体育运动上，则是另外一回事。


Our cricketers have come close to being considered the best in the world, but cricket is not an Olympic sport.	我们的板球运动员几乎被认为是世界上最好的，但是，板球不是奥运会比赛项目。


Our sole world champion in any sport is the chess grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand – in another non-Olympic sport, and one that calls for brain, not brawn.	我们唯一在每次比赛中都是冠军的是国际象棋大师阿南德（Vishwanathan Anand）——但是国际象棋也不是奥运会比赛项目，并且国际象棋比赛要求的是脑力而不是体力。


In fact, in the Olympics, India’s record has declined over time.	事实上，在奥运会中，印度创造的纪录随着时间的推移在减少。


The one gold medal we had become used to winning since the 1920’s, in field hockey, has proved elusive in recent Games, as our players have stumbled on Astroturf.	因为我们的球员无意中发现了人造草地，从20世纪20年代起我们就对获得金牌习以为常的曲棍球在最近的奥运比赛中变得难以捉摸。


This year, India’s hockey players failed even to qualify for the Games.	今年，印度曲棍球运动员甚至都没有取得参赛资格。


In everything where simple human prowess is at stake – running, jumping, swimming, lifting, throwing - Indians simply don’t have what it takes.	在任何体力至关重要的运动中——例如跑步，跳远，游泳，举重以及投掷类运动——印度就是不合格。


An Indian beauty queen, Madhu Sapre, once became an unwitting victim of Indians’ sense of national shame at our sporting insignificance.	印度选美皇后玛度·萨普（Madhu Sapre）曾在无意中成为印度人对印度体育无足轻重的国民羞耻感的受害者。


She was unjustly denied a Miss World title in 1992 because of her answer to the final-round question, “What is the first thing you would do if you became the ruler of your country?” Her response – “I would build a sports stadium” – was considered stupid by the judges, and the almost-certain crown (she was the overwhelming favorite) slipped from her grasp.	因为萨普在回答决赛问题“如果你成为你们国家的首脑，你要做的第一件事情是什么”时，她的回答——“我要建一个体育场”——被评委认为很愚蠢，几乎肯定的冠军称号（她是最受欢迎的人选）从她手中溜走，萨普没有获得1992年世界小姐的称号，这是不公正的。


Sapre’s answer might not have been the brightest, but if the judges had any idea of how desperate Indians are for sporting success, they would have understood that she was not expressing such an absurd priority.	萨普的回答可能不是最聪明的，但是如果评委对印度人是多么渴望在体育上取得成功有任何的了解的话，他们就会明白她不是在表达一个很荒谬的要务。


Why do Indian athletes perform so badly?	印度运动员的表现为什么如此糟糕呢？


The explanations range from the anthropological to the borderline racist: Indians don’t have the genes, the build, the stamina, the climate, whatever.	对此的解释包括了从人类学到边境种族主义者的种种原因：印度人没有这个基因，这个体形，这个毅力，这个氛围等等；


There are structural and infrastructural explanations: lack of training facilities, gymnasiums, running tracks, equipment, financial resources.	也有建筑和基础设施方面的解释：缺乏训练设施、体育场馆、跑道、运动器材以及资金来源。


We are a developing country, it is said; after all, it is not just your eye against his, your legs against hers, but what you can do against their trainer, their running shoe, their ergodynamic costume, their titanium archer’s bow.	有人说，我们是发展中国家； 毕竟，这不仅仅是你的目光对抗他的目光，你的腿对抗她的腿，但是，你要做的是，对抗他们的教练，他们的跑鞋，他们的缓动功效服装，以及他们的钛合金装备。


But those rationales won’t do: other developing countries, from Jamaica to Ethiopia, regularly rake in the medals.	但是，这些理由并不成立：从牙买加到埃塞俄比亚的其它发展中国家，通常都能快速得奖。


Our talent pool isn’t really a billion, some argue; it’s only the well off and middle class, maybe 300 million strong, who can afford to play sports.	有些人认为，我们的人才库并不是10亿； 只有处境好的人以及中产阶级才有经济实力从事体育运动，而这些人的人数大概只有3个亿。


But even that is a larger population base than a hundred countries that do better than India at the Olympics.	但是，即使只有这些人，这也比100个比印度在奥运会中表现好的国家的人口基数大。


On the other hand, the incentives for success are not great; the years of sacrifice and effort it takes to become a world-class athlete are simply not a realistic option to an Indian who needs to make a living, and sponsors are few and far between (and they are all spending their sponsorship money on cricket).	另一方面，在印度对得奖的激励也不是很大； 成为一个世界级的运动员所需要的牺牲和努力对一个需要谋生的印度人来说是一个不现实的选择，并且体育赞助商很少（而且，他们都把钱赞助在板球上了）。


Finally, there’s the usual Indian problem: sports administrative bodies and government departments are ridden with patronage and petty bossism, with officials more interested in protecting their turf (and enjoying paid vacations to sporting events) than in promoting athletes.	最后，还有在印度常见的问题：体育管理机关和政府部门充斥着利益交易和目光短浅的党派争斗。 比起提拔运动员，官员们对保护自己的权利（并享受带薪观看体育赛事的假期）更感兴趣。


With all these factors, failure in the Olympics, it is suggested, is encoded in our national DNA.	所有这些因素，暗示着在奥运会中的失利被植入我们的国家DNA之中。


Yet success or failure still depends on the individual athlete.	然而，成功或失败依然取决于运动员自身。


Indian genes in a developing country did not prevent Vijay Singh emerging from Fiji to rival Tiger Woods as the best golfer in the world.	在一个发展中国家的印度基因没有阻止来自斐济的维杰·辛格作为世界上最好的高尔夫运动员和泰格·伍兹竞争。


And if Indians can be better than white and black sportsmen on the cricket field, why can’t they beat them in an Olympic stadium?	而且，如果印度能在板球上比 白人运动员和黑人运动员表现得更好，那么，印度为什么不能在奥运赛场上打败这些运动员呢？


The newly globalized India can no longer content itself with mediocrity in this global competition.	新的全球化的印度再也不能满足于在世界比赛中的这种平庸表现了。


For a land with world-class computer scientists, mathematicians, biotech researchers, filmmakers, and novelists, sporting excellence is the last unconquered frontier.	对于一个拥有世界级的电脑科学家、数学家、生物技术研究员、电影制片人以及小说家的国家来说，卓越的体育表现是最后一个没有被征服的阵地。


But 2008 won’t be the year in which that frontier is breached.	但是，2008年不会是在这个阵地上取得突破的一年。


India’s Second Wind	印度卷土重来


NEW DELHI – The Indian economy is coming back.	新德里—印度经济正在回归。


After several years of disappointing performance, the authorities are shifting to policies aimed at boosting the annual growth rate closer to the roughly 9% level that India achieved from 2004 to 2008.	在数年令人失望的表现后，当局正在转向旨在提振年增长率至9%附近水平的政策，这也是印度在2004—2008年期间达到过的增长率。


That won’t be easy.	这不是个容易的任务。


India has many handicaps and lacks many of the things that are needed to sustain rapid growth.	印度有着诸多缺陷，也缺少很多维持快速增长必须的东西。


Although India has outstanding universities and technological institutes, the primary-education system is disastrously poor.	尽管印度拥有杰出的大学和技术研究所，但小学体系是场灾难。


The caste system and labor laws prevent an efficient labor market.	种姓制度劳动法阻止了有效劳动市场的产生。


The policy of quotas for lower castes and for members of certain “scheduled” tribes affects educational institutions, government employment, and even private firms.	低种姓和某些特定“安排”（scheduled）部落的配额制影响了教育机构、政府就业甚至私人企业。


Populist policies that transfer scarce budget funds to hundreds of millions of rural men and women end up encouraging them to withdraw their labor services, driving up wages and undermining international competitiveness.	将宝贵的预算资金转移支付给数以亿计的农村人口的民粹主义政策起到的最终效果是鼓励他们不再劳动、推高了工资，也破坏了国际竞争力。


True, bureaucratic rules are not nearly as constraining as they were during the pre-1991 “license raj.”	诚然，官僚主义规则已不再像1991年以前的“许可证制度”（license raj）时期那样束手束脚。


But business activity remains bogged down by myriad restrictions and a frustratingly slow judicial system, which, together with a complex system of price subsidies, encourage widespread corruption at every level of government.	但商业活动仍因为各种限制和动作迟缓的司法体系而大受掣肘，后两者加上复杂的价格补贴，成了各级政府腐败的温床。


Moreover, India’s infrastructure is inadequate for a modern economy.	此外，印度的基础设施对于一个现代经济体来说也是不足够的。


With too little electricity, blackouts are common.	电力不足导致点不了灯是家常便饭。


Ports are inefficient, roads are congested, and traffic is astonishingly chaotic.	港口效率低下，道路严重拥挤，交通一片混乱。


And, while India urgently needs to reform its tax system, spending policies, and regulation, political change is difficult in a multiparty federalist democracy of 1.2 billion people spread over a large subcontinent.	此外，尽管印度迫切地需要改革其税收制度、支出政策和监管，但对于一个占据着广袤次大陆的拥有12亿人口的多党制联邦民主国家来说，政治变化是件难事。


The current government is a fragile multiparty coalition.	当前政府是一个松散的多党联盟。


The Congress party leads the government, but lacks a majority in both chambers of Parliament.	国大党领导着政府，但在内阁和议会中都不占多数。


Coalition infighting and the prospect of a national election in 2014 further complicate efforts to enact reform legislation.	联盟内斗和2014年国民选举的前景让改革立法的实施更加扑朔迷离了。


And yet, despite everything, India’s economy did record roughly 9% growth for several years, and even now is growing by nearly 6% annually, behind only China and Indonesia among major economies.	但是，尽管有着诸多消极因素，印度经济仍然多年保持着近9%的增长，即使现在也有每年近6%的增长率，在主要国家中仅次于中国和印尼。


One key to India’s economic success is a large population of technically educated entrepreneurs, who are creating new companies and building a modern middle class.	印度经济成功的一大关键是庞大的人口和受过技术教育的企业家，后者创办新公司、打造现代中产阶级。


A high rate of private saving and strong inflows of capital from abroad have supported investment in plant and equipment.	私人储蓄的高比例和坚挺的海外资本流入支持了厂房和设备投资。


The Indian states have substantial policy discretion and often compete to attract businesses and achieve rapid economic growth.	印度各邦也有各自具体的政策导向，互相间展开竞争吸引企业、取得快速经济增长。


The main ingredient needed to achieve faster sustained growth is increased investment.	取得更快持续增长的关键要素是投资的增加。


Reducing the budget deficit – by limiting government spending and combating a culture of tax avoidance – will increase total domestic savings available to invest.	削减预算——通过限制政府支出和打击避税文化实现——将增加可用于投资的国内储蓄总量。


Convincing foreign direct investors that India is a reliable destination will increase the inflow of long-term funds.	让外国直接投资者相信印度是可靠的投资地将增加长期资金流入。


Fortunately, the recent threat of a downgrade of Inda’s sovereign credit rating – which would have made it difficult to finance the current-account deficit – has led to a government reshuffle and a shift in policies.	幸运的是，印度主权债务评级的降级威胁——有可能使其难以为经常项目赤字融资——已促使政府重新制定和改变政策。


The key political change was the appointment of a new finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, whose selection by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi sent a strong positive signal to the Indian business community and to financial markets.	关键的政治改变是任命了新财政部长奇丹巴拉姆（Palaniappan Chidambaram），总理辛格和国大党党首索尼娅·甘地选择他相当于向投资界和金融市场释放了一个积极的信号。


Chidambaram, a Harvard-trained lawyer who has held the finance portfolio twice before, is committed to increasing growth and to adopting pro-market policies.	奇丹巴拉姆是哈佛毕业的律师此前曾两次执掌财政部，他支持提振增长和采取亲市场改革。


He knows what needs to be done – and is pushing his political colleagues to do it.	他知道需要做什么，也在推动政治同僚这样做。


One sign of progress is that a new cabinet committee, chaired by Singh, will review large private investment projects that have been held up by regulatory issues or other legal barriers.	一个进步的信号是以辛格为首的新内阁委员会将审查因监管问题和其他法律壁垒而被高高挂起的投资项目。


Breaking this logjam will be important, both in itself and for the message that it conveys to domestic and foreign investors.	打破这一僵局是很重要的，不管是其本身还是其向国内和国外投资者释放的信号。


Likewise, India’s recent decision to allow large foreign retailers like Wal-Mart to enter the market reflects an encouraging change of attitude that is important beyond the specifics of the particular firms that will now come to India.	类似地，印度最近作出的允许沃尔玛等外国零售商进入印度市场的决定也反映了令人鼓舞的态度和变化，其重要意义远远超过如今得以进入印度的几家特定企业。


And legislation will soon create the opportunity for expanded foreign ownership in the financial sector.	很快，立法将为扩大金融部门外资所有权创造机会。


On the fiscal front, the shift from a complex system of state-level indirect taxes to a national goods and services tax (a type of value-added tax) will improve efficiency and raise revenue.	在财政领域，从复杂的邦级间接税向国民商品和服务税（一种增值税）的转变将改善效率、增加收入。


Lowering the subsidy for diesel fuel was politically difficult, but will reduce both the fiscal deficit and excessive use of diesel products.	降低化石燃料补贴在政治上是困难的，但可以收到降低���政赤字和化石燃料产品滥用的双重效果。


Government investment in infrastructure, both alone and in partnership with private firms, will also directly benefit growth and attract larger inflows of foreign investment.	政府基础设施投资——不管是独资还是与私人企业合资——也能直接有利于增长，吸引更多的外国投资流入。


Finally, a remarkable plan to enroll every Indian adult in a program using fingerprint identification as a substitute for bank debit cards will allow more efficient distribution of funds to poor villagers and the urban poor.	最后，把所有印度成年人纳入用指纹鉴定代替银行信用卡的宏大计划将更高效地将资金非配给贫困村民和城市贫民。


More than three hundred million Indians have already been enrolled.	已有3亿印度人做了指纹鉴定计划。


All of this is an enormous undertaking – one that confronts innumerable potential impediments, both economic and political.	所有这些都是巨大的事业——面临着数不清的潜在障碍，既有经济上的，也有政治上的。


But I am betting that India is rising again: millions more will be lifted out of poverty in the coming years, while the increasingly prosperous Indian middle class will expand further.	但我相信印度在再次崛起：数百万人将在未来几年中摆脱贫困，日渐繁荣的印度中产阶级将进一步扩张。


India’s Wounded State	印度国告急


NEW DELHI – The September 7 bomb blast at the entrance to the High Court in New Delhi was a macabre finale to a summer of crisis.	新德里—— 9月7日，新德里高等法院入口处发生了炸弹爆炸事件，给2011年危机之下画上了一个恐怖的句号。


Previously, weeks of anti-corruption protests launched by Anna Harare, and supported by the country’s rising middle class, had brought India’s government to a virtual standstill.	此前，安纳·哈拉雷（Anna Harare）领导了为期数周的反腐败游行，该游行受到了印度崛起的中产阶级的支持，印度政府因此陷入了实质瘫痪。


This was followed by an embarrassing surrender to the demand of protestors that a powerful new anti-corruption agency be established.	最后政府只能尴尬地屈从于游行者的要求，成立了一个新的反腐权力机构。


For some people, the protests that paralyzed large swathes of the capital were akin to a festival.	对某些人来说，这场让印度首都大部分陷入瘫痪的游行不啻一场节日。


Others, following the government’s retreat, grandiosely thought the events amounted to a revolution.	其他人则看到了政府不得不让步，因此将这起事件视为伟大革命。


To be sure, a large part of urban “middle India” has revolted against the tyranny of daily corruption.	实事求是地说，城市“中产印度”中有很大一部分人都曾参与过抵抗日常腐败暴行的行动。


But will the Harare-led protests deliver real change or merely media hyperbole?	但哈拉雷所领导的游行真的能让局面有实质性的改善吗？ 还是说，这仅仅是媒体的夸大其词？


Whichever side one takes, the consequences are disturbing: Indian society, the core of Indian nationhood, is now questioning the very legitimacy of the Indian state.	不管你站在哪一派，结果都不令人乐观：印度社会，印度之国基，正在质疑印度立国的合法性。


India’s nationhood resides in a non-territorial civilizational entity.	印度之国基在于非领土意义上的文化实体。


The Indian state, on the other hand, is a historical variable that has periodically governed parts of the subcontinent.	另一方面，印度国则随着历史的变化而变化，不断地在印度次大陆沉浮。


Following independence in 1947, a centralized Indian state emerged for the first time.	1947年独立以来，中央化的印度国首次出现在世界上。


For citizens, the Indian state is the great provider – mai-baap, literally “mother and father.”	对印度公民来说，印度国是伟大的奉献者，是人民的“母亲和父亲”（mai-baap）。


The strength of Indian nationhood, however, lies not in this state but in Indian society.	但印度国基之巩固与否在于印度社会，而不在于印度国。


This idea was at the core of Gandhi’s beliefs; he emphasized “reform of society,” because only that, he believed, could correct the state’s ills.	这一思想正是甘地信念的核心； 他强调“社会改革”，因为在他看来，唯有如此才能根治印度国的病。


Herein lies the central disconnect, and also the source of discontent, for today’s India: if and when an Indian citizen now approaches this state, for even the most routine of needs, the state inflicts pain rather than providing succor.	今日印度的中心分歧及其源头也在于此：当印度公民想到这个国家的时候，即使他心里想的是最基本的需求，印度国带给他的也是痛苦，而不是帮助。


The Indian state’s fundamental inability to redress grievances, correct mistakes, and attend to its citizens’ most basic needs has given rise to a ruinous level of corruption, as citizens, despairing of obtaining their due fairly, try to buy it instead.	印度国在消解仇恨、纠正错误以及满足公民基本需要方面的根本性的无能正是腐败横生的温床，因为印度公民对于无法获得应有的公平感到绝望，只能花钱去买。


The state then turns into a monopoly seller, and thus an enemy of its own society.	于是，印度国变成了一位垄断卖家，因而成了印度社会的敌人。


For Anna Harare and his followers, the only solution is another state agency – a vast and all-powerful anti-corruption watchdog with the power to coerce and intimidate.	对安纳·哈拉雷及其追随者而言，唯一的解决办法是成立新的国家机构，一个庞大的、重权在握的反腐部门，该部门应该拥有威胁恐吓权。


Others call for a spiritual revival within Indian society.	其他人则呼吁印度社会内部的精神复兴。


It is no surprise, of course, that large crowds cheered for Harare and his anti-corruption movement, by which they assumed a vicarious role in slaying the demon of corruption.	当然，毫不奇怪，大批群众为哈拉雷及其反复运动欢呼，他们觉得可以通过这场运动目睹腐败遭到围剿。


Their abuse was reserved for “evil parliamentarians” – or any politicians – as vile agents of a crooked state.	他们指责“罪恶的议员”（或任何政客），认为他们是这个扭曲的国家的罪恶代言人。


Unfortunately, India’s government misunderstood the anti-corruption protests from the start.	不幸的是，印度政府从一开始就误会了这场反腐游行。


At first, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood firm against Harare’s demands on technical grounds.	起先，总理曼莫汉·辛格坚定地反对哈拉雷提出的技术层面的要求。


But this proved insufficient to halt a growing sense of drift and decay concerning his Congress Party-led coalition.	但事实证明，这并不足以停止人们认定他的国大党领导的执政联盟在一步步走向深渊。


This sense of malaise was highlighted on India’s Independence Day (August 15).	骚动不安的感觉在印度独立日（8月15日）达到了高峰。


Confronted by multiple charges of corruption against his government, the prime minister’s address to the nation partly sought to divert attention from the scandals by focusing, bizarrely, on a litany of other problems, from high inflation and the Naxalite rebellion to persistent malnutrition and terrorist attacks.	面临针对政府的诸多腐败指控，总理辛格的治国方案试图将人们的注意力从丑闻上移开，而其办法十分怪异：专注于一连串的其他问题——高通胀、印度共产党叛乱、难以根治的营养不良问题、恐怖袭击，等等。


Yet the overriding theme remained corruption.	但压倒一切的关注焦点仍然是腐败。


And what else could it be?	除了腐败，还能是什么呢？


After all, the current government is possibly the most corrupt, in every sense, that India has ever experienced.	毕竟，不管从哪个角度看，现任政府都可能是印度史上最腐败的一个。


Were periodic elections the only yardstick of democracy, India would have achieved what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls the “gold standard.”	如果说定期选举是民主的唯一标杆的话，那么印度早已达到了美国国务卿希拉里·克林顿所谓的“黄金标准”。


But that is far removed from reality and the nature of its ruling party.	但这与印度的现实及其执政党的性质相去甚远。


The Congress Party, to paraphrase Brown University’s Richard Snyder, resembles a “neo-patrilineal dictatorship,” in which “[p]eople get goodies for being close to the ruler.”	用布朗大学的理查德·斯奈德（Richard Snyder）的话讲，国大党像是一个“新父系独裁”，“人民因与统治者走得较近而获得好处。


Proximity to the Gandhi family is everything.	”和甘地家族套上近乎就是一切。


Congress, at its core, pursues a form of dynastic democracy with the characteristics of a “Sultanistic regime” – a regime with no purpose or function apart from maintaining the “leader’s personal authority.”	从本质上说，国大党追求的是一种带“苏丹体制”特征的王朝式民主，这种体制的唯一目的和功能是维系“领袖的个人威权”。


But, though such leaders perhaps have more personal authority than even medieval monarchs, their authority is brittle.	但是，尽管领袖可能拥有比中世纪君主还要大的个人威权，他手里的权力却并不坚挺。


Moreover, societies lose their cohesion under such regimes; they begin to lack a shared set of values, for they become relegated to living in “a belief vacuum.”	此外，这种体制会令社会失去凝聚力； 社会会缺乏共同价值观，沦落到“信仰真空”的状态。


There is another depressing aspect to the corruption debate.	关于腐败的争论还有一点令人沮丧。


Both Singh and the US State Department helped spread the canard that foreign influence was at work behind the scenes.	不管是辛格还是美国国务院，都在欺骗民众，说外国势力在幕后施加影响。


“External forces,” Singh declared in Parliament, are trying to prevent India from taking “its true place” in the comity of nations.	辛格在国会上断言，“外部势力”在阻止印度在睦邻友好中“找到自己的真实位置”。


“We must not play into their hands,” he intoned gravely.	“我们决不能中敌人的计。 ”严肃地说。


Meanwhile, a State Department spokesperson urged India’s authorities to act with “appropriate democratic restraint” in response to the crisis provoked by Harare’s protests.	与此同时，美国国务院的一位发言人敦促印度当局以“合适的民主克制”应对哈拉雷所挑起的危机。


This was an egregious bit of meddling.	这样的干预真是乱弹琴。


After all, non-violent protests are an Indian specialty	说到底，非暴力不合作正是印度的特征。


But Gandhi’s yardstick for non-violent protest was satyagraha – “the protest of truth.”	但甘地所树立的非暴力不合作是“捍卫真理”。


By contrast, India’s current anti-corruption protests may be missing the point, for the central challenge in fighting corruption is to establish a freedom born of righteous conduct, not to authorize a new source of state coercion.	相反，最近印度的反腐游行并不是这样，因为反腐斗争的核心挑战是建立由公正行为产生的自由，而不是授权成立一个新的国家高压机器。


Indian society must regain its strength – and its proper role.	印度社会必须重新获得活力，重新扮演合适的角色。


Only when India, as the great poet Rabindranath Tagore put it, is a place “where the head is held high and the mind is without fear” will it be able to act with the confidence, honesty, and generosity its citizens demand and deserve.	只有当印度如伟大诗人泰戈尔所说的那样成为“头颅高昂，思想无所畏惧”之地时，它才可能自信、诚实且慷慨地满足其公民应有的要求。


India’s Year of Living Stagnantly	印度的生活萧条之年


NEW DELHI – Will 2012 prove to be a year of renewal for India, or another annus horribilis?	新德里—2012年将是印度的重生之年还是又一个可怕之年？


No country progresses unerringly, but India cannot afford another politically and economically torpid year like 2011.	没有哪个国家可以在一帆风顺之间一直进步，但对于印度来说，已经无法承受又一个如2011年般在政治和经济上都如此不堪的年头了。


For India, last year is a year best forgotten.	印度人恨不得彻底忘却过去的一年。


India has been so deeply mired in political paralysis that the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen recently said that the country has “fallen from being the second best to the second worst” South Asian country, and that it is currently “no match for China” on social indicators.	在政治上，印度可谓泥足深陷，以至于诺贝尔经济学奖获得者阿马提亚·森最近声称，这个国家在南亚“从第二堕落到了倒数第二”，在社会指标方面“无法与中国相提并论”。


This is a damning comment on a country that held such promise just a short time ago.	对于一个不久前才信誓旦旦的国家来说，这样的评语不啻当头一盆冷水。


In early January, the American social critic James Howard Kunstler described India as “a nation with one foot in the modern age and the other in a colorful hallucinatory dreamtime.”	1月初，美国社会批评家霍华德·昆斯勒（Howard Kunstler）将印度描述为“一只脚踏进了现代世界，另一只脚还在多彩的幻想世界中徜徉的国家”。


Kunstler’s view is harsh, but perhaps prophetic: India’s “climate-change-related problems are doing heavy damage to the food supply.	昆斯勒的观点可谓犀利，却颇有些预言的意味：印度的“气候变化相关问题正在严重影响食品供给。


Their groundwater is almost gone.	地下水几乎已经消耗殆尽。


The troubles of the wobbling global economy will take a lot of pep out of their burgeoning tech and manufacturing sectors.”	步履蹒跚、麻烦缠身的全球降级将让印度生机勃发的技术和制造部门大量失血。 ”


Indeed, suddenly, India’s economy has begun spinning out of control.	事实上，几乎在一夜之间，印度经济开始失控了。


Last year, the country’s GDP growth slowed, manufacturing plummeted, and inflation and corruption grew uncontrollably.	去年，印度GDP增长率出现了下降，制造业出现了暴跌，通胀和腐败以不可控制之势蔓延。


Elected and unelected government officials alike, including cabinet ministers, members of parliament, and civil servants, were implicated in corruption scandals.	当选政府官僚，非当选官僚也好，不关你是内阁部长、议会成员还是普通公务员，都摆脱不了腐败丑闻的干系。


The situation triggered recollections of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s fraudulent call for a state of emergency in 1975, when she ruled by decree for 21 months, suspending elections and civil liberties.	去年的情况让人想起了1975年总理英迪拉·甘地宣布进入紧急状态的戏言。 当时她得到了21个月的授权，中止了选举和公民自由。


The population’s outraged response to these events was visceral, and previously unknown figures such as the anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare rallied thousands of Indians in meetings across the country to protest against government corruption.	人民对这些事件爆发了发自肺腑的愤怒，先前默默无闻的反复活动家，如阿纳·哈扎尔（Anna Hazare）发动了数以千计的印度人在全国开展机会运动，向政府腐败示威。


As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government floundered, the opposition vainly sought to gain the upper hand.	辛格政府对此不知所措，而反对派只知道徒劳地乘机捞取政治地盘。


But, to ordinary Indians, this political gamesmanship appeared to be merely a farce – the blind pretending to lead the unsighted.	但对普通印度人来说，这样的政治小把戏只不过是闹剧，好比是盲人在引导瞎子。


Perhaps for the first time ever, India’s government failed to enact even a single piece of legislation, much less undertake any economic reforms, restore price stability, or address widespread civil disorder.	或许这是印度政府在历史上第一次没能出台哪怕一项立法，更不用说实施任何经济改革、重塑价格稳定以及解决广泛蔓延的公共秩序问题了。


As the Indian business analyst Virendra Parekh has observed:  “The second fastest-growing economy in the world now has the unenviable distinction of having the fastest falling financial markets in Asia.”	正如印度商业分析家维纶德拉·帕雷科（Virendra Parekh）所观察到的：“世界上增长第二快的国家现在一点都不值得羡慕，因为他们的金融市场在亚洲是堕落最快的。


Moreover, “the fortunes of the rupee are….tightly linked with the euro, which is in the throes of an existential crisis...” This has resulted in another, albeit unintended, consequence: “Unscrupulous politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, who have stashed their illicit wealth abroad, are bringing some of it back,” passing off the money as export earnings.	”此外，“卢比紧紧地与欧元挂钩，因此只能任由当前危机宰割……”而这在无意间导致了另一个结果：“不知羞耻的政客、官僚和商人从前不法财富转移到国外，现在又移回了一部分，”打着出口利润的名号把钱输回印度。


Where corruption has been absent, incompetence has replaced it.	如果哪个地方没有腐败，那么替代它的一定是无能。


Furthermore, weaknesses in agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and governance have all contributed to India’s current crisis.	此外，农业、能源、基础设施和治理方面的疲软也是印度当前危机的引发原因。


For example, approximately a quarter-million Indian farmers have allegedly committed suicide over the last 16 years, despite unprecedented economic growth.	比如，过去16年间，据说大约有25万印度农民自杀身亡，尽管在此期间印度取得了前所未有的经济增长。


This statistic begs the question of why India continues to import foods and oils that could be produced domestically.	这个数字引出了一个问题：为何印度要继续进口可以在国内生产的食品和原油。


Solutions offered by organizations such as the US-India Business Council or USAID do not address the problem’s roots, and the crisis will most likely continue in 2012.	美印商业委员会（US-India Business Council）和美国国际开发署（USAID）等组织给出的解决方案不能根治问题，危机很可能会在2012年继续发酵。


It is imperative that India invest in its agriculture, not only for economic reasons, but also because it is central to the country’s culture.	印度需要投资于农业，这不仅是经济上的需要，也是印度文化的核心问题。


Another concern is nuclear power.	另一个担忧是核电。


In 2008, the United States and India agreed to a civil nuclear deal that would allow India to expand its nuclear-power capability.	2008年，美国和印度签署了一项民用核协议，印度得以扩展其核电产能。


In 2010, India’s parliament passed the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, a precondition for activating that agreement.	2010年，印度议会通过了《核伤害民事责任法案》，作为激活这一协议的先决条件。


But, following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, safety concerns surrounding nuclear power are large and mounting.	但是，2011年3月日本福岛核灾难爆发后，围绕核电安全的担忧再次崛起。


Local farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists have spent months protesting a planned six-reactor nuclear-power complex on the plains of Jaitapur, south of Mumbai.	当地农民、渔民和环保主义者连续几个月在孟买以南的杰普塔平原上集会示威，反对在那里建造有六个反应堆的核电厂。


In April, the protests turned violent, leaving one man dead and dozens injured.	4月，示威活动演变成暴力运动，造成一人丧身、多人受伤。


India will certainly see more anti-nuclear clashes in 2012.	显然，2012年，印度还会有更多的反核冲突。


At the heart of India’s current malaise is a paradox: rapid growth in real income has not been matched by genuine advances in living standards.	印度当前乱象和核心是一个悖论：真实收入的快速增长并没有带来生活水平的真实提高。


If the country’s fundamental problems are to be addressed, India needs a government with the determination, integrity, and intelligence to meet the complex demands of modern governance in the twenty-first century.	如果印度想要解决基本问题，那么政府就应该拿出决心、诚意和机智来满足21世纪现代治理的复杂要求。


India Takes the Lead	印度占据先机


A decisive blow against poverty was struck when India's new Finance Minister Chidambaram tabled the 2004/2005 budget.	印度新任财政部长奇丹巴拉姆制定的2004/2005财年预算是对贫困的致命一击。


India is a country on the move, with rapid economic development and dazzling dynamism in the information technology sector. Yet it is also home to 300 million of the world's poorest people.	印度是个发展中国家，经济快速增长，信息技术领域拥有令人目眩神迷的活力，但同时也是全球3亿最贫困人口的家园。


In last May's national elections, India's rural voters unseated the ruling coalition.	去年5月的全国大选中，印度的农村选民将执政联盟赶下了台。


The lesson was clear: attend to rural poverty.	教训非常明确：要解决农村的贫困问题。


The new government has listened, putting forward a program that is dazzling in its implications, for India and the developing world.	新任政府听到了人民的呼声，为印度和整个发展中世界提出了丰富多彩的脱贫计划。


India's new government is led by a veritable "dream team" of international development.	印度新任政府是由国际发展领域真正的"梦之队"领航。


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is one of the world's leading development economists.	总理曼莫汉·辛格是位全球最著名的发展经济学家。


It was Singh, serving in mid-1991 as India's Finance Minister, who began India's market reforms.	辛格1991年中就任印度的财政部长，开始了印度闻名于世的市场改革。


He dismantled decades of inefficient and ineffective government restraints on trade, investment, and entrepreneurship, unleashing more than a decade of the fastest economic growth in India's history.	他取消了几十年来政府对贸易、投资和开办企业的无效限制，开创了印度历史上从未有过的10多年的快速经济发展。


Upon returning to office this spring as Prime Minister, Singh brought into government an experienced and internationally renowned team, including Finance Minister Chidambaram, who served successfully as Finance Minister in the mid-1990's, and Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who heads the Planning Commission, the key body assessing India's medium-term public investment strategies.	今春再次就任总理后，辛格将一支身经百战、国际闻名的团队带入了印度政府，这其中有20世纪90年代就曾成功担任财政部长的奇丹巴拉姆，以及主管计划委员会的Montek Singh Ahluwalia，计委是负责印度中期公共投资策略的主要机构。