Two versions of the same WebTip. One is a 30-second version and the other is, well, longer.
The 30-second Version…
SAJA Roundup & Tips on Covering India’s Elections
http://www.saja.org/tipsindiaelections.html
Sources, resources, and more about the surprising election results in India, which has swept out the ruling party and brought back the Congress Party and will make, most likely, an Italian-born Roman Catholic woman the new prime minister. It’s a compilation of major articles, opinion pieces, and contacts, including freelance journalists available in India.
The Longer Version…
If you are going to write about a foreign country now that’s not Iraq — you better have a good reason. So here’s why I am writing about sites about India instead of Iraq.
This past week, the world’s largest democracy (that would be India; Iraq is merely the most famous democracy-to-be) held its parliamentary elections and the results surprised everyone. The upset victory of the Congress Party over the BJP government means a billion people are going to have a new government in charge of several things that directly and indirectly affect the United States — everything from its trade policy to its economic fortunes to its nuclear weapons. On Monday, uncertainty about those economic fortunes gave the Bombay Stock Exchange its biggest one-day fall in history, and affected share prices around the world.
The story is made even more interesting by the fact that the presumptive prime minister as of press time (web time?) is an Italian-born woman, Sonia Gandhi, who married into the Indian equivalent of the Kennedys. And like the Kennedys and Arnold Schwarzenegger, this adopted European is now the most successful politician in the family (India has no law keeping a foreign-born person from running the nation). In India’s system, the prime minister is the head of government and the president holds the more ceremonial head-of-state position. And if you think India is always predictable, its prime minister is going to be a Roman Catholic and its current president (and architect of its missile program), Abdul Kalam, is Muslim.
American journalists ought to care because the U.S. and Indian economies are tied together now, through outsourcing of jobs (see my March 2004 WebTip on the topic) and the large middle class market in India. And how Gandhi’s ruling coalition – which will rely on India’s Communist Party (complete with, yes, red hammer and sickle) to govern – deals with the economic reforms, will have an impact on the U.S.
Americans should also be paying close attention to whether the nascent India-Pakistan peace process continues under the new government. Also, the roughly two million Indians spread across the U.S. are going to be paying attention, so their media outlets need to do so, too.
Which brings us to the SAJA Roundup & Tips on Covering India’s Elections. For the last couple of days, the South Asian Journalists Association and I have been compliling, with input from around the world, a list of resources and backgrounders about the elections and what they mean for the U.S. We have been getting dozens of requests for names of India experts who can provide commentary on this topic. So we have added names and contacts there and are adding more. Editors have also asked for names of journalists in India available to do freelance work and there are listings for that, too. If you have comments or feedback, send them to saja@columbia.edu.
UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning EST, Sonia Gandhi declined the opportunity to be prime minister of India. Various other candidates are being discussed, including Manmohan Singh, a former finance minister (and a Sikh) who helped launch the country’s economic reforms. We did not change the text of this article to reflect this news.
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SAJA’s 10th Anniversary Convention and Job Fair is June 17-20, 2004 at Columbia University in NYC – see our stellar lineup of speakers, workshops, panels. Lowest convention prices of any major journalism convention. You don’t have to be South Asian to attend!
