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The number of countries visa free entry is the wrong way to give passport rankings as learning from other countries and cultures, learning about their scientific advances and manner of thinking is key to the huge changes that happened in Asia- in first Japan by 1900, South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, by 1960's, China by 1990's and India by 2010- as the people of these countries interacted with Europe and the US. Interaction with Europe and the US is key for Asian nations.  This happened even earlier as Americans by 1880's interacted with Europe through ship voyages across the Atlantic in 7 days. This brought knowledge of scientific advances and ways of thinking from Europe to the US accelerating pace of industrialization in the agricultural economy in the US in the 19th century.  In 2025 the visa free access for US and EU to some of the advanced Asian nations, Japan and China is key to bringing back knowledge of scientific and other advances to the US and EU.  India and China should be compared. At Munich and other German EU airports China has the kind of visa free and fast track entry that does not exist either for the US or India. The writer experienced this on a recent visit in 2025 with a US passport denied entry to the fast track lane reserved for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other travelers. India's bureaucracy, and US's lethargy, and the sheer lack of serious effort comparable to China and Japan in getting fast easy access to EU is to blame , particularly for the travelers who are most likely to gain from such interactions, the educated middle class and business people of India and the US. One could go so far as to say that one of the keys to China's advances is its ties to Germany and Hamburg and entry ports in Netherlands to the EU. EU is the source of technologies and of scientific knowledge freely available to China 1990-2025. For this to happen advanced logistics and ship- port building had to take place. India must do the same and much faster than anything that happened before 2025 at a pace as fast as China's if it is to reach it's potential in the world economy alongside the US and EU. ...

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

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Barkha Dut says it is unacceptable that the Modi government- elected after corruption scandals in the previous Congress party government- allow the cronyism and collusion between business and government that existed under the Congress party in India. The $1.8 billion fraud at state owned PNB bank has drawn attention to banking and bad loans in India. Dutt  cites an Indiaspend report that shows in 2016 and 2017 5200 "wilfull defaulters"  made up bad loans given by the state owned banks of $8.65 billion, larger than the government allocation for farmer and agricultural welfare. Agriculture and rural farmers still make up a large part of the Indian economy and national elections results can be determined by how well the farmers are doing. In the recent Gujarat elections in Modi's home state the lower farm support prices for cotton farmers in Saurashtra region of the state led to Modi's BJP party losing that region in the state, and barely winning the election in the state with a thin majority. As a result the farm support prices for an extended list of farm crops was increased to 1.5 times the cost to farmers in the new 2018 Modi government Budget. To maintain a  steady industry and business policy for industrialization and modernization any Indian government needs the support of farmers. Modi has raised the issue of bad loans in the state banking system as being generated under the previous Congress government in a speech to parliament. A cleanup of bad loans in the banking system is needed to generate growth and investment for the Indian economy. Good governance in the country's banking system and vigilance of regulators is needed along with this cleanup of bad loans, as public confidence is shaken. ...

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As long as Vietnam could be used as a back door for Chinese products to be shipped to the US, US manufacturing efforts to make in the US or India were not going to work. WSJ looks at how the US 40% tariff on this kind of surreptitious shipment through a third country makes the goal of manufacturing in the US and in India possible. This is intended to address China's policy to continue to overproduce with huge overcapacity in most manufactured goods which it's domestic market cannot absorb. This hurts industries in the US and EU and is happening in 2025 after 20 years of such practices have destroyed much of the manufacturing base in the US and EU, that has severely impacted communities all over these countries. It also affects India's ability to build a manufacturing base that can serve the world and reduce concentration in one country, opening up options to make in a different way to serve the interests of the people of the US and European Union. ...

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The huge challenges faced by a nation of 1.2 billion people and its border relations with China are the subject of this interview with the Australian Envoy to India. He says India faces some unique challenges but shares the same values of all the democracies in the region and in the world. He says rhetoric is one thing and practical action is another, saying that the QUAD is moving at that level.

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The changes Har Ghar Jal Mission for clean safe drinking water for every rural household by 2022 is making a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people in India. Shown in this video on Har Ghar Jal is its implementation at the local level in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with a population of 228 million people near New Delhi.

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Declan Walsh's article published on May 19, 2013 in the NYT, was written and reported before his expulsion by the Interior Ministry of Pakistan. It surely must rank as an exceptional piece of journalism and possibly the best that has been done on Pakistan in the U.S. media for decades. Walsh focusses on the Pakistan Railways once part of the British Indian Railways which pulled together all of South Asia from Burma and the Afghan border to Ceylon, an engineering feat accomplished by the British which integrated India (and Pakistan) into nation states. He takes a cue from the India patriot Gokhale's advice to the the young Mohandas Gandhi to travel by rail to see India, its agricultural interior and small towns. Walsh rides the Awami Express from Peshawar near the Afghan border to Karachi, in Sindh province. Along the way the train passes Sukkur, crosses the Indus river, reaches Lahore in the Punjab province, and makes its way to Hyderabad in Sindh province near the Thar desert and India. Walsh stops at each point to talk with railway personnel, describes passengers, and the changing terrain. The strains on the society from extremist violence, the lack of investment in the railways, corruption, and railway ministry officials who diverted resources away from the railways, are described in detail, showing how conditions have deteriorated in the railways to this point. It also focusses attention on the need to modernize and rebuild Pakistan's railways. In China and in India railways play a huge role in the life of the common man, providing the major means of transportation and freight links for these large developing countries. By pulling freight business away from the railways and shifting it to businesses outside railways, a critical source of revenue was take away by a rail minister in the Musharraf government, which needs to be reversed. In the U.S., China and India rail freight business is a key part of the railway companies. There is a sense of despair in the railway people Walsh talks to, but his account also spells hope by bringing this to the attention of the outside world, to the public in the U.S. and Europe, even Japan, that what Pakistan needs is new investment, help with infrastructure. It sends a message to the new government to gird itself for the difficult tasks ahead to win the confidence of the people of Pakistan in a way that has not been done in the past. Falling behind is then both problem and opportunity in a modernizing world with new technologies that can transform the landscape....

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European Union growth in 2022 at 3.5% outpaced growth in China at 3.0% and growth in the US at 2.1%. India's growth at 6.8% made it the fastest growing economy in 2022.

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A look at plant based foods from India, good for the environment and one's health, on World Vegan Day.

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Inflation in India is at 9.1% in May 2011, compared to the prior year. GDP growth for the first quarter of 2011 slowed to 7.8%, from an annual rate of 8.3% in the fourth quarter of 2010. Other figures show the same trend. Local investment growth for the second half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011 was at 4.1%, a decline from 14.7% at the beginning of the year. Foreign investment in the first quarter 2011 declined 32% from the prior year, down to $3.4 billon. Car sales have also declined to the lowest rate in two years.

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Air pollution over New Delhi, India, and Lahore, Pakistan, is at "hazardous" levels, with a large surge in respiratory illness for people in the region.Some hospitals in the region are seeing triple the number of patients with breathing problems. The problem is aggravated by burning of stubble from the paddy crops by farmers in the nearby region of Punjab and Haryana. The levels of fine particulate matter PM 2.5 that are bad for lungs are hovering at dangerous levels of 300.  World Health Organization guidelines say 25 is the maximum level of exposure over a 24 hour period. Delhi administration responded by increasing parking charges in the city, and banning entry of commercial trucks, banning construction activity. This is a constant part of the news with many commentators critical of the way the central government, the Punjab government, and the Delhi government are tackling the situation, unable to enforce the ban on farm burning of stubble in the fields. Lancet medical journal points out that about 2.5 million lives in India were claimed in 2015 from air pollution. WHO puts 12 Indian cities in the top 20 for air pollution worldwide. ...

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This article in The Guardian looks at the role of British authorites in the Empire in the 19th and 20th century that led to famines. Under Lord Lytton in the 1870's and in 1943-44 in Bengal there were famines that were worsened by British policy. Throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century India's energies were sapped and its poverty deepened by the British effort to extract wealth from India through commercial policy and taxation. During the Napoleonic Wars Britain used its Empire in India to finance the war in a way Napoleon lacked.  .As can be seen in the British Residency park in Lucknow  British authorites focused their efforts on the Treasury of the collapsing Empires in India whom they replaced. The people seeing tax territories shifted from one foreign authority to another stretching over four hundred years with little difference in development needs being met. After a period of self-rule which struggled with development after Independence in 1947, India's largest state Uttar Pradesh with a population of about 300 million, is finally bringing sanitation, water, roads, housing and medicine to all parts of the state. ...

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Indian Oil's losses at its 17,800 gas stations in India run at about $76 million a day as prices do not reflect market prices because the government it to sell gasoline and diesel and cooking oil at subsidized prices.

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PM Modi says Indian Rail is an important part of the vision for Vikshit Bharat or Developed India 2047 as he opens the new Jammu division of Indian Railways. PM Modi described the infrastructure laid for the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link USBRL, the Anji Khad cable-stayed bridge, and the Chenab Rail Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir.

PM Modi says-

“I was watching a video of the new sleeper version of the Vande Bharat train running at the speed of 180 km per hour in trial. It makes me feel good. The introduction of high-speed Vande Bharat trains and the expansion of metro networks demonstrate India’s commitment to world class transport systems,” the PM said.

“This is just the beginning as the time is not far when the first bullet train will run in the country.” 

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In this report in TOI, Vijay Gokhale, former foreign secretary, points out the big shift taking place in how Germany like the US is paying attention to its mistake of overconcentrating its supply base and investments in one country, China. This type of overinvestment in one country does not make sense for a country for its supply chain, until one accepts that China succeeded to a great extent in building next generation infrastructure, logistics, and ease of manufacturing in China. India is only now learning this lesson- and Modi's experience in Gujarat stemming from studying China's evolution as an industrial nation. Lessons that are now being applied all over India to do, to build the kind of next generation infrastructure and logistics that would make it attractive to make in India and invest in India for Germany and the US. Gokhale describes the intense discussions that are taking place in the inner circles of all three parties, Merkel's CDU out of power questioning Merkel's policies of building so much concentration of business in China, the SPD questioning why it went along, and the Greens knowing that India is their natural partner and the one partner that thinks and acts most like the Greens Baerbock and Habeck. Baerbock is critical of the sale of a stake in Hamburg port to China. No other German leader is like Baerbock, who feels really at home in India in a way that few German leaders have during her recent visit. There is so much change in the Biden administration and in the three major parties thinking about China and how the future of the western nations rests squarely on India's shoulders and its young aspiring population of 1.2 billion, that even India under Modi's leadership for technological change and infrastructure has not kept pace with these changes. This is why Gokhale calls it tectonic. ...

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A key takeaway from the UN Population report in 2023 is the youthfulness of India's population. India has 1.428 billion people in 2023. 26% of this is in the 10-24 year age group. As much as 68% is in the 15-64 years age group. The fertility rate now at 2.0 is less than the replacement rate of 2.1. This is the number of children each woman has in her lifetime.

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EIA says half of the benefit of higher fuel efficiency standards for Automobiles 2010-2020 in US was lost because of SUV's and the incentivizing of SUV's in the 2006 CAFE standards have made things worse. The first SUV's came in the 1980's. By 2004 SUV's made up half of car sales and by 2025 outsold cars 2 to 1. What if we took all SUV's and large cars off the roads, or even some of these SUV's by deincentivizing of SUV's in the US CAFE corporate fuel efficiency standards? What would be the savings in crude oil and in carbon footprint? Would it be about the same as releasing an additional 400 million barrels of oil into the markets in addition to the 400 million barrels that are now released through EIA and member countries? This New Yorker essay touches on this idea. During the Iran war the volatile Middle East as a source of oil supplies is a major problem for countries. Some are rationing supplies and in one country 40 million children are not going to school for 2 weeks starting this week because of the sources of oil are so precarious, government offices will only have half of the employees, the rest working from home (almost like Covid pandemic). Many other countries face that situation. The International Energy Agency recently reported that, if “SUVs were an individual country, they would rank sixth in the world for absolute emissions in 2021, emitting over 900 million tonnes of CO2.” The agency says governments must redesign their CAFE standards and their policies so that it would reduce S.U.V. sales, tax gas guzzling vehicles. EIA cites governments in the EU doing this- “Some governments have already started introducing relevant measures, such as France and Germany, which have put a tax on large and high-emissions cars.” Within SUV's also there is an opportunity to reduce the size and make more efficient space utilization designs. Small savings also add up. One has to realize that the current freedom to use energy freely in places like the US with self sufficiency in oil comes with a sense of responsibility for using it wisely so that it can be exported to cut the trade deficit, precisely what the president is doing with India, to cut a trade deficit of $58 billion before it gets to $100 billion. Section 301 is already in place for investigations by the US of 18 countries for a new basis to use tariffs after the Supreme Court decision. A similar approach is taken with EU for hundreds of billions of reductions in trade deficit that will only strengthen the US dollar and the US economy in the long run , and be good for stock markets and jobs as it reduces oil prices and increases the manufacturing capacity/cost for the Nation. Europe, India and China can do the same. Remember that in 2010 SUV's made up 17% of total world sales, and by 2025 SUV's made up 46% of world vehicle sales. This would create another 400 million barrels for the oil markets, which would triple what was released through EIA  this week to 1.2 billion barrels and this would create 120 days of supply replacement for the 10 million b/d lost from Straits of Hormuz, and effectively end the Iran War as it would be clear that prices can be kept low even in the $50's. Essentially buying time till the SU can get more production in Venezuela and other parts of the world to replace much of the Middle Eastern oil that is ending up in a quagmire. This is the best way for the US and Europe, India, China to ensure jobs growth, economic growth with low cost crude oil in the $50 range and ensure much of the poorer countries like Egypt and Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have access to oil at prices they can afford and eliminate poverty. ...

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Ballooning debt at high interest rates under the Rajapaksa brothers government seen as a family dynasty has ruined Sri Lanka's economic prospects. The civil war did not need to happen as Sri Lankan or Ceylonese communities of Buddhist and Hindu faith had coexisted under British rule from 1802, and coexisted under Portuguese and Dutch rule since 1505. The combination of civil war, corruption, and mismanagement of finances, as well as mismanagement of agriculture, has hit Sri Lanka hard. In economic terms the several political dynasties from the Senanayakes, Bandaranaikes, and Rajapaksas have not served the country well just as the Nehru political dynasty has failed to deliver the kind of economic progress that China was making in the period 1990-2010. That period will be remembered mostly for missed opportunities. Today Indian states are struggling to free themselves from the trap of low aspirations, corruption, political families, as India's young people realize how much is being lost. Their aspirations are seeing a new surge with the passing of every year.   ...

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The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says in a new report that the cost of renewable energy production in India in 2020 is the lowest of 8 countries, including China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, U.S. It also points out that India has lowered the cost of solar energy faster than any other country since 2017- by 80% for the period 2010-2018. Solar energy for India in 2018 cost 27% lower than in 2017. Major achievements have been made in solar energy and are continuing with bold targets. In 2020 solar makes up 36% of total energy capacity, with production at 136 gigawatts. In India the conditions with high degree of sunlight in most parts of the country, and the technology cost reductions, lower cost of land and labor, help bring down the cost of solar energy every year. The bold targets and action taken are symbolic of the new efforts in India. The early efforts in India are described as overcoming the hurdle of preconceived notions that electricity shortages had to be accepted as a way of life. In Gujarat the first efforts over 15 years ago were taken by rejecting the idea that electricity could not be made widely and freely available. To do this policy had to be set by starting with first a clean slate and then with a clean heart say pioneers in India's early gains. A clean heart because of how desperately people needed electricity. And a clean slate because how desperately people needed to start from scratch with a new structure and new way of doing things set in place. As Vivekananda put it over 100 years ago "This I have seen in life. One who is overcautious about himself falls into dangers at every step. he who is afraid of losing honor and respect gets only disgrace. He who is always afraid of loss always loses." By taking bold action, making small experiments then setting bold targets and setting structures in place to execute manned with resources, India has achieved 4G in all parts of the country, and is doing the same for renewable energy to make electricity widely available in all parts of the country. ...

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Germany is becoming a key partner for India in its rapid modernization. German chancellor Scholz's visit to India following German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock's visit is a turning point for India's trade and manufacturing for advanced technologies relationship with Germany. Renewable energy, defense and manufacturing technologies are key areas for increasing cooperation. Baerbock brings youthful energies, enthusiasm, and new thinking to the relationship with India. A recent visit by Baerbock to Africa to return museum pieces to their original country showed Baerbock as something Asia and Africa have not seen in the twentienth or twenty first century from Germany- real spirit and understanding unparalleled in our time. As the German ambassador points out Baerbock had a great visit at the recent G-20 foreign ministers meeting in India.

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Experts say solar energy costs are going down by 30-40% every time the deployment of solar energy doubles in a country. The Modi administration plans to triple solar energy production in the next 5 years. This investment in solar energy should drive down costs from the $35 per megawatt hour in 2020. Experts say that costs are going down at a rate that was never expected.  For India the courage in making these investments in solar energy since 2010 and accelerated in 2016, are path breaking. This could be a world changing event for India as cost of energy can bring up living standards throughout the country. Gone will be the days when children lacked electric bulb light to read and study in villages in India. It also shows the need to heed Vivekananda's words: "This I have seen in my life- he who is overcautious  about himself falls into dangers at every step; he who is afraid of losing honor and respect, gets only disgrace; he who is always afraid of loss always loses." The pioneers in India pushing forward these new initiatives have listened to these words. ...

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China's prime minister Li Keqiang visited India in May 2013 with a trade delegation to improve trade ties with india. Trade between India and China is growing rapidly, with the growth in imports of telecommunications and power equipment, and consumer manufactured goods. Trade was at $76 billion in the year ending March 31, 2012 and is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015, making China the largest exporter of goods to India, according to Indian government data. The trade is lopsided with India's trade deficit increasing by 42% to about $40 billion in the last fiscal year. India is seeking improved access for its information technology and pharmaceutical companies to the Chinese market to correct the imbalance.

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BRICS is becoming an obsolete concept as Brazil, India and South Africa are essentially looking for ways in which they can increase opportunities for growth. It was a concept started by a Goldman Sachs investment banker Mr. O'Neill at a different time in 2010. The world has gone through the 2009 financial crisis, the pandemic, and the supply chain crisis with overconcentration of EU and US supply chain in China. These events are leading to a shift under the Biden administration to bring India  into the G7 into a new G8 that includes India. Only Russia, China and South Africa remain from the original BRICS. Russia because of the war in Ukraine now depends on Chinese support and trade. Brazil will gradually shift back to its position as part of the US alliance in Latin America with Mexico, Argentina and Chile. India with its plans for rapid growth to build the modern third largest economy by 2040 seeks supply chain integration with the US and EU in the position that China holds today.   ...