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Make no mistake president Biden is saying it is America's, and India's turn to reinvent the semiconductor industry with government capital support, and with the zeal and inventive capabilities of the US and India. This interview by Ben Cohen gives a glimpse of how Morris Chang now 92 years sees the founding of Taiwan Semiconductor in 1985 in retrospect in 2024. He talks about his early life in the US as an immigrant from China after 1949 and his work at Texas Instruments learning about the semiconductor industry. In the 1980's Japan was the rising industrial nation in semiconductors. By 1985 Intel which dominated memory chips faced challenges in quality and cost and cheap capital from Japanese capital markets encouraging exports. By 1988 Japan took over the market. What Morris Chang is not telling is that Chang already had the Japanese example in 1985. If Japan could do it on all three fronts quality, cheap capital with government assistance, and ten year effort Chang and Taiwan could do this and accomplished this which it has done. ...

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April 2025 WSJ forecast of recession in next 12 months is 45%. In 2022 and 2023 forecasts for recession in US were at 60% higher than the 2025 forecast of 45%, yet no recession happened.  It all depends on the USTR's Jamieson, and DJT's advisers Bessent, Luttnick, and Navarro, and Lighthizer, DJT using all their experience and carefully using Tariffs to achieve US goals. This means working out the details of the US economy, of inflation, GDP growth, cost of living, to maintain confidence of people in America, the confidence of the working people in America. Action on pharmaceuticals bringing production back home is a win as here it is a clear way to get companies to reduce prices. Permitting imports removing backward looking laws restricting pharmaceutical imports would create the competition that was missing. US automobile companies knowing the government has their back can actually cut prices in the first 12 months of 2025, with Toyota and Hyundai-Kia following suit. This would remove another source of inflation. On iphones and computers getting companies to create a new US+1 with India by 2027 would enable 60% of iphones and computers to be made in India and the US by 2027, The new strategy would be to combine the industrial base of India with the US to create plenty of good US jobs as the priority. Piece by piece the puzzle can be put together with attention to details and keeping overall goals in mind to restore US manufacturing and US industrial base, jobs, that will create its own tailwinds for decades of future growth.   ...

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 India would be 27% richer if it rebalanced its workforce to include more women, according to the IMF. Women's participation in the workforce is the lowest of the G20 countries except Saudi Arabia. Contributing only one sixth of economic output, half the global average. The employment rate of women in India has dropped instead of rising from its low level, an alarm signal. It was 35% in 2005, now in 2018 it is 26%. In the last decade the economy has more than doubled in size and number of working age women, according to the IMF is 470 million. Part of the reason is that more girls are in school. Conservative social rules mean that women are discouraged by their families or in-laws from working outside the home. As families become richer more women stop working. The lack of manufacturing jobs is also a constraint. Men have taken 90% of the 36 million jobs in industry created since 2005. Census data show that more than one third of women would take jobs if they were available. Urbanization and the shift to cities means less work in farming, mechanization of farming makes for less agricultural work. Changes in attitudes and better policies for maternity leave and women friendly workplace could help. Because most of the jobs are still in the informal economy, this is not as effective today but could make a difference in the future as more formal jobs are generated. Attitudes where men do more housework can make a difference. If men spent about 2 hours doing dishes and putting kids to bed, there would be a 10% increase in women's participation rate in the workforce, according to a World Bank study. One study shows this would add 550 billion dollars to India's economy. True especially as more women are getting university degrees and high school education. and the census study shows women have the desire to work if cultural attitudes, more men doing housework, and the job market were to change.       ...

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Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google, says that dependency taken to this extreme where TSMC makes 92% of the advanced semiconductors needed for every smartphone, laptop and missile systems, needs to be quickly corrected. He says America's technology advantage could face serious damage with the Taiwanese production lost in the event of war or missile attack. The supply chain is already at risk with over 70% of supplies of silicon, tungsten, and gallium in the supply chain under China's control. Surprisingly Schmidt does not ask for action beyond Congress authorizing the $50 billion investment proposed for American manufacturing of semiconductors. What is needed as Andy Kessler has proposed in WSJ is to ask Taiwan and South Korea to invest in the US and allies such as  India where production cost challenges can be met with the engineering manpower and facilities as has been done in health care and vaccines manufacturing. Only token or small investments have been made by South Korea and Taiwan in the US compared to what is required. The US should ask for this to be done as part of the exchange for security guarantees that the US is already making for South Korea and Taiwan. It is also the responsibility of South Korea and Taiwan to make these and other investments in other technologies considering it as its obligation to the Free World. For too long countries in Asia that have benefited from US assistance have ignored their reciprocal obligations to the US. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China have all benefited from US technology sharing and assistance. It is only an egregious example that China has put itself in the situation where Japan found itself or placed itself in the first half of the twentieth century.  ...

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In parts of Mexico sugary softdrinks are easier to access than clean tap water, says this report in DW.com. This is a problem that existed in Mexico for many years. Amy Guthrie in the WSJ August 28, 2013, described the problem in -Health Problem over Soda Flares in Mexico- which was shown in Lyrarc.com in 2013, showing the US, Chile, Mexico and Argentina with high consumption of sugary softdrinks and high rates of diseases related to this. Mexico's government has made efforts to increase awareness about the risks and dangers of overuse and Bloomberg philanthropy has made efforts to increase awareness. Yet the problem has persisted. The risks are high for countries such as India, China, Vietnam. One ad in Mexico City subways showed 20 ounce sugary softdrink bottle and asked "Would you take 12 teaspoonfuls of sugar?" Mexico passed the US in countries with high obesity rate over 100 million people in 2013. Higher all cause mortality was shown in a European study of 451,000 people for people drinking more than 2 glasses of sweetened softdrinks a day, with data collected between 1992-2000 and supporting public health campaigns limiting the use of such sweetened softdrinks. ...

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The Irish prime minister Varadkar says it is time to move on. When he assumed office he was the first from an ethnic minority background to lead Ireland, the son of an Irish mother and an Indian immigrant father. He took Ireland through the crises of coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, and improved unemployment and budget shortfalls. Recently he accepted defeat on a referendum intended to remove language in the Irish Constitution on a clause about "a woman's life within the home." Disagreements over the language of the referendum led to its not getting approved on International Women's Day by about 70% of the vote with 44% of people voting. It suggest there was no enthusiasm and its relevance at this time was not understood. It is not clear why there was a need for this referendum in the first place to remove one text of the constitution that respects the role of family and mother's contributions in the home. During the pandemic for instance women played a major role, and sometimes took on a greater share of the burden. Efforts to have women's participation as shown in Japan and India does not require constitutional wording to be changed. Japan has done remarkably well and India is about to do this. And removing the wording about women's role at home, instead of encouraging or adding wording about women actively participating in the workforce and actions to make that possible, accomplishes little. Coupling this with a wording that includes gay families in the definition of family while removing the role of women in the family language seemed to be making changes that had little to do with each other. ...

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Even though ambitious targets are being set by the government raising from 50 million to 80 million in 3 years the target for new LPG connections to shift rural households from firewood to natural gas use, more needs to be done. The head of the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister Modi of India. Bibek Debroy, asks questions about the Ujjwalla program in India to shift rural homes from firewood to gas use. Is the fixed subsidy of Rs 1600 enough? Is a 5kg cylinder what the market wants instead of the 14.2 kg cylinder? Are there externalities that favor use of firewood? Will rural households replace the cylinders at this subsidy level because the costs are still high?  The PMUY, or Pradhan Mantri Ujjwalla Yojana was launched in India in 2016 in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh under the Modi administration. The target for LPG gas use for firewood using households was 15 million in the first year and 50 million for the next 3 years. The government pays Rs. 1600 subsidy for a new connection reimbursing the oil company making the connection. The refill and cost of stove, is the rural household's responsibility. Separate guidelines were made for urban households. The government website mygov.in shows 41 million households have used Ujjwalla to get LPG and stop firewood use. The new target of 80 million means the goal post is moving higher. The 2011 Census is cited showing the rural household use moved up from 6% to 12% by 2011. For All India it was from 17% to 29%. About 100 million rural households use firewood, 62.5% of all rural households in 2011. A big issue is how this affects the health of women using firewood for cooking, and who collects this firewood. Firewood is still cheaper says Debroy, and there are negative externalities associated with firewood not understood enough. Changing the face of rural India is a project in motion, with new issues to tackle, new hurdles to overcome, every bit of progress showing how much more needs to be done. ...

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After a weeks long standoff both sides disengage expeditiously in the India's border dispute with China over construction of a road in the Doklam plateau region of Bhutan. In this NYT report experts in Hong Kong point out that it is not in China's economic interest with an aging population and debt crisis, tense economic relations with the U.S., and for India struggling with modernization issues, to turn a remote border issue into an open conflict. It would also complicate relations in the Asian region with Japan and economic relations with the U.S, countries with whom China's economy is intertwined through supply chains and other ways. Disputes with China and South Korea have in the past affected the Chinese economy, and China has developed trade with India as its companies look for growing markets. India's Modi administration is focussed on the economy. In this context of broader relations the road construction in Doklam appears to be an aberration that is hard to explain except as a miscalculation and poor understanding of the best interests of the region and of the world.   ...

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India's vaccination drive which has passed one billion vaccinations is one of the great stories of our time. This report in DW.com looks at vaccination drive in a region that is densely forested. It is in central India in the state of Chhattisgarh with about 30 million people and about 7 million tribal people living in dense forests that make up 40% of the state's territory.  One such place is the Dandakaranya forest, Sukma district, 500 kilometres from the state captial of Raipur. It takes an arduous journey just to get to this place which has no electricity, no potable water and no road connectivity.  Block development officer Kapil Kashyap from Sukma tells DW.com how they worked hard, won trust among villagers and brought basic medical services to them. Astonishingly with such effort to overcome vaccine hesitancy, 95% of the people in the village here had their first shot, and 40% received two doses. It is such a kind of effort in every district that prime minister Modi has called for in the unrelenting effort needed to vaccinate fully 1.3 billion Indians. ...

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Biden's hard work and going into details and seeing that projects are delivered on time and in quality for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law will make him an enduring president in the 21st century. Tyler Pager gives this report on the Biden style of making decisions and of getting things done on time that are making a big difference for the ease of living for all Americans.  Of Biden using his 36 years of negotiating in the Senate more than any Congressman including LBJ who only had 12 years, and the hard work from someone who commuted by Amtrak for all those years and attended to every detail. For the president who started out as county councilman in Delaware details matter, he looks into the details of rebuilding infrastructure by delivering projects on time and on scale. In late 2022 Tyler says Biden checked into the details of delays and wanted specifics which projects were not delivered on time for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law passed a year earlier. Seeing this only one leader comes to mind prime minister Modi of India who is faced with a huge task of infrastructure projects and investments that are intended to make India the third largest economy in the world. Modi like Biden uses his experience of getting into details and checking that work is delivered on time, putting in the hard work in earnest, from Modi's work with state projects in Gujarat when he led the state for 15 years as chief minister. ...

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The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state with population of 250 million people talks about the establishment for the first time of the rule of law in the state. Under different state ministries since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru who was from the Allahabad region in the state, Uttar Pradesh has lacked in effective rule of law. Building of infrastructure in the state, Swacch Bharat, and the many projects of the federal government, are creating a new sense of hope for the future for the young generation.

Here the chief minister of the state says 450,000 new jobs were created and given impartially, Uttar Pradesh made a good place for investment, security with rule of law established, and good governance provided over the last 4.5 years. 

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A sanitary health expert Arne Panesar of the German Corporation for International Cooperation says for about six of ten persons in the world there are no sustainable sanitary systems for the waste. It is not enough he says to build toilets, equally important  is how the waste is treated and disposed. Prime minister Modi of India has stated that toilets are more important than temples in India and the goal is set for all Indians to have secure sustainable toilets in 2019.  Panesar says of Dacca, Bangladesh, that for its 16 million only 2% have securely managed sustainable sanitary provisions. Waste that is not treated and correctly disposed off ends up in streams and neighborhoods creating health hazards- diseases like cholera, typhus and polio thriving in such conditions. It is not clear says this report that sanitation needs can be met by even 2030. In India the focus is now not just toilet building but on on safe sanitary provisions to make health a priority, as well as women's education which suffers without adequate toilets. ...

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In commenting on Rishi Sunak, a former hedge fund manager's sudden rise from anonymity three years ago when Boris Johnson became prime minister to leadership of the Tory party and prime minister, The Hindu cautions that it is of limited symbolic value, this kind of connection between India and the UK. The Tories are a house divided against itself, with many factions. Truss was brought down by Gove and others on the backbench who were not included in the government. Other Conservatives on the backbenches today, and Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg, represent factions that are not represented in this government as was evident in questioning by Opposition leader Starmer in QA in the House of Commons. Other problems remain also evident in Starmer's questioning for Labour in parliament, including questioning about non domicile status in the family for tax purposes. Privileged Tories with connections to free markets such as Jacob Rees Mogg or Sunak without an awareness of the pain of ordinary working families, are not what a country with a cost of living crisis sees as leaders who can point to the way forward for Britain. As The Hindu points out he faces the same difficulty that Johnson with his style and personality was able to sidestep, that Truss naively tackled with quick unraveling of tax cuts for the upper incomes, and which Sunak with his experience with financial hedge funds may appear to have grasped but find escaping his grasp. This is the difficulty of matching traditional Tory policy of tax cuts and austerity, at a time when all major countries of Europe and the US are providing significant cost of living assistance to working families. Even small bits of austerity policy, or lack of conviction to help working families may now be seen by the Opposition, Labour, and even within some part of the Tory party and the vast majority of working families as oppressive.  Starmer is keen to remind working people of where Sunak stands as he did with the question in parliament Q&A about the comments made by Sunak at a small gathering that he had transferred money from poor districts to more affluent Tory districts. Would Sunak correct these erroneous funding formulas, Starmer asked. The Hindu also mentions Suella Braverman's appointment as Home Secretary only weeks after her resignation. It was poor judgement shown by Johnson in an appointment that cost him Tory support a few weeks before his resignation. Starmer brought this up from the beginning of parliament Q&A- asking whether a deal was made for her appointment to get far right wing Tory support from Braverman's faction in the party. For India and the Indian people there are so many genuine connections with Britain and the British people, some set when Mohandas Gandhi won the hearts of English working families during his visit for negotiations with the British that are are a better basis  and that will be remembered forever in the hearts and minds of the British people. ...

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Abbott is looking for new ways to market in emerging markets. New flavors for Ensure in Asia would include lemon-honey. And cumin-jeera jal is a flavor for a supplement for diabetics in India. Abbott has a five year contract with India's drug maker Biocon to develop products for the Indian market. Abbott faces strong competition from other nutrition companies such as Nestle in India, which has 75% of the market for baby formula in India, and now owns Pfizer's baby nutrition business. With the $10 billion already spent on the Solvay and Piramal acqusiitions in India, Abbott has less room to make further acqusiitions. It will focus on organic growth with investment of about 7% of sales in R&D to develop new products. The split in Abbott's business with the separation of the pharmaceutical unit, will lead to a more consumer product oriented company.

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Labour's Keir Starmer wants to make Britain the first nation to have a zero emissions power system. His plan put forward in September 2022 would double onshore wind, triple solar energy, and quadruple offshore energy production by 2030. It would create half a million jobs, reindustrialize Britain and cut electricity bills by hundreds of pounds, says this report in The Guardian.This is Labour's answer to the Tories faltering energy plans. The Breakthrough report on achieving COP26 goals of the IEA and IRENA, international renewable energy agencies, shows the opportunity to create 85 million additional jobs by 2030, compared to 2019. Many world leaders including president Biden and Starmer, Germany's Habeck, and India's Modi are setting aggressive goals for renewable energy.

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Germany is trying not to choose sides in the trade and security disputes between China and the U.S. Yet it owes a lot to the U.S. from the days of the Marshall Plan and U.S. taking on the role of defending Germany after the Berlin Wall. China was then a partner with the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  Today China is Germany's top market for its car industry. Yet the U.S. export market is much larger than China at $119 billion with China's at $96 billion. In Germany 28% of jobs are linked to exports, and in manufacturing this goes up to 56%, according to Germany Ministry of Economic Affairs. Germany supplied much of the factory  equipment from its engineering companies and the infrastructure that powered up the China transformation. A transformation now underway in India.  There are signs of a shift as engineering companies in Germany grew faster in the U.S. than China, increasing by 6-10% a year. India remains a key growth market for Germany over the next 10-15 years as growth in China slows and India accelerates with its younger demographics and investment in infrastructure. Much of the infrastructure in China is built and it is approaching the saturation Japan reached in the 1990's with additional investments adding little in the way of productivity. Longer term Germany has more potential for growth in countries in South and South East Asia  that will need to make huge investments in infrastructure and technology for manufacturing to meet the aspirations of the people there. Other issues related to freedom going back to the Berlin Wall and the rebuilding of Germany after World War II will emerge. German companies are running out of patience says this report in the WSJ with the bureaucratic obstacles, forced technology transfers, subsidies by state model to extinguish competition, and protectionist approach to home markets, even as state funded companies in China put other companies in Europe, Asia and the U.S. at a disadvantage. Germany will need to transition to a shift in its global relations, a process that is only now taking place. Just as with austerity policies in which it has now made the shift from going with the northern European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland) to the Southern European (France, Italy, Spain) in favor of common solidarity even at the short term cost of common debt, Germany now is facing the shift for solidarity with the U.S. for its support of Germany from the period of the Berlin Wall in the 1950's, for the U.S. and European solidarity in the face of the post-coronavirus world. The U.S. showing its generosity and openness to Germany and war torn Europe even as it took on the added responsibilities for creating a new alliance with Europe.   ...

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With the change in U.S. position on climate change, carbon emissions, and the move to raise tariffs on China's exports to the U.S. China faces a new dimension in its global relationships. Against this background China is shifting to a long term view of its relationship with India. China's new foreign policy leaders after the recent party Congress, vice president Wang Qishan and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, now see the need for new partners in a multipolar global world for the long term as China and India countries with large populations and a need for stable world trade share common interests. Wang steers the Central Foreign Affairs Commission with Yang Jiechi as director. China now sees " a lot of shared interests, concerns and positions," in the words of China's Representative Lu, in the long term issues of globalisation, urbanization, pollution, and concern for achieving stable development with high growth rates.  China now takes the long view looking back at the unprecedented change of the last 100 years, as it maps out its plans for the future. The U.S. has challenged the ideas in the blueprint for development of "Made in China 2025," particularly as it relates to western transfer of technology to China. This has created a new situation for which China is still looking for answers, and ways to come up with new strategies for development without the nearly unrestricted access to western technology of the last 2 decades.  Shared positions on world trade with India and India's close relations with the U.S. add credibility in China's  negotiating positions with the U.S.                  ...

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Friedman says the fairly obvious that Democrats in the US and Social Democrats in Europe readily grasp. That unrestricted immigration on the southern border in the US or in the southern border of Europe actually does little to improve the situation for people in the US and Europe or the people in the countries migrants are leaving because of unsettled conditions. Germany has shifted to a policy of becoming involved in development in Africa. Japan's International Cooperation Agency has worked for many years in African countries. The US has its own efforts to assist Mexico through trade and manufacturing. It is working with Central American countries that are a major source of migrants on the southern border at different times. Mette Frederiksen, head of the Danish Social Democrats government, has put it very well when she said that the only people who are getting hurt by open border policies are the working class families in Denmark. This is true also of other parts of the EU and the US. Simply by letting in migrants, a policy that is harmful to workers and families. Conservatives are looking to make political gains and further their own interests, indifferent to social divisions and increasing lack of upward mobility in society. Immigration has become the tool for many of the conservative parties that have used it in ways harmful to interests of workers and families, in Britain, in the US, and in the EU. One has only to see the large delegation that Mette Frederiksen led to India for discussions with prime minister Modi, the economic ministries, and business, to see how she did the right thing on a huge scale. Denmark is the world leader in logistics with Maersk, and in renewable energy. Denmark and the Nordic countries are working closely with a country of 1.4 billion people to improve the logistics to make India comparable to China in manufacturing for export. And similarly in renewable energy technologies. The Nordic countries and the EU have simply by these actions done more to uplift hundreds of millions of people in Asia than anything that ever happened in the history of the world. And the US is also working with India in the same way. India acts as a stable source of growth and model for a whole stretch of Asia from Indonesia to Vietnam. The population lifted out of poverty - 2 billion people. ...

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This opinion piece in DW.com says India's prime minister should not isolate prime minister Sharif of Pakistan, as he had no part in the escalation of tensions in Kashmir. Foreign and military affairs are now run by the Pakistan Army, and isolating Sharif only entrenches the Army it says, which has kept up tensions similar to the situation in 1999 with the Kargil crisis when the Pakistan Army initiated a conflict in Kargil region. At that time Indian premier Vajpayee and Pakistan premier Sharif were improving relations. 

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Tata has a couple of things going for it to make a car at a price under $2500- a different vision behind it and a longer term idea of the market and its opportunities for Tata Motors. This is a personal vision of Ratan Tata, the last in the series of Tata family members who have run a company that was at the leading edge of industrialization in India since British times in the closing years of the 19th century. He sees this as a way to bring a car that is affordable to millions of Indians, the average Indian, just as his father and great grand father were pioneers in India's early steps towards industrialization. This also will serve another purpose. It will provide momentum to India's manufacturing base by putting India's auto industry on its way to sell cars by the millions in the next ten years. The cost was a challenge to Indian engineers ingenuity. It would help them develop something from scratch from a clean slate, and as he hoped reinvent the car if possible. The cost also was doable in India because of the wages paid to Indian engineers and workers are different. The entire cost structure with suppliers like Bosch providing the engine also and internet purchases of parts coming under a completely different way of doing business, again a reinvent of things. And the skimping on a lot of basics like a radio is possible in the Indian context where the inital target market is the scooter family of which in India there are millions. People who would simply be waiting for such a bare bones car, not see it as such because it is a great advance over a scooter even in terms of safety. What most people who have never been to India would not be able to grasp is that a whole family of four can be seen riding on a scooter or motorbike in India on weekends in Indian urban areas. Tata's idea of the market potential is the way it can ride the next stages of increasing incomes in India. Once it has come up with this car it can come up with enhanced versions with an airconditioning and radio and so on, and still price it way below competitors with Tata's quality and brand name and innovative design. As long as Tata can sell all the cars it makes it can expand production rapidly. Tata's costs for engineering a top selling model may be only 20% of the $350 million it costs western companies, according to Alix Partners, with savings of $300 to $1000 per car right there. Labor costs are about $1.20 per hour in India, less than what auto workers make in China, this provides more cost savings. Tata plans to supply kits to dealers who will do the final assembly in small workshops. This distribution strategy will save Tata another chunk of costs, as about 20% of the car's cost is in distribution in the USA. ...

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The US view of the response by India to a terrorist attack in Phalgam, Kashmir, Indian Union territory with strikes on terrorist camps. J.D. Vance US vice president says- “Our hope here is that India responds to this terrorist attack in a way that doesn’t lead to a broader regional conflict.” “And we hope, frankly, that Pakistan to the extent that they’re responsible, cooperates with India to make sure that the terrorists sometimes operating in their territory are hunted down and dealt with.” Vance was forced to cut short his visit to India after visiting Jaipur, Rajasthan in India when the terrorists with a history of aid from Pakistan killed 31 tourists in Phalgam, Kashmir. A long history of terrorist or militia trained in Pakistan has led to  terrorist incidents all over the world for the last three decades including the Kashmir and Afghanistan conflicts, the last having drawn Russia and the US into long wars which depleted their resources and led to loss of many lives. Yet much of the media remains oblivious of this in the US and Europe, and how it has led to the rise of China using this period of conflict under Bush and Obama since 2000, and the access to US, EU technologies and assistance. ...

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Angela Merkel left Germany dangerously dependent on Russia for energy supplies that may simply be shut off after maintenance on the Nordstream pipeline. She did even worse on China says this report in The Times that says that it leaves Germany on the hook for billions. There are $200 billion of German investments in China and German business concern is snowballing with new restrictions on operations in China and the deteriorating business sentiment. Worse the entire supply chain for solar energy and other renewable energy products to tackle climate change is dependent on Chinese components. Another failure to prepare for the future under different scenarios. And 46% of German business have supply lines that include components made in China. By grossly underestimating the risks of such dangerous dependence on Russia and on China, and ignoring warnings from the US, Merkel has hit Germany's new elected government of Scholz, Baerbock and Habeck with very serious problems that may take the next five to ten years to sort out. On energy and how to build a whole new supply chain in Asia with the US and its allies Japan, India and other countries. The ultimate irony was that Merkel felt that she was the leader of the free world, and a free world that excluded the US and India. Such is folly. And how she was presented as a good leader in the media is today hard to comprehend. ...

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Zelensky is going to Hiroshima to make his own case for support directly to all G7 leaders. The fact that G7 leaders are meeting in Japan also has significance as Japan unlike Europe with NATO faces Russian presence in its northern islands and China in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, North Korea, with only the American defense agreement in any conflict. Japan, Australia and India would want to see a clear end to the conflict in Eastern Europe that also sends a message that the status quo will be preserved on Taiwan and other issues in Asia. 

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The Indian Supreme Court on July 27 upholds the core amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)  which gives the enforcement authority, the Enforcement Directorate ED, the powers to make summons, arrest, and other powers to enforce the law. The Supreme Court called the PMLA a law against "the scourge of money laundering." After independence in 1947 some of the problems that Mohandas Gandhi witnessed in the early Congress party ministries allowed by the British in the 1930's became a part of the political fabric as accepted ways of operating. It is only in the last decade that these practices have come to be seen as inconsistent with the development of the country and ones that would have been rejected outright by Mohandas Gandhi as inconsistent and repelling to his India of Hind Swaraj. In a 545 page judgement the Special Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkarm Dinesh Maheshwari, and CT Ravikumar, stated that- "This is a sui generis (unique) legislation... The Parliament enacted the Act as a result of the international commitment to sternly deal with the menace of money laundering of proceeds of crime having transnational consequences." Mohandas Gandhi would be appalled by how elected ministries operated in the India that followed in the first decades after 1947. Not only were some of the basic principles of honest government being violated, it was being done with such impunity that over time it crept into the culture of how things operated in India, destroying any confidence the people had in the responsibilities of government and its ability to deliver on those responsibilities. The Supreme Court has now taken up the task of restoring some of the integrity of Gandhi's Hind Swaraj with its statement that- "Money laundering is an offence against the sovereignty and integrity of the country." Money laundering the SC says is "every process and activity", direct or indirect dealing with the proceeds of crime. Justice Khanwilkar wrote: "Today, if one dives deep into the financial systems, anywhere in the world, it is seen that once a financial mastermind can integrate the illegitimate money into the bloodstream of an economy, it is almost indistinguishable. In fact the money can simply be wired abroad at one click of the mouse. It is well known that once this money leaves the country, it is almost impossible to get it back. Hence a simplistic argument  that Section 3 (offence of money laundering) should only find force once the money has been laundered, does not commend to us."   ...

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There is a connection between crumbling infrastructure in Europe,US and India and tax evasion. Because it is massive with many large corporations not paying taxes in fair sharing of tax responsibilities, and some tech companies paying no taxes, it is how we got to this situation of crumbling infrastructure and not enough funds to rebuild our economies. In India digital solutions and a unified GST tax system,  introduced by the prime minister, are some solutions. A wider solution is a minimum corporate tax that is supported by US, Europe, and India. The Pandora Papers is just one more set of revelations of this problem of tax evasion. The more open and within the law insidious form of tax evasion is that of large corporations not taking on their fair share of responsibilities. Only a culture change where it is considered a case of honor and respect to take on a fair share of the tax responsibilities as citizens would work. For this to make sense money cannot be wasted in distant lands and foreign wars, in corrupt practices, or wasted expenditures, every dollar has to go into infrastructure so that citizens can see their dollars at work as soon as they step outside- new bridges, new roads, new childcare facilities, social services that work, climate change investments, competitive technology investments such as the one in semiconductors built at home. This requires measurement of infrastructure dollars spent, results, and grading of the work done, deficiencies spotlighted. ...