NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The economic might of India may bring to mind technological savvy and overseas call centers. But to understand the Indian economy, a visit to a roadside dentist like Raj Kishore is more illuminating.
The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.

The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.
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"I can extract, I can fill up, I can scale, I can make dentures, I can make bridge metal or non-metal." Kishore said as he fitted dentures for a customer.

One thing he can't do is show a license to practice -- like many roadside dentists sitting on sidewalks awaiting customers.

While information technology and outsourcing has earned India the nickname as "the world's back office," the sector employs a fraction of India's population -- only 2 million of India's more than 500 million workers, according to NASSCOM, an IT and business process outsourcing trade organization.

So where do the majority of people work in India? The International Labor Organization and economists say as many as 95 percent of the workforce makes a living in what is known as the informal or unorganized sector.

"Roughly today about 50 percent of the production is from the unorganized sector," says New Delhi-based economics professor Arun Kumar, referring to jobs and services that exist without a storefront, union to represent the workers, or corporate structure.

Although things are changing and the economy has boomed in recent years, Indians are still emerging from poverty. Finding employment can be tough so people have literally created jobs out of sheer necessity, such as roadside dentist Kishore.

Kishore says he learned his trade from a dentist and a dental course but he does not have a degree in dentistry. He and those around him provide a service to customers who couldn't dream of affording a licensed dentist in an office.

That is just one of thousands of jobs that make up India's informal economy.
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Radha Kumari is a Mehandi artist. She uses henna to make intricate traditional designs on women's hands and feet. It's an old art that is steeped in tradition and is typically worn by brides the day before the wedding ceremony but is also popular during other Indian holidays and with tourists. She learned the trade from her sister at age 10 and started working as a teenager.

"I started doing this work because I was needy. I have no parents; my sister has done everything for me so it was very important for me to work," said Kumari, a mother of two, while she swirled henna on the hand of a customer.

She makes 25 to 50 rupees (50 cents to $1) per hand, she said. She and other henna artists are often "troubled" by city authorities or police who come to kick them off of the sidewalks or ask for bribes -- technically Kumari and others are breaking the law by setting up shop on government property.

City government authorities showed up while CNN was interviewing Kumari, causing the henna artists around her to pack up and run away.

It's a tough life. "If there can be anything better, I would definitely love to do it," she said. "Here there is no certainty. Today I'm allowed to sit here, tomorrow I may not be." But Kumari says it's better than nothing at all.

Experts say the informal economy helped keep India out of recession, since it is not tied to the global markets. While the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit has help the Indian economy growing, the largely unregulated workforce promises to have negative impacts on the Indian economy as well, as transactions are often in cash and difficult to trace and tax.
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But the working conditions and low pay leave millions living in poverty.

"Their conditions are very poor because they have no protective gear of any kind, they have no real social security of any kind," said Arun Kumar, an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. "They face a lot of hardship of all kinds in terms of their existence, where they stay, what do they do, their health conditions, et cetera."

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish police arrested a well-known Basque politician linked to the armed Basque separatist group ETA on Tuesday, along with nine suspected collaborators, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Former leader of banned Basque party Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi after his arrest.

Former leader of banned Basque party Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi after his arrest.

The politician, Arnaldo Otegi, is a leader of the former Batasuna party, outlawed for its ties to ETA, which is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its four-decade fight for Basque independence.

Otegi and the others were arrested in northern Spain for trying to regroup the leadership of the so-called Basque left movement in order to "carry out ETA's orders," the statement said.

Otegi and four others were arrested during a meeting at an office of the Basque union LAB in San Sebastian. Two others were arrested on the street in the nearby town of Hernani, and three others were arrested in Pamplona, including one for allegedly possessing documents from another suspect's home in an attempt to avoid having them seized by police, the statement said.

The operation is being directed by anti-terrorism Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain's National Court, and the suspects were due to be taken to Madrid to appear before him in the coming days, the statement said.

Otegi has been in trouble before with the law. In 2007, he was arrested shortly after Spain's Supreme Court upheld a lower-court's conviction of him in 2006 for glorifying terrorism at a memorial in December 2003 for a dead ETA leader.

Otegi was sentenced to 15 months in jail. But at the time of his 2007 arrest, he had been free on $300,000 bail in a separate terrorism case of inciting violence.
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A senior government source who insisted on anonymity said last month that officials had been expecting Otegi to try to step forward soon as an interlocutor promising to help end ETA's violence and negotiate a deal with the government.

The aim, according to the source, was to permit a rebranded Batasuna to run for local office again, on the promise it would seek to end ETA's violence once it had regained elected government positions.

But government officials have said publicly there can be no further talks with ETA, which is listed as a terrorist group by Spain, the European Union and the United States. Video Watch background behind ETA's decades-long struggle »

When ETA declared a unilateral "permanent" cease-fire in March 2006, the government began steps toward a peace process, but ETA then bombed Madrid's airport in December 2006, killing two men and causing extensive damage.

ETA in 2007 called off its cease-fire, which the government had already considered finished.

The government has said since then that the only way to end more than 40 years of violence will be for ETA to renounce its campaign and lay down its arms or face its demise through a police crackdown.

Yet ETA has continued its killings and bombings, including fatal attacks in the Spanish island of Majorca in August.
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But police in Spain and in neighboring France -- ETA's traditional rearguard base -- have cracked down hard, arresting dozens of ETA suspects, including four of its alleged top leaders.

The arrest of Otegi and others on Tuesday comes two days after police detained two of the most-wanted ETA suspects in France. They were allegedly involved in ETA logistics and police later found weapons and material to make car bombs, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed Tuesday that Washington and Moscow are working together to ensure Iran's nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, but Russia has stopped short of committing to Iranian sanctions.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev greets U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday outside Moscow.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev greets U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday outside Moscow.

Speaking to reporters after a closed-door meeting, Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated there has been no agreement between the countries on any sort of sanctions plan, even though Russia is not opposed to sanctions in principle.

The United States is using a two-track approach, pursuing diplomacy with Iran and going on to stronger measures -- such as sanctions -- if that effort fails.

"We are aware that we might not be as successful as we need to be," Clinton said. "So we have always looked at the potential of sanctions in the event that we are not successful, that we cannot assure ourselves and others that Iran has decided not to pursue nuclear weapons."

Clinton quoted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent comment that sanctions might be "inevitable" but not at this stage. Video Watch as Clinton stresses the importance of the diplomatic track with Iran »

While the Obama administration has been cautiously optimistic about the "inevitable" comment, Russia has long believed that sanctions are not yet necessary, even though they may be a factor to consider down the road.

Lavrov said that sometimes sanctions theoretically need to be imposed when all diplomatic efforts are exhausted -- but not in the case of Iran.
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"Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive," he said.

World powers have long been concerned that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon, and those suspicions were heightened by the discovery of a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom. However, Iran has consistently said it is developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

"Iran's nuclear program remains a matter of serious concern. We're working closely with Russia through the P5 and 1 process," Clinton said, referring to the diplomacy with Iran conducted by Germany and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

"We are working to ensure that Iran moves forward with us on this engagement track," said Clinton, who added that Iran must show without any doubt it is pursuing unequivocally only a peaceful use of nuclear power.

Clinton also met with Medvedev at his residence outside Moscow. Other items on Clinton's agenda included Afghanistan, arms control and the new U.S.-Russia bilateral presidential commission.
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Clinton spoke about surmounting historical difficulties in U.S.-Russian relations, changing a relationship "once defined by the shadow of mutually assured destruction into that based on mutual respect and over time increasingly mutual trust."

"We are different countries; we have different historical experiences, different perspectives," she said. "But we are planting those disagreements in a much broader field of cooperation, and hopefully we are enriching the earth in which this cooperation can take root."

So now what?

The Senate Finance Committee had barely voted on the big health care legislation when the infinitesimally short attention span of Capitol Hill shifted to the next step. And it sounds like the debut of a 1950’s doo-wop band: ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Harry Reid and the Bill Blenders.

That would be the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and the team of senators, aides and White House officials who will meld the Finance Committee bill with an alternate version of the health-care legislation that was approved back in July by the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Mr. Reid will gather the group in his office on the second floor of the Capitol for its first official meeting on Wednesday. The group includes Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and the Finance Committee chairman; Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who was acting chairman of the HELP committee when it passed its health care bill; and representatives of the White House.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said that Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the lone Republican on the Finance Committee to vote in favor of the bill, would be invited to future sessions. And Mr. Manley said the Democratic leader was prepared to go to substantial lengths to keep Ms. Snowe’s support.

“He is prepared to do what he can to keep her on board while putting together a bill that can get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster,” Mr. Manley said.

Senate Democrats have already held some preliminary discussions about blending the two bills, and the White House lobbying team is already fully deployed across the Capitol.

The more liberal HELP bill was approved on a strict party-line vote,
with Republicans unanimously opposed. And in many ways, it was only half of a bill, because the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over
the tax provisions needed to finance the legislation, as well as
spending on Medicare and Medicaid.

The HELP bill, for instance, anticipated a major expansion of
Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, but it is the
Finance Committee bill that includes the expansion, which extends
eligibility to all Americans earning less than 133 percent of the federal
poverty level, including childless adults currently excluded.

Speaking of the other side of the Capitol, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, continues to work on her own blending project, pulling together the bills reported out by three different committees into a single legislative proposal for full floor debate.

The House bill will include a government-run insurance plan, or public option, to compete with private insurers. But Mr. Reid, and perhaps President Obama himself, may have to mediate that issue in the Senate.

Liberal senators want the public option. But Ms. Snowe is firmly opposed. She has expressed openness to a compromise that would allow a government-run health plan to be “triggered” in states where the legislation otherwise does not succeed in providing affordable insurance.