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India signed a $78 billion LNG deal with Qatar that will help reach climate goals by changing the role of natural gas from 6.3% today to 15% by 2030. It will produce significant savings of $6 billion. 

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India's ISRO Space Agency officials say the Orbiter Chandrayan 2 which is circling the moon and collecting data, has taken pictures of the Vikram lander. The lander did make it to the lunar surface though it lost contact because of a rough landing.

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A report from India's Directorate of Civil Aviation given to the New York Times shows problems at most of India's airline companies. This includes a lack of enough pilots at Air India Express, shortage of engines and a lack of enough pilots at Kingfisher Airlines, two year delay in auditing the international operations of Jet Airways, not enough instructors for the Boeing 737 at SpiceJet, and investigations for Indigo that were never completed. According to the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, the number of people taking flights in India has increased to 150 million in 2011, triple the number in 2004. Analysts and regulators believe that during this surge in demand for air travel the airline companies lacked enough pilots, flight trainers, safety experts, and maintenance engineers. One of the problems facing the industry is the severe price competition leading to losses at most of the airlines. The losses in the Indian airline industry range from $5 to $6 billion in the past 5 years, with expected losses of another $2 billion in 2012, according to Kapil Kaul, South Asia chief of the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation....

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India plans to increase nuclear energy by working on 36 projects with a total capacity of 34 gigawatts.

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The Biden administration takes steps to open up the potential for US India civil nuclear cooperation by removing Indian scientific and nuclear entities from "restricted lists." This will enable cooperation between Indian nuclear entities and US companies. It comes 20 years after Indian PM Manmohan Singh signed the India US nuclear deal with president George W. Bush of the US in 2004. NSA Jake Sullivan was in New Delhi to meet PM Modi.

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On the 80th Anniversary of the Quit India Movement launched by Mohandas Gandhi on August 8, 1942, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu offers this message to Bharat. He recalls the hundreds of years of periodic invasion from the mountains in the northwest since 1200 followed by the British incursions and Empire since 1700, and the trillions of dollars drained from the country because of the division of the country and its cultural, religious, and economic deterioration that weakened it. Emotional integration of the country is essential says Naidu, who is a southerner who has learned the ways of the north and the south and other parts of the country, and studied the parliamentary traditions set by the great leaders of the 1940's and 1950's. Naidu is a rare politician in India who has a passion for the country, and desire to continuously learn how great leaders Naoroji, Tilak, Gokhale, Gandhi, Bose, Rajagopalachari, Nehru, and Prasad fought in the struggle for independence since 1880 from the British Empire. As leader of the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of parliament since 2017, and leader of the ruling party since its inception and first government under Atalbihari Vajpayee, Venkaiah has been in most of the momentous events of India's 75 years.  ...

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The 2018 state elections leave an inconclusive result says Soutik Biswas of the BBC.On one side an arrogant government and on the other side a older party from the Independence struggle that has not developed younger leaders and lacks a compelling narrative. Rajasthan has tended to give only 1 term to an incumbent government, and in Madhya Pradesh Congress party had 113 to BJP's 111, a very close vote, with the BJP facing anti-incumbency sentiment in an effort to win a fourth time in succession.  A lot depends on regional allies for the Congress says Biswas, and here it is not clear how well this will work. The Modi government faces discontent of farmers, and the loan waiver for farmers promise by Congress helped it with voters. In the general election much also depends on how well prime minister Narendra Modi keeps the narrative focused on development and retains the support of younger voters, and his personal popularity. This only leaves an embattled Republic between a government that has struggled to create jobs and modernize the country even with good intentions, and a older centrist party that has not cultivated new leaders from within its ranks and lacks a compelling narrative to take the country into the ranks of close to developed nations the way its neighbors South Korea, and China have rapidly developed. ...

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Private companies such as Reliance Power and Tata Power control only 27% of India's power generating capacity of 205 gigwatts. The government controls most of the capacity in this sector for generation and transmission of power and has failed to invest enough to keep up with growing needs. The government has failed to achieve even modest expansion goals for power generation. A target of 78.7 gigawatts of additions to the national grid were planned for the five year period ending March 31, 2012, but only 70% of that target has been met. China during the same five year period added 418 gigawatts. State utilities sell power at discounted rates resulting in large losses, making it difficult to invest in upgrades in transmission technology and facilities. Rate regulations make it unattractive for private investors. Another problem is the shortage of coal, with coal production concentrated in one state owned firm Coal India that has failed to invest in new technology and improvements. The result is the kind of massive outages from overload of the national power grid in July 2012, affecting most of northern and eastern India....

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Ratan Tata welcomes Air India- formerly founded as Tata Airlines in 1932 by an accomplished pilot JRD Tata who flew the maiden postal flight in South Asia from Karachi to Bombay in 1932- back to Tata Group. JRD Tata assumed the position as head of Tata Sons in 1938. Nehru nationalized Air India in 1953 after years of bureaucratic interference in the management of the airline. Ratan Tata was selected by JRD Tata to run the Tata Group in 1990 and was present during the early formative years of the airline. The decision to take 100% ownership of Air India in 2021 appears to be a good one considering the difficulties JRD Tata had- and which Ratan Tata is familiar with- from interference by the government in the management of the airline in the early period after independence in 1947. This gives Tata Group a clean start to build a new airline. By taking responsibility for three fourths of the debt of Air India with Tata Group taking on the other one fourth, the government gives the new airline a good start. Air India was losing 3 million dollars a day according to a report in DW.com. This transfer also frees up this huge investment for use in other areas of the economy such as infrastructure building, healthcare, education, logistics for exports. ...

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Modi speech for the ages to the people of Barrackpore, West Bengal, April 27 2026 surpasses any but the best of Gandhi's speeches for a century since the 1930's. "Shakti ki Bhakti" pilgrimage for the ages for the women and children and families of Bengal and India. A plea for freedom of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa as a north star for India, in the task of urbanization, modernization industrialization, and scientific revolution of India. "Purvi Bharat ka bahvisya sudhar kanrna chunav hai." This northeast that is key to the future of India's 1.4 billion people in this election in West Bengal of May 4, 2026 after 5 decades of failed governance, of failed industrialization and failed modernization in a region of 300 million people, half the size of the European Union. Impatience in Modi's voice with the pace of change that has failed the aspirations of a young generation of India.  This has left the northeast region as a backward agrarian economy. Change in federal  overnment for rapid modernization in India came in 2014 with Modi government. It was stalled for a few years by the Covid pandemic. The effort for modernization of the Indian economy after 5 decades of failed good governance is thus in its first decade and in that decade impeded by the state governments of Maharastra and Rajasthan in the western region that also includes Gujarat. In the northeast failed governance continued in West Bengal , Bihar and Orissa. In Delhi and the Punjab a similar situation. It is only now that Maharashtra and Rajasthan are aligned with federal government in industry and modernization goals. And it is only now that Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal are aligning themselves at the state level with the federal goals for modernization and rapid urbanization plus industrialization. In the south Tamilnadu (Madras region) and Kerala (Kochi), and Karnataka (Bangalore region) are also lacking in aligning with the efforts at the federal level. As a result the changes that are happening have the potential to bring a new wave of industrialization and modernization in the north, northeast and western regions of India with the federal government and the state governments in alignment on industrialization and modernization. This could bring to the world economy a development similar to China's second decade of development from 2000 to 2010 when a new surge happened in China's modernization. India's modernization will happen with the reindustrialization in the US and the European Union  and will set the pace for the world economy in the decades to come. ...

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India agrees to an immediate ceasefire after a call from Pakistan's head of military operations for a ceasefire. The conflict started with attack on tourism that was reviving the Kashmir economy after three decades through a terrorist attack killing 26 tourists in Phalgam, Kashmir on  April 22, 2025 in the mountains near the Pir Panjal range. 24 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024. Indian response was swift on May 7 early morning hours attacking 18 terrorist camps inside Pakistan occupied Kashmir and inside Pakistan. India called it a act of self-defense to Pakistan sponsored state terrorism going back to 1947. What is different in this brief 4 day war is that India made it economic with efforts at IMF to make terrorism an issue for loans to Pakistan, and ending the Indus Waters Treaty on water sharing. Pakistan economy is struggling with no debt relief from China, making it turn to the IMF, a politically split population with Opposition leader Imran Khan in jail, and continued domination by the military over civilian govenrment. On May 9 drone attacks were launched from Pakistan using Turkish made drones in large numbers on cities and towns in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab. Blackouts were placed in India by May 8 in all cities in the north and in Pakistan. India responded with its own drones and missile attacks on three military airbases as the war broadened to military targets on May 10. US mediated a ceasefire through Saudis and Turkey. Earlier Saudis and Iran were in New Delhi with whom India has good relations to get a ceasefire. Mr. Trump's efforts behind the scenes secured an agreement. VP Vance had cut short an Indian trip in Jaipur on April 22. India and the US are allies in the Indo-Pacific, and India and Russia have decades of friendly relations. China now uses Pakistan as a proxy state, but does not provide the economic aid it needs, for which it has turned to the IMF.    ...

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This report from Taiwan in DW.com points out that German opinion has changed significantly in recent years and is not reflected in Merkel policies. With a change in government to Greens, SPD coalition under Scholz of the SPD and Annalena Baerbock of Greens, German policy towards Taiwan is likely to change. Scholz is seen as having different views from Merkel and is likely to reflect public opinion more closely which is reflected in polls that show 58% of Germans not in favor of Merkel's China policy which moves away from the US. Germany also needs to consider NATO alliance and relationship with US which will be difficult with Merkel policies now that president Biden has made Indo-Pacific  with Aukus and Quad alliances critical to his administration. France has moved closer to India, which will mean pressures from the US and France and German public opinion for Scholz to  come closer to US and France in his policies. A sense that the Merkel period had serious issues and was "grotesquely" backward in childcare, education, digital modernization, infrastructure, climate change, as one German expert puts it, also will make SPD and Greens reconsider Merkel's policies.  After the election there could be a fuller reassessment of the Merkel years and further change in German public opinion as Germans see how much was lost in the later Merkel years in the lack of much needed change inside Germany in addressing the social and economic problems. Merkel may also be seen as having a sensitive relationship with the Biden administration which the SPD and Greens in their different orientation may not see in the same way. Biden's families and workers plan has much that Germans are looking for from the SPD and the Greens and on a scale of $3.5 trillion that the SPD and Greens may see as changing everything.  Population of India combined with South East Asia, Australia and Japan is also about twice that of China, which Germany will feel sets the path for a new policy that reflects a different Europe and a different Asia for the future. ...

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Coca-Cola will invest $5 billion in India by 2020 as part of a plan to invest $30 billion in capacity and marketing in emerging economies. The plan is designed to double sales revenue and volume by 2020. Coca-Cola today has 60% of the Indian soft drinks market, according to Euromonitor Intenational, because it also owns the brands of Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd- Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot and Maaza. The Parle acquisition gave Coca-Cola a bottling and marketing system on which to base its expansion.

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A World Food Program report says India is home to over a fourth of the hungry people in the world, about 230 million people. Purnima Menon of the Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C., says India ranks below two dozen sub-Saharan countries on a Global Hunger Index. It ranks Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India, as somewhere between Chad and Ethiopia. And serious hunger and malnutrion persists in states that have done better in economic growth, like Gujarat and Maharashtra. The number of children suffering from malnutrition in 2009 is in the range of 42.5% in India compared to about 7% in China, according to figures cited by Rieff.

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The monarchy in Sikkim ended in 1975 after a referendum through which it became the 22nd state of India. 

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GM expects the small car Chevy Beat will help it reach 100,000 vehicles sold in India. Sales were 70,000 in 2009. Beat joins Spark and Aveo-UA, the other Chevy brands.

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The effort to keep jobs in traditional industries such as handloom in India as part of the effort to help cottage and traditional industries including Khadi promoted by Mohandas Gandhi, is shown in this FR24 report.

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India plans to convert 500 railway carraiges into places to keep coronavirus patients in Delhi.  Daily new cases now are over 12,000, with total confirmed cases of 320,000, deaths at 9195. Delhi bed capacity in private and government hospitals  for coronavirus is 9698 wit 4248 beds vacant. Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal says he expects a surge and is preparing for this as the economy reopens. Delhi, Tamilnadu, and Maharashtra are the worst hit states. The lockdown of March 25 has been lifted and markets are crowded. Many businesses and workplaces are now open. And local flights have resumed.

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Raghuram Rajan, former chief economist of the IMF, is appointed the chief economic advisor to Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh. He says his focus is on increasing foreign investment, including letting foreign banks operate in the country, reducing waste in food storage and distribution, and promoting new business so that growth does not depend largely on the large companies in the country.