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India lags way behind China in electric vehicles. About 1.35 million electric automobiles on Chinese streets compared to about 6000 on Indian streets. Where India is ahead is in the electric rickshaws, 3 wheeled vehicles that form an important part of public transportation in India. About 132,000 electric rickshaws are added each year and annual sales of $1.5 billion are expected to increase by 9% by 2021. These electric three wheeler rickshaws are cheaper to operate, cleaner and more profitable to operate, making it attractive for operators of gasoline rickshaws to switch to e-rickshaws. Kinetic Engineering and Mahindra & Mahindra are the largest manufacturers in India.  About 695,000 three wheeler electric vehicles were sold in India for the fiscal year ending in March, with a 24% increase over the prior year. India's Ministry of Finance is planning to invest 40 billion rupees or $600 million over the next 5 years to promote charging infrastructure and e-buses. The government's focus is on promoting electric vehicles for taxis, buses and two or three wheeler vehicles. This is expected to reduce air pollution in Indian cities. ...

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In speaking about Indian democracy and human freedom not mentioned was the unprecedented food security or freedom from hunger that was offered to one sixth of the world's population in India since March 2021, year of the pandemic. Not mentioned was the unprecedented health security or freedom from viral epidemic that was offered to the same people in that period with 900 million vaccine doses. Not mentioned was the freedom of expression in 15 Indian languages including freedom to write about the government at local, state and federal levels in the country with a wider spread of language and regional dialects than Europe for 75 years since independence. Not mentioned was the struggle within this democracy to give the younger generation of people under 30 who make up the biggest part of the population an opportunity for the first time in about one thousand years to take charge of their own future. All this one can see with open eyes and open mind. These are also the young people who have the most to gain or lose from the wrong actions at the wrong time, as they take up the challenges of modernization of a clean and vibrant infrastructure friendly India of the future.  ...

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This Economic Times report provides details about the  remaining aspects of the Indian Mumbai Ahmedabad bullet train project using Japanese technology. The project is being expedited with the federal and state governments completing land acquisition and covering extra costs of the project. This was one of the projects coming out of meetings and close collaboration .between Modi and Shinzo Abe of Japan. The cost estimated at 1.1 lakh crore is financed for 81% of cost by Japan's JICA through along term loan. Some of the engineering work may be completed by Indian engineering firms to reduce the cost. Delays mean the project cost will increase and some of the cost can be adjusted by doing some of the work through Indian firms under Make in India. JICA or Japan International Cooperation Agency is a government agency that provides aid for development projects and technical cooperation with other countries. It is part of the official development assistance of Japan which was $16.1 billion in 2020, according to OECD. ...

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Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, India, UK, European Union elections are taking place by June 2024 and US in November 2024. Yet it is misleading to lump them together. Much discontent is there to see as in the UK with cost of living, governance, time wasted on Brexit, India with lingering effects of the pandemic on rural voters, caste based voting. In India protest vote of lower caste Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, even with government support in forms of universal healthcare, food for poor households during pandemic extended, cooking gas, housing support, clean tap water, direct bank account deposit to accounts of poor and farmers. Yet in the states in the south and east in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and generally in the south the BJP vote count increased so that losses in the north were made up leaving the percentage of vote for India for Modi's BJP party at 37 percent in 2024 instead of 38% in 2019, losing the absolute majority 240 seats of 543 yet having campaigned heavily for partners who added seats 294 of 543. In the UK Keir Starmer may see some vote preference for Labor erode yet the Conservative record is in shambles even conservative experts will say, as in India where the opposition parties offer no prospects for the future and little track record for making India the second or third largest economy in the world which the BJP has set and shown to have achieved over 10 years by taking India to No. 5 in the world economies. ...

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Kate Bingham, head of the Vaccine Task Force in Britain is commended for her intelligent approach in placing bets on vaccines in different technologies, "four buckets" as she calls them. This includes the Moderna and Pfizer in the mRNA technology and the viral vector Astra Zeneca, J&J vaccines. This approach made the British vaccination drive effective by being supported by a resilient supply system.

The Indian government has supported the effort to get several companies to make the Sputnik Russian vaccine in India in an effort to diversify supplies. Reddy Labs is one of the major manufacturers working on the Sputnik vaccine in 2021.

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500 modern Vande Bharat trains at a cost of about $6.5 billion are expected to be part of India's Budget for 2023. This is part of the effort to modernize India's rail system used by tens of millions of people under a modernized system of mobility.

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Barmer, Rajasthan hits 48 degrees centigrade. The heat wave affects election turnout in Rajasthan state of India and in other parts of India.Delhi sees temperatures of 45 degrees centigrade. Floods in Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul, heat wave in India, a new set of challenges from climate change in 2024.

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Wilkins was British inventor, scientist and educator with profound unbelievable impact. Some thoughts on what it means for America to reject Science in 2024 for Climate Change in the face of sudden floods, wildfires- for Western civilization was based on Science since 1648, Eastern civilizations missing it completely. When George Washington was fighting in the Pennsylvania country against American Indians and the French, on the other side of the Atlantic a Britisher from Somerset was part of the British East India Company that had won control of Bengal in northeastern India. In 1760 Wilkins arrived in Calcutta a youth of 21 as clerk for the British East India Company, rising to examiner for new employees at the company. It is Wilkins as a printer who creates the first typography for both Persian and Bengali, and who translates for the first time the Bhagavad Gita into English from Sanskrit in 1785.  This is of interest mainly because the American colonists were fighting an Empire whose chief base of the Empire was in Bengal and which generated the funding of the British war against the American colonists led by Washington, Adams and Jefferson. This was before Bengal also funded the British fight against Napoleon in Spain and Portugal. And by the 1850's funded Britain's wars in Chinese ports including Hong Kong. Wilkins is key to this puzzle about India and China- why they succumbed to European colonialism? Gandhi says the Indians invited them in as they were mainly shopkeepers and commercial interests. It is also true that after the end of the 30 years war in 1648, the British, French and Dutch followed Science creating the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution, that India and China missed.  Imagine then what it means to reject Science in the West in 2024 on Climate Change? Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in November 1909 on the boat Kildonan Castle from London to South Africa. In it he says Indians have to look in the mirror and accept that it is they the princes of India who invited the British sepoys of the British East India Company into Indian states for their wars and losing Bengal, then the rest of India. ...

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NITI Aayog does much of the development planning for India. It's CEO Parmeswaran Iyer, says about one third of the population of 1.2 billion people has reached the middle class. The poverty level has dropped to about 16% of the population. He describes the steps taken to achieve this. First inflation control by keeping inflation below 6%- it was 5.7% in December 2022. The decline of loan rates for education, buying home and appliances to about 8%. Second the pioneering action of One Nation One Tax under GST that has saved Rs 18,000 lakh crore or Rs 12000 per household annual saving. To create small micro business in a country the size of India with a large informal economy action was taken. 120 million of 380 million beneficiaries are from the  middle class for PM Mudra Yojana who received Rs 7 trillion in collateral free loans. This is designed to provide non farm small loans of 10 lakh rupees (about $8000) to micro unit enterprises at the bottom of the development pyramid to encourage an entrepreneurial culture and micro enterprises. Non Performing assets (bad loans) or NPA were reduced from 11.1% of the banking system to 5.8% in 2022. This is critical to support future growth as banks that well capitalized can make the loans needed to support growth. In health and education  a large network of new universities and medical colleges, hospitals is being built. The Ayushman Yojana provides health screening to millions of people and aid is channeled to people for low cost generic medicines. It is the size of these efforts that is making the difference in the lives of ordinary people. For technological advancement the government has moved quickly on digitalization, and 5G implementation to be done by 2024. ...

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Trade between South Korea and India is growing rapidly and will have exceeded $30 billion by 2022. Samsung and Hyundai have expanded investments in India. India has strong cultural and Buddhist connections to South Korea. Cultural connections should be stronger than what they are considering the historical roots of Buddhism in India and Asian Buddhist regions such as Korea, Vietnam and China rediscovering their roots in Buddhism and the Ancient Path historical sites in India after the pandemic. This will happen now that India is like South Korea and Japan a rapidly modernizing country that has not lost its connections with Vedanta and Buddhism. South Korea has close ties to Japan. During the first phase of modernization it expanded its ties to Japan. During this phase of modernization both Japan and South Korea can increase exchanges of students and visits by tourists, and business exchanges between the countries, as there is great potential for this and the time has come to do this. ...

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The first Quad Summit of leaders of US, Australia, India and Japan takes place on March 11, 2021. The Quad is a force for good says the Indian prime minister, with its focus on vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies. 

The leaders affirmed the need to ensure equitable access to the vaccines for speedy economic recovery and benefitting global health. Mr. Biden affirmed the need for the Indo-Pacific region to be "governed by international law, free of coercion and upholding universal values."

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2014 Xi visits Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram as is shown in this picture in BBC News and is curious how the weaving is done by hand taking a try at it with prime minister Modi, both sitting on the floor Asian style. In 2020 China advances its troops in a part of Ladakh leading to a clash with Indian forces. What happened? India's resilience in the face of the pandemic and the bright future for its economy, greater integration with the American and European Union economies in its draft plan to 2030. A sense in China's leadership that India's modernization would follow in the same way that China's and South Korea's have followed Japan's modernization. A sense also that better relations with the US and the European Union would require better relations with India, as an indispensable condition. A sense also that the issue of Taiwan was a bigger issue and a core interest for China than the border disputes in the remote regions of the Himalayas. It just did not make sense to have a conflict with India in the priorities of China to 2030 or 2040. That India needed to be seen not through the lens of the British but as an ancient nation that had similarities with China and Japan from its Buddhist roots. ...

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Women's World Cup Final at Navi Mumbai 2025 -India vs South Africa. India 298. South Africa requiring 9 runs an over at 209 for 6, are bowled out for 246. Deepti Sharma with a knock of 87 and 2 wickets is player of the match, Shefali Verma could have been player of the match with 5 wickets. Harmanpreet Kaur with her own batting performance and captaincy could also have been player of the match. South African captain Wolvardt scores 100 but requires much more to get to 9 runs an over when South Africa were 209 for 6. The batting performance of Kaur and Sharma and bowling by Verma and Sharma set India on the right path to win this game.

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Without government aid about 12 million more people would have fallen into poverty in the US during the pandemic in 2020-2021. This is evident from census figures analyzed in the WSJ and NYT. The Supplemental Poverty Measure -which takes into account a broader range of income and expenses including hundreds of billions of dollars of pandemic aid -shows that poverty actually declined, dropping by 2.9% to 9.1%, as a result of government taking action in the US under the Trump and Biden administrations. The $400 billion  dollars of stimulus checks and aid during the Trump and Biden administrations in 2021 have made a real difference in the lives of not just poor Americans but Americans in the middle class and all sections of society. Similar aid was delivered in the European Union and Britain. In India government aid was distributed by depositing money directly into hundreds of millions of bank accounts of poor and marginal income people. Aid included food aid in grains, lentils and vegetables directly provided at subsidized prices or free by the government. Right wing or left wing government designations were meaningless as governments of different persuasions acted decisively to provide direct and timely help in US, Europe, and India. ...

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Putin's visit to India is intended to continue India Russia dialogue. One of the topics is trade. New trade deals are planned to take pre-pandemic trade from $11 billion to $30 billion by 2025. Trade would go beyond energy to include education, cybersecurity, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, railways, clean energy. By comparison US India trade for the same time period is $146 billion.

Afghanistan is a source of concern for both Russia and India and this will be part of the talks. Russia also participates in several forums with India including BRICS. 

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It is not a story that most people grasp or understand- the long term effects of the US immigration surge of 2023 and its source mostly from Venezuela. The  US Congressional Budget Office says labor force in 2033 ten years from now will be larger by 5.2 million people and younger as a result of the immigration surge in 2023 from about 1 million immigrants each year in the 2010's to 3.3 million. About 2.5 million crossed the southwestern border in 2023. Much of it the result of the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and its middle and upper classes leaving the country. This was worsened by the US sanctions on the Maduro government including under president Trump, say experts in an adjoining NYT article on the 7 million people who left Venezuela to go to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile since 2012, then making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Something that could have happened under a Republican president if the US Congress could not reach bipartisan agreement on correcting asylum and parole policy. As a result of this surge US Gross Domestic Product  in 2033 will be 3% larger. When the large Asian economies are seeing a aging workforce, Japan for the last decade and China now following Japan, the US labor force will be younger than it would be without this unusual surge in immigration of the last 2 years. The federal deficit will be smaller at 6.4% instead of 7.3% in 2033 as immigrants will pay taxes on income. Another aspect of this larger infusion of immigrants is that after the pandemic shut down immigration entirely there were severe shortages in the hospitality and restaurant, construction, healthcare industries. And with the trillions of dollars in investment that the Biden administration is making with more factories - this will absorb most of the immigrant surge by 2033. With some positive effects in the competition with rising Asian economies China and India. Particularly consider with the younger demographic India of 1.4 billion people. It will mean more factories can be built in the US and there will be workers for these factories in the US at wages that keep the US economy competitive years from now in 2033. This is a sobering aspect of the current situation viewed from what will be seen by America's younger generation. And under the bipartisan compromise in Congress correcting asylum and parole policy that was shut down by the former president, Republican senators understood very well that the immigration surge of 2023 would have some constructive effects for the long term, while its effects on the short term would be mitigated by Biden's commitment to close the border in 2024. This did not happen, yet the future for America's younger generation is bright under the Biden plan for massive investment in manufacturing and jobs in the US, and with the millions of immigrants needed to fill the jobs that investment will create by 2033. It will make America with a younger work force than Europe or China, only India having a younger workforce in 2033. ...

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Sadanand Dhume points out the change in women's fertility rate that will add one more factor to improvement in the quality of life and access to resources in India. This comes as development projects, infrastructure, logistics, is being built in the north at a pace unprecedented in history. Women's fertility rate has dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1 in India. Because of the youthful population with median age of 28 in India population will peak at 1.6 billion in 2050 making India the largest country by population in the world- with one in 6 people on the planet in India. From a fertility rate of 6 in 1960 in India, with each woman having 6 babies, it is down to 3 by 2005 and 2 in 2021. This shows the effect of sustained development over time, which is also evident in agricultural production where India is now self sufficient in food. For many years the Hindi speaking heartland suffered from poor governance and mismanagement of the economy- the region that covers Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has a population of 250 million, Bihar 131 million and Madhya Pradesh 86 million, for a total of 467 million about the size of North America or the European Union. It is this region that is now pushing a development agenda today more than any other region in India with the joint effort of both the federal and state, local, governments in a way that is unprecedented in Indian history. Because of the Gati Shakti Master Plan, Atman Nirbhar Make in India Plan, and push for local is vocal, the infrastructure efforts in building roads, highways, airports and logistics, the advances in digitization and use of new technologies, there is an added boost with new synergies in this development effort. A new airport and logistics setup at Noida in Uttar Pradesh will be the largest in Asia, a new Ganga Expressway is planned, and many development projects are being launched in Varanasi, Prayagraj and other cities in UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh. Leaders at the federal level Mr. Modi, Mr. Piyush Goyal, and at the state level Mr. Adityanath, are pushing the development projects at a pace that will make these areas the fastest developing in India, and quite possibly the world, in a the next 3-5 years. ...

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces Rs. 60 billion ($857 million) in equity for the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund to provide Rs. 1000 billion  ($14.2 billion) debt financing for infrastructure to 2025. This is part of a wide ranging stimulus 3.0 package for creating jobs, providing aid to borrowers during the pandemic, aid to farmers, and aid for the informal economy including street vendors and small retail. With the largest population in the world the Indian Ocean region of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, and Indonesia from the former British and Dutch empires, requires a resilient response to the coronavirus pandemic. This is crucial for the future revival of the world economy. 

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India is a frugal innovator producing satellites for space at a fraction of the cost. NASA sent Maven, a probe to Mars for $671 million, it cost India $74 million to send an orbiter to Mars. Yet India as one of the few space exploring nations has only 3% of the market. Invest India, India's investment promotion agency says this will increase to 10% by 2030. In March India's NewIndia state owned space agency sent three dozen space satellites for OneWeb into space after launches by Russia were stopped. In 2023 the US is the largest by far in the space sector economy. China and Russia are also in this space.

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Kings Way which remained right up to 2022 as Rajpath in Hindi as the British named the central part of Delhi for the Empire is now a thing of the past, says prime minister Modi. He opened the newly laid out Kartavya Marg with Netaji Subhas Bose replacing the symbol of the Empire in King George at the end of the Kartavya Marg. With the completion of the National War Memorial at the other end Delhi now has a new look and it will remind people of India that it is the work of the people not of kings and nobles in the new India that counts.

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PM Modi will meditate for 3 days and nights at the Vivekananda rock in the Indian Ocean on May 30 to June 1, 2024. In 1892 Swami Vivekananda meditated on a rock in the ocean at the tip of India in Kanya Kumari, as he set India on a path to modernization for the next 100 years and beyond. Many Indians including prime minister Modi have Vivekananda's mission for India's modernization as their clear objective, and this is behind the everything the PM does including the vision of Vikshit Bharat, a developed country by 2047 on the 100th anniversary of independence. Gandhiji read all of Vivekananda's writings and his freedom struggle against British rule was based on Vivekananda's ideas for India's regeneration and renewal leading to his book Hind Swaraj in 1905. The Bhagavad Gita was translated by Swami Swarupananda, a disciple of Vivekananda, and formed the basis for Gandhiji in the freedom struggle against the British.  Europe faced colonization on the Iberian peninsula and invasions right up to Budapest and Vienna by the 14th century, India faced the same and this was followed for India and China by the expansion of the British into Asia when China and India failed to grasp early the importance of science and technology and the new ideas that happened in Europe by the 18th and 19th century. Vivekananda wanted to see science and technology and the advances of modernization brought to the people of India a process happening as India modernizes all aspects of its economy. Vivekananda was also the inspiration for Indonesia's freedom struggle by Sukarno against Dutch rule. India and Indonesia today make up the largest population in the world larger than China and Japan combined, with a common culture and heritage and are together modernizing every aspect of the life of people.  ...

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Swiss dairy farmers cutting cheese production by 5-10% to tackle temporary US tariff rate of 39%.  Gruyere and Emmentaler cheese to US make up 13% of Swiss cheese exports. Swiss dairy farmers are looking for markets in Asia and waiting for trade negotiations to bring tariffs down so that they can bounce back. The cow is sacred in Swiss Alpine country because of its role in cheese and mil chocolate production for overseas markets. Switzerland's cheese exports are $830 million in 2024 compared to about $7 billion for Germany, $6 billion for Netherlands, $5 billion for Italy and $4 billion for France, and $2.5 billion for the US. Overall Switzerland is a small exporter for a country the size of Virginia. Much of the extra milk production from a bumper harvest in 2025 can be converted into baby milk powder  and exported to China and India. In trade negotiations the Swiss became complacent even condescending and took the US market for granted. This will now change as the Swiss now have time for some soul searching on how best to negotiate a deal that respects the interests of both nations. ...

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The first virtual summit between the leaders of Australia and India takes place on June 4, 2020. The meeting is for further strengthening bilateral ties between Australia and India. This video   in the Times of India shows the opening statements in the summit by prime minister Morrison of Australia and prime minister Modi of India.

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Shruti Sharma, Ankita Agrawal, and Gamini Singla are in the top 1, 2, and 3 ranking in the 2021 Civil Service examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. All three women say it was a long and difficult journey. Women are now in parity with men in higher education yet in the Indian Civil Service women make up only 26%. Women can provide the empathy needed for development in smaller towns and villages as they take up positions in these areas early in their IAS career. More women need to take up careers in the Civil Service to provide the kind of leadership needed in running the country that India needs at a critical time in its move forward in development and modernization.

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Vikshit Bharat 2047, Voice of Youth is launched in December 2023 by prime minister Narendra Modi. The plan is for India to be a fully developed economy by 2047.