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

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Areas for growth for the Indian drug Industry include the large growing domestic market, the outsourcing by US drug manufacturers, and sales in other developing countries of Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa. Analyst estimates are that India will spend $30 billion a year on drugs to improve care for its people in the next 10 years up from $8 billion today. And the distribution network is being developed by drug companies insdie India to reach more people. Also companies like Pfizer plan to double outsourcing of manufacturing drugs from 10% today to 20%.

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Iran missile attack on Diego Garcia UK base in the Indian Ocean, March 22 2026. This is a ballistic missile attack 2500 miles or 4000 kilometers from Iran. One missed and one was intercepted by an American destroyer ship near Diego Garcia. 

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The Indian budget for 2024 calls for an investment in infrastructure of $134 billion, an 11% increase from prior year. The economic growth in the last quarter was 8.4%. For fiscal 2024 the growth estimate of government of India is 7.6%, the IMF forecast is 6.7%.

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The debate in the Constituent Assembly 1948 which let the draft words remain for the name of the country in Article 1 of the Constitution- "India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states." Members expressed their thoughts on the inappropriateness of "India" and called for it to be clearly stated as Bharat, referring to India as the English name, or foreigner given name for the country. The movement of Gandhi that fought for and secured independence was based in the minds of the hundreds of millions of people as a movement for Bharat. 

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The new bridge over the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir, India, is the highest in the world. The Indian Express shows pictures of this civil engineering achievement.

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Iran Proposal that asks $2 million per ship to be split with Oman for opening the Hormuz Straits- April 6 2026. China, Japan can pay this amount to get the 90% of the oil they need from Hormuz, which would go to reconstruction of war damage in Iran. India would shift some of its purchase of oil and gas to the US and so will Japan over 2027-2028. This would result in a shift away from the Persian Gulf dependence to renewable energy and to buying oil and gas from US+Venezuela as more reliable sources. European Union and Britain would also make this shift as shown in the adjoining article by Prof Geoffron of Universite Paris Dauphine in Le Monde. The proposal also requires US and Israel to commit to no future attack on Iran, and Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US and DJT call the new regime under a Speaker of the Iranian parliament, an elected president who had to respond to people sentiment in the election, and a grandson of Khomeini, one that is easier to talk with than the earlier regime. The problem remains nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles development that the US has as its sole objective which is what the war is about than Hormuz as the US and DJT say Hormuz is China and Japan's problem where for some strange reason these industrial powers import 90% of their oil from Hormuz and have done this after 40 years of disruptions, a mystery they can solve on their own. ...

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The rapid gains in Indian digital public infrastructure have interoperability and can benefit other countries. Digital public infrastructure plays a crucial role in providing inclusive access to public services effectively and efficiently. Countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, and countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam in Asia, countries in Africa, can benefit from the Indian experience. This topic  is part of the G-20 discussions in India.

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In three months since August 2011, the Indian rupee has fallen from 45 rupees to the dollar to 52 rupees. Analysts at HSBC see a decline in the value of the rupee to 58 rupees to the dollar. Foreign investment in India declined from $6.5 billon in June 2011, to 616 million in September 2011. The Indian economy is expected to see a sharp slowdown with growth estimated at 7.2% in the current fiscal year down from 8.5% in the prior year. Inflation is at over 10% for the last 12 months. The sharp drop in the value of the rupee is expected to worsen inflation. India's imports exceed exports by $80 billion. Any increase in exports in a slowing global economy will be offset by higher cost of imports. India pays for oil and other commodity imports in dollars, and subsidizes fuel and fertilizers, which would lead to a worsening of the large fiscal deficit. It is in this environment that the Congress led government decided to open up the retail sector by allowing 100% ownership in single brand retailing, and 51% in multibrand retailing. Foreign retailers will be allowed to setup stores in cities with more than one million people, of which there are 53 cities in India. Other restrictions are 50% of the required over $100 million investment has to be in back end infrastructure, and 30% of goods sold must be bought from small companies, according to Commerce minister, Anand Sharma. Each of India's 28 states would compete to individually permit retailers to open stores in their state. The investment in the retail sector will come over a number of years....

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This NYT article on India's Olympics preparations focuses on Neeraj Chopra, in javelin. In actual fact the Indian Olympics efforts is now supported by the government of prime minister Modi with his personal involvement at many levels. Funding is now provided by the government to athletes on a scale and in ways that never happened before. India;s Olympics athletes batch was personally invited to the prime minister's residence and Modi gave apep talk to the athletes including some useful advice from him and from seniro Olympians. One of the pieces of advice from Modi was to concentrate on the task at hand and not get distracted by the many things happening in Paris and the excitement of being at the first Olympics. Modi has also told athletes as he has for India's Space program to the Moon that a loss or a failure to achieve on the first try means you only try harder and learn the discipline required to achieve what you set out to do.

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The Speaker of the Indian parliament, Mr. Om Birla, calls an all party meeting in an effort to raise the level of dialogue and discussion in parliament. The prime minister Mr. Modi, and Mr. Rajnath Singh meet Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam SIngh Yadav of the Opposition parties.

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What the lockdown looks like on Day 23 in India from the Indian Express. India is one of the largest countries hit by the virus and one that took early and aggressive action.

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Plant based foods are good for health, and good for fighting climate change. When choosing vegetables and fruits pay a lot of attention to seasonality. One can also take inspiration from other cuisines- Lebanese, Israeli, Mediterranean, Italian, Japanese, Indian. Plant based including millets are anything but boring. In fact Indian cooking experts used millet and plant based in the G20 cuisine in India recently for all guests. There is a lot of room for creativity in the cooking.

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Lee says India started fom alower base but has made greater gains for the rural poor.India's urban-rural income gap has steadily declined since the earlier 1990's. And in the last decade economic growth in rural India has outpaced growth in urban areas by almost 40%. Rural India acccounts for almost half of the GDP, up from 46% in 1993. Lee points out that in the period of Deng's reforms right upto the Tiananmen Square massacre China made 80% of th poverty reduction, but since 2000 poverty and illiteracy have doubled in China, while they have been halved in India. DOmestic consumption as apart of GDP has fallen to 35% from around 60% in the 1980's. Lee is a foreign policy fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, and avisiting scholar at the Hudson Institute.

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Indian hockey team coach for the Tokyo Olympics says the 16 players on the team show remarkable mental resilience. This report in the Times of India shows his approach to training the team as it reaches the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. In the period before 1980 India was dominant in field hockey.

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The failure of the northern electricity grid in India and the huge power outage in 8 states affecting 369 million people on July 30, 2012. This includes the capital city of New Delhi. The outage was a result of the northern grid taking more than its quota of power from the national electricity grid in India. Analysts say India has a shortage of about 10% of electricity needs. Over half of India's electricity generation capacity of 205 gigawatts is based on coal. Coal India which is the largest producer has failed to meet growing demand and the coal shortages are making it difficult to expand power capacity. The national plan is to increase capacity by 44% in 5 years.

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The world's larges vaccine supplier Serum Institute of India syas it will not be able to meet its target production of 2 billion doses for 2021. It says vaccines will not be available for export from the Institute till the end of the year. The Indian government has initiated an effort to diversify its vaccine production by distributing it among many suppliers in India's large pharmaceutical industry so that constraints at any one supplier would not affect the overall supply for use inside India and the production that can be sent overseas.

Another setback was seen in the US as 100 million doses of J&J one dose vaccine at a Baltimore plant are being checked for contamination.

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Maruti Suzuki plans to introduce a new model to replace its best selling Alto model in India. Declining demand for gasoline powered cars compared to diesel in the Indian market, because diesel costs 4% less, led to total sale decline of 11% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, to 1.01 million cars. Maruti sold 308,228 units of the Alto, which also declined by 11%.

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The U.S. perception that the shadows from the period of non-alignment in the Nehru era still linger in Indian policy, a sort of ambivalence that has denied India's true potential as an alliance partner for the free world. A perception in the U.S. that has not seen the true potential of the largest population in the world of 1.5 billion people in India and Bangladesh has also colored perception of the relationship. This population is now at a point at which a broad based development is not only possible (sab ka vikas sab ke sath) but also moving at an accelerated pace. With a combination of cumulatively increasing inputs of technology, capital, land and educated labor force this is now at the potential of becoming a very doable world changing event by 2035- a $20 trillion economy by doubling every 5 years based on renewable energy and dedicated to health, education and development. What makes this a world changing event is the opportunity to meet the aspirations of about 2 billion people in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and surrounding nations, offering new hope for Africa and Latin America. For this the U.S. commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence, and the Indian commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence. India needs one more change in its perceptions - to realize that for the first time in its history that this is within its reach. ...

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The success of India's Mangalayan mission to send a spacecraft to Mars in 2014. The project's key achievement is to have accomplished this at a cost of only $74 million. By contrast a U.S. mission cost $671 million. A 33 pound payload of small sensors in a 3000 pound spacecraft was propelled into orbit by a small rocket.

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India's foreign exchange reserves reached an all time high of $545 billion in October 2022. By December this had dropped to $561 billion because of the central bank RBI's effort to maintain the value of the Indian currency in relation to the US dollar. This is at Rs 81 to the the dollar in Dec 2022. India' needs healthy foreign exchange reserves to finance imports for its industrialization and investment efforts to modernize the country. Inflation is also a priority to keep the cost of living at levels that provide affordability. This is at about 5% in Dec. 2022. Finance minister Sitharaman cited this as key achievements. Including large foreign investment inflows as part of changing the supply chain to include India as a manufacturing hub for the west. This sets the stage for long term growth.

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This report in the WSJ on the Indian economy says the impact of growth in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with 240 million people will play a big part in the growth rate of the Indian economy. It fails to say why. The answer is good governance, investment in infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing, a huge pool of tens of millions of engineers and hundreds of millions of factory workers. The lack of a large enough investment pool of investment funds and  failure to eliminate leakages from corruption, the lack of a plan such as the current Master Plan Gati Shakti for the whole Indian economy, lack of governments at the state and federal level combining setting targets and delivery dates for infrastructure roads, bridges, airports, logistical hubs, factory for advanced industry, lack of governance entirely focussed on delivery and timelines, were the missing pieces in development in India for 5 decades since the 1960's, a period in which as Mr. Modi says repeatedly Japan, Korea, China moved ahead and India fell behind. Does this potential exist only for Uttar Pradesh? India's industrialization model started in Gujarat, population of 72 million under Modi as head of the state government from 2001-2014. It now covers the western region of Gujarat, Maharashtra population 128 million and Rajasthan population 82 million  the region around Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur of about 282 million people. This will be the fastest growing region and the engine that will propel the Indian economy in the years ahead. Uttar Pradesh in the north is integrated into this development. So is another region Bihar population 104 million and Orissa 46 million, Assam 35 million states in the northeast of the country with a total of 185 million people. What do all 3 regions of over 700 million people have in common? The answer is state and federal government working using the Gujarat tested and proven model for development, rapid delivery, good governance, government working with industry, large investments in infrastructure and modernization, Make in India hubs for manufacturing, digitization. ...

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VW hopes to expand in India with a plan to increase market share from 2% to 10%. VW has a plant in Pune, and Skoda has a plant in Aurangabad. In contrast to China where buyers look for high tech features such as mobile connectivity, buyers in India are looking for affordable cars of good quality. VW is interested in the Indian market because further growth of car sales is expected doubling from 3 million cars in 2016 to 6 million in 2030, according to CAR automotive research center. As part of the long term expansion VW has formed an alliance with Tata Motors, a leading Indian automaker.