avinash.godbole

In my recently submitted PhD thesis I took a quick look at the Foxconn model of China's engagement with the world economy. Sharing that section here as Foxconn enters India with a $5bn commitment to investment in an industrial park. While investment is welcome, India must learn from mistakes that China made in the past 30 years and try and avoid them.  Of course, workers' exploitation and suicides by Foxconn workers is a known issue and not going to intervene into it here.  (of course, if one is interested in knowing how factories like Foxconn work, one must read Leslie Chang's Factory Girls ) Foxconn, Apple and iPad: China and the issue of Value-Addition Apple’s iconic product iPad is produced in China by Foxconn Inc., which is a registered company in Taiwan. During 2010-2011, Foxconn was embroiled in a major controversy over labour abuse issues after it came to light, following a spate of worker suicides, that the workers at the iPad production fac...

Sri Lanka's electoral results have been surprising and there are many reasons behind the outcome of the elections. In this article I took a one dimensional view of the Sri Lankan elections and see whether embracing the Chinese model of development too fast cost Mahindra Rajapaksa little too much. Here is the link to the  full article on the IDSA website.   

New Delhihosted its first BRICS Summit on 29th of March 2012. The BRIC grouping, comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China has come a long way since they started meeting in 2009. With the inclusion of South Africa in the group in last year’s Summit in Sanya, China, it has become stronger not only in numbers but also more representative in terms of its geographic spread. The New Delhi Summit promises to take the group forward.   Introduction to my article on BRICS published on the IITM-CSC website on 29th March 2012.