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China's defense minister Li Shangfu visits New Delhi as India assumes the chair role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India says normal ties with China can only take place when the border disputes are resolved. India's modernization program to 2030 is based on growing its economy and investing heavily in infrastructure and advanced technologies to transform the country. For this to happen India needs to increase exports to over $2 trillion, and reduce imports from China to increase domestic manufacturing.

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Even with the best US effort heroin production increased to 9000 tons in Afghanistan says this report in The Economic Times. Indian coast guard and Gujarat anti-terrorist squad size large amounts of heroin at Mundra port and along the Porbandar coast.  Afghanistan has a 2000 kilometer border with Iran and another 2000 kilometer border with Pakistan. There is now increased risk of this activity along India and Sri Lanka's coastlines and borders, says the Economic Times. Much of the colonial period was marked by British traders use of opium from Bengal and other parts of India in illegal activities in China through Chinese ports for sale of opium -leading to the Opium wars in 1850 with China's feudal monarchy and eventually to China turning to the CCP. This was conducted under the British East India Company and condoned under the British Empire- making it one of the worst activities of colonial powers in history. Some of the same activities are being conducted and condoned by countries in the region. A multinational allied task force Combined Force 150 keeps track of the oceans in the North Arabian Sea and in the Horn of Africa. More naval forces are needed from India, the US, UK, Australia, Japan and other countries to keep the oceans safe and clear, and protect people in the region. ...

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This report in the WSJ on the Indian economy says the impact of growth in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with 240 million people will play a big part in the growth rate of the Indian economy. It fails to say why. The answer is good governance, investment in infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing, a huge pool of tens of millions of engineers and hundreds of millions of factory workers. The lack of a large enough investment pool of investment funds and  failure to eliminate leakages from corruption, the lack of a plan such as the current Master Plan Gati Shakti for the whole Indian economy, lack of governments at the state and federal level combining setting targets and delivery dates for infrastructure roads, bridges, airports, logistical hubs, factory for advanced industry, lack of governance entirely focussed on delivery and timelines, were the missing pieces in development in India for 5 decades since the 1960's, a period in which as Mr. Modi says repeatedly Japan, Korea, China moved ahead and India fell behind. Does this potential exist only for Uttar Pradesh? India's industrialization model started in Gujarat, population of 72 million under Modi as head of the state government from 2001-2014. It now covers the western region of Gujarat, Maharashtra population 128 million and Rajasthan population 82 million  the region around Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur of about 282 million people. This will be the fastest growing region and the engine that will propel the Indian economy in the years ahead. Uttar Pradesh in the north is integrated into this development. So is another region Bihar population 104 million and Orissa 46 million, Assam 35 million states in the northeast of the country with a total of 185 million people. What do all 3 regions of over 700 million people have in common? The answer is state and federal government working using the Gujarat tested and proven model for development, rapid delivery, good governance, government working with industry, large investments in infrastructure and modernization, Make in India hubs for manufacturing, digitization. ...

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At a videoconference between DJT and European leaders on Aug. 14, 2025, initiated by Germany's Merz , it was decided that no territory exchanges are to be discussed at DJT Putin meeting in Alaska. DJT and the Europeans will simply seek an immediate ceasefire followed by talks between Zelensky and Putin with DJT offering to be there to mediate differences. DJT says there will be strong sanctions on Russia in the event no ceasefire is reached. Legislation in Congress with 80 senators on board a clear majority of both parties is for putting a 500% tariff on countries such as China and India that import Russian oil. These imports exceed $100 billion each for China and India. DJT has placed a 50% duty on India if negotiations do not yield results on this issue. This is seen in Congress as fueling the continuation of the Russian war in Ukraine.

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India imports 2 million barrels a day of oil from Russia. It now faces the need to address the problem this has created for Germany and US seeking an end to Russian missile attacks on Ukraine. Without other leverage DJT and indirectly Germany are putting pressure on India to shift these purchases to the US and cut India's $46 billion deficit with the US.  India needs to accept that the reprieve it got during the covid years to import from Russia to help it control inflation at home would at some time come under increasing pressure from the US. That time may be now as DJT and Merz see this as the only few areas of leverage they have to get Russia to reconsider its position for settling the Ukraine war entirely on its terms. Just as in the India Pakistan war the current talk of nuclear escalation resulting from the Ukraine war has to be a major consideration for US, EU, Russia, China and India, all the world's leaders, to step back and see ways to work for an overall interest than in time to come will help these nations national interests.  It will require brave moves from India, China, the US and Russia. Yet this is the new course that alone can bring a return to a world focused on modernization and improving the lives of the people of these nations. ...

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Key points emerging from Xi's 20th Party Congress for the Chinese Communist Party are shown here in the Indian Express including its attitude to India. The Jiang Zemin and Youth League factions are shown to have lost influence and Xi has his people in the Political Bureau and the Central Military Commission. GDP growth is no longer the priority to be replaced with more balanced development and reducing the wide disparity in wealth that developed in China over 3 decades of hyper growth. State control over  development becomes the preferred model.

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Jaishankar on the connection between the Indian and Pacific Ocean region into one integral whole with the emergence of independent nations from the British, French, and Dutch Empires in the region, and the growth of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. The growth of trade and use of sea lanes for supply chains, modern shipping and logistics, have created sea lanes that stretch from the Gulf and Suez to Hawaii and Seattle. India plays a critical role with the US, Australia and Japan to ensure international law and open shipping lanes for all nations in the Indo-Pacific. Jaishankar also touches on infrastructure developments such as the new Trilateral Highway that connects India's northeast to Burma and Thailand. This opens up ties on land between the three nations with connections into Malaysia and Indonesia. That would enhance the movement open people and goods, and cultural connect that would create a new northeast- southeast Asian connection. It restores what was the long lost connection that India once had with nations from Thailand to Indonesia, and Vietnam to Japan through China. This is the connection that brought Buddhism from India's north east in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to these countries.  Look East, Act East, the Quad, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework are all ways of saying the same thing of making the East connections the vital ones in India's social, economic and political, cultural life, restoring the connections in which India thrived and existed as one entity. It also brings life to the Gulf countries which are otherwise isolated in a sea of European nations on one side of the Mediterranean and Russia on the other side near the Black Sea that have different historical interests and cultures. This sees the central Asian connections through Afghanistan as being secondary and of less significance in the long history of nations such as India, China, Korea and Japan from the Buddhist era. That secondary connection brought an interruption of the long Buddhism and Vedanta civilization in India, intermittent wars, and the division of the country under the British Empire. It is a natural progression in a long history that seeks to restore the natural and intuitive connections to the Vedanta and Buddhist regions in the East that are part of the Indo-Pacific. These are now integrated with the settlers from Britain who sought to build better and fairer societies based on the rights of man in the new nations of Australia and America. This gives new life and meaning to this vast Indo-Pacific region. The British Empire and the other colonial empires simply bring back an orientation to the period of colonial wars of the nineteenth and twentieth century, which tore apart China and then Japan, and used resources in India for these wars, and which ended with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These wars also leave behind memories in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and Korea that can only be truly be put behind by looking at Vedanta and Buddhist Asia as it once was from India to China to Japan. And to the regions of Australia and the US that brought new meaning to the modern scientific period and the rights of man in settler societies away from Europe. ...

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After making headlines the issue of TikTok is no longer making news. Here is what has happened since- TikTok took the case to the Supreme Court after the Biden Administration's effort to bring it under US security with American ownership. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government. Social media helped Republicans and DJT in the election. DJT wanted TiTok to be an American company if it was to operate in US. China was opposed to this and would not allow ByteDance the owner of TikTok negotiate this-leading to an impasse. The DJT administration worked out a relationship  with China by September 2025 following tit for tat tariffs in May 2025. Xi's strategy was to put rare earths on the table after it had gained a 90% monopoly on rare earths processing technologies and supplies. Some supplies include a site in Greenland, so that the Greenland issue as opponents of US acquisition have made appear is not fiction. DJT Administration pulled back and negotiated a deal with China but realized how the US had left key gaps in its security which is why the Greenland issue came up in 2025. Similar to how Democrat president Harry Truman had done as the Soviets expanded influence in Greece and Turkey by 1948. Little of this making it to almost the entire US press and the entire European press, including Democrat Harry Truman's 1947 offer of $100 million ($1.5 billion in 2026) for Greenland, rights, title and ownership similar to Alaska purchase by Seward, and US Virgin Islands purchase in 1916 from Denmark.   The deal makes TikTok an American/ China investor run company with Byte Dance ownership of 20%, Oracle 15%, Silverlake US equity firm 15%, Abu Dhabhi (UK type) MGX 15%, and prior investors 30%. Prior investors are General Atlantic, SIG, Steve Case's Revolution with JD Vance having equity, Dragoneer, NJJ Capital. The company now valued at $20 billion based on 200 million US users. Yet this does not address the dangers and damage done by social media hours for youth in the US, endless hours from education shifted to phones and social media videos. Australia has banned it for under 16 year olds, UK parliament has voted to ban, French parliament has also voted for a ban, China has strict rules that protect its youth for use specifying hours and restrictions, leaving the US and India, Brazil vulnerable to dangers of social media. Strictly speaking You Tube is considered as social media even though it serves an information function, Facebook and TikTok are where a lot of the damage to education takes place in social media. US is entirely leaving its young people especially women unprotected. Once the fentanyl issue is tackled attention will again focus on these dangers to creating good citizens in the US  with civic education if democracy is to be preserved, something endless numbers of lobbyists- which even in Teddy Roosevelt's and FDR's, JFK's days have opposed- will again oppose.     ...

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Security is at the heart of India's foreign policy. S. Jaishankar points this out at Thiruvanathapuram. He says this was true of the effort at Balakot and even in the midst of Covid at the Line of Actual Control with China when India sent up enormous numbers of troops to defend the border. This is also behind the stand with China that security and LAC comes first in all relations with China. Trade and exchanges all come in the context of LAC, settle the LAC issues first then we can proceed with better bilateral relations, this is what India is telling China.  There are good reasons for this. India has a large border in the most formidable terrain of the Himalayas which is also close to the plains of India in the LAC with China. Any difficulties at the border would weaken India's secuerity and weaken development efforts in the same way that Japan sought to weaken Chinese development through invasion in the 1930's. Tibet looms out of the past. When China invaded Tibet Nehru's couple of pages in Discovery of India on China show that he had no idea of the China that had emerged with Mao and the CCP in its historical struggle against Japanese nationalists and imperialists. He had an idea of China that came from the Buddhist period and India's links from the past. The ruthless Japanese invasion that China confronted on its soil, and British colonial incursions before that, had already transformed the China of the past, which now under Mao in 1948 may have sought more defensible borders by extending them to Tibet as a buffer state. Historically the British had never tolerated Russian or other European or Japanese interference in the border states such as Tibet. There was also the question of capacity. By the time of the invasion of Tibet in the early 1950's China had already fought the Korean War with the US. India's army and defense forces were just coming out of partition and ill equipped for the task of defending the borders in Tibet region. Current governments in a more normal setting cannot change this part of history, yet can take full recognition of the facts that this has created. A strong defense has to be created for defending a border that extends for thousand of miles now that China has unlawfully occupied Tibet. On it also depends a strong and vigorous development effort that helps build the kind of modern defenses as the economy grows and absorbs new technologies rapidly. Both defense and development go together, one cannot have defense without rapid modernization and development, and one cannot have rapid modernization and development without defense. A weak defense would lead to distractions in development leading to the lack of rapid modernization and development as the intruding power interferes in insidious ways in the internal and external links of the country. This is the lesson of colonial interference of western powers in Asia. As Brendan Simms shows in his new book, Europe - Struggle for Supremacy 1500 to the Present, it is also the lesson of a different kind of colonialism inside Europe since 1500, where weaker states inside Europe fell behind with interference in turns by the imperial powers of France, UK, Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Russia. Poland, Finland, Czech Republic in the past and even Ukraine today are just some examples of what can happen when one loses sight of this principle. Poland and the Polish Commonwealth in the 19th century, Hungary right down to 1956, and China in the 1910-1930, India in the 18th and 19th century were weakened internally even after recognizing the problem, so that recognition of the problem is not an adequate condition to prevent countries from facing such foreign interference. ...

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Foreign Minister Wadephul of Germany in India for talks on a free trade agreement that would double trade volume to $64 billion- September 2025. It is notable that German Foreign Minister is in New Delhi to improve relations and shift to larger trade relationship with India at the very time US under pressure from Europe and Germany, France is pushing India to shift away from buying Russian oil to other sources. Each side is aware of the complexities in the relationships. In the long run Germany under Merz will after the experience of China's support of Russian invasion in Ukraine, make the changes that never happened under Merkel- making India its major trade partner in Asia. By 2030 Germany trade's with India could exceed $100 billion.

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Disengagement along the India China border in Ladakh in the Pangong Tso area. China withdraws from the area and both sides dismantle the border buildup in the region. 

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Abrams and De Acosta, Bellman of the WSJ look at growth and modernization in India in comparison with China and other countries. GDP per capita would take 10 years to reach the stage at which spending power of the people equals that in China today. At one point in 1980 China and South Korea were closer in GDP per capita than India. It is only now that India is accelerating towards the scale and depth of modernization done in China.  India's growth rate of over 7% is likely to surge after some of the problems in bad loans in the banking sector are cleared up. A wave of technological advances would help accelerate growth. Ease of doing business and foreign investment are on upward trend, for absorbing new technology from advanced countries. A shift to very low prices for data use with rapid development of 4G services is one of the recent achievements. Manufacturing growth remains a challenge to be tackled to create the jobs needed.  Revamping tax structures such as GST and shifting the economy towards use of electronic cash has increased revenues needed to invest in infrastructure, health and education.  As much of the potential for future growth comes from people at the lower income levels, improving social indicators such as sanitation, cleanliness, farmer incomes, universal bank accounts, universal access to health care, are steps that lay the foundation for the future. ...

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What this Editorial board opinion in the Indian Express is saying is that India should concentrate its efforts on modernizing its economy on a scale that is similar or surpasses that of China because of its access to the latest technologies. Just as China capitalized on the opportunity presented by its entry in the World Trade Organization in 2001, through an economy wide effort to build a manufacturing and export logistics base. India is presented with the opportunity of building its own manufacturing and export logistics base as supply chains are being redesigned in 2023. This requires a longer term plan with clear thinking and concentrated effort with the entire resources of the nation. What looks like a small or gradual shift in supply chain with the US and EU adding India and Vietnam to their Chinese manufacturing base is going to change with every change in world events, as the US concentration of manufacturing in China becomes a situation that is impossible to to maintain. The only logical way for the US and following the US the EU to create a proper balance in its political relationship with China is to change fully its lopsided concentration of manufacturing in China. Biden is only making the initial moves, the EU is only waking up to the need to make its own changes to reduce this concentration. How much distance does the US need to cover to reduce its concentration in China? By a large amount because the shift of manufacturing was excessive and ill advised done as companies in the US raced in a competition to shift outside over 2 decades and simply outdid themselves and performed a disservice to the workers and families of America whom they served. Just for the US to get workers and families to benefit from return of good manufacturing jobs to the US and restore its manufacturing base that has shriveled, it will have to be a massive enterprise, where day by day it becomes more evident that more and more needs to be and accomplished in an accelerated way. What this also means where appropriate to leave a progressively year after a year larger base in India, and also Vietnam, much larger than is envisaged today. This situation is even more acutely felt in Japan which to bring a proper balance in its political relationship with China needs to even more urgently reduce its concentration of manufacturing in China. It must be the task of the Modi government to have a clear view of the road ahead- build the needed logistical base for exports using the latest technologies and set higher and higher targets for manufacturing.  If you look at the map of Asia this is the Global South- India is 60-70% of the Global South with its population of 1.4 billion people mostly young with aspirations for a modern economy like that of the US and Germany. Add to that Indonesia and Vietnam, and other nations already in the redesigned supply chain in 2023 and you have 2 billion people in Asia. Concentrate on this for the next 2 decades for a complete transformation of India, that is what the younger generation demands of its government. ...

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For years Apple concentrated all its iPhone production in a few factories in China. The Zhenzhou factory with 300,000 employees is one of the largest of the Apple suppliers. These suppliers including Foxconn and Luxshare work witn Apples NPI process in which manufacturing is designed around Apple designs and prototypes. For the first time WSJ reports on protests at the Zhengzhou factory over Covid controls and wages, conditions. Young people in China are no longer keen on working in these conditions and protested. Apple finally recognizes the need to reduce concentration in one country and plans to bring 40 to 45% of the production of iPhones to India. Initially it plans to bring NPI trained suppliers such as Luxshare that have facilities in Vietnam to assemble outside China. Over time suppliers in India will have to develop the needed skills, planning and engineering concentration of people to Make in India what is now Made in China.

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In the meeting in the Oval Office Biden and Modi had this to say about India US relations. Modi called it a "transformative" decade. Mr. Biden called it a "new chapter" in ties, taking on tough challenges in coronavirus vaccines for the rest of Asia outside India and China, tackling climate change, and ensuring rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.  Biden's view- "I think that the relationship between India and the US, two of the largest democracies in the world, is destined to be stronger, closer, tighter, and I think it can benefit the whole world." A look at the US under the Biden administration shows a US that is very different from that of the US in the period of presidents since Harry Truman when he met Jawaharlal Nehru at the White House in October 1949. Biden sees the US needing renewal of its infrastructure, reviving worker incomes and families, regaining its leadership of the free world, for its role and place in the world. Throughout the period 1949 to 2020 for 70 years India was never seen as a modernizing nation of 1.2 billion people. For most of this period it lacked the good governance and speedy implementation of modernization of economy that is essential for a truly good relationship. By releasing the potential of the younger generation in a country where people under 35 years form the major part of the population, with good governance and development agenda, the Indian prime minister has changed the entire dynamics of the India US relationship. This is happening in the way China had done in its relationship with the US after 2000 by modernizing the country. India is now the country with huge potential and the country the US sees as helping it build its own role and place in the world. The sheer size of India and its population with countries around it in the east such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam with shared values in south and southeast Asia bring together a population of close to 2 billion people much larger than China, to determine the direction of Asia.  This is the new chapter that president Biden has in mind, and it is also the "transformative decade" in the eyes of prime minister Modi as India finally puts behind it years of bad governance, and speeds up modernizing its economy.   ...

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Ashwani Lohani, head of the Railway Board for Indian Railways says the bullet train is creating a paradigm shift in how people travel in India. That the distance from the city where Mahatma Gandhi had his Ashram to Mumbai is covered in less time than it takes to travel by air is a huge shift for India. Some media reports have incorrectly stated that the money used for the bullet train could have been used for improvements to the railway system. Lohani says it is important that people understand that the money for the bullet train is coming from Japan and would not be available if the bullet train was not built. It is also at interest rates of 0.1% and a moratorium period of 15 years making the loans almost free. The advantage of the project is also that it has a demonstrative effect showing that a lot can be done in bringing Indian Railways into the pattern of rapid rail travel prevalent in Europe and now in China. China has shown the way by developing its rail system and also developing the technology for bullet trains using Kawasaki technology from Japan and building on this. It is imperative that India do this and modernize its own system. This is an aspect of infrastructure also that has a massive impact on people's lives. When trains can travel at bullet speed between city centres in India it also creates a new energy for bringing the rest of the system to higher technology standards.     ...

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This is what our energy wars, our climate change wars are about in summary. Europe has moved faster than the US, India and China in cutting fossil fuels use over 20 years 2005 to 2025. Europe going from 1525 trillion watt hours to 792- cutting use by half. The US from 2900 to  2553 trillion watt hours just 12%. And China...China tripled its use. This has come at a price as the costs of renewables push up electricity prices beyond what homes and industry can support. UK electricity prices 80% higher than US and half of UK energy users plan to ration its use 2025. Half of electricity costs in UK come from cost and delivery, other half of costs from subsidies of renewables and other. In Germany high electricity costs are hobbling industry and reducing economic growth. Lower electricity prices make the US more attractive than Germany as a place to invest. Another way to look at it- US and Europe cut fossil fuel use by about 1100 trillion watt hours and China increased its use by 4200 trillion watt hours or 4 times what the US and Europe cut in 2024 over 2005. Adding India, Brazil this would be 5-6 times what the US and Europe saved in 2024 over 2005. The "And "strategy of combining reduction in fossil with building renewable capacity is working out compared to dumping fossil in one shove and going all out renewable. There is also the question of equity. China and India argue equity means we should be allowed to use some fossil with renewable for 2.5 billion people's needs. The other side of equity is the US saying the same as "no fossil period" strategy puts the needs of the large part of the population for lower costs of energy  pushed aside as wealthy classes say it is OK. Even when the savings through cuts and sacrifices in US and EU are cut down, cut down by 5-6 fold increase in China, India, Brazil alone. In this kind of climate change war it makes sense not to go with labels such as climate change denial DJT vs China climate change affirming, when China is diluting US-EU climate change entire twenty year savings of 2005-2024 by a factor of 4, 1100 trillion watt hours wiped out by China's 4200 trillion watt hours added. And India, Brazil taking this to a factor of 6. This is why a lot of the discussion with self-righteous indignation becomes less purposeful. What is clear is that every action to cut cost of living in US and EU for large parts of the people is an effort in the right direction as it frees up resources for the fight against climate change, the sense that we are all in the same boat and in the same struggle. The fight against cost of living is part of the long run struggle against climate change. ...

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Indian prime minister Modi shown in a meeting together with Biden of the US, Fumio Kishida of Japan and Albanese of Australia at the Izumi Gallery in Tokyo during the announcement of the joint efforts for launching and promoting the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. The IPEF led by the US will have four pillars of trade and supply chain resiliency, clean energy and climate change action, taxes to promote investment in infrastructure, and good governance. Seven of 10 members of ASEAN have joined including Indonesia. India is a key partner of US and Japan for the new IPEF economic alliance. Prime Minister Modi of India says about IPEF- "India will work together with its IPEF partners to build an inclusive and flexible Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. I believe that resilient supply chains must be based on three pillar foundation of trust, transparency and timeliness, and I am sure that this framework will make these pillars strong and lead to prosperity, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region." Attracting large investments in India and other reliable partners in a new supply chain that shifts out of China are part of the Biden plan working together with Japan and South Korea. Investments directly into the US are also part of the same plan. Gina Raimondo US Commerce Minister says- "I would say, especially as businesses are beginning to increasingly look for alternatives to China, the countries in the Indo-Pacific Framework will be more reliable partners for US businesses." US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the IPEF is intended to boost US manufacturing. By boosting US manufacturing and technological advancement with investments inside the US that directly benefit American workers and families the IPEF will serve the US and the free world in ways that will shape the coming decades to 2030 and 2040. With investments in the US will come investments in India as a reliable manufacturing partner to replace China by 2030 is envisioned by Jake Sullivan and president Biden. ...

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Fears about a property price bubble in China bursting with the central bank not able to control the economy. Increasing fears that China may not be able to control the bubble. Other countries where bubble effects are taking place: Canada where housing prices are accelerating, Brazil with expected GDP growth of 5.8% and "hot money" pouring in, India where inflation has reached 15% and $92 billion of foreign investment in Indian stocks and bonds, Australia with its hot mining sector with trade connections to China, South Korea with growth approaching 5% and high rates of household debt. GDP and property prices increased by 11% in China in the 1st quarter of 2010. Many of these economies have connections with China, including Brazil and Australia with commodities sectors dependent on China.

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One needs to look at India -US relations over the long span 1900-2025  looking only at the long haul. In taking a look at the relationship in this way Gandhi's letter to FDR during the Quit India Movement from Wardha July 1 1941, and FDR's reply (with Churchill and FDR fighting Japan in 1941) ranks as memorable and long lasting, far likely to prevail as an idea that holds the imagination of it's peoples than the pulls and shifts of different administrations. Even in the  depth of the war against the Nazis in Europe, and the Imperial Japanese Army rampaging through China, Gandhi felt comfortable looking to America as a friend. Churchill was the antagonist at the time unwilling to let the British Empire fade, and FDR was a friend through the Second World War. Gandhi opens his letter to FDR saying "Dear Friend. I twice missed coming to your great country... I have profited greatly from the writings of Thoreau and Emerson..." And FDR writing back "I shall hope that our common interest in democracy and righteousness will enable your countrymen and mine to make common cause..." For India the powerful words of Cordell Hull his Secretary of State, were offered by FDR with unmistakable goals of freedom and democratic process for India. Eisenhower and Dulles support for Pakistan in the 1950's into 1970's, a period of China and India in the 1970's and 1990's shifting away from old economic arrangements, till India US under Biden 2020 where India as with FDR  was "the closest in the world" to the US, following China's shift to Communist rule and now competition with the US. Taking this long perspective India and the relationship with America will be determined by the 1.8 billion people of the two countries (with Indonesia 2.1 billion people), and the potential for this is vast and only growing by the year. There is a natural affinity and feeling that is only now coming into its own because of a shared responsibility, and a shared understanding, as parts of the former British Empire, separated in 1783 and 1947. And the mutual desire to build the modern world on the terms left by advances of science and technology combined with the ancient civilization of the Bible, Buddhism and the Upanishads. In this sense modern India is made with America and does not exist separate from America, and modern America forward is made with India and does not exist separate from India. ...

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Britain and India are seen as the most attractive destinations for foreign investment after the US, Germany and China. This is true after Brexit. In recent years Britain and India have made much progress in becoming investment destinations.

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GST revenue increase is important because it finances healthcare, education, infrastructure building, jal ghar and cooking gas, Digital India initiatives, housing programs in a way that has never happened before and is needed for modernizing the Indian economy. The same approach is being taken by president Biden in the US to finance his climate and tax bill of $369 billion. It is the biggest climate action bill in history and revenues to finance renewable energy transition are coming from a 15% minimum corporate tax that is being agreed to by all countries in the world including US, Britain, European Union and India. Just today the WSJ the largest biotech company Amgen in the US paid 3.5% effective tax rate on revenues for 2013 when tax rate under federal law was 35%, and the IRS is working on getting $10.7 billion back in payments due over a decade. Much of Amgen's profits of $24 billion had been shifted to a location in Puerto Rico says a report in WSJ. The development work of the free world countries including US, EU, and India cannot happen without this. Without this the US, EU and India cannot even remain competitive with China or tackle national security threats. ...

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Walmart plans to take a 75% stake in India's online retailer FlipKart for $15 billion. The move comes as Amazon is making an an effort to invest heavily in online sales in India. Amazon plans to invest $5 billion and is making strong gains in the growing Indian online market. This is expected to give Amazon about one third of its revenue growth in the next 3 years. The move by Walmart is seen as a defensive one against Amazon's efforts.

Walmart has 21 Best Price wholesale stores in India which it started in 2009. Foreign owned companies can only sell their own products under Indian rules and this makes it harder for Walmart. Online retailing is away to get around this restriction to sell many products and brands. India is growing in online retail with $35 billion estimated for 2019 by Forrester, this compares with $935 billion in China and $459 billion in the U.S.

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By 2024 Dholera Special Investment Region airport and the expressway linking Ahmedabad to Dholera will be operational, says India's Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Developed from scratch on vast stretches of land in the Gulf of Khambat 100 kilometres from Ahmedabad it is expected to be India's best manufacturing zone,  comparable or better than any manufacturing zone in China. It is part of the industrial effort to build world class manufacturing zones in India that fit in with the shift of manufacturing from China as part of the redesign of world supply chains to avoid overconcentration in any one part of the world.

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Simon Denyer's interview with Vinod Rai, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Rai has persisted in uncovering corruption in India. He was appointed by prime minister Manmohan Singh from India's Finance ministry five years ago, and runs an organization with 63,000 employees with accountants in all Indian states. Reports by his agency have uncovered giving away of natural resources and telecom licenses worth billions of dollars. He describes the amounts involved as huge and attributes the increase in accountability of politicians and ministers to active citizens groups. The Indian media and Supreme Court have supported efforts to increase accountability. The CAG has constitutional protection. Rai sees the CAG's role as examining government spending to uncover irregularities and make it accountable to parliament. India is rare in this respect compared to China, Russia and other emerging market countries because of its vibrant media and democracy. A 2010 report uncovered corruption in giving away mobile phone network licenses and a 2012 report uncovered allocation of coal land without a competitive auction, with loss in government revenues estimated at $30 billion. The reports showed prime minister Singh aware of the irregularities but unable or unwilling to call for transparency and proper process. Rai's six year term expires in May 2013. ...