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The Times of India looks at four decades of the BJP party's presence in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh. The first BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is from this Hindi speaking region.

In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections the BJP party increased its vote percentage from 39% to 42%. The BJP plans for rapid economic development in the state were affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as resources were diverted to tackle vaccination and healthcare priorities. Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state with a population of 250 million. Much of India's development agenda is being shaped by the state's leadership and the federal government with the Master Plan of Gati Shakti and development from the grassroots to new airports, logistics for export markets and Made in India, new highways and modernized rail networks, infrastructure development, and industry.

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Join the author in BBC's travel series Slocomotion as he takes a cycling trip through Adirondack National Park in upstate New York stretching up to the Canadian border. The Empire State Trail in the Adirondacks is the longest trail in the US, a 750 mile bicycle route from southern tip of Manhattan to the Canadian border. It passes through the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and along Adirondack park's eastern edge.

During the pandemic this is a popular route. The cool thing says one local in Saranac Lake, who guides people on cycling trips, is that people who don't normally venture out in cycling are doing this to get away from the pandemic. The idea of being on a bike and pedaling out in the wilderness to get the beneficial health effects of the outdoors is capturing the imagination of people.

 

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The check to the U.S. government and four other countries of $3 billion by Goldman Sachs is the largest fine ever paid. It ends a yearlong investigation first reported in the WSJ on 1MDB Malaysian fund. It will cost Goldman $5 billion in financial penalties for its dealings with the Malaysian fund 1MDB. The fund was intended for the development of Malaysia and improving the economy for the benefit of the people but ending up being used for other purposes. Prosecutors said it had become a source of funds for government officials, investment bankers. In New York federal court a Goldman subsidiary pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate bribery laws.

An expert on corporate enforcement at Duke University says the agreement with the government is lacking in that the potential fine could have been as high as $5 billion, and lacks monitoring to ensure compliance in the future.

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Coca Cola has a mix of brands from orange juice to soda drinks. Sugary drinks increase obesity which leads to other diseases. The pandemic has shown the increased risks of obesity with studies showing obesity doubles the risk of being hospitalized for coronavirus 200% and increases risk of ending up in intensive care unit by 74%. UK prime minister Boris Johnson learned this the hard way and has changed all his eating and exercizing habits, and urges others to do the same. 

China, India, Mexico, Vietnam have much more to do to increase awareness of the risks of obesity from sugary drinks. The influence of Yoga, Ayurveda and traditional herbal foods and drinks is increasing awareness in India. This is not the same in China, Vietnam and other Communist countries where the dangers of smoking and sugary drinks are not part of the education put forward by the government.

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Jimmy Carter visited North Korea during a tense moment in US North Korea relations after US concerns about fuel rods being taken out of Yongbon nuclear development plant in 1994. Through his contacts in China and the US  Carter was encouraged to visit Pyongyang, North Korea to negotiate directly with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. He did this during the Clinton Administration and negotiated with Kim who this report in the BBC says was keen on settling the dispute with the US that could lead to war in the Korean peninsula. 

Jimmy Carter is seen as a one term president. Yet he accomplished  a lot using his experience as a former president in improving relations with China, and in relations with other countries around the world. This is almost as effective as a second term even more so, and covered a span of 40 years from 1980 to 2020.

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Cook and Olson look at how U.S. shale oil firms have handled the slump in oil prices. Their report in WSJ says the shale firms have weathered the oil slump well, with production declines in 2016 of only 535,000 barrels a day compared to 2015. The Saudi decision to not cut production and let oil prices drop has affected mostly higher cost less flexible production for mega projects such as deep water projects and oil sands in Canada. Oil shale firms are expected to snap back, according to experts, as demand increases. U.S. production is expected to increase by about 700,000 barrels a day by end of of 2017, say experts.

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The new prime minister of Pakistan Abbasi consults with former prime minister Sharif in Murree, Pakistan, after the Supreme Court disqualifies Sharif from the position. Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, the chief minister of Punjab province will contest a by-election for parliament to replace Abbasi.

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A report by the World Bank is cited showing that in many industries the gap between the leaders in that industry and the companies trailing it is so wide that its as much as 5 times the value added per worker. Based on this the World bank estimates that India can increase its national output rapidly simply using existing knowhow of the best firms in the industry fort those firms that are trailing. This sounds fine on paper but in practice a lot goes into best practice with leadership being hard to replicate easily, and the technology of the leading firms may not be available to the other firms. However its possible for the other companies to increase their productivity if the efffort and determination was present.

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The Federal Reserve acts to help freexzing credit markets with a $200 billion program called the Term Securities Lending Facility, where the Fed will lend safe treasury money such as Treasury securities for 28 days to banks and financial institutions and will accept nongovernment mortgage backed securities with premium credit ratings as collateral. Its a creative move by the Fed and the size of the move $200 billion should help the cash squeeze that is hitting all parts of the credit markets even those where the risks may not be as high as they are presumed to be because in this market with lack of information on who owns what of risky securities and the complexity of the securties all credit is being maligned.

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Being linked to the dollar emerging country economies see the effect on their economy of a reduction in interest rates by the Fed. This is clearly evident in the Gulf countries and Middle East where the link has produced a looser monetary policy in a booming economy and only increases inflation which is already high in many countries. China, India and Russia are seeing increasing inflation as their currrencies are linked to the dollar and though a revaluation of their currency can reduce price of imports and lower overall inflation this is not an easy thing to do because in the case of China it increases the price of goods it exports to the US at the very time the US is in a recession.

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Meltzer argues against a supervisory role for the Fed, at a time when Secretary Paulson is increasing the supervisory authority of the Fed as it becomes more involved in helping the financial markets recover and in doing so working with investment banks, and with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He sees the Fed as having failed in most of the crises of recent years in exerting its supervisory authority in a timely and appropriate way. He allows for some time for the financial markets to get back to normal after which he thinks it best to return to strict capital standards which if not met would lead to management being replaced, shareholders taking losses, followed by a temporary takeover by regulators.

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David Reilly says the Fed's response to the large volatility in the stock market after the credit downgrade of the U.S. to AA+ makes sense. The Fed's Open Market Committee voted 7-3 on August 9, 2011, to keep interest rates exceptionally low till mid-2013. With credit markets working and the financial system having sufficient liquidity the Fed did not need to take drastic action. Coming only a short period after the end of QE II, a QE III could be seen as an over-reaction. Another reason for the Fed's action- more pressure was needed for the U.S. government and Congress to shoulder responsibility for the economy. In an earlier statement the Fed had pointed out that the Fed by itself can only do so much and this is consistent with that thinking. There are important headwinds from housing, large consumer debt, deficits, and high unemployment that the Fed alluded to in that statement that will take time to reverse with policy action on several fronts over a longer period. In the speech made on June 6, 2011, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, said "monetary policy cannot be a panacea."...

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This article in the Guardian points out that Britain did not just wake up one morning and find itself in a strange predicament of leaving the European Union. This was happening over two decades as leaders appealed to immigration fears on the right to win voters and the leaders of the Labor party failed to protect their traditional working class base. Voter turnout declined and it points out that Cameron of the Conservative party won the election in 2015 with only 24 percent of the eligible voters, as the hold of the Conservatives and Labor parties declined with each successive election on their voter base as they desperately tried to shore up support by appealing to voters fears even as they literally abandoned their traditional voter base and appeared elitist to less educated, poor workers. The economic crisis and austerity policies created a new voter group of disaffected voters who turned to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish National Party (SNP). The referendum offered by Cameron in 2015 on the EU against the advice of coalition partner Vince Cable and the Liberal Party, without an understanding of the situation in the country after years of austerity policies was only one of a long series of developments that unfolded over two decades unraveling years of work building a better Britain following 1945. ...

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Dave Shiflett, who helped Trump write the book "The America We Deserve," in 2000, describes his experiences working with Trump during that period. He says Trump is very different now with his strident tone and disdain for Bush and Clinton as candidates representing dynasties from the past, and willingness to use fear of terrorists for electoral advantage, calling some other candidates pathological liars. At the time in 2000 Trump preferred a civil tone. Now Trump revels in making statements about other candidates, women and journalists. He is taking full advantage of the public's dissatisfaction with political correctness and the lack of credibility of elites running the country, says Shiflett. What he finds disturbing is Trump calling good, hardworking people "losers," with no consideration of the advantages he has enjoyed.

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To understand the Obama presidency one has also to understand the people around him, including Dennis McDonough. As Dana Milbank points out from his encounter with McDonough- he is way more cautious than Obama, even careful about his choice of words at every point. Dennis McDonough comes from a Catholic family in Minnesota, attended St. Johns University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Georgetown University. He spent time teaching high school in Belize before Georgetown and attended the Edward Walsh School of Foreign Service. He served as foreign policy advisor of Senator Tom Daschle, legislative director for Senator Salazar, before becoming foreign policy advisor for Obama in 2007. He was deputy National Security Advisor from 2010 to Jan 2013 when he succeeded Jack Lew as White House Chief of Staff.