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Either China or India was going to at some point develop the Brahmaputra river known as Tsangpo in Tibet where it starts for hydroenergy. It turns out that the modernization of China preceding India's by 20 years and the occupation of Tibet in 1950 has put China in the position of developing this river with a huge dam. The Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states of India is the same river that is called Tsangpo in Tibet when since 1000 China had little physical contact with the region greatly remote from Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The Brahmaputra in its Tsangpo stretch of the river in Tibetan region originates at lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailas and on a map can be seen as very close to Guwahati, Assam and distant thousands of miles from Beijing. The dam will include 5 hydropower stations, produce 300 billion kilowatt hours and cost $170 billion. Two decades of rapid growth in China supported by the US with technology and capital have given China the capital needed for this type of scale of investment in renewable hydro energy. It will produce as much energy as the UK used in 2024. ...

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The Rupee is moving close to 80 to the US dollar with increase in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve. The IMF expects the Rupee to go past 94 to the dollar in 2029. India's Reserve Bank is interested in carefully managing the steady decline so that business decisions can be made with some measure of stability. The weaker rupee will help increase exports at a time when India's is raising its logistics capabilities and creating the capabilities on the ground that will give India a key role in the new supply chain the US and the EU are building in Asia.

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Trade Agreement talks will begin in December between India and Sri Lanka as Sri Lanka looks for ways to bring back growth following a 9.2% contraction in the economy in 2022 and estimated 4.2% in 2023. Mr. Weerasinghe at the International Trade Office setup under the presidential secretariat will represent Sri Lanka. Engaging in trade with India and China and regional countries is part of the plan to restore growth. Sri Lanka's exports to India were about $980 million in 2021 and imports $4.74 billion. This time Weerasinghe says we must avoid taking rigid inflexible positions and strive for a win-win for both sides.

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The federal government in India provides support for loans to farmers on the interest rates paid after the interest rate increase by the central bank RBI. An additional budgetary provision for Rs 34,856 crores has been made for this purpose for the period 2022-2023 to 2024-2025. It will keep interest rates below 7% for farmers. This will support agri-loans of upto 3 lakh rupees for farmers in India. This is to provide adequate agricultural credit for the rural economy of India. Short term agriculture credit would be at 4% interest per year when loan is repaid on time.

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Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and Britain, has edited a collection of essays in a new book titled- Pakistan: Beyond the "Crisis State." It tries to form a new construct to move the debate on Pakistan into a future in which Pakistan can exist as a "normal country" free of a paranoia about India that affects its outlook, and free from the military connections that have shifted the focus from development that a friendly neighborly coexistence with India would provide. Intriguing essays include one by Saadat Hasa Manto who goes back to 1951, when the Cold War was at its peak and the U.S. formed a relationship with Pakistan based on military assistance, with only small fraction of aid going into development programs. Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad puts it directly: Pakistan needs to become a normal state and the only way to to do this is for the rivalry and obsession with India to be resolved and put behind it. As it now stands the U.S., India and Pakistan all stand to gain tremendously in such an outcome- the U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan and the Taliban because at its core the Taliban issue goes back to the Pakistan rivalry with India, Pakistan and India because it puts the focus on development, infrastructure building, and economic gains....

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GST is to India what land sales were for China in its phase of rapid development and accelerated growth. It consolidated capital that could be then invested at the national and state levels on infrastructure, logistics for exports growth, creating a virtuous cycle of capital growth that could finance ever widening scale of development projects from metros, subways, rail, roads, bridges, airports, ports, logistics, tech related improvements. This was done in 2017 through a midnight session of parliament that passed the legislation needed. Years of endless discussion were turned into one session of implementing a single major tax system for India, transparent, digitized with new IT  Infosys playing a key role, and providing the pool of capital that has financed 5 years of development to take India past Britain as the fifth largest economy. Its pace of growth over 11% and accelerating with Maharashtra's GST growing at 24% in 2022-2023 over the prior year suggest that this will play a critical role in giving India a large pool of capital for growth. To be supplemented with foreign investment to make New India as a modernized nation. With an economy that will be exceeded only by the US and should catch up to China over the next 10 years. ...

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India's pharmaceutical industry gets a major boost with the development of a mRNA vaccine by Gennova Pharmaceuticals called HGC019. Gennova is funded partly by the government and is being developed in conjunction with Seattle based HDT Bio Corp.  The new vaccine can be stored between 35 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit making it easier to distribute in middle and low income countries with less storage and logistics facilities. It also uses a process of freeze drying called lyophilization to produce the vacine in powder form. It can then be more stable and easy to ship, easy to store at moderate temperatures. The powder can then be diluted with a diluent before vaccination. Another part of the new technology of this vaccine is its use of self-amplifying mRNA instead of non-replicating mRNA. This helps to administer smaller doses with less side effects. India's drug regulator has already approved Gennova vaccine in August for second and third phase trials after the shot was found to be safe in early stage study. Gennova Pharmaceuticals aims to get HGC019 approved for emergency use by Indian authorites this year and manufacture 60 million doses by December end. ...

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Tata Projects Limited is the lowest of two bidders at 860 crores for India's new parliament building. The old parliament building is considered inadequate today and was first opened in 1927 when the British first introduced local legislatures as a form of home rule in India. The time allowed for it to be built is a strict 21 months and will require putting a new face on the central Vista area that runs through the centre of New Delhi. It should generate jobs, and provide a fitting place for debating the many issues that face India in its drive for modernization, particularly today after the pandemic when many issues such as manufacturing, industrial development defense, agricultural modernization, infrastructure development are taking on new urgency. After almost three decades of slow progress India is now entering a new phase for speed and implementation of projects.

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Apple's 5% smartphone market share in India lags behind Sony at 9% and Samsung at 40% for 4th quarter 2012, according to Canalys. India is expected to become the third largest market for smartphones after China and the U.S. A major problem for Apple is India's multilayered distribution network, says Apple CEO Cook. Government rules require Apple to source 30% of parts in India to be able to open its own store network. Apple is also working on lower priced smartphones for the Indian market closer to Samsung's starting price of $111 for Galaxy smartphones in India.

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US foreign direct investment to China goes down 40% in 2020 to 2022 compared to the period 2015 to 2020, for India this was up by 20%, according to IMF. India was the only G-20 country that received this level of foreign direct investment. Prashant Jha of the Hindustan Times correctly points out that the IMF paper and the model on which this paper is based are flawed. The paper sees countries based on alignment and India as a so called non aligned country not part of friendshoring, even though Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has openly called for friendshoring in India alongside finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. IMF experts have not caught up to Mr. Biden's remarks about the US- India relationship that it would be "the closest on earth." Closer even than America's relationship with Britain or Europe. On oil imports Biden and Jake Sullivan believe that after the pandemic India should import oil at the lowest possible cost to meet the long time denied aspirations of 1.2 billion people, and build the infrastructure that will make it a critical part of America's new supply chain. Every time there are military drills and blockade of Taiwan by China the people of America are moving a step further away from American companies that have overconcentration of manufacturing in China and closer to calling for a new supply chain that reduces concentration in China and builds new manufacturing in India.  ...

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Modi's success in tackling problems of electricity development in Gujarat state and the model for India, as a new Modi administration is elected for India in 2014. Other areas that are the focus for development include high speed rail and transportation, other infrastructure development, creating new jobs in manufacturing. Modi made three trips to China in the last decade as a four term chief minister of Gujarat state (similiar to a governor of a U.S. state), and has adopted a China type focus on infrastructure development and manufacturing for the western state of Gujarat, which was part of the old Bombay state in British times. Mumbai, the new name for the old British settlement of Bombay on the west coast, is about 300 miles south of the major Gujarat city of Ahmedabad, at one time a major textile manufacturing center. Mumbai and commercial minded people from Gujarat occupy a role similiar to Shanghai in India's economic development. Under British times trading minded Gujaratis settled on the east and southern coast of Africa, in the Persian Gulf, with retail businesses. Of India's two largest companies the Reliance Group made its early start in textiles in Gujarat in the seventies, set up by a young emigrant who returned from the Persian Gulf. The Tata Group which owns Land Rover was set up by a Parsi immigrant community in Gujarat. Its founder Jamshedji Tata set up India's steel industry under the British at the turn of the century. The Parsis settled in Navsari, Gujarat, immigrating from Iran and other parts of the Persian Gulf centuries ago. When the media talks of Modi's origins as a tea seller's son, one has to take this in the context of the origins of people such as Reliance founder Ambani who was the son of a schoolteacher from a rural village in Gujarat. With about a 1000 mile coastline facing the Persian Gulf, Gujarat has been known to engage in the textile trade long before the arrival of the Portuguese and the British in the 1600's, and before the Muslim period from the 1300's. Many Gujaratis settled in Mumbai and are a key part of the commercial, financial center in the city. Just as Britain with its commercial centre of London evolved over centuries with commerce affecting attitudes towards democracy, free media and capitalism compared to more feudal France, Gujarat and Mumbai has evolved in a similiar manner compared to other states in the north of India. With all the media infomation and misinformation on Modi's mishandling of communal riots little has been said of the unique position of Gujarat and Gujaratis in the industrial development and modernization of India. Compared to other parts of India historically there is a greater degree of tolerance in Gujarat for other communities, similiar to Britain's compared to France and Spain, because of this commercial outward looking orientation for new ideas. ...

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In a historic visit Chinese president Xi Jinping visits Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram). Chinese Buddhist scholar and monk Xuanzang spent time in India, arriving in 627 AD to look for Buddhist manuscripts in Nalanda and other places, returning to China in 643 AD, where he translated these manuscripts deepening China's knowledge of Buddhism. Bodhidharma the son of a Pallava king in southern India left for China in 527 AD bringing Buddhism to China. The Pallava dynasty ruling in southern India at this time had trade, religion and cultural connections with  Fujian province in China. Chinese president Xi was a governor of Fujian province and has a strong interest in history and culture. This follows a visit by Xi to Ahmedabad with its Gujarati culture, and prime minister Modi's visit to Wuhan, China in 2018 to bring the two leaders together in personal relationships. India and China are also increasing cultural contacts and tourist visitors with easy visa arrangements. The idea is that currently a huge gulf in understanding exists between India and China, which contradicts the historically close relationship with the spread of Buddhism from India to China, Japan, and South east Asia. Mamallapuram is now a UNESCO historic site.   ...

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Pictures of Queen Elizabeth in India in the Hindustan Times. Nehru receives Queen Elizabeth at Palam Airport.

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iCET Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies is a new program that was agreed to between president Biden and prime minister Modi at the Quad Summit in May 2022. It has the focus of building the US relationship with India for advanced and emerging technologies in the competition with China, and also as a way to expand India's role in the US and EU supply chain arrangement. Its first inaugural dialogue happened this week between Jake Sullivan NSA for the US and Ajit Doval NSA for India. The goals of iCET are To seek to build supply chains which increase co-production and co-development between the countries  To increase linkages between the countries startup ecosystems To broaden defense innovation and technology cooperation To build resilient semiconductor supply chains  Space cooperation STEM talent Next generation 5G and 6G telecommunications cooperation The US will speed up approval of GE Engines making of engines in India for light combat aircraft manufactured in India. ...

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Prime minister Modi of India says India has take a step forward for bringing in the people of the Global South into G20 discussions. India, he says, has set a path for getting development to the last mile, the last person in the public who in previous years was left out. This was done through digital infrastructure for bank accounts for hundreds of millions of people, cooking gas stoves for women in rural areas, housing, tap water for every one of India's households, sanitation including toilets, road infrastructure. Much of this was done at low cost with technologies that can be transferred to  a billion people in Africa and 700 million in other parts of Asia such as the Philippines and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. This is the lasting achievement of the G20 first in Jakarta, Indonesia, and now in New Delhi, 24 months of leadership of Modi and Widodo of Indonesia as partners. It is also why Mr. Modi was in Jakarta just one day before the G20 Summit for ASEAN meeting that brings India into close relations with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations).  ...

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Tech is not going to fix this, say software experts from tech companies. Google and Apple's efforts in coming up with an app have fizzled out, says this report in thee WSJ. Has the U.S. lost precious time in waiting for an app by tech companies to be developed, instead of doing what India and Britain have done. India introduced its own app Aarogya Setu app from the Indian government. Britain had the National Health Service develop its app. India acted quickly. Is an app needed or essential? Germany decided that contact tracing based on Asian country experience was mainly about human contact tracers with skills to make the phone calls. All they needed was a centralized database on a computer and a phone. Germany set up teams at offices in each district in Germany and quickly plodded ahead even if all the offices were not fully staffed. In fact a third of the offices needed more people and resources. Yet the speed of action is something like 80 to 90% of the contact tracing effort when the team has the skill set to call. This is because clusters of infections do not wait - they spread. There is simply no time to waste. The German effort has produced the best results so far of any country of this size- Germany has 85 million people. The reproduction ratio is at 1.13 and Germany remains vigilant. It is the first country to reopen in Europe, and is methodically doing the right actions, much that the world can and should learn from. Contact tracing teams worked round the clock in the early days, they are still hard at work today, using their human skills to talk to people and find out who they were in contact with, calling the contacts in turn, at each step working to isolate where needed with followup calls from the state health departments. ...

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The US ambassador to NATO says she welcomes India joining Japan as a visiting participant at NATO meetings.

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The meeting of G7 leaders and of leaders from India, Indonesia and Argentina, South Africa, ended with a sense that economic sanctions the preferred tool against the Russian invasion are not working after 3 months. Discussions with India, Indonesia and other poor countries show the need for the developing countries for access to their large populations of oil at reduced prices from the recent skyrocketing prices. With oil and energy purchases made by China and India and other poor countries for reasons of price discounts from $125 per barrel oil, Russia is able to sell oil in other markets making up in price for the drop in volume. 

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LNG prices have declined in 2024 to a fraction of what they were from $70 per mmBTU in 2022 with the Ukraine war to about $10 in Jan 2024. India's state owned Petronet signed a 7.5 million ton LNG deal for 20 years with Qatar at the reduced prices. For the world it is a good thing as India moves to natural gas from coal when about 60% of the increased pollution in 2013-2021 is coming from India by some estimates. This translates into climate change. The goal is to go from 6% for natural gas in energy mix in 2013 to 15% by 2030. Few people realize what this means outside India- that every additional dollar that was added to the nation's energy bill was a dollar not going to essential building of modern rail and transport infrastructure, into new colleges, into new health infrastructure hospitals, into logistics for manufacturing hubs, into digital and modernizing the economy. This during the pandemic has meant free rations of food for hundreds of millions in the rural areas which have been continued into 2024. It meant accessing at the lowest possible price, buying at the right time, and buying oil and gas from a wide range of suppliers. WSJ's Megha Mandavia looks at this effort.  ...

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Does a 10% reduction in tariffs on China with the October 30 2025 agreement- made in Busan South Korea at APEC meetings- make a difference for companies relocating from China? It only does for smaller companies who are stuck with Chinese sources. Larger American companies prefer to diversify their supply chain and continue to relocate part of their factories to Vietnam, India and other countries knowing that the tariffs game will end up with allies EU, Japan and India in the 10-15% tariff range as a concession to US for putting up with trade disadvantages and job losses 2000-2025. China's will still be at 47% in comparison and the fentanyl issue causing serious questions to be asked by the American people which have not been grasped in China or even in the US by companies and politicians.   Does it affect the urgency and general shift out of China? The fentanyl issue is unlikely to change and it is likely to do lasting damage to China's credibility to a degree that it not clearly understood in China, and even not fully grasped even in the US today because of the sheer size of the number dead- more young Americans dead from fentanyl than in the Korean, Vietnam and First World Wars combined. Other issues are technology that has been transferred without a proper assessment of the importance to national security, the need to shift the manufacturing base back home that US industries have inadvertently and carelessly shifted to China in the disastrous Bush and Obama years 2000-2016, and for the jobs, the wages, and cost of living concerns when supply chains are outside one's control. This article asks the question about tariffs on India and Brazil as being contradictory and showing a lack of consistency in tariffs. India is compared to China with India facing a 50% tariff because of Russian oil purchases, and Brazil a 100% tariff related to treatment of former president Bolsonaro even though US has a trade surplus with Brazil. One expects that at some point India and the US will come to an agreement that lowers the tariffs in a way that was done with the European Union to bring it closer to 10%. China's tariff to be sure is still around 47% dropping from 57% a concession for rare earths and for the upcoming elections and economic concerns not because of policy intent which has not changed on  strong action for fentanyl which is also part of the Appeal to the People in the DJT base.   ...

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Economic growth in India has slowed to 6.9% for the June to September period 2011, compared with the prior year, according to a government report. The sequence of rate increases by India's central bank have failed to slow inflation, and foreign investment is declining. Economists now forecast growth at 6% for 2012, a low rate of growth for India, which has a growing population approaching 1.2 billion people and serious infrastructure problems. This creates a scenario of stagflation- high inflation and low growth. The fears are now for a combination of high government debt, infrastructure issues, and lack of foreign investment. This is leading to moves by the Indian government to bring up long delayed efforts in the area of opening the retail industry to foreign investment. And lifting quotas on foreign ownership of Indian bonds, allowing foreign pension managers into India. The value of the Indian currency has declined 15%, in 3 months since August 2011. The eurozone crisis and the combination of slowgrowth and high unemployment in the U.S. are leading to foreign investors withdrawing from emerging markets, with a sharp impact on India. A combination of domestic and international factors are hitting India after two decades of high growth. ...

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On the eve of 2024 elections on a scale never seen in the world from Rajasthan desert to Himalayan mountains to the sea, PM's site looks at the themes for development that have evolved into slogans and captured the imagination of India. Development For All, Development With All, is the "Sabka Vikas, Sabka Sath" slogan that has captured the imagination and vision of the young generation of Indians. For development at speed and scale to reach 2047 with the transformation of India into a modern nation with infrastructure and per capita incomes similar to the US, EU, China or Japan. 2047 is the centenary year marking 100 years of India as an independent nation. In the interview with ANI shown alongside PM Modi discusses the problems of modernization of a region of immense diversity, history, and cultures. 2047 providing a point of focus for achieving the transformation, a transformation that is being taken up with the cooperation and support of the US and the European Union that are building a new supply chain which integrates India as a major manufacturing nation . ...

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Another pitch for spin bowlers at the Ferozeshah Kotla grounds in India before the 2nd cricket Test against Australia.

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...