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To get an idea of the scale of paralysis in the Congress party administration of Manmohan Singh in India in 2011-2014 consider this- more than $100 billion in critical infrastructure projects were held up by slow growth and red tape, according to estimates of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The Congress party was too preoccupied with fighting charges of corruption adding to the lack of leadership from Singh and Gandhi, and focussed on programs of subsidies for voters to prepare for the 2014 elections. In the last 12 months alone ending in March 2014, manufacturing projects of about $54 billion were shelved, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The climate of uncertainty led to Indian companies investing overseas, or simply holding back instead of investing in the Indian economy. Industrial production declined for the first time since the 1990's during the 12 months ending in March 2014. It is in this vaccum in leadership since 2012, and a seriously troubled economy, that the 2014 parliamentary elections were held. Impatient young voters- with about 100 million new young voters added to voting lists- gave Modi and the BJP party an absolute majority and mandate for coming up with new solutions to India's problems in jobs and infrastructure....

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A senior Indian diplomat, and former ambassador to China, Gautam Bambawale, says China's action in the June 15 clash at Galwan Valley was the worst violence since 1967. He sees it as a premeditated and well thought out action. His view is that India's relations with China will deteriorate further. That this was an action by the PLA to take territory to what it sees as the LAC or border. For small tactical gains he says "China has strategically lost India." This will impact trade and other relations going forward in his view.  Nothing of this sort was expected says Bambawale. All the agreements put in place since 1993, everything for tranquillity at the border, all the mechanisms, have now collapsed. Bambawale has provided a very lucid and clear account of the relations and the border issues. He goes on to say that Chinese observers have given reasons for the Galwan clash with PLA- that India should stay away from the US and other democracies such as the European Union. Some reflection shows that the opposite has happened. And further reflection would show that the same situation was repeated in the period of transfer from British Empire to Republican India, and from Nationalist China to Communist China from the period 1947 onwards. Different perceptions and different leaderships that gave the perception of gaps between the two countries. In the 1950's after the Korean War Chinese perceptions about India could have led to the incursions that brought China to the borders of India in 1950, similar perceptions of gaps in development and capabilities could have led to the conflict in 1962. From 1993 peace prevailed with India after China entered the World Trade Organization under president Clinton in 2001 following a 10 year effort. Because the focus in China was on development after a series of crises, internal sense of a widening technological gap with the US and Europe, disagreements with the Soviet Union, and the experiments with market economy, internal struggles for democracy. With that period coming to a close as the new trading relationship has led to working class losses in factory jobs in the US, China is faced with protecting its economy as it and the US look at changing supply channels and how it affects both countries. It is a critical time for China as it faces governments in US, France, UK and Canada determined to protect their own interests in manufacturing jobs, renewing supply channels, and in technological advancement. The response is similar to that in 1962 when seen from the Communist party perspective as a gap has opened up with India following China's progress in the 30 year trading relationship with the US and Europe. That gap and the difficult situation China faces today with the US and EU in trade and technology has brought forward the Galwan clash and future clashes in Ladakh and at the border.  As Mr. Jaishnkar, India's Minister of External Affairs as well as former ambassador to China,  has pointed out this is a very different aspirational India that China faces. The same kind of grassroots development that happened in China and rapid pooling of capital, human resources and technology inputs for development is taking place in India, and will continue for the next two decades, quickly bridging any gaps in modernization between the two countries. The difference between a youthful population in India and aging population in China and Japan, is likely to add another dimension. China's Buddhist culture that came from India is not likely to go away, more likely is that China will see a revival of Buddhist ideas of wellness and living more as culture than religion. The experience with British colonialism that prevailed both in India and China, and which from its base in India caused so much grief to China during the Opium wars will recede from memory. Extending borders from historical memory of Japanese incursions into border areas in Manchuria could have led leaders after 1950 in China to extend borders to remote areas in the Arunachal region of India and communist theory books may have created the perception of defensive moves. In the context of an aspirational India similar to China, and no real intention on the part of India to extend itself in any way to China's provinces in Sichuan, this extending of borders as a defensive move will be seen as stemming from memories of Japanese incursions in the 1930's, but simply costly and not relevant in any way to China's own aspirational development and progress. ...

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Looking back Mohandas Gandhi's effort to prevent separate electorates was an important contribution to today's rapid industrial development and modernization of India. Delivery of infrastructure, education, healthcare and other improvements could not have been delivered as they are today with weak governments. Gandhi understood clearly the effects of divide and rule and how this had led to over one hundred years of disinvestment in India by 1900. Even after 1950 it took another 70 years for governments to follow the experience of Japan and China and rapidly modernize. Separate electorates as suggested by Ambedkar for lower castes would only further weaken India, as would communal representation of that type. Not integrating the one third of India that was under princely states would have had the same effect. Sardar Patel grasped clearly the effects of not integrating these princely states would continue the effects of divide and rule. In this way the foresight and wisdom of Gandhi and Patel have given a new generation of leaders the sound fundamentals on which to build a modernized nation, the largest democracy, and a nation with a young population that is fulfilling the aspirations of its young people. ...

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India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington D.C. that estimates have been made of what the British took out of India over two centuries and this has come to $45 trillion in today's value. India suffered humiliation for two centuries from 1756 to 1947 with British rule. The country was "bled" and this was first documented by a member of parliament Dadabhai Naoroji in 1901 in London in his book explaining the causes of India's deep poverty in his book with the title- Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. For the first time detailed financial figures were put together on what Britain took out of India and India's Mohandas Gandhi says this was how he learned about how much India suffered economically under British rule with the neglect of agriculture, the peasants and landless laborers making up the vast population of India. Taxation was burdensome on a poor population during most of the period. Railways and mass communication only helped keep the vast region together under British rule and most of the budget went into security and policing for the Empire. Investment in industry or agriculture was neglected for most of the nineteenth century and half of the twentieth. Strangely the first Indian edition of Naoroji's book was only in 1962 with most Indians unaware of what had happened and where this was first documented. Even Cambridge educated Nehru looked at the railways and mass communication as British contributions to india when in actual fact this was of a strategic security aspect for the British in a vast region, and little was done to improve the standard of living of the people in the villages who worked in subsistence agriculture. Gandhi's task was to increase awareness at the grassroots level of the condition of the country. Something he never hesitated to do even writing to the Viceroy who was in charge directly showing how the budget in the 1920's was entirely lacking in any funds for India's development. This letter can be seen today in the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the museum for Gandhi in his home state of Gujarat. One of the lesser known facts about the independence struggle is that Gandhi wrote a little book in 1910 with title "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship making its way back to South Africa from Britain where Gandhi led a deputation for rights of Indian coolie laborers in South Africa. I picked up this book at the original home of Gandhi and his parents in Porbandar, India, recently. In this book "Hind Swaraj" written in 1910 we find astonishingly all the details of the planned struggle for independence that were to happen over the next 20 years. In 1930 with a new edition Gandhi wrote that he had followed this unchanged for 20 years and would change nothing except one line in the book. The book in 1910 was promptly banned by the government of Bombay, yet Indian editions appeared soon afterward. It is written in question and answer format with Gandhi himself posing the questions which he answers, some challenging his view of India, Britain, Indians and the British. He did not blame the British, and called for Indians to take responsibility for letting the British rule in India happen and what was the best way out.  ...

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As part of Gandhi 150th the Hindustan Times gives pictures from archives of the independence struggle and Gandhi's efforts to get the British to quit India. After a period of 21 years in South Africa as a lawyer for rights of indentured laborers (coolies the British term) and of Indians in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1914. He followed the program of personal responsibility starting with himself, that he had written in "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship from Britain to South Africa in 1910, for the next 20 years. He did not blame the British, and asked Indians to take responsibility for what had happened, and write a new chapter.   A period of home rule in the provinces with Congress party administrations in the 1930's ended by 1938. Gandhi launched the Quit India movement in 1942 with leaders Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and Jawaharlal Nehru. The end of the war and the rejection of Churchill in Britain's post war election in 1945 led to a Labour government led by Clement Atlee that sent Lord Mountbatten to negotiate British withdrawal from India. Gandhi saw clearly that in a country largely of rural labor in subsistence agriculture, getting people to learn about their own dignity was a first and indispensable step.  Once this was done, home rule administrations could pick up the experience of local government  (Hind Swaraj). His idea was that a few tens of thousands of Britishers focussed on trade as the British were a nation of shopkeepers, in the midst of hundreds of millions of people with a new found  sense of dignity and participation in political life, would make the British realize there was little advantage in staying. By the end of the war in 1945 experts looking into the archives show John Keynes advising the British government to withdraw because the cost was too great for Britain to remain, particularly after the war had drained a lot of Britain's wealth. ...

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PM makes a point at G7- should not the 1.4 billion people of India most of whom are poor have the same access to energy as the people in the rich countries of the G7? It is to ensure this access to energy for the over 1 billion people in India that India has sourced oil from all countries when geopolitical tensions have made the price of oil to jump to new highs. Modi told a session at the G7 meetings- "All of you will also agree with this that energy access should not be the right of the rich only- a poor family also has the same right to energy. And today when energy prices are sky high due to geopolitical tensions, it is more important to remember this thing." Modi said that it was by "taking inspiration from this principle" that "we delivered LED bulbs and cooking gas door to door in India and showed that millions of tons of carbon emissions can be saved while ensuring energy for the poor." Never before in history has this been done on this scale as hundreds of millions of women have benefitted in poor areas where cooking was done by burning wood, and electricity did not exist. Water by tap water in every home, cooking gas, and electricity are now within the reach of every family in India.  Has G7 even thought of these things? And of the scale of the challenge that is being met and the future challenges for climate, technology and health that are being tackled on an unprecedented scale? ...

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The protest vote in Uttar Pradesh is just that a protest vote intended to get a message that the work of the Modi government to modernize and industrialize the economy needs to be accelerated to see its effects felt in rural agricultural areas of Indian states. Modi said yesterday- "If you work for ten hours I will work for 18 hours" showing that he sees the need for acceleration, even harder work ahead to modernize and industrialize India.  Disconnect with lower caste untouchable voters called Dalits and economic distress felt from the effects of the pandemic, decades of neglect that take time to correct in one of India's largest and least industrialized states Uttar Pradesh, led to prime minister Modi failing to get most of the 80 of 543 seats as it had done in three previous elections. Lower caste Dalits form 20% of the population, other lower castes another 40% of the population and 20% are Muslim voters. With this mix of voters and the time it takes to modernize and industrialize its economy in a state that was neglected for over 60 years the Modi government's best intentions have not delivered election results in the state in 2024 after the pandemic. Delivery on schemes for sanitation, clean running water, affordable housing, cooking gas for poor households, that have brought 250 million out of poverty nationally and about 40 million in Uttar Pradesh alone, was overlooked by voters, and younger voters. This does not change the path of modernization that countries such as China have taken and which require a strong administration with full public support working with industry and all parts of society to build infrastructure and manufacturing rapidly over 15-20 years. In China this happened from 1990 to 2010. In India this will take 2014- 2030 to achieve. In Bihar, UP, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, in all these states with large areas of backwardness in development the only path to realize the aspirations of the people is the path offered for modernization by prime minister Modi. The protest vote of 2024 is then a way of saying to prime minister Modi that the level of development needs only to be accelerated to see its benefits for hundreds of million of people in rural agricultural areas. ...

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Twenty years after Japanese prime minister Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2004, Japan's PM Kishida plans to talk to North Korean leader Kim. Koizumi had talks with Kim's father in 2004. The effort is to reduce tensions in the region with elections approaching in Japan, India, and the US in 2024, and to bolster the sense that Japan can manage its role in the region. The Europeans are doing the same as the French and the British are taking a bigger role in Europe during Ukraine conflict. After the Gaza conflict, the Houthis in Red Sea maritime channels, there is a sense that reducing tensions proactively is a better approach rather than wait for things to take their own course in directions that are not good for the world, or taking rigid ideological or other motivated positions that serve no constructive purpose and exacerbate tensions. Gandhiji used to say "tit for tat makes the whole world blind." It is not idealistic to say that but very practical and useful because if you do that you end up with situations where you lose leverage and ability to take positive action and come up with better outcomes, than if you let some unforeseen event or some events by other actors without proper motives to intervene to your serious and the world's detriment. ...

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Anton Harder in this Wilson Center publication of research uses correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and his sister Vijaylakshmi Pandit ambassador to the US in 1950, to show that the US made an offer for India to take a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. India had supported two resolutions on June 25, and June 27, first condemning the invasion by North Korea and second the organizing of a UN force of 29 countries to push back the North Korean invasion. Even though the US is not seen as actively engaging with India during that period and seeing through British eyes the colonial policies of encouraging  different powers in South Asia, that may not be true.  Who was India's foreign minister in 1950? Jawaharlal Nehru was both prime minister and foreign minister till 1964, which means there was less discussion of foreign policy than happens today during the Ukraine invasion with Jaishankar a career diplomat with 30 years experience, Rajnath Singh, and Mr. Modi, in talks with president Biden recently, and in further discussions Modi had with EU's Von der Leyen and UK's Boris Johnson, Kishida of Japan. Who was India's defense minister in 1950? Baldev Singh, a Sikh independence struggle leader was Minister of Defense for 1947-52 and tackled partition of Punjab and Kashmir issues. The rest of the years to 1957 when India faced the Chinese invasion of Tibet India's defense minister was also for most of the period Mr. Nehru, except Ayynagar in 1953, and Kailash Katju in 1955 and 1956. The controversial V.K. Krishna Menon was Defense Minister from 1957 to 1962, when Indian defenses were further neglected leading to the Chinese invasion of India in 1962, and his replacement by Yashwantrao Chavan. The purpose of this is to look back at what happened in earlier periods to understand where India stands today- and what choices it makes today. Clearly the US was looking for allies then and now. Nehru saw things from his own reading of history seeing China and India as both suffering from western invasion, not realizing that China's experience under Mao was different- that of Japanese invasion and bombing of China's major cities not just colonization of Hong Kong and other ports for trade under British trade based policies in 1850-1900. Thus a Communist Chinese version of China's defense involved taking over border regions such as Tibet putting China in direct and open opposition to India. Nehru never really grasped what was happening in Tibet and the war China fought against the Nationalists. American general Stilwell loved China deeply and had an understanding of its people as shown in Tuchman's account in her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945. Stilwell during that war had a better understanding of China, the strengths and weaknesses of Mao's China and of the Nationalists under Chiang, than Nehru. Some of these errors post 1950's and a concentration of foreign, defense and embassy positions in the person of Mr. Nehru and of Nehru family member such as Mrs. Pandit led to the Indian failure to act on Tibet and see it as see it for what it was -facing a Communist Mao led China that had fought the Japanese invasion as different from Bodhidharma's China of the history books. Bodhidharma's China will outlast Mao's China, yet it is Mao's China that India faces today. This also tells us that India has to think in new ways- as Lincoln said during a period when America was also making its own progress as an industrial nation in the 1860's. "The dogmas of the quiet past are not adequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew, we must act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." India's values are values of democracy heightened not just by Mohandas Gandhi's ideas with Hind Swaraj written in 1910 just as powerful in 2022, but also by the heights of Ladakh where elections are held in remote regions of the Himalayas. India's values are values that are also shared in the best that America has in its values and culture and in the defense of freedom.    ...

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With vaccine hesitancy in the US the goal of vaccinating a large part of the US population is still elusive. Less than half of the US population is fully vaccinated as of July 30. The vaccination rates in the US are now much slower than India even taking into account the population difference. The vaccination in India is at the rate of 4 to 5 million a day for the past week in India. In the US this report in The Guardian shows 4.7 million vaccinated in the past 2 weeks. On July 30 856,000 people were vaccinated in the US compared to over 5 million in India.  Newspaper reporting that encourages vaccine hesitancy people to delay getting vaccinated because of poorly reported headlines is adding to vaccine hesitancy in the US. This has led to much frustration at the White House. The threat of the Delta variant is making more people to take vaccination. Southern states are seeing a jump in vaccinations. Many prominent Republicans are now endorsing vaccination.  One of the problems in tackling the Delta variant is the confusing nature of the CDC guidance on masks. On May 13 CDC issued guidance saying masks were not necessary indoors and outdoors. Now 3 months later in July the CDC says the threat of Delta variant means mask wearing is essential particularly indoors because of the higher transmissibility of the delta variant.  ...

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India's challenges in securing $1.3 trillion in capital over 5 years for infrastructure spending. This is needed including capital from the private sector to support government funding, so that India can build the infrastructure to create new manufacturing hubs that compete with China as the world's manufacturing workplace. The Biden administration's determination to compete effectively with China using is own supply chain in Asia, and the EU's plan to follow what the Biden administration does, is likely to create a new kind of environment by 2024-2025 that will create a steady flow of capital to India and other parts of Asia to finance this effort for rebuilding its supply chain. The Biden administration is seeking to build a culture change from the old culture pushed by Reagan type free marketers that delivered lost decades in manufacturing and jobs in manufacturing for the US. Biden's State of the Union message was clear- "Folks we're just getting started. We're just getting started." By 2024-2025 the Adani story may just be a footnote to this story as other manufacturers and investors pick up the infrastructure challenges facing the US, EU and India for a new supply chain for the Free World built around self-reliance. The Ukraine war and China incidents such as one that happened recently, will accelerate the rebuilding of the new supply chain on the part of the US and the EU with partners in Asia. And change decades old assumptions and trade relationships over months, not years. ...

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Between 2016 and 2019 Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado had 40% increase in visitors. It has only 4 toilets in at Longs Peak 14,000 feet high, a frequently visited spot by hikers, each miles apart. The park is itself 265,000 acres and with Denali, Alaska, Mt. Rainier, Washington state, one of the top frequently visited park areas in America. Some of the worst work in the world is getting the waste in these older abandoned toilets which don't work anymore out of there as this can breed some of the bacteria that could harm people, animals and vegetation.  TecToilet at $4000 a piece has provided a temporary solution being used at some parks. This is to separate the urine from the waste which proves to be a breeding ground for bacteria, and sent the waste separately to a deposit container, which is taken out by helicopter. This solution is very costly. The parks not well funded and having faced cutbacks from a bad staffing situation to begin with end up being behind on needed facilities and maintenance. The 3 decade waste of capital led by Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and cheered by official media, has to take responsibility for this deplorable and absolutely crazy situation in America. More people are visiting national parks and national forests, and open backcountry in the mountains, especially after the pandemic, yet the jewels of America have to justify essential funding?  India is tackling the situation of toilets in a big way for sanitation in the country after centuries of neglect. Millions of toilets are being built at low cost. What is needed is for Indian engineers to come up with a design for India's own national parks, including the parks in the Himalayan regions, which have the same problems facing the national parks of America for toilet waste. Other countries in Europe need to be researched for solutions that may already exist and new designs made at lower cost in India that can tackle the decontamination and disposal of the waste on site without the cost of helicopters taking it out.      ...

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It took 75 years for a British prime minister to visit Gandhi Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. George Bernard Shaw, the English writer, in a handwritten note at the Nehru museum in Allahabad after meeting Gandhi says "ask somebody 100 years hence" about Gandhi's contribution to the world. Today it is more clearer than ever. Mohandas Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj on a ship from South Africa to London in 1910 after negotiating with the British government on behalf of Indians in South Africa. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and used his savings to buy 110 acres of land for the ashram on the banks of the river Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. By 1923 Gandhi was questioning the expenditures of the British government that did little for the development of the country and a budget that was focused on military expenditures, in his magazine Young India, with nothing for developing the country except for railways and transport. Gandhi launched his non cooperation movement for self-rule or Swaraj from the Ashram. By 1937 elections were held and the first provincial assemblies were set up in an experiment for self-rule. In 1930 the Salt March for noncooperation in the British salt monopoly, salt seen as the common man's right, was launched from the Ashram. In 1942 the Quit India movement was launched in the middle of World War II. In 1945 after Labour party's Clement Atlee won the election in a landslide against Winston Churchill the path opened for Britain to start negotiations with Gandhi for independence. In 1947 India was free. Why 75 years for a British prime minister? Much of the period after 1950's was lost in the recovery from partition, wars on Kashmir, China's entry into Tibet and the invasion of India. The non aligned movement under Nehru and Indira Gandhi and successor governments to 2000 appearing more as voicing a grievance for being left out led to an ambivalence of the US and UK towards India, and reflected a period when India was small in economic terms and lacked the opportunity to find its place in the world as a country with the largest population in the world. Which today with with Bangladesh and Indonesia sharing a common history of Hinduism and Buddhism represents 1.6 billion people. In the Nehru home museum in Allahabad there is a hand written note by British writer George Bernard Shaw who visited India and the Nehru home. It says it would take maybe 100 years before the world realized the significance of what Gandhi had done and only at that time would the world truly understand Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Boris Johnson's effort to make up for 75 years that went by without UK prime minister's visit to Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad is one such moment that George Bernard Shaw had seen coming.  George Bernard Shaw's handwritten not at the Nehru Museum in Allahabad says- "What is the place of Mahatma Gandhi in political philosophy? I do not know. Ask somebody a century hence. I recollect Gandhi as only a very likeable fellow- Mahatma from India. We did not talk Mahatma shop."       G. Bernard Shaw            28/6/1947     ...

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Anand and Fairclough describe the aspirations of millions of young Indians stifled by the last few years of inept governance under the Congress party in India. Economic growth dropped to about 5% as the government did little to increase investment and growth, leaving India further behind nations such as China, Japan and S. Korea. The speed with which foreign investment in plants in Gujarat by the Tata Group, Bombardier and smaller companies such as Germany's Duravit took place, contrasts sharply with the red tape under the federal government of the Congress party and prime minister Manmohan Singh. Duravit's head of its Indian unit says the process was corruption free, fast, and had to be seen to be believed. Tata Group's head Ratan Tata, was a strong supporter of Modi after the Tata Group built its plant for manufacturing the Nano small car in Gujarat. The decisive mandate from the election, including the decisive vote from young people, the strong support of the business community in India determined to move ahead after 3 years of stalled governance, and the low starting point in areas such as electricity development and regions of the country lacking essential infrastructure, gives Modi a unique opportunity to put India on the path of good governance and rapid economic development....

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The purpose of the National Education Policy was to prepare India's young people for India as a developed modernized country and to meet the educational needs of such an economy. The idea was to break the idea of silos based education that separate the science, engineering, medicine, law, arts, humanities, languages based education into separate non mixable parts. It is based on the idea that in modernized economies one needs critical thinking abilities, creative thinking, that mixes the humanities and arts with sciences, with engineering, and other scientific fields.  Because of India's diveristy, history of disadvantaged populations, to build an inclusive economy is also a goal to tap into the widest pool of human potential and talent in a country with 1.2 billion people. For this to happen the goals are set for inclusivity for gender and disadvantaged populations.  What is not in NEP is the investment part, and the governance part, both critical for it to be effective. Investment at 4-6% of GDP is inadequate, as this Brookings report point out. For healthcare and education, India has to expand its share of GDP dedicated to these two areas to make it comparable to other advanced nations. This will pay off in infrastructure development and exports led growth as inputs of education are key to get productivity up in manufacturing and in R&D. Governance is essential part of this overall plan as the public school system in India as in Brazil, Mexico and other countries suffers badly from a lack of attention- with discipline, transparency, good government, increasing incomes and rewarding teachers at every level. ...

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Stock markets have declined about 1% during the current banking crisis. This shows that the action taken by president Biden quickly taking over Silicon Valley Bank and closing Republic Bank is working. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the central banks of US, EU, Swiss, worked together to take immediate action. Swiss central bank and the government stepped in to arrange the backing for UBS to takeover Credit Suisse bank.  The crisis affected market sectors in differing ways. Information technology stocks were up 5.7%, energy stocks went down by 7%, bank stocks declined 6%, sensitive materials sector stocks went down by 3.5%. Risks remaining are that the loss of confidence in regional banks could affect lending. The Fed's policy of containing inflation by raising interest  rates could continue say experts leading to information tech stocks losing any gains. Any drop in the price of oil could help the economies of the US and EU, India, Japan and China. By March 15 prices of US crude had dropped for West Texas Intermediate benchmark to $67. Any drop of prices to the $60 level increases growth in the EU, US, China, India and Japan, reducing chances of a recession. ...

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This article in The Indian Express shows that even though Subhas Chandra Bose differed with Mohandas Gandhi during the late 1930's, Bose had a deep respect and affection for Gandhi in mobilizing the Indian people for Swaraj. Bose's relationship with Nehru and Patel were of people at the same level and appeared to compete for attention compared to the relationship with Gandhi which was one of mentor and follower. In the end Bose's restlessness at British refusal to negotiate Swaraj and Gandhi's patience led to Bose actively resisting British rule in 1940.  Mohandas Gandhi had deep faith in the Bhagavad Gita and believed the lines in the Bhagavad Gita where it says- "Whenever, O descendent of Bharata, there is decline of Dharma, and rise of Adharma, then I embody Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of Dharma, I come into being in every age." Gandhi wrote in his Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita on November 11, 1930- "God dwells in our hearts as the holy spirit within us, and when yearning for knowledge, like Arjuna, we take our spiritual difficulties to Him, and seek his guidance, seek refuge in Him, He is ever ready to instruct us." The other way in which Gandhi differed was in his deep insights and views of the British as a people that Bose lacked. Some of this came from his days in London and some of this from his days in South Africa working with and negotiating with the British. Mohandas Gandhi says in Hind Swaraj in 1910- "The English merchants were able to get a footing in India because we encouraged them. When our princes fought among themselves they sought the help of Company Bahadur. That corporation (British East India Company) was vested alike in commerce and war. It was unhampered by questions of morality. Its object was to increase its commerce and make money. It accepted our assistance, and increased the number of its warehouses. To protect the latter it employed an army which was utilized by us also. Is it not then useless for us to blame the British for what they did at that time? The Hindus and the Mahomedans were at daggers drawn. This too, gave the Company its opportunity, and thus we created the circumstances that gave the British control over India. Hence it is truer to say that we gave India to the British than India was lost. The causes that gave them India help them retain it. Some Englishmen say they took India and they hold India by the sword, both these statements are wrong. The sword is entirely useless for holding India. We alone keep them." Gandhi''s view of India was of a nation of shopkeepers, even citing Kruger of South Africa when he was asked if there was gold on the moon. Kruger said likely not, for if there was the British would have annexed it. By 1945 when Gen. Wavell, the Viceroy wrote back to London that he would require more army divisions to control India than Britain could afford, or the British people had the will to support or had commercial interests worth protecting after the war, the British moved up the year of their withdrawal. And began the negotiations with Gandhi for independent India.  Gandhi also says that in his reading of Vivekananda's writings the love that I had for my country became a thousand-fold. Gandhi looked to Vivekananda for inspiration in some of his ideas on Swaraj. Bose says Vivekananda's writings sent him into raptures yet saw Vivekananda "simple as a child" not realizing the spiritual strength Vivekananda had drawn from which overcomes all. As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita- "I am the Self, O Gudakesa, existent in the heart of all beings, I am the beginning, the middle, and also the end of all beings. Of the Adityas, I am Vishnu, of luminaries, the radiant Sun; of the winds I am Marici; of the asterisms, the moon."   ...

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Reducing income inequality and increasing farm incomes would increase consumption spending and investment for further growth in the Indian economy. Investment in infrastructure development is another source of growth. Higher oil prices and the bad loans in the banking system are barriers to increasing growth of the Indian economy. The problems during the last 2 years of the Congress led UPA government, including the bad loans in the banking system and the uncertainty after corruption cases including the telecom auctions, required that the Modi government take strong action in the first year. 

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Greg Ip tells India's story, piped water for hundreds of millions of Indians, massive increases in road and rail, rapid development of infrastructure, aviation, ports logistics. WSJ graph shows country growth of economies for Japan, China, India, Germany in 2000 and 2020. By 2000 Japan had grown its economy to become about half the size of the US economy with two decades of rapid growth since 1980. China repeated this process with two decades of hyper growth since 2000 to become about 75% of the US economy by 2020. The graphs also show Japanese growth tailing off so rapidly after 2000 in relation to the US economy that it is now only about 25% of the US economy. China is likely to follow the same path as growth slows and with an aging population to become about 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from 75%. India following the process that happened in Japan and in China is likely to become close to 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from about 18% today, with the fastest growth over the next two decades for the most populous country in the world. Greg Ip points out what has been achieved since 2014 with the Modi government. Good governance without leakages of public funds dedicated to infrastructure, ease of living, GST one India one tax so that growing pool of funds from taxes fund rapid development with no leakages to corrupt officials,  Swacch Bharat or Clean India, clean water from taps, electricity and cooking gas for the whole population of India with dates for completion. All this Ip calls removal of the shackles that existed for far too long even past 2000 and 2010 when China had vastly surpassed India from its low point in 1980 after Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. India today is in as much a pace of development as China in the 1990's and Japan in the 1960's, except that it now has the benefit of grasping how development can be done in a way that does not affect climate and health in adverse ways as happened with China's hyper growth -which also led to the tragic loss of manufacturing for workers and communities in the US and Europe due to the economic theories of laissez faire of the Reagan era. Reagan theory for governments not working with industry that were applied indiscriminately during the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies for three decades led to shipping manufacturing overseas with no regard for the risks and dangers. What Greg Ip fails to mention is the uniqueness of India that is united by Vedanta, Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years, and which keeps the fabric of society together when it is divided by 13 language groups. These 13 language groups are: Hindi 43% of the population, Bengali 8%, Marathi 7%, Telugu 7%, Tamil 6%, Gujarati 5%, Urdu 4%, Kannada 4%, Odia 3%, Malayalam 3%, Punjabi 3%, Assamese 1%, English 1%. It was the vision of the early leaders Vivekananda, Gokhale, Mohandas Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, that united a diverse country with many languages and cultural variation. And it is this vision of Vivekananda that is creating the Good Governance under Sab ka Vikas, Sab ka Viswas, Sab ke Saath, Sab ka Prayas of today- development for all, with the confidence of all, with the support of all, the efforts of all. Without a disciplined direction based on hard work India could not make it this far or fulfill the aspirations of its youthful population by 2040. ...

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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Over 50 countries have asked for negotiations with the US over reciprocal tariffs imposed by the US on April 2, 2025. US president DJT says- “There will be fair deals.” DJT says a number of foreign leaders have contacted the White House since April 2nd.  Israel, Japan, Taiwan are beginning negotiations with the US over tariffs. Britain, South Korea and India will follow. The European Union is waiting for an opportunity to do the same. “They’re offering things to us that we would have never even thought of asking them for, Nobody but me would do this.” With China the situation is different and China is unlikely to negotiate. "We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us,” says the Chinese embassy in Washington DC. After DJT said he would impose a 50% tariff on China over and above the 34% of April 2nd if China does not take back its retaliatory tariffs. This would happen on Wednesday April 9. China says it would f"ight this to the end." A sign that the USTR will try to get other nations to come up with deals and tackle China separately. ...

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Bill Gates resigned his seat on Microsoft Board on March 13, 2020. This report in the WSJ looks at the situation at Microsoft in late 2019 when members of the Microsoft Board hired a law firm to conduct an investigation in late 2019 after a Microsoft female engineer's letter. This was a company that Gates founded and which expanded through acquisitions of other smaller companies.  The same day he resigned his seat on Berkshire's Board led by Warren Buffett. Mr. Gates started Microsoft in 1975, was CEO till 2000, and chairman till 2014. He then turned to work with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   Microsoft has market value of $1.8 trillion, Apple a value of $2.1 trillion.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of $37 billion income of $53 billion, and the personal assets of Bill and Melinda Gates have an estimated value of $130 billion. One of the mistaken assumptions is that any one foundation such as the Bill Gates foundation has the resources, knowledge, technologies, expertise and leadership to tackle problems that confront large countries such as the US, India, or a bloc such as European Union. Imagine some billionaire taking on the role of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt in tackling the Depression or a billionaire tackling the problem India faces today in public health. It is only governments of the US, India and large nations such as the UK that can pull together the resources needed and the cooperation needed between its industrial base companies to achieve goals for public health. This type of effort can pull together resources of trillions of dollars that no one company or billionaire or group of billionaires can put together, and pull together massive resources of engineers, scientists, and other people across hundreds of companies that cannot even be measured. This is one of the lessons of this pandemic because the WHO was left with the job of handling the pandemic and governments of US, France, UK, Germany, India, Russia and leading nations had retreated from their essential role as guardians of the public interest in people's health and left much of the task to others. As they reassume this role this needs to be given a firm and solid footing and lessons learned. ...

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WSJ's Andrew Restuccia and Michelle Hackman look at another deportation of about 1 million people of Mexican descent in 1954 under the Eisenhower administration. It looks at the human toll. Many of the people were brought in to tackle the shortage of men to do farm work and harvest crops during the war period 1941-1945.   The alternative proposed by Biden and senior Republican senators McConnell and Lankford and supported by most senior Republicans is the tough immigration legislation drafted by Lankford that president Harris has pledged to sign. In 1954 the US economy was a small fraction of what it is today and struggling from the aftermath of the world war and the Korean War. The US economy would suffer shortages of manpower in construction and farm work that would reduce economic growth by about 1%, from the effects of a 1954 type plan and from the distraction for American focus on chips, science, and manufacturing that is needed to compete in a new world of India, China in addition to Japanese EU competition. States such as Kansas in the midwest feel this shortage, and in the Carolinas in the south, Red states and blue face shortages. Kansas is actively seeking new legal immigrants and welcoming them as shown in the WSJ. This is a different country than 1954 and this must be recognized or we will fall behind China, Japan and India. Cultural literacy is world knowledge and was proposed before by the Exxon Foundation and E. D. Hirsch in 1988. This needs to be revived so that children like Harris who know enough about American history, language and culture to be productive American citizens- as they learn in school and through interaction with fellow citizens in the neighborhood and libraries- can become the norm. There is no reason this cannot be done effectively with the resources committed to this from the federal and state governments in tens of billions of dollars, including to the library system, community colleges, community civic education centers, and to literacy and world knowledge sites such as Lyrarc.com, Wikipedia and Britannica.com. ...

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The world would need 3 Germanys to provide the resources that one Germany consumes today. Earth Overshoot Day looks at the sustainable resources and how much each country consumes of resources. By July 28 planet earth had already consumed all the natural resources it could sustainably regenerate for the year. Experts say Earth would need three quarters of another Earth to provide the amount of resources consumed by our planet today. Everything makes a difference as European Union plans to cut energy use by 15%. Drying clothes on a line instead of in the dryer, shorter hot water baths, turning off lighting for monuments in cities, changing household lights to LED's, lowering the thermostats by a few degrees in winter, cutting out meat for just one or two days a week. The way Overshoot Day works out the arithmetic 1970 was the year when Earth passed the line where sustainable resources that could be regenerated and the consumption of these resources were equal. From then on it was a wild spree in places like Germany and then China, and it is how countries like India take up the work of renewable energy and limiting use of valuable resources that will affect the future. ...

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People have to take charge of their own lives by eating healthy food and lots of fruits and vegetables, to reduce obesity in this pandemic. Studies show that people with obesity were twice as likely to end up in hospital, and 74% more likely to end up in intensive care. Efforts to rid our diets of sugary drinks and junk or processed foods need to be escalated, and exercize, walking, cycling, other activity need to be made part of our daily activity. This needs to be taken up as a fight for life, a war against decades of neglect and reckless behaviour in eating habits.  Even vaccines will not work well when body mass index BMI is over 30. Obesity has reached unbelievable and scary levels - 66% in the UK, U.S., high in the Middle East, and increasing all over the world. Added risk is high smoking levels in China and India. Coca Cola takes the place of water in parts of Mexico where obesity is high and Mexico has suffered from high coronavirus cases. ...