Word: indianized
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Reverberations from the implosion of the U.S. debt bubble can be felt a long way from Wall Street. Gaurav Rege was a hotel manager near Rishikesh, an Indian hill station at the foot of the Himalayas. He and his new wife are young, educated, well-off - and worried. A member of India's growing consumer culture, Rege, 30, took out an adjustable-rate loan two years ago to buy an investment property near Bangalore, but his monthly payments have jumped because of tighter credit and rising interest rates. He has abandoned plans to get an M.B.A. because student loans...
...Thousands of Indians like the Reges are having similar doubts. Just as credit-happy Americans are being brought low by a housing-market meltdown and slowing economic growth, so too are Indians learning the downside of personal debt. Over the past five years, Indian banks, finance companies and retailers introduced a Western-style banquet of financial products to the country's rising middle class, whose members began tapping credit cards, consumer loans and installment plans to buy automobiles, washing machines, vacations - all those trappings of upward mobility that the few who could afford them once proudly purchased with cash...
...predicting a wave of bad debts will crash the Indian financial system and economy. That's because commerce on the subcontinent still runs mostly on cash. Dheeraj Dikshit, the head of consumer assets in India for U.K.-based bank HSBC, reckons that credit cards are used for only about 2% of all retail transactions. But cash-strapped consumers will still hurt economic growth. Many spend half their salary on car and house payments and will be forced to cut discretionary spending. Some sectors are already getting hurt. New car sales - 80% of which are financed - are slowing. Tata Motors reported...
...wake of the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, the ISI was accused of being involved with and helping the Jalaluddin Haqqani network, which was blamed for the attack. Indeed, the dispute between Islamabad and Washington appears to center on the activities of the Haqqani network and other militants blamed for mounting cross-border attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, which have led to a spike in violence in its eastern provinces this year. According to Pakistan military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, this may be because "the priorities are mismatching." While the U.S. is focused...
...business of Charlotte was always business. The city began as a trading post at the intersection of two Indian trails, hosted America's first gold rush and first mint, and later blossomed into a transportation and textile hub. Charlotte's white leaders agreed to desegregation relatively early, concluding that turmoil was bad for business. And local banks exploited North Carolina's liberal acquisition laws to build the conglomerates that now dominate headlines. Today Charlotte's nine FORTUNE 500 companies help run the city, not only by writing checks--Bank of America and Wachovia have pledged $15 million apiece to build...