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Indian Finance Minister Sitharaman gives the following remarks in parliament on the White Paper presented to the 18th Lok Sabha in January 2024, describing the dire condition of the Indian economy by 2013 with mismanagement and "big ticket" corruption. India's Finance Minister Sitharaman describes the situation in three key areas by 2013 that left the economy of India in a fragile state, with projects stalled, development delayed, and capital investment not taking place. She gives as 3 main points of focus- the state of affairs at Defense Ministry, at the Environment Ministry, and for Energy supplies. At the outset she says PM Modi had suggested the need for such White Paper by 2015 so that future generations would know what had happened in India that failed the country at a time when China had already joined the community of developed nations. The issues go back to the coal scandal when coal auctions had to be cancelled by the Supreme Court for irregularities, the misuse of state owned banks leading to a large increase in non performing loans, and the mismanaged Commonwealth Games under government before 2014.  Sitharaman told parliament this had the effect of national security being compromised, Environment as a Ministry becoming a bottleneck, and the leadership failing the country. In the military there was a critical shortage of ammunition and equipment. She cites the Defense Minister at the time having the attitude that independent India has had a policy for many years not to develop the border areas, as an undeveloped border was better than a developed border. She also says Ministry stated that 92% of the Defense Budget was used up and major acquisitions have to wait for the military. Following this Sitharaman cited the scandals of that period and leakages of funds that weakend the country and failed its people. She compared capital expenditures today of 6.22 lakh crores in 2024 thre times the number in 2013 of 2.53 crores. HAL now makes Tejas jets and helicopters in Made in India production. At the Environment Ministry the delays that were 86 days reached a high of 316 days by 2013 for approval of development projects, with 355 projects pending, the nation brought to a standstill with the effects of the coal supplies to thermal power plants being wholly inadequate and Coal India in poor shape. The root of this was said Sitharaman- what everyone in Indian business knew, the term "genteel facts," as the cost of business going up. She cites the changes since then of aiming for Balance and Development- Transparency, Online Green Clearance, Standardized Environment Impact Studies, A new Department of Climate change, International Solar Alliance 2015, Mission Life 2022, Green Hydrogen, Namami Gange, Rooftop Solar. India set ambitious goals at the last Climate change Conference.    ...

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Harris tells a rally in Atlanta that abortion bans pay no attention to maternal health. "One in three women in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. This includes Georgia and every state in the south except Virginia. Think about that, when you also combine that with what we know has been longstanding neglect around an issue like maternal mortality. Think about that, when you compound that with what has been longstanding neglect of women in communities with a lack of the adequate resources they need for healthcare, prenatal, during their pregnancy, postpartum. Think about that, and these hypocrites want to start talking about this is in the best interest of women and children?" Harris points out that some states have prison for life or ten year sentences for doctors and nurses, under their abortion bans. “We all know how we got here. When Donald Trump was president, he hand-selected three members of the United States supreme court, the court of Thurgood and RBG, with the intention that they would overturn the protections of Roe v Wade."                   ...

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Efforts to bring the two sides together for ceasefire succeed for Black Sea but hit snags along the way. Russia wanting to get sanctions lifted on it's Agricultural Bank to lift grain and fertilizer exports. A separate deal on not attacking energy infrastructure was negotiated.  Fundamentally NATO needed to be reconstituted at the end of the Cold War. Russia's apparent weakness was temporary as it converted to a market economy from the Soviet model. It's GDP is not a correct representation of it's capabilities and need for respect as an advanced European economy. With US-Russian cooperation nothing like Syria and Venezuelan disasters would have happened disrupting the fabric of American and European democratic systems. Russian conditions include ones that were clear from the early days of the war. Ukraine joining NATO threatens Russian security. That this was not to be allowed. And Ukraine to relinquish territory now controlled by Russia in Crimea and in Ukraine's east. DJT in the US has ruled out joining NATO for Ukraine. These territories have been integrated into Russia and it is unlikely that this would change so that continuation of the war after so many lives are lost doesn't make sense. Europeans particular Baltic Republics and Poland are concerned about Russian intentions- this too is not going to change by continuation of the war. It can be addressed by putting in concrete safeguards. ...

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Bob Dylan is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature since Toni Morrison in 1992.  This is the first time it is awarded to a musician. The award was given for "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Born as Albert Zimmerman in Minnesota in 1941, Dylan took the name of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas for his musical career. In announcing the prize Sara Danius of the Nobel Prize Academy said Dylan wrote "poetry for the eyes," citing his album "Blonde on Blonde." Best known are his songs "Blowin' in the Wind" ans "The Times They Are A-Changin," songs that in the sixties reflected the mood of America towards civil rights for black people and against the war in Vietnam. This article by DW.com is exceptional in the way it gives an account of past Nobel Prize winners in literature and what they brought to readers in the way of resurrecting humanity in their own way and from their own experiences in different cultures and periods- 2015 Svetlana Calling of Belarus  and Herta Muller of German-Romanian background on the situation in their countries in the Soviet period, Clezio in 2008 of French Mauritius background on the cultures beneath "the reigning civilization or indigenous cultures of Africa and Latin America, and Orhan Pamuk on his native city in Turkey and the clash of cultures modern and old, in 2010, Vargas Llosa on cultures of Latin America of power and individual resistance, and 2012 Yan Moye of telling stories of today's China through folk tales. The common theme is the struggle between the individual trying to find hope, humanity, in the midst of political and cultural forces that he finds himself caught up in. ...

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According to Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, 6.1 million Hispanic children lived in poverty in 2010. The poverty line is defined as a family of four living on $22,314. Of the total poor children in 2010, 37.3% were Hispanic, 30.5% white, and 26.6% black. Hispanics were hit hard by the 2008-2009 recession because many are employed in construction and the hospitality industries or blue collar jobs. A majority of the Hispanic children were born in the U.S. 4.1 million have immigrant parents and 2.0 million have U.S. born parents. Of the total U.S. population Latinos are 16%, yet they comprise 23% of all the children in the country. With a quarter of America's children being Latino -and with these numbers expected to grow in coming years because of higher birth rates- the fact that many of these children are less likely to get a college education or acquire technical skills because of poverty levels, has serious implications for America's future competitiveness.

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Ed Wallace is very much on target when he says the esteem and loyalty has faded with the new generation replacing the older generations in the U.S. automobile market. The two generations have completely different perceptions of GM and Ford. He gives the background and paints the picture of their world, the perceptions and feeling of the older generations loyal to Detroit cars. His conclusion that this is gone forever may not be entirely true, as nostalgia cars or cars which go back to an earlier era may still have customer appeal. The perceptions also vary across regions, and is true for the west and south and other parts of America which have a higher proportion of foreign brands.

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Going forward, it will “be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” DJT said. Executive orders ending automatic birthright citizenship and DEI programs.  Automatic birthright citizenship is not in the Constitution signed on Sept 17 1787, and ratified by the states by June 1788. What was added in the 14th Amendment of 1868 was intended solely to give black people freed from slavery after the Civil War the rights of citizenship. It had nothing to do with millions of people illegally crossing American borders from foreign countries or people coming to the US to gain citizenship by giving birth here. The US vs Wong decision of 1898 came 6 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 giving Wong Kim a Chinese born in the US in 1873 rights as a citizen. From 1882 Chinese who build the railroads were kept out of the country under Chinese Exclusion Act till Kennedy in the 1960- as policy applied to all Asians- making it a mystery how the SC decision of 1898 gives automatic birthright citizenship to people of foreign countries born in the US.   ...

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The impact of foreclosure in one Detroit neighborhood called Boston-Edison, where Henry Ford once lived and how the residents who have a neighborhood association going back many years to the 1920's are coping. The human consequences of foreclosures for a neighborhood. How could either side win, the lenders or the borrowers in a foreclosure situation and the need for the government to step in and bring some sense to the whole thing before it sinks both and blights towns and neighborhoods across America. One home bought for $179,000 in April 2006 was sold in the Boston-Edison area for guess how much, $6,500. Which shows that by the time thieves who for the copper and metal mining of these homes can destroy tens of thousands of dollars in value in minutes, and the deterioration of the neighborhood with crime and boarded up looks, and the very presence of foreclosures on each street destroys enormous amounts of value so that in this case the bank and its lenders got how much, less than $6500 or less than 4% of its original price. Repeated all across America this just does not make sense. Just as it never made sense for those who benefitted from the housing boom to say that subprime lending was a good thing because it brought home ownership to the less well off. Only lending that is at rates that are reasonable and considers the borrowers true finances, and on ethical and fair terms can be good lending and only government regulation designed to be easily enforceable and keeps lenders responsible, can ensure that this happens, as a free market is not good for this sort of thing. And this is all the more true for lending to those who are less well of because their ability to screen these contracts and their wording is not adequate and their own understanding of their finances inadequate. Barclay's Capital estimates that there are 811,000 bank owned homes in the USA, up from 129,000 in 2006, and predicts that it will grow by 60% before peaking in late 2009. ...

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The former Surgeon General of the U.S., Vivek Murthy, has tackled issues such as the opioid crisis, obesity and poor health outcomes. In his new book "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World," Murthy looks at the loneliness he says is pervasive in the new culture of iphones and social media that have perversely reduced not increased social connection and the feelings coming from good relationships and social concerns.  A 2020 Cigna survey shows 61% of American adults are lonely, up from 54% in the 2019 survey. It is not about having a lot of people around you, it is about feeling a genuine connection and the quality of relationships. Murthy finds this lack of genuine social concerns and social connection as fairly pervasive from his conversations with people all across the country. Normally it is felt in the fifties as life changes, and in the eighties with loss of mobility. Today the tech devices and what is called scoal media that appear to have increased communication have actually reduced the level of quality connections and interactions. Dr. Murthy suggests volunteering, and service in the community or larger communities worldwide as a way of breaking this. Capitalizing on informal day to day contacts, including with people one has not known before, is another way. This shifts the focus to the people around us and brings a new dimension and quality to our lives.  Saying hello often and smiling genuinely, says Murthy. Improving the  quality of time in day to relationships is another. This can also give us the confidence to connect with people on a regular basis.  ...

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This WSJ editorial says U.S. president Obama's message in Kenya and in Ghana before this trip, that Africans are responsible for their own future and how they treat their fellow citizens, is the right message. Coming from personal experience of his family the message should persuade people in Africa, particularly politicians and business people, of the need to put the common good before their own. And the need to improve the economic condition and living standards of the people on this vast continent that is nowhere near its potential.

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The concerns over far right parties expelling immigrants in states such as Thuringia has caused a wave of protests across Germany including Berlin and other cities in January 2024. It is also impacting the East where anti immigrant sentiment is based. Germany has a shortage of workers in parts of Germany that formed the Federal Republic before reunification- immigrants fill these gaps. The East has not been the success story it was supposed to be because reunification of the Federal Republic and the GDR (Communist East Germany around Leipzig and East Berlin) led to a flight of young people to the western parts for jobs and opportunities. Leading to a mostly older and retired population in the east -leaving it struggling and feeling unwanted. This is the background of the anti immigrant sentiment in the east where there are far fewer immigrants than in the western and central regions. Resentment about being ignored as settled around the immigrant issue in the east even as Germany has benefitted through some of the middle class educated immigrants from Turkey and from Ukraine, and Syria. Similar resentment has taken place in parts of England in the north which led to fear of immigrants being used by Tories party leading to Brexit. In a similar way in France in the north, and in the US with neglect of rural areas and factory communities in the east and midwest. The communities that were left out that have made choices with far right as in Britain have ended up with leaders from immigrant families that have accomplished little or much in the reverse direction for the English people in the north. The leaders of Germany, Britain, the US, the Nordic countries such as Denmark, and gradually in France have learned that it is right to go back to their roots, that they had forgotten where they came from and are now fighting for the dignity of workers (Schulz), standing in picket lines for the autoworkers (Biden), and following the Biden example in the UK (Starmer). With it comes the realization that this started with the Thatcher and Reagan era that created the conditions and culture that were repeatedly embraced by Democrats in the US, Labor in Britain and Social Democrats in Germany alike leading to financial crises and levels of inequality and lack of educational opportunity not seen since the Great Depression. With it by 2024 comes the unwinding of the economics and culture of the Reagan era. Even in China and India the shift is away from that culture as the economies of these countries with half of humanity are shifted to serve a broad base and to include rural, agricultural and other parts of the population. It shows that the educated parts of the population in these countries have the ability to create the conditions that in Lincoln's words are for the people, by the people, of the people, for a brighter future, if only they will try hard enough for their children's and grand children's sake.  ...

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Mexico's president Enrique Pena Nieto describes his plans for increasing economic growth in an interview with Lally Weymouth. He looks back at the changes made through the Pacto de Mexico in energy, education and telecommunications, and in other areas. Changes made will allow political parties to form coalitions after 2018 following a presidential election, to form a majority in the legislature so that new legislation can be passed. A new criminal code for the entire country will override a patchwork of laws in different states. Economic growth is a high priority after disappointing 2.6% growth in the last 3 years, with infrastructure projects planned- new airport for Mexico City, doubling port capacity, new rail lines and high speed rail line Mexico City to Queretaro.

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Pete Seeger used a sloop to take people down the Hudson River to educate them about the river and how it could come back to life if cleaned up. Today the river once polluted with sewage and oil pollution is clean enough to provide recreational opportunities. It also provides drinking water for the town of Poughkeepsie in New York. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater environmental organization which headed this effort is now the Riverkeeper which advocates environmental policies for the Hudson River. Seeger lived close to the outdoors in a log cabin on 17 acres near the Hudson River. He cut wood on this land since the 1960's and he says he loved the exercize and sound of cutting wood every day.

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In 2018 China, India, and America are Africa's largest trading partners. India is building 18 new embassies in African countries. Greater openness to trade and investment is leading to GDP growth in Africa, 40% higher than in 2000, which is still low by comparison with Asian countries. The Economist says African countries can benefit by drawing investment from all sides and all countries, so that Africa benefits the most. Chinese investment, and Indian investment can happen side by side with investment from America, Britain and France.

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Car insurance and tariffs on Mexico made auto parts would take a 2 year lag in inflationary impact, says this report in WSJ. Insurance companies will wait to see the impact and how long the tariffs are in place. Tariffs are put in place to stop fentanyl flows through Canada, Mexico and China to the US, which have cost 490,000 deaths in the US over the last 12 years. Canada now fully supports the US for action to be taken and cites similar loss of lives in Canada from fentanyl comparable to the US for its smaller population. Much of the focus on tariffs is seen as economic action in the media, when as Commerce Secretary Luttnick pointed out it is being used as an instrument to get immediate action from countries that have not acted to stop the flow of fentanyl -action they should have done taken many years back. DJT's action is to protect average Americans, communities across the US that have lost their manufacturing base to Mexico and China, and are being hit by the flows of fentanyl across borders for over a decade now. Never in American history has this kind of flow across borders happened since the first settlers came to America in 1600. ...

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In 2017 Facebook noticed a drop in user engagement- fewer comments, fewer posts, and less sharing. To address this Facebook made a change in its algorithm, which is a bunch of mathematical equations which determine what you see in the newsfeed. The result says this WSJ Facebook Investigation was to make Facebook an angrier place, a place where divisive comments were being posted, and sensational or exaggerated comments were being shared. This increased the level of divisiveness in the US during the early period of the Trump administration. As America looks back on this time- the issues related to migration across its southern border that are still alive today and on which there is now a consensus across Democrats and Republicans on returning migrants. The issues related to the urban-rural divide that many presidents preceding Trump and Biden had chosen to ignore, and which the Tech community showed little interest in. The divide also across educational lines with college educated splitting away from people lacking college education just as costs of college had soared. All these issues were out in the open and instead of having an educated debate these algorithms never intended for solving social problems actually made them worse.  It is now in the interest of both Republicans and Democrats to take a hard look at what went wrong and restore the civility and dialogue that marked American experience across all ages and income groups, and remove the overstated influence of such algorithm based apps. The WSJ Facebook Investigation is a way to restore the traditional media's true place in the national dialogue and push back against the insidious and dangerous influence of algorithm based news feeds such as this one.  Outrage Algortihms may be good for a few people and a few in tech  business in California and in capital markets in New York, yet they are bad for America and the American people as a whole, bad for the vast landscape of America and the vast majority of the American people. Mindless infatuation with pictures of young adults leads to a mindless and dangerous result in mental health, bad effects on women, illusions about what is right living, and increasing divisiveness in America.  ...

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Adam Bryant interviews Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft in Feb. 2014. Nadella led the cloud computing effort at Microsoft before becoming CEO in 2014. He is a native of Hyderabad, India, studied electronics and communication engineering at Manipal Institute of Technology, and computer science at the University of Wisconsin. Here Nadella recalls his early leadership experiences. As a bowler on his school's cricket team (similiar to a pitcher in baseball), Nadella was pulled out from a bowling spell when he wasn't having success getting batters out. He recalls the captain bowling to get some outs and then putting Nadella back in, who continued getting wickets at that point. He sees this sports analogy as a leadership experience where the captain was sensitive about keeping Nadella motivated and confident, and giving him an opportunity to try again. He takes more out of this and other experiences in his role at Microsoft- to create energy and genuine commitment in his team, and build a team effort to take advantage of opportunties that present themselves in the future. Nadella makes some interesting observations about the tech business. A $1 million business can seem too small for a large company, but in the tech business driven constantly by innovation, there is the need to pay attention to innovation that starts small. At some point says Nadella an innovation can appear to be a failure, an absolute flop, until it becomes a hit. Leadership has to be able to dig deeper and listen, as small changes can lead to big things. About people Nadella likes to know what people have done that they are most proud of, and what they feel didn't work out or where they failed, and looks for how a person can reflect on his experiences and grow as a result of having had them. A useful point Nadella makes at the end of the interview is that people outlive companies in our rapidly changing society, having a sense of our own mortality within this short duration, gives one a special sense of responsibility. ...

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Hancock County, Iowa, is one of those rural counties in the American heartland that did not support Mr. Trump in 2016. This county now supports Trump by a large margin because they see his policies benefitting rural America, and see him as a way for the Republican party to be back in power to pursue a conservative agenda. WSJ reports from Hancock County in Iowa. The American voting system gives more importance to states with smaller populations in the Electoral College relative to larger states. States with large farming communities such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa play a larger role in elections in the US than population alone would suggest. John McCormick of the WSJ talks to farmers in this rural county in Iowa with a higher proportion of less educated voters than the rest of the counties in Iowa. One of five voters have a bachelors degree in Hancock County compared to one in three in Iowa as a whole and 38% nationally. The median age is 44 years compared to 39 years nationally and in Iowa. This part of rural Iowa is also in farmland that is many miles away from large cities and urban areas and more isolated and homogenous as 9 out of ten people are non-Hispanic and white. About a fourth of these voters are supporting his candidacy over Nikki Haley because they see it as more likely to win because of polls, even though Haley is according to the WSJ editorial opinion the stronger candidate for Republicans across the suburbs critical for 2024, which are slightly younger, more educated, and less isolated from the rest of the country. Biden and Obama are a sharp contrast when it comes to rural America. Where his own Agriculture secretary felt rural America was neglected by president Obama, Biden truly cares for rural America and has huge investments in rural America as part of the rural infrastructure effort. ...

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Sara Ehrman describes the time when Hillary Clinton worked in Washington D.C. as a 26 year old lawyer working on the Watergate committee, and Bill Clinton was teaching law in Arkansas. In August 1974 Hillary was living for about 1 year with Mrs. Ehrman, a friend who was a congressional aide at the time. She is 97 today, and recalls that time when she tried to discourage Hillary from going to Arkansas to join her boyfriend. Ehrman felt not much would come out of Bill Clinton, though she thought him to be handsome, and later worked in his presidential campaign and Hillary's presidential campaign. Ehrman was 55 then, and describes Hillary Clinton as a bit sloppy in her habits, such as not making her bed and having a lot of stuff strewn about her room, but really intelligent and very hardworking. At the time both lived together. Ehrman describes a daily routine of seeing Hillary go to work with coffee in the morning and come back exhausted late at night, having yogurt and going to bed, day after day.  The two met for the first time in 1972 when Ehrman was co-director of issues and research in the McGovern campaign in Texas, and Hillary was helping with voter registration. This report describes in detail the road trip to Arkansas that the two made together, when Mrs. Ehrman drove Hillary to Arkansas in her old Buick. They stopped at small towns  in the 1200 mile journey, and this journey ends with Mrs Ehrman crying that she could not get Hillary to change her mind about Bill Clinton and Arkansas. About what she thought was a bright woman throwing her life away in the deep South of the seventies. Hillary she remembers insisted she loved Bill Clinton, and having passed the Arkansas Bar exam had firmly decided on settling in Arkansas. ...

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Hannah Devlin writes about Jess Thom the Psychologist for Great Britain's Olympics teams. How Jess Thom gets British athletes to overcome self doubt, negativity and nerves as they compete in the most difficult of competitions. Here is what she tells athletes to do, which also applies in daily worklife in striving for excellence at work. “One of the most powerful things to understand is that it’s normal to have those unhelpful thoughts and feelings,” she said. “Even athletes have self-doubt at times. They get anxious or frustrated and still go on to win Olympic gold. Those thoughts and feelings don’t have to dictate how we behave.” Mindfulness is useful training of the mind. Yet accomplishing the required level of self-awareness still requires training, discipline and grit. “Notice your feelings, accept them, come back to the present moment. That’s the general strategy,” she said. “It sounds super easy on paper, but doing that in a high-pressure environment is impressive.” Thom tells athletes to think about their demeanor and how they think and act when they are at their best. If that means showing your style of athleticism at the start line, then doing that is fine. She encourages athletes to behave like you would when you have that real .strong confidence even if you’re not necessarily feeling that right there. What about negative thoughts. She gives them a name - Frank. And she says athletes can say- "Frank, not right now," to just set aside these thoughts. To control fears, athletes are told to write a “what if” list. It  serves as a backup plan for worst-case scenarios. This could mean getting a bad start in a race or going a set down in tennis.  Personal superstitions are included.   ...

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Boris Johnson was never for austerity and says this in his new book, yet he failed to make the major investments in the British economy in the way Biden has done in the US, and in some ways has left Labor's Starmer with difficult decisions with the strained budget finances of Britain. Of the investments he protected from John Osborne and his austerity plans as chancellor under Cameron Boris Johnson says- “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” This was as Mayor of London in 2016. Of Osborne and Cameron so little is left, and so little came out of the period of austerity other than the failed investments Britain failed to make, simply a lost decade for Britain. And the diversion of Brexit under Johnson not taking Britain to a good place for the standard of living of the British people. Of the intraparty conflicts in the Tories he says Sunak's resignation as chancellor should never have happened calling it "worse than a crime," and a mistake for Sunak, the party, and the country. Johnson says that many days as PM he would come back to No.10 flat, exhausted and working into the evening when he should have been talking to colleagues, MP's to keep them all together. After Sunak's resignation from Boris Johnson's cabinet the Tory Conservatives split further apart, this time in the Boris Johnson faction of the party. Sunak's elevation to prime minister was short lived ending up with the Tories going downhill from there.  On the singular goal that led to the splits- that of Brexit- Johnson has little more to say than that in his travels he had found people wanted more Britain. ...

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Janet Yellen is nominee to be Treasury secretary in the new administration of Joe Biden. The economic rebound from the pandemic that started in the summer is faltering without additional stimulus and help to businesses and people affected by the pandemic. She is the former chairman of the U.S. central bank the Federal Reserve.  Yellen faces a divided country and likely a divided Congress on many issues facing the country. She says of these divisions and the challenging task she faces of forging compromises- "Right now we live in a country where people look at the same set of facts and come to diametrically opposite conclusions, so that is a big challenge to anyone who takes that job, to build support for your policy outcomes." Yellen believes that the slow recovery after the 2009 financial crisis was because of a lack of a big enough stimulus and policy consensus across parties and with public opinion backing this up. During the pandemic in March 2020 the first stimulus was passed for $3.3 trillion  with support from the Congress and the Trump administration. Today Congress is split on the second stimulus with Democrats pushing for about $2.2 trillion for aid to state and local governments, jobless workers virus testing strategy. Republicans calling for about one third of this or $650 billion to help small businesses and industries such as tourism, retail and airlines. Because  interest rates are near zero much depends on getting an effective stimulus for speedy economic recovery. Conversations between the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, are critical to getting things done. A lot also depends on how Democrats and Republicans can put aside differences for the sake of getting the recovery back in place where it was during the summer. The media has a role to play in not stoking differences in public opinion which was the case close to the election to an unprecedented degree. One critical aspect of American process in getting things done is to bring Congress and the public with an elected president. Without a conciliatory approach and humility few presidents have succeeded as Congress and public opinion is also critical to getting things done. The House changes every 2 years so that even with  majorities- made transient by the founders of the constitution- nothing is certain without getting the other political party on your side. For the sake of the country and the people devastated by the pandemic, the professional class, media and politicians, Congress and the president need to bring a clear and transparent willingness to look at the national interest going forward.  ...

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The issues related to India's borders all hinge on Tibet says the Council on Foreign Relations. Sardar Patel and Nehru had differences of their own on whether the McMahon Line set by the British in a treaty with Tibet as an independent country was the border with Tibet or the border with China.  Between 1913 and 1950 Tibet was an independent country, with an Indian High commissioner in Lhasa between 1947 and 1950. After the Cold War set in and China and the Soviet Union fought to defend the rights of colonial peoples the U.S. and Britain did not recognize Tibet as a part of China. Nehru simply remained with the British status quo of the McMahon line as the Indian border with Tibet, without any clear acceptance  of the invasion of Tibet in 1950 by China, yet accepting the new status quo after the invasion, differing from Sardar Patel on the issue. This is why no clear picture emerges from looking at the official positions of the two countries, and a better understanding can be gained by looking at the border issue from the Council of Foreign Relations in the U.S.   Essentially the border issue is not beneficial for what it gives back to each of the two countries. China sees itself rejecting the period of its weakness during the Japanese invasion so that it reasserts its position to borders that stretch outside where Chinese people live. India sees itself rejecting the weakness during the British period and the early post British period during which India was occupied with the issues relating to partition of British India and the partition of Kashmir. This is why the Council on Foreign Relations can provide a better understanding from and independent perspective.  Both sides have little to gain. China by being at the Tibetan border puts itself in a position where it has little to gain being on the border with a large rapidly industrializing country with a population of over 1 billion.  At over 4000 metres or 20,000 feet the territory and landscape is not one that humans can adapt too in any way, except for a few military personnel doing their term of duty of 6-12 months from India or China. China is even further away from the border as it is a remote border from Beijing, Shanghai, Canton or Chengdu, thousands of kilometres when it is just 8 hours from Srinagar by highway to Leh, Ladakh, and the Nepalese border very close to the Bihar state in India. The very distance suggests remoteness, with customs traditions in the region very different from that in China, suggesting very little connection between Beijing near Mongolia and Tibet or Ladakh very close to India by road or rail. To get some idea how close the Tibet border is to India consider that Rasuwagadhi Fort border point between Nepal and Tibet is only 127 miles by road from Kathmandu. The distance by rail from the Indian border in Bihar to the Nepalese border is only 34 kilometres with a new upgraded rail connection. Being this close India is likely to upgrade infrastructure throughout the northeast region as it upgrades infrastructure, roads and bridges and rail throughout India at an accelerated pace for economic development.     ...

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This editorial in the WSJ points out the dangers to the Republican party in taking the stand on immigraton along the lines suggested by Donald Trump in August 2015- deportation for all illegal immigrants, no birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and no remittances allowed for illegal immigrants to their home countries. It points out that remittances actually improve the economies of the countries south of the U.S. border in Latin America and reduce illegal immigration. There is a need for seasonal workers in farm areas where there is a severe shortage of workers even at $17 an hour. Reducing immigration is better accomplished by more guest worker programs. A likely result would be the move of farms and factories to regions with low cost labor in Latin America or other countries. For the Republican Party this type of policy would bring back the period of the 1920's, says the WSJ, when Irish and Italian immigration was opposed by the party, alienating the two ethnic groups till they were won back in the Reagan period- a sure way to lose in 2016....

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Medvedev who won 71% of the vote in the March 2008 election for President answers questions from journalists and the public in the course of the election campaign. It reveals his own thinking about Rusia, its past, present and hopes and plans for the future. These are useful answers to get insights into his thinking. He sees the 8 years of the Putin Presidency as only a small beginning. Russia he says needs decades of stable development. He seems to say the goals of stable development after all the upheavals of the 20th century are so pressing that he and Putin are committed to simply continuing the policies of promoting economic development that gives dignity and respect to the people of Russia. He shows a deep dissatisfactionwith the corruption and the lack of respect for the law that is so prevalent in Russia and sees this as part of the overall goal to create a civilized state. And he harbors no illusions about the weaknesses prevalent in Russia from is beginnings centuries ago, a sense of legal nihilism and lack of respect for the law as he calls it....