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Havana a ghost town with little activity, garbage piling up, and population struggling to make a living- pictures as France's Le Monde sees it in Jan 2026. Was it all worth it?  A revolution happened in 1956 against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista that lost its way over 4 decades to 2000, on life support for another 2 decades to 2026. The Cuban experiment caused Venezuela to enter the same realm of disillusionment and many insurgencies in the rest of Latin America that failed with too much rhetoric and little to back it up with in investment and growth through patient effort and inputs of capital, labor and technology, and cooperation with US and EU, the very stuff that changed lives in China and India for 2.5 billion people.

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Gavaskar says of India in the First Test at Leeds Headingley, India's fielding was ordinary, not Test class. Catches were dropped, fielding was poor so that after five centuries India came up short. With India batting well in the second innings Gavaskar says England showed confidence that let Tongue and Woakes wind up the lower order. With Duckett's 149 with 21 fours and Crawley's 65 set up a two hundred run partnership, that Root and Smith were able to make it look easy to win by 5 wickets.

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces Rs. 60 billion ($857 million) in equity for the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund to provide Rs. 1000 billion  ($14.2 billion) debt financing for infrastructure to 2025. This is part of a wide ranging stimulus 3.0 package for creating jobs, providing aid to borrowers during the pandemic, aid to farmers, and aid for the informal economy including street vendors and small retail. With the largest population in the world the Indian Ocean region of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, and Indonesia from the former British and Dutch empires, requires a resilient response to the coronavirus pandemic. This is crucial for the future revival of the world economy. 

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Narendra Modi's victory speech in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, on May 16, 2014, in which he focussed on "development" of a united India, of a billion people all putting in their own efforts in every sphere of development. He said he needed 10 years to make the dreams of development and good governance a reality in India.

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This report in the Indian Express shows the situation in Indian states. Only Delhi has a 90% recovery rate which means the virus spread is slowing and recovery is happening. All Indian states combined have a recovery rate of 70%. This means there are many new cases as others are recovering. Deaths are at about 2% and should eventually reach 1%.

Maharashtra cases exceed 500,000 and Tamilnadu 300,000, followed by Andhra and Karnataka in the top 4 states. By comparison the large states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have together 220,000 cases and about 2600 deaths much less than Tamilnadu or Andhra Pradesh. Cases are now distributed in northern and southern India in the same proportion. Maharashtra and city of Bombay have not recovered in the way Delhi is recovering. In Maharashtra the inexperience of the administration compares with the experienced administration in Delhi of Mr. Kejriwal.

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Sitharaman told parliament the situation created by 2013 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 defense 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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India's greatest runner Milkha Singh describes his life and struggles in this interview in the Indian Express written by Nihal Koshie. Much of his early life was spent in poverty and facing partition, running for his life seeing his parents dead in the riots in Pakistan part of Punjab.

He worked very hard, so hard that he hardly sees this type of effort today. If he had the facilities and training received by athletes of today Milkha says he would be able to set records that no one could break in a hundred years. With so little he achieved so much. 

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The anti-corruption bill for creation of a Lokpal agency passed the lower and upper house of the Indian parliament in December 2013. It was stalled for two years after the efforts of political activist Anna Hazare's protest movement for passage of the bill. With national elections approaching in 2014 and the ruling Congress party's image bruised badly in state elections of Dec. 2013, party leaders decided to support the bill. In the elections in the capital Delhi a anti-corruption party, Aaam Aadmi (for the common man), created only recently, won a major part of the seats. In India corruption hurts not only at the national and local level as in China, but affects the daily life of the common man as bribes are required from ordinary people for anything to get done that requires approval from the huge government bureaucracy. In that sense it takes a toll on economic development and affects the quality of services received by the vast majority of people, which is why the party calls itself "common man."...

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Khair says in the Hindu newspaper, that the problem in India is not that the BJP is gaining ground, but that the Opposition is divided and is shrinking. The shift of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to the BJP leaves the Opposition in disarray. The Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is seen as weak and lacking the charisma of Nehru. The dynastic control by the family and Rahul Gandhi's leadership are serious problems for the opposition. After the victory in Uttar Pradesh state, and the erosion of support for Congress, India lacks a strong Opposition in parliament, which is not good for the country, says Khair. 

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This editorial in the HIndu newspaper says more than the Rs. 2000 crore allocated for Ayushman- for covering 10.74 crore families with Rs 5 lakh health  coverage- is needed. This should have been setup earlier and it is now time to upgrade the public health infrastructure so that it can handle the much needed care of 40% of the population given free coverage upto Rs 5 lakh under PMJAY.

Not all states have joined. The challenge of tight cost control has to be met through defined treatment packages for which rates are prescribed so that the challenge of standardization of facilities and reasonable rates for procedures is met.

Prevention is also of great importance and here the 150,000 health and wellness centres across India of the National Health Protection Mission have a special role to play.

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This report in The Times shows the need to counter misinformation in parts of the media about vaccines. Inadvertently or through a poor comprehension of the data, German media reports in Handelsblatt and the Bild have stated that vaccine effectiveness for older people is 8%. Here in The Times of London, Oxford University and Astra Zeneca point out that the 8% figure is for the number of people in the trials who were given the vaccine in the age group 56-70 years. This does not refer to how effective the vaccines were in older people.  The first dose increases monoclonal antibodies for people of all ages, say Astra Zeneca and Oxford. We are now beyond trials in a sense today as Israel has vaccinated large parts of the population and the UK, India are vaccinating millions of British and Indian citizens. Israeli reports from one of the major medical centres show that the second dose increases monoclonal antibodies by multiple times and provides effective protection. As British data is available from medical research institutions from the vaccination drive in Britain, and from India, the effectiveness of the vaccines used in Britain and India will be shown more clearly. India today has used a package with near 100% compliance to tackle the virus relatively effectively by combining safety protocols (masks+ social distancing+ hygiene) with nutritional, medicinal protocols, restricted overseas flights. Cases are down to 13,000 for 1.2 billion people, with positivity rate in testing down to 1.66%. One readers comment in The Times says a lot- She says her 79 year old Irish mother was given the vaccine today in Coventry, England. She was given the Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine jab by a British Asian doctor who took the time to talk to her, and listened to her and thanked her for her service as a midwife for 40 years. That these few minutes were the happiest time in 10 months for her mother. It also showed she says the very best of this country.   ...

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The Indian prime minister talks in his radio program Mann Ki Baat (Talking our Mind) about Indian athletes at the Tokyo Olympics and overcoming any hesitancy for vaccines. He remembers athletes from the Olympics past- Milkha Singh India's fastest runner, who worked hard and emerged from the partition bloodshed as a survivor in 1947 to compete in the Rome Olympics in 1960. Milkha Singh was the first Indian male athlete to reach the finals of the Olympics when he barely missed the bronze medal by 0.1 seconds in the 400 metres race. He remembered for this years Tokyo Olympics hockey player Neha Goel, race walker Priyanka Goswami, javelin thrower Shivpal Singh, archers Deepika Kumari, Pravin Jadhav, badminton player Chirag Shetty. Pravin Jadhav is a laborer's son from Satara district in Maharashtra who is competing in archery. The prime minister talked about two people from Betul district, Madhya Pradesh, with vaccine fears from spread of disinformation. He pointed out that over 300 million people have been vaccinated and this includes his own 100 year old mother. He urged India to trust science and scientists. Sometimes, he said, people get a mild fever, that lasts only a few days. "Avoiding the vaccine can be very dangerous, you are not only putting yourself at risk but also  your family and the entire village." In the new phase of the vaccination drive vaccines are made available for free in all states and union territories. ...

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Mira Patel provides this report in great detail on how Indians living in the UK have grown from a tiny minority of 30,000 before independence in 1947 with little recognition in the UK to a population of 250,000 by 1961. In the years after 1945 many of the Sikhs and Punjabis in the British Army stayed in the UK. Two more waves of migration followed one with the East African Indians coming to the UK and one with Sikhs going to the UK. Race Relations Act of 1968 and a bill in 1961 changed the nature of immigrants to more professional people and students to maintain racial balance. By 1971 there were 483,000 Indians in the UK. Even today with 1.4 million Indians in the UK this forms only 2.5% of the UK population. Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel have important positions in the 2 year old Boris Johnson government yet too much can be read into this. Both are not deeply popular among the British public. Penny Mordaunt is the favorite at the grassroots of the Conservative Party. When one looks at the immigrant communities of Indians in the UK at one time in the 1880's only one MP Dadabhai Naoroji was in the British parliament. Today there are several ministers but mostly in a collapsing Conservative party administration of Boris Johnson. By comparison most of the Indian community migration in America has developed deeper roots and merged with the consciousness of the American society and public. Sunak and Patel are seen by most of the Labour grassroots as elitist, a kind of Macaulay class that Mira Patel describes. Macaulay a Britisher of the period of the British East India Company described the need in 1800's for a class of Indians "Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." This Indian diaspora is a distinct Indian entity which is why it is a class of Indians that Macaulay coveted says Mira Patel, but one that she says forms leaders in Britain not leaders in India. In some ways the US is different with less of the class society that the Empire and the Tory party represent. And in this way formed under a country that fought this very same Empire the Indian community in the US seems to have integrated into the vision of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln in ways that cannot be imagined in Britain or in Europe. ...

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The vehicle scrapping policy gets more financing in the 2023 Indian budget. This will have the effect of increasing car sales and jobs as newer cars, buses and other vehicles are put on the road. By increasing electric vehicles it is a fight for climate change prevention. The simple act of removing fossil fuel guzzling older vehicles with newer fuel efficient vehicles cuts oil use and cuts oil import costs. Doing this on scale is what will help in the fight for climate change. In just one move India will remove about 1 million buses, trucks and transport vehicles used by federal and state governments by April 1, 2023.

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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO, Natarajan Chandrasekeran, says rapid adoption of new technology will play a significant part in the plans of the Modi administration in India. The release of infrastructure projects worth over $100 billion that are in the pipeline but stalled because of lack of leadership and direction would give an immediate boost. The careful selection of new projects for the greatest impact on growth, rapid technology adoption, and the synergy between technology, human resource development and invested capital, could generate additional percentage points to the growth rate in India. Old myths on what is and is not possible will have to be discarded along the way.

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Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry is interviewed by The Hindu. Ali Sabry says he is "very, very confident" about the Adani Group's investments in Sri Lanka's renewable energy potential, and any drop in Adani stock value is not affecting the projects. Sabry says the Adani Group is already investing in its projects, which include the $700 million Colombo West Container Port Project. He met with India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in New Delhi at the Raisina Dialogue Conference. He was asked about his role as Foreign Minister after working as Finance Minister.  "It is still a mix of both, as I still have to carry out some of the responsibilities in debt restructuring and economic diplomacy, because the President is the finance minister, and naturally he cannot travel as often as we would like." "We are not out of the woods but stabilized right now, and what we are looking at next is recovery, for which we need investment. So right now, what we are interested in with India is how to collaborate and how to integrate with the Indian economy, particularly with South India, in terms of investment, people to people connection, more tourists coming in. So that's the kind of thing it is it's a win win situation for all." ...

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100 ships pass through Straits of Hormuz daily 5-6 daily in March 2026. BBC Verify looks at the kinds of ships from India, Pakistan, Iran, and Greek shipping that have made it through the Hormuz shipping lane.  Some of these ships go close to the Iranian coast and not in the middle of the channel. The mountainous terrain along the coast, the peculiar geography of the channel have made it difficult to secure the Straits of Hormuz for international shipping . The channel is itself narrow at one point about 24 miles of water separating Oman from Iran. The shipping lanes are 2 miles wide, a separation zone of 2 miles between inbound and outbound ships. This makes it hard to secure from fast speedboats, missiles, and drones without securing both sides of the channel on mountainous terrain. 

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Indian trade with Latin America 2025 of $40 billion sees a catchup effort to China's $480 billion trade. Efforts by Brazil's Petrobras and Argentina's YPF to increase exports of oil and LNG to India and increase imports of pharmaceuticals, automobiles and textiles.

Sabrina Olivera from the Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI) says-

"The fact that India is the only democracy in Asia gives it an advantage in Latin America, where most countries in the region are democracies, trust in India is stronger than in China."

Brazil's president Lula and Indian PM Modi worked closely for G20 Summits in New Delhi and Rio de Janeiro. This cooperation and a need for Latin America to diversify from concentration of trade with China, increasing potential with India, can lead to a doubling or tripling of trade with India in a few years.

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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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Prime minister Modi of India's visit to Japan in September 2014 leads to a commitment of about $35 billion in Japanese investment over 5 years. Japanese companies such as Suzuki, Toyota and Toshiba already have large investments in India.

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The FDA has found deficiencies and violations of safe manufacturing practices at 2 Ranbaxy plants in India. The FDA issued a ban on imports of 30 generic drugs from Ranbaxy in India.

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Startling fact seen in this chart of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis in the adjoining article next to this one- that in 2026 we are seeing 1929-1937 levels of military spending to GDP ratio of 2-3% just before it jumped to 45% in 1940. It is a cautionary tale not to spend too little (2-4% is a danger point) as lack of military modernization means a lot more spending soon after, almost 10 times that- 10 times 4% or 40% in World War II.  Message to the US is not what Starmer and company are saying in Europe- it is that don't invite the existential crisis of 1940 again for western (US, EU, Canada, UK) and eastern democracies (India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia) by not doing military modernization. And 2-4% of GDP for military spending is not going to be enough to do this.

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This NYT report on Mohamed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, who comes from Abu Dhabi one of the 7 emirates in the Gulf Coastal region, is rare and unusual. It provides stories the prince loves to tell that make a point about how he sees the world. Here he tells them to Robert F. Worth, in the only interview Mohamed bin Zayad has ever given to a journalist from US or Europe. It took a year just to get the interview. The title about a Dark Vision is inappropriate as Mohamed Zayad simply reflects what is a British way of looking at things- valuing the Constitution, keeping religion private even its deeply held beliefs and cultural traditions such as Bedouin's practice, and a general tolerance that characterizes British society and similar societies throughout the history of Europe and Asia that were sitting on shipping lanes and practiced trade for a livelihood. It is also important because the other Mohamed, Mohamed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is seen as someone influenced by the ideas of Mohamed Bin Zayad of Abu Dhabi. President Biden plans a trip to the region in coming months to continue on building a narrative of development for the region. This provide an insight into the coastal regions that include Gujarat across the Gulf in India, that for centuries traded with the Gulf kingdoms. They have a trading mentality and with it comes a tolerance that is also seen in trading nations such as England. This is what brought Britain to India (and China) says Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi went so far as to say that if there was trade on the moon you would find a British shopkeeper was first to setup shop there. Zayed has as a minister in his cabinet, a woman who is minister of Tolerance, Sheikha Lubna al Quasimi.  Zayed is unique for three reasons. He has embedded in his views the spirit of tolerance. As Worth puts it in NYT, Zayed has grasped what is true to the spirit of the Gulf region. The country's location on an ancient shipping lane has bred a type of Islam in the Gulf region, that is open to the world and tolerant.  His father Zayed Nahyan's  tendencies to openness and frank demeanor combine with this tolerance to provide a different kind of leadership. His father had the pluralist instincts that combined traditional Bedouin attitudes with a rare liberal mindedness. He died at age 86 in 2004. Zayed bin Nahyan MBZ's father was selected for these very reasons by the British in 1966 to rule the small Gulf kingdom of Abu Dhabi. In 1966, says this NYT report, the country was mostly illiterate, half of all children died during childbirth and one third of the women during childbirth, there was a complete lack of western medicine. Zayed Nahyan's brother was averse to development making the British select Zayed Nahyan at the request of Abu Dhabhi families. These early years shaped Mohamed Bin Zayed's views of how to see the world. Zayed the son loves to tell stories, and this one in the NYT shows how Mohamed bin Zayed the son and Mohamed bin Nahyan the father share a sense of what it means to be human and support all people's aspirations for a better life. This is the narrative in India and the region of 1.8 billion people that extends from India to Indonesia and Vietnam. This was seen at the G7 when leaders of India and Indonesia were invited to meet with the G7 in Munich, Germany and taken as utterly serious participants in the discussions to shape the Free World. To see the difference- UAE has signed agreements to increase trade with India to $100 billion over 5 years and was thanked by prime minister Modi for treatment of 8 million Indian workers in the Gulf region during the pandemic. Saudis are now stabilizing the Turkish and Egyptian economies with aid and providing some of the funding assistance for Siemens to modernize the entire Egyptian rail system with the latest technology over the next 5 years. Projects of this size that have never been undertaken since 1945. Sometime in the 1980's when Zayed was a young military officer having completed training at the Royal British Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, and educated in Scotland, he went to the grasslands of Tanzania. During his visit to Tanzania he went to several villages to see the Masai tribes. When he returned he sat with his father crosslegged on the floor in traditional Bedouin and Asian style and told him about his travels. His father asked Zayed about all the details- the wildlife, the Masai people and their customs, the extent of poverty in the country. After hearing it all his father asked Zayed what he had done for the people he had encountered. In response Zayed shrugged and answered, the people he met were not Muslims. Zayed still recalls his father's reaction, sudden, forceful and indelible from memory. Zayad says his father took a sudden hold of his arm and spoke to him in a harsh tone and stern demeanor- " We are all God's children."     ...

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US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says this is not chaos in tariff policy because you don't change 70 years of policy overnight. He says China's is highest because it has the highest trade deficit, then EU, Japan, South Korea at 15% because of the smaller deficits with these nations, Vietnam because it is used  by China to send products to the US, India because of geopolitical reasons buying Russian oil. See Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief's  interview with USTR Jamieson Greer.  He says about India- Jamieson USTR calls India "an outlier" and says "I'm confident we will get a deal with India in the near future." India he says has largely corrected its imports of Russian oil and negotiations are underway for a deal.  ON USMCA Greer says of the $31 trillion in trade with Canada and Mexico $29 trillion is us right. trade between Canda and Mexico is small. So he says it makes sense to negotiate separately with Canada and separately with Mexico. This suggests that there doesnt need to be a USMCA- separate deals are just fine says Greer. Mexico has gained much in automobiles under USMCA- US wants to make more in the US including auto parts which it can do by negotiating this with Mexico. It does not make a ton of economic sense to marry the three economies together, says Greer, as the import export profiles, lab,or situations are all different. Are Tariffs good for the economy and do they lead to higher prices? Greer says inflation was down in the first DJT term in trade with China and tariffs. Greer says there is never a 1 to 1 with tariffs. It tariffs become a kind of leveage in getting agreements. That is the style of these tariffs. You tell Ecuador or Brazil we don't make these here so there will be no tariffs on bananas and on coffee. Says Greer- we have seen inflation in check, imported goods relatively low priced. We have seen that we can have growth and higher wages with tariffs at the same time. The growth in 2025 third quarter at 3.8% annual growth, and Atlanta Fed predicting 4.2% growth in 2026. And tariff money can be used for paying down the debt and financing America's reindustrialization, Greer says members of Congress are asking about this.When a new administration comes tariffs will still be part of the playbook. ...