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Indian Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal says India represents only 2% of overall global exports. This means there is a great opportunity today to double this even as global trade slows because of the small size it is now and the policy of resilient supply chains sought by the US and EU. A country India's size and technological capacity would in normal situation have 10% or 15% of global exports he said, so that there was a huge opportunity for growth.

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Denmark plans a huge wind farm project in Germany on an artificial island with 200 turbines. This will be Denmark's biggest infrastructure project. Germany plans to reduce emissions by 65% over 1990 levels by 2030. This means projects like this will be needed. Denmark prime minister Witte is on a 3 day visit to India with renewable energy projects under discussion. Germany's Economics Ministry has set up a joint working group with Denmark. 

The new project will be the size of 18 soccer fields setup on this artificial island in the Baltic Sea, to generate 3 GW enough for 3 million households. After this the project second stage is to install more turbines, for a total of 650 turbines, according to Der Spiegel. The project will cost 28 billion euros ($32 billion) with energy planned flowing by 2033.

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The leader of the company Jio that pioneered 4G development in India, says India will grow at an unprecedented  acceleration to become a $5 trillion economy, one of the targets of the government. He says under the "atmannirbhar" vision of self-reliant economy, his company will lead the development of 5G in India in the second half of 2021 using home made technologies. Mukesh Ambani was speaking at the Indian Mobile Congress 2020.

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This WSJ report looks at the state of manufacturing in India in 2023. Foreign companies in renewable energy from Denmark, Apple Computer, and local companies such as Ola in electric scooters, are building factories and expanding manufacturing capacity in Sriperumbudur and other special economic zones in Tamilandu state of India. BMW and Nissan are also located in the state. It comes as friendshoring from the US is encouraging foreign companies to invest in India. There is a definite acceleration in the growth of electronics and machinery exports under the Indian government's Make in India plan. This report shows that India is in a learning curve in developing its manufacturing base. Not shown here are how the goals and execution of a sound overall plan is envisioned by the government. The Gati Shakti plan put forward by Mr. Modi is intended to bring together all agencies of the government to work together seamlessly to provided an overall execution of infrastructure development for logistics, airports, fast rail, roads and bridges, and modern housing. It is a National Master Plan for Multi Modal Connectivity that brings together 16 ministries for building state of the art infrastructure. The national plann ing agency NITI Aayog says it recognizes the multiplier effects plus spillover effects of infrastructure development for  Indian manufacturing, and understands how the US, Japan and China accomplished this going back to the New Deal in the US in the 1930's. It can also pioneer in new ways learning from the experience of these countries. This will bring results in demonstrating how India is learning and developing its own model of the best way to build excellent infrastructure, and do this with renewable energy, and environment inclusive efforts.    ...

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This photo gallery in The Indian Express shows 32 pictures of how International Yoga Day happened in all parts of India from the capital New Delhi to Alfred School in Rajkot where Mohandas Gandhi went to school. It links past to present across India's huge diversity and many states.

PM Modi put Yoga in this way- "The whole universe starts from our own body and soul. The universe starts from us. And Yoga makes us conscious of everything within us, and builds a sense of awareness." India's development in the next decades to come will be driven by a profound sense of what Yoga is and what it is to be a Yogi.

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Japan has 254 days of oil reserves says PM Takaichi Sanae with daily consumption of 3.1 million b/d. China has 100 days. India has 74 days of oil in government and privately held reserves with daily use at 5.6 million b/d.  In addition 100 million barrels of oil have accumulated on tankers parked on the oceans because of sanctioned oil waiting to be delivered.

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Action the Indian government has taken so far to control cryptocurrency in India and prevent the kind of losses that have taken place in other countries. This includes a 1% tax on digital transactions above a certain amount and a 30% tax on cryptocurrency.

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New five year broadcasting deals for the Indian Premier League that will bring in 5 billion pounds over five years. With 74 matches this comes to 14 million pounds per match, a record for world cricket and bigger than soccer. Disney's Star network gets television rights, TV18 and Paramount venture gets the digital rights. Much of this revenue will be used by India's cricket organization Board of Control for Cricket in India to build infrastructure and improve the experience of fans, spruce up facilities.

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The chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Indian prime minister, says India will grow at an accelerated pace after the worst effects of the pandemic are over by 2021. The changes introduced by the prime minister in the economy should make a big difference in growth. Compared to the growth with centralization in India Acts of 1919 and 1935 when there were concerns about holding avast country together, future growth will be based on decentralization, says Bibek Debroy, who is also a member of Niti Aayog.

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The NYT says many of India's largest and most profitable companies are "relative models of probity," and several ranking among the world's best governed companies including companies in the software and pharmaceutical sectors. Large parts of the Indian economy have little appetite for the risk taken on by the Adani Group and are run on a financially conservative basis. Infrastructure is unique for this kind of risk taking because of decades of neglect of Indian infrastructure during the 1995-2015 period, when China was rapidly building infrastructure with large investments and India fell behind. It is that catchup mode that induced Adani Group's aggressive efforts taking on debt for outsize goals that it was willing to adopt for coal, solar and port logistics. As a result the Indian economy with companies such as Infosys and Dr. Reddy's Labs says the NYT, is largely not affected by the problems of the Adani group's debt structure.    ...

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Born 1904, he joined the Indian Independence Movement in 1926. Union Home minister, and then prime minister to succeed Jawaharlal Nehru in 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the first Indian prime minister to take up the cause of Indian agriculture. It was under his leadership and with the kind help of U.S. president Lyndon Johnson that the Green Revolution was launched in India after periodic famines in northern India for many centuries of its history. 

As Transport Minister he introduced new rules for woman drivers and conductors in public buses and trains.

This story in The Hindu says he had to swim across the Ganges river with the books tied to his head to attend school. Shastri was known for his exceptional humility in public life. 

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43% of children under 5 are underweight in India, according to nutrition experts. This compares with 5% for China. China made its biggest strides in combatting malnutrition between 1990 and 2002, say experts by reducing malnutrion for children by two thirds. This suggest that malnutrition must have been much higher than 21% in China in 1990. And during the period between 1949 and 1980 China had focussed under Mao and his successors on the bread bowl, making sure that hunger was no longer a problem. This suggests the Indian middle class that thinks of the poor as there but not so worse off as to require a sense of urgency, or feeling slighted by the comparison with China need to do some thinking. From the perspective of progress the economy can only do well if rural and poorer areas are also part of development and share in the benefits of development. The other aspect of this is that the government can setup a program, and other countries like Brazil are also faced with the similiar problem and are tackling it aggressively. This is already takng place with a Right to Food Act in the Indian Parliament. Drafts of this Act call for a government subsidized minimum of 25 kilograms of food grain per family per month. But atttitudes in India need to go through a big change to take this problem seriously and with the urgency it requires from a developmental point of view, not only a moral point of view. What good is demographic devidend that many Indian leaders in many fields talk about if that demographic dividend is stunted by malnutrition, is the question all have to answer. Even software leader, Infosys's Nilekhani, in his book Imagining India talks about the large changes affecting India in the rural areas, the economic and technological progress, but fails to mention this aspect of malnutrition....

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Bharat Biotech and Biological E. are two companies developing vaccines in India. Bharat Biotech has asked for emergency authorization for use of its vaccine. Other Indian companies that have asked for emergency authorization are Pfizer India and Serum Institute of India. The foreign envoys will be flown to Hyderabad to be briefed on the vaccine readiness at Bharat Biotech and Biological E. In all 30 of 100 vaccines under development are being developed in India. India is a pioneer in vaccine development and manufacturing. Because of its huge population of 1.5 billion for India and Bangladesh, India has from the early years after independence in 1947 pursued a course of developing its own R&D and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and vaccines, so that the large population can have access to medicine at a low price.

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PM Modi has been invited by Macron to Bastille day in Paris, France's National Day on July 14, as an official guest, a first for an Indian leader in Europe. This happens as India's strategic partnership with France takes new shape in sectors such as civil aviation with significant Indian expansion, in defense, in nuclear cooperation for energy, in renewable energy, and is expanding into other sectors. India's defense forces will also take part with French forces in the parade on Bastille Day in France. Bastille Day is the national day of France with parades and a national holiday. It was established in 1880 and marks the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 with the French revolution for Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, and of the National Federation Day July 14, 1790.

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Gopalakrishna Gandhi shares these stories about Rajagopalachari, only Indian governor general of India in 1950, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, first vice president (1952-1962) and second president of India (1962-1967). A candle turns up on the fourth night at Vellore jail Dec. 24, 1921 to light up the jail cell of Rajagopalachari who is jailed by the British in the Gandhian struggle for Indian freedom Hind Swaraj. "Never did I see a candle give such quiet holy light before," said Rajaji describing that night on Christmas eve. An affinity for Shakespeare in describing the troubles and the ordeals of that time when Gandhi was surrounded by extraordinary talent in the form of Rajagopalachari, Radhakrishnan, first president Rajendra Prasad, and others. Rajagoplachari and Radhakrishnan are both from Chennai, Prasad from Patna.

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India's new vaccine policy and how it will vaccinate fully with 2 doses India's entire population by December 2021 is  outlined in the federal government's affidavit to the Supreme Court. The vaccine supplies of about 1880 million doses will be supplied by 5 Indian pharmaceutical vaccine manufacturers. 1350 million doses will be supplied by the manufacturers between August and December with 500 million doses made available by July 31 to the government. This is a monumental task for the vaccine manufacturers and the federal government which is being courageously tackled at every level. The new variants have shown how critical this task is and the challenge is being taken up vigorously.

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Kuwait oil production cut as storage fills up March 2026. Fewer tankers are making it through the Straits of Hormuz. Huge inventory on tankers in ocean waters and the added supplies from Venezuela help relieve the pressure on oil supplies as Iranian oil production stops. The US allows India to get Russian oil for 100 days in this special situation of war in the Middle East region. 

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The rapidly evolving situation in Ukraine and the importance given to it at the level of the prime minister and senior cabinet ministers about the importance India gives to respect for international law, the national sovereignty of countries, and the UN Charter. India abstained from the vote in the UN General Assembly on expelling Russia from the UN Human Rights Council yet as this Indian Express report says India as the world's largest democracy and its policies rooted in the work of Mohandas Gandhi has a clear stand on respect for the UN Charter and international law. It firmly condemned the reported atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine, as Mohandas Gandhi would have done in his own way.

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Three finance ministers, Mr. Sinha, Mr. Chidambaram and Ms. Sitharaman, have favored strong action on PMLA, the preventing money laundering law, saying that it is of serious importance for the integrity and sovereignty of the country, says the Indian Supreme Court as it reproduces these statements. All have argued at different periods in favor of the interpretation of the law consistent with the judgement given by a special bench of the Indian Supreme Court last week.  It has significance in another respect, which is in restoring the faith of hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens in the local, state and federal governments. A faith that has been seriously eroded since independence and which affects the development of infrastructure and modernization of India, and the building of the defense capabilities of the country that rest on making India an advanced economy similar to China. India cannot build up its own financial and human resources to tackle that task with the constant erosion of trust in the management of development and infrastructure and in delivery, that has and is taking place in the country today. ...

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Solar energy manufacturing capacity gets a strong start as the government puts in place the investments and policies to make Indian solar energy modules more competitive than Chinese made modules. This is part of the investment in production India promised at the Glasgow conference on climate change.

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During the first term of the NDA government two programs were launched to restart the Indian economy- one was Make In India, and the other was Skill India.

This report in Indian Express looks at Skill India, its history and goals, and progress. 

For Skill India to meet its ambitious goals of training "a minimum of 300 million people by 2022" much remains to be done. The quality of training, the active participation of industry and manufacturing in the training, the setup of vocational training of high quality in schools, has to be the focus of new efforts. Lack of results in meeting the needs of unemployed young people, is also because of the lack of growth in the industrial sector. For this to happen getting rid of the problems of non-performing loans has to be speeded up, partly through recapitalization of banks, and partly through other methods.