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The new president of India Droupadi Murmu is from the state of Odisha, formerly called Orissa. She is from a tribal community in the state and brings a new face for development through "sab ka vikas sab ke sath" new India's slogan today of development for all Indians through their own efforts, as it brings to the forefront the tribal communities all over India. The tribal communities in India have a population of 106 million or about 9% of India's population. In Orissa percentage of tribal is over 25%, in most of the northeast it is at least 25%, and in borders areas with China Arunachal 70%, Sikkim 34%, Jammu & Kashmir 12%. In key states of Madhya Pradesh 20%, Gujarat 25%, Rajasthan 13%. The strategic nature of the decision for the unity of India can be seen on how the tribal communities are critical parts of the northeast, the border areas,  and even of the central, eastern and western regions of India which most people are not aware of. Bringing in the tribal communities through respected leaders is part of the unfinished work of Mohandas Gandhi in getting the delivery of services to the last man in the line, and the tribal communities are a forgotten part of this.   ...

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Li Shanfu, China's defense minister meets Rajnath Singh in New Delhi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting India is chairing in 2023. Rajnath Singh tells Li that border issues have to be resolved for normal bilateral ties to be restored.

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China's defense minister Li Shangfu visits New Delhi as India assumes the chair role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India says normal ties with China can only take place when the border disputes are resolved. India's modernization program to 2030 is based on growing its economy and investing heavily in infrastructure and advanced technologies to transform the country. For this to happen India needs to increase exports to over $2 trillion, and reduce imports from China to increase domestic manufacturing.

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This report in the Hindusthan Times compares the relatively few comments from India's Ministry of External Affairs on the Dokalam standoff between India and China, and the frequent and patriotic comments from the state media in China. India took a firm position on the sensitive border area road construction by China, because the Doklam plateau is the narrow area in the mountains that allows entry to India's northern plains. India and China announced disengagement following the incident. This report points out that the resolution happened on the eve of a BRICS meeting in China. Indian prime minister Modi's absence from the BRIC's meeting would have been an embarrassment for China, says the Hindusthan Times. The resolution would have happened after both sides realized that the border issue escalation was not in the interest of China and India as both sides face more important issues- India in the focus on modernization and China on sustaining growth and maintaining trade relations with the U.S. Trump administration at a time when the debt to GDP ratios exceed by some estimates 280% and trade has become a sensitive issue in America's midwestern states. ...

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Prime minister Morrison becomes the first leader to meet prime minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan after Mr. Shinzo Abe resigned for health reasons. Mr. Suga was Chief Cabinet Secretary under Abe for 8 years. The 2 countries have agreed to strengthen defense relations by removing legal and administrative barriers for their militaries entering each others country. This improves joint military training and quick support in a crisis. Earlier in November Japan and Australia joined India and U.S. in joint naval exercizes after the 4 foreign ministers met in Tokyo. Small islands in the East China Sea controlled by Japan have seen more frequent patrols by Chinese Coast Guard. China claims these islands. Genron NPO shows almost 90% of Japanese people now have a negative view of China. Australia has acted on concerns of domestic interference by China. India has faced expansion along its Himalayan border with China by units of the Chinese armed forces. India has also developed closer ties with Australia to build its maritime presence in the Indian Ocean region. ...

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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 major points in the negotiations between India and China for the LAC in Ladakh. China is in it for the long haul because it wants to develop the CPEC economic corridor and has built up positions on its side of the long border.

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Trump takes action against Mexico, China and Canada for illegal flows of fentanyl and migrants across US borders. It is specific targeted and excludes EU, India, Japan, South Korea trading partners. For a decade some countries acted with impunity and American leaders did not respond to protect the people from illegal flows across borders. This action did not come in the first DJT term in 2016-2020 though tariffs were placed. Free trade has to be clean trade where such illegal flows are not in the picture or acceptable.

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India China Border and rail connection $40 billion project Chengdu to Lhasa 2025. The infrastructure brings China greater access to the western region of China some of it from the occupation of Tibet in the 1950's that now makes up territory the size of 80% of the contiguous US. India is rapidly modernizing it's side of the border with tunnels and bridges.  This situation is new. For most of history from 1000 to 1950's China had only a remote connection with the Tibetan and Indian border regions where nomadic tribes and Tibetans lived. Very few Chinese numbering by the hundreds or a few thousands may have visited the region as even under the British contacts were very limited with Tibet and border regions in the Himalayas. For China it is far from its major population centers in Beijing and Shanghai and Hong Kong, Shenzen. And it provides few advantages in spreading over a vast region that is remote and in high over 15,000 feet in the Tibetan and border regions. It is only the invasion of Korea and China by Japan in the close of the nineteenth and early part of the 20th century that has created the idea of having buffer regions that protect it from foreign powers. And this is what may happen over the next 50 years as the region goes back to what it was before the 1950's, but with modernization, as India does not seek to reach out beyond Himalayan borders into regions closer to China. ...

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China and India pass Mexico as immigration to the U.S. from Mexico declines rapidly, as a result of an improving Mexican economy, the 2008-2011 recession in the U.S. with sharp drop in jobs for construction, lower birthrates, and stricter U.S. law enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico. Researchers using the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau found immigration from China increased to 147,000 from China, 129,000 from India, as it declined to 125,000 from Mexico, for 2013. This Survey counts a person as an immigrant for a particular year who says he was living abroad previously. Mexico shows a decline from 400,000 in 2000, with steady decline for every year after 2005. In 2000 India and China were at about 75,000, and did not cross the 100,000 mark till 2007. Other Asian countries are also at the top including S. Korea, Philippines and Japan. William Frey documents this surge in diversity in the U.S., -which is supplemented by now common intermarraige between young people from different countries of origin- in his book "Diversity Explosion."...

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Iran Ceasefire shaky May 11 2026 with no willingness on the part of IRGC Iran (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) to send all nuclear materials out of the country. Past experience has shaken American confidence in IRGC Iran's willingness to give up nuclear weapons development. Under president Obama some nuclear materials were sent to Russia, some left inside Iran which were after an agreement used by IRGC Iran to develop weapons grade enriched uranium, putting the situation back to where America started before the agreement. This is behind the DJT Republican administration's effort to get all nuclear materials out of Iran. This has wasted another decade for Iran, diverting resources needed for improving standards of living and cost of living to the weapons programs. The result is internal protests that were widespread in Iran including the middle class, not just students. So that today Iranian people are divided on the issue whether Iran should against all prevailing Middle Eastern and World opinion go for a nuclear weapon. The situation of clandestine development in North Korea and Pakistan of nuclear weapons is not existent today as the US is monitoring it constantly. Israel sees these weapons programs in Iran as a threat to its existence close to its borders in Lebanon and Iraq, which makes it unlikely that clandestine development is possible for nuclear weapons development anywhere in the Middle East. The UAE has also shifted its stance in favor of the US, Saudis want assurances, and India, Pakistan Egypt are in different ways seeking a denuclearized Middle East. This means the American DJT administration is NOT ALONE on this issue as the media in the US and Europe are presenting. Germany's Wadephul and Merz are closer to US thinking on this issue than the media says. Macron and Starmer are at popularity of less than 20% in France and the UK and do not reflect the opinion in France and Britain, and in Europe on this issue. In this sense the US is doing this for a safer world, for China, India, Brazil and EU, all the nations in the poorest parts of the world in Africa, Asia. These poorest nations which are bearing the brunt of this obsession with nuclear weapons development by IRGC Iran in a Middle East torn by 5 decades of wars from Kabul to Damascus, Baghdad to Tehran, by IRGC Iran (Revolutionary Guard Corps), as these poor nations confront lack of oil and fertilizer supplies. It does not come at a good time for even the largest nations about 3 billion people in China, India and Indonesia, Egypt which are suffering from the effects of oil shortages and fertilizer shortages when possibly at most about 40 of 90 million people in Iran support weapons programs, all others in Iran seeking a way out for better standards of living and living at peace with neighbors and the world. In that peacetime Middle East the Palestinian people could find solutions like the Irish people with the goodwill of all neighbors. ...

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India and Vietnam are key countries for reinvention of the supply chain to cover home production in the US with supplies from friendly nations. After the G20 meetings in New Delhi president Biden will go to Hanoi, Vietnam. Vietnam also maintains trade relationship with China as it depends on China for its manufacturing exports. China and Vietnam are both socialist nations, yet after a border war in 1979 Vietnam is building a stronger relationship with the US. It also has a trade relationship with Japan and Vietnamese workers help meet worker shortages in Japan.

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Chancellor Merz New Year Message to Germany 2025, reflects on the events of 2025 with the DJT US administration distancing itself from Europe in favor of a peace agreement in the Ukraine war- with Europe left to take responsibility for defending it's region. By December 2025 the US asserted the Monroe Doctrine and made securing the western hemisphere the top priority, not Europe. Merz and SPD's Lars Klingsbeil removed the constitutional brake on spending placed by Merkel and passed a bill in parliament by December 2025 for a one trillion dollar infrastructure buildup and defense buildup. “Germany is a great country that has, time and again, reinvented itself, emerged stronger from crises, given rise to new cohesion and offers all of its citizens a livable and lovable home.” “We are not the victims of extraneous circumstances. We are not at the mercy of great powers. Our hands are not tied.” A similar situation is happening in South Asia as India faces China over a long border in the Himalayas and India puts up roads, bridges, tunnels and airstrips in the Himalayan border regions.   ...

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Could S. Jaishankar borker a peace in the Ukraine Russia war. Mr. Macron thinks India's Jaishankar and Modi could help set up a peace agreement. Germany's chancellor Scholz visited Beijing and called for an end to the war with president Xi of China. Jaishankar India's most experienced diplomat with long periods as a diplomat in China, is expected to visit Russia for setting up the groundwork for a peace settlement even though its outlines are not evident at this time.

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Pope Francis makes atonement for the treatment of 150,000 tribal children from Canada's Indian tribes in Quebec and Ontario. These children were separated from their families in a program of forced assimilation that failed. Indian tribal people and the regions of Quebec and Ontario are only now coming to terms with the treatment of tribal people who inhabited this land for centuries before the first European settlers from Britain and France arrived in North America through the Atlantic ocean voyages. This scene is relevant as India's leaders including Mr. Modi select a tribal woman from Odisha (Orissa) Ms Murmu a school teacher in India's northeast to the position of president of the Republic of India. It was never thought of this way yet tribal people exist in Indonesia, Philippines and many parts of Asia. In India tribe population is 106 million and makes up anywhere between 8 to 30% of population mostly in the northeast and tribes are the dominant population in the border regions facing China in its occupation of Tibetan region. This shows there is a lot to learn in how to respect the dignity of the people in these regions especially now when with climate change  sustainable living is the first priority.  ...

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Cecilia Wang is herself a birthright citizen from parents on student visas from Taiwan hence her views reflect her position before the the Court on DJT Executive Order.  She says the admission of Wang Kim in an 1898 case to US citizenship is a 128 American tradition when history shows very little sentiment in the American public and in the US Congress favoring legal immigration of any form from Asia (Japan, China and India). In fact a deal made by Teddy Roosevelt with Japan included an understanding with the Japanese government in the 1900's that Japan would restrict immigration from Japan to the US. Throughout the period 1850-1960 for 110 years one finds very little immigration of Asians to the US- mostly European selectively in phases after 1900 by steamboat as can be seen at the Smithsonian museum exhibits in Washington DC. Thus the Court is taking up a narrative that was never true. It was only JFK and LBJ who changed this by the 1960's- if one reads JFK and his grasp of the events in Indonesia, India, of Asia in WWII from his experiences as a soldier in the Asia Pacific region- not as the narrative suggests as an extension of civil rights for Black people, but for a deep respect and understanding of Asian people's aspirations that he opened up immigration to the US in the 1960's for Asians. This is why it is a stretch of the imagination for Cecilia Wang to say- Cecilia Wang -"your ancestors could be on the Mayflower or be undocumented immigrants but you and I are exactly the same as US citizens." Even after 60 years of reading the speeches and writing of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR and FDR, JFK, of Carl Sandburg's volumes of Lincoln, the poetry of America of Walt Whitman, committing Robert Frost poems to memory, there is more a sense of humility and even greater earnest  desire to learn about this Nation, and of the scientific endeavors of Europe since 1600 that eluded Asia, than making statements about the first voyages and the people who ventured out on the Mayflower. One has to look with awe at the sculptures in Geneva, Switzerland, of these brave people in the 1600's who for religious and other reasons made their way in difficult voyages over the Atlantic to America, much less say were the same as them. It is more about honoring JFK's words in appreciation of his opening for Asia, on thinking more about what you can do for your country than what your country can do for you. ...

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Indian Finance Minister Sitharaman gives the following remarks in parliament on the White Paper presented to the 18th Lok Sabha in January 2024, describing the dire condition of the Indian economy by 2013 with mismanagement and "big ticket" corruption. India's Finance Minister Sitharaman describes the situation in three key areas by 2013 that left the economy of India in a fragile state, with projects stalled, development delayed, and capital investment not taking place. She gives as 3 main points of focus- the state of affairs at Defense Ministry, at the Environment Ministry, and for Energy supplies. At the outset she says PM Modi had suggested the need for such White Paper by 2015 so that future generations would know what had happened in India that failed the country at a time when China had already joined the community of developed nations. The issues go back to the coal scandal when coal auctions had to be cancelled by the Supreme Court for irregularities, the misuse of state owned banks leading to a large increase in non performing loans, and the mismanaged Commonwealth Games under government before 2014.  Sitharaman told parliament this had the effect of national security being compromised, Environment as a Ministry becoming a bottleneck, and the leadership failing the country. In the military there was a critical shortage of ammunition and equipment. She cites the Defense Minister at the time having the attitude that independent India has had a policy for many years not to develop the border areas, as an undeveloped border was better than a developed border. She also says Ministry stated that 92% of the Defense Budget was used up and major acquisitions have to wait for the military. Following this Sitharaman cited the scandals of that period and leakages of funds that weakend the country and failed its people. She compared capital expenditures today of 6.22 lakh crores in 2024 thre times the number in 2013 of 2.53 crores. HAL now makes Tejas jets and helicopters in Made in India production. At the Environment Ministry the delays that were 86 days reached a high of 316 days by 2013 for approval of development projects, with 355 projects pending, the nation brought to a standstill with the effects of the coal supplies to thermal power plants being wholly inadequate and Coal India in poor shape. The root of this was said Sitharaman- what everyone in Indian business knew, the term "genteel facts," as the cost of business going up. She cites the changes since then of aiming for Balance and Development- Transparency, Online Green Clearance, Standardized Environment Impact Studies, A new Department of Climate change, International Solar Alliance 2015, Mission Life 2022, Green Hydrogen, Namami Gange, Rooftop Solar. India set ambitious goals at the last Climate change Conference.    ...

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Just 2 weeks before president Xi's arrival in New Delhi for a G-20 Summit, Xi meets prime minister Modi at the Johannesburg BRICS summit. Modi and Xi agree on an expeditious disengagement of forces at the Line of Actual Control after Modi tells Xi that maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas and respecting the LAC is essential for a normal India China relationship.  

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Why China India Brazil see the old liberal order discussed at Davos Switzerland, based on the world in 1947 not reflecting growth of Asia in 2026, and not serving the working class or middle class. UK's Farage says it is about people at Swiss Ski resorts deciding what the world should look like. Today the Swiss cannot even take their trade arrangements with the US for granted after US tariffs on entrenched unfair dealings in trade with the US. There is a growing perception in the UK and US and many parts of Europe that this so called liberal order is not working for the people of these countries. China and India, Brazil, see that arrangements set in 1947 as part that order that is cherished by the folks at Davos, and not reflecting the growth of these countries in 2026. The attitudes at Davos may be the most at issue, with Swiss and French attitudes not reflecting the situation in France which is deeply divided between the rural parts of the country and the urban areas about the direction of the country and the need to make life better for the working class and the middle class. In many ways the people of the US and of Europe share this huge rural vs urban divide made worse by the deindustrialization and shipping of manufacturing overseas to Asia.  Looking back at US history provides better clues- many of the same improvements made by Lincoln as Republican, Theodore Roosevelt as Republican, Franklin Roosevelt as Democrat, JFK as Democrat have created the society Americans cherished for so long and was the beacon to the world, which is not about this so called liberal order but rational step by step corrections of course and improvement after improvement, and offer a pathway to the future better than the whole host of politics and politicians that failed America and Europe. ...

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On the 100th anniversary of 1947 and 1949 the Republics of China and India in about 25 years will have become fully developed modern states with science and technology by 2050, leaving behind memories of the colonial period. As the mother of Asian Buddhist civilization this region of northern India would be seen by a new generation of Chinese as part of ancient Chinese Buddhist culture from the days of Lord Buddha and Bodhidharma, and a gradual shift will lead to China leaving Tibet and the border regions of India in Kashmir, Arunachal and Ladakh of its own decision. China's entry into border regions- Kashmir region, Ladakh and Arunachal are a result of China under Mao and the Communist party decision to occupy Tibet and Indian border areas. A result of the memory of occupation of China starting from the border regions in the north Manchuria by the Japanese, and the Kwantung peninsula by western powers Russia, Britain, Germany. And the need to protect its frontiers in the border regions used as buffers by the British Empire, after the Communist Party under Mao created the People's Republic in Beijing. New technology in the 20th century made the high plateau's of Tibet accessible after 2500 years by construction of roads rail transport in high mountain terrain.  What this occupation of Tibet as a border region has done is to put China within a short distance, just days from the plains of India- a situation that has no precedent in the entire history of the world dating from Lord Buddha. Compared to the desolate regions of Manchuria in the north this has an Indian population in the plains of India of as much as a billion people. Just as China sought protection from its own memory of occupation by the Japanese and colonial powers, India seeks protection from colonial powers and the Chinese now in Tibet similar to the Japanese in Manchuria just days away from the plains of the Chang Jiang (Yangste) and  Huang He (Yellow River) of China, China just days away in 2025 from the Ganges/ Brahmaputra , and the Indus river regions. The British Empire no longer exists. British names such as McMahon for McMahon Line frowned upon by anti-colonialist China, no longer exist. India also an anti-colonial power frowns upon such names and the arbitrary way the British (also the Portuguese, the Spanish, Dutch and the French) decided what belonged to whom, including whole nations. As early as 1505 Portuguese occupied Sri Lanka (Ceylon), occupied by the Dutch as part of cinnamon supply zone by 1700, and transferred by treaty to British in 1802, the memories of colonialism date back on the shores of India to 1505.    ...

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India like China is more interested in modernization that brings equality with Europe and America so that the period of misfortunes that struck India and China- as a result of the vastly superior technology and force of Europe as it found a passage to the East around the Cape of Good Hope- is over.  Think about this. If anything happened to democracy and pluralism in the US Indian democracy and pluralism would still be standing a hundred years down the road or the next hundred years after that. What does that say about India? Why? Because India has learnt its lessons under Vivekananda, Tilak, Gandhiji, Modiji, and understands the need for technology, trade and modernization, which is what Modi as a Gujarati with the trading mentality like the British is really after. The so called Hinduism as it is really about the Upanishads and the Gita and the Buddha, and Communism, are really not the driving force in India or China.The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita like the Bible offer a way an ethos to resolutely fight the corruption and leakages of funds that take the investments out of modernization leaving everyone poor. And India also benefits when democracy works and acts as an enabling force for a modern economy that creates "a rising tide that lifts all boats" (people). Democracy is the tool for development and to tackle diversity of 1.4 billion people. Adam Smith was right writing then in the 1780's around the French revolutionary period and American independence - "Hereafter perhaps the natives of these countries (India, China, Indonesia) may grow stronger, or those of Europe grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at the equality of courage and force, which by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into respect for one another." India's leaders fought hard after the 1700's for preserving independence from the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, only they were divided. Ranjit Singh in the north fought the Mughals and the British in the Punjab. The Marathas on the western front fought the Mughals and the British. The result as Gandhi points out in Hind Swaraj in his question "who made the British Company Bahadur?" It was Indian princely kingdoms vying for support from the armies of the British East India Company interested in profits from seizing Indian princely treasuries and trade. Note that Sri Lanka or Ceylon fell to the Portuguese in 1505. The technology gap between Europe and Asia had opened up even that early by 1500's in ship building, in warships and use of maritime navigation technologies. Consider that in 1534 Jacques Cartier was out on his first trips from St Malo, France across Atlantic to explore past Newfoundland to the mouth of the St Lawrence river. The Portuguese and then the Dutch had already beaten the British and the French by 100 years- Britain's exploration of India through East India settlements in Bengal began much later in the 1600's. India like China built around river based civilizations as Adam Smith points out in his Wealth of Nations, Chapter 7, Part 3, America and East Indies-of the natives of India and China Smith says their struck "a dreadful misfortune" that arisen more by accident, that "the superiority of force seemed to be so great on the side of the Europeans, that they were able to commit with impunity every sort of injustice in these remote countries." Every Indian or Chinese will agree with this so great was the misfortune for India and China from the injustice of European nations in the 19th century so much so that Cordell Hull speaking for Franklin Roosevelt and all Americans broadcast to the world in the throes of World War II in 1942 America's call to the world for a new world order based on freedom and development for all nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. America's Secretary of State Cordell Hull said: "In this vast struggle, we, Americans, stand united with those who, like ourselves, are fighting for the preservation of their freedom; with those who are fighting to regain the freedom of which they have been brutally deprived; with those who are fighting for the opportunity to achieve freedom."     ...

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The increase in surveillance capabilities over LAC in Ladakh and other areas on the Chinese border with the use of new Heron drones leased from Israel. The improvement in defense capabilities with purchases using a new 500 crore emergency financial fund for the Indian armed forces in the confrontation with China.

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In this interview with France24 Foreign Minister Joseph Wu of Taiwan says his country is a front line democracy fighting an authoritarian regime. He warned that after Hong Kong "Taiwan might be next." He also said the mood of the European Union was changing and perceptions had changed after observing the situation in Hong Kong, the escalation at the India-China border, and in the South China Sea. He sees the threat of military intervention against Taiwan as having "intensified."