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As the US and EU find other ways to act on cost of living action to reduce the impact of higher oil and gas prices, curb pharmacy and health costs, and grocery bills, tackle housing costs, the role that lower retail prices of goods from China play a diminished role. More important are jobs and wages in this economic structure and perceptions are being followed and shaped by policy of Biden, Scholz and other leaders of Democratic and Socialist parties. Biden and Yellen have raised the alarm over China's export based manufacturing strategies being revived one more time, there is also a new perception of the advantage of such lower retail goods from China coming at the expense of jobs and wages, loss of manufacturing technologies as in chips in the US, which is seen as clearly unacceptable. WSJ shows that recent data shows that this strategy in China is not delivering the growth China expected. The diversification of supply chain to India and Vietnam is also a response to earlier concentration of supply chain in China. ...

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Think BIG America, Reagan-Friedman theory that says government is best kept out leaves the Nation with hobbled dilapidated infrastructure.  New York City languishes in crisis with decades of neglect of its subway system modernization, the failure of the congestion pricing scheme puts the city in dire straits. Even Mumbai, India, where no subway system existed is getting a new subway. We show the Erie Canal as part of the DNA of America, to think big and move at the forefront of the first Industrial Revolution. It was built in 7 years from 1818 to 1825 for $7 million and opened up the vast hinterland of New York State- Rochester, Buffalo on Lake Erie, Schenectady- and connected it by navigable waterway with locks to the Hudson river at Albany and on to New York City and the Atlantic. On May 13, 1954 Republican president Eisenhower signed the Seaway Act and authorized construction of the St Lawrence Seaway with Canada at cost of $C135 million with 22,000 workers.The US Army Corps of engineers began construction of the US section in 1957 and completed it by 1959 for oceangoing ships to navigate the St. Lawrence River from Duluth in Minnesota and Milwaukee to Quebec and on to Montreal and the Atlantic. These are the projects that built the Midwest and Northeastern states, and Quebec.  ...

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Swarnalatha Reddi is a part of a young generation of Indian women engineers joining industry. Click on Original Article to see this video of how Chennai is becoming the world wide hub for electric vehicle technology and manufacturing. Shown here are Swarnalatha as a new e-mobility engineer from a neighboring state who moved to Chennai's Mahindra R&D division. Senior managers at Mahindra and BMW say that the local government is paying particular attention to needs of manufacturing in Chennai.

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Cultural burn at a Sequoia forest in California takes place to prevent fire damage. Native Indian rituals are performed.

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Contrasting Gurgaon in the capital region near New Delhi, with Bihar state in the northeast where much of the region is without electricity, as more Indians look for electricity and lighting in rural areas and the trend towards quadrupling of electricity demand in the next 25 years. Half of India's people have no access to the electricity grid and the government plans to extend electricity to rural India in the next 5 years. Transportation will add to energy demand as will construction. Per capita emissions for this reason, the large part of unlighted rural India, is low at 2 tons per capita compared to 20 tons in the USA, and yet India is already the fourth larges emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. With increasing use of abundant coal reserves for electricity production there will be more emissions in the years to come.

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Pakistan has moved ahead in developing its nuclear arsenal. The production of uranium and plutonium for bombs and developing new weapons to deliver them has actually been accelerated during the recent period of unrest in Pakistan. Four years ago Pakistan had an estimated 30 to 60 weapons. Hans Kristensen, is the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Kristensen says it is not unreasonable to say that Pakistan has produced at least 100 weapons. Simon Gregory, Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, puts the number at between 100 and 110. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. A 2008 agreement that lets India purchase nuclear fuel for civilian purposes was a motivation for accelerating nuclear weapons development in Pakistan. In December 2008, Peter Lavoie, the US intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that despite impending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," according to classified State Department cables released late last year by the Intenet site WikiLeaks. This leak angered the Pakistan army chief Gen. Kayani who said "the real aim of US war strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan."...

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A million Indian soldiers served in the First World War on the Allied side. This is the story of the 39th Garhwal Rifles in Givenchy, France, in the Christmas of 1914. Spice tins were given to Indian soldiers from Princess Mary, only daughter of King George V. They were also exchanged on Christmas day 1914 by Allied soldiers with German soldiers at the Front lines.

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Reliance Power's total capacity is expected to reach 5000 megawatts by Dec. 2012. The company plans to install total capacity of 35,000 MW. It is building a 3,960 MW thermal project at Tilaiya in Jharkhand state, eastern India. Another plant of the same capacity is being built at Chitrangi in Madhya Pradesh, central India. About 75% of the funding will be through debt. Relince is in talks with U.S. and Chinese banks to fund the $8.35 billion for these 2 projects. Loans agreements are in place for $5 billion from the Export-Import Bank in the U.S. and $12 billion from Chinese banks, funding that is coming as part of buying equipment from the U.S. and China.

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Moody's analyst Mr Shah passed information to the tipster in the Galleon case. The tipster is Ms Khan, a former hedge fund manager who worked at Galleon. Mr Shah left for India in 2007.

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The symbolism of the Ramstein Air Force Base is unique as US Defense Secretary Austin says this months meeting of Blinken and Austin at Ramstein with their European counterparts will be followed by monthly meetings. Lloyd Austin sees this as a monthly group on Ukraine self-defense. Ramstein Air Force base is the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe, and of NATO Allied Air Command. For the first time the invasion of a free people and country in the middle of Europe is being taken seriously in Europe and the US.  In Germany Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck of the Greens have joined with Mr. Lindner of the Free Democrats to express the same views in the coalition government with the Social Democrats, making it clear that the German people are with the Americans and European leaders gathered at Ramstein base. The earlier symbolism of Merkel and Steinmeier and a German position of a bystander in the changes happening in the world in China and in Europe are now seen as having emboldened the Russian invasion of Ukraine. India and most Asian and Latin American countries and the UN Secretary General have called for an immediate end to the invasion.  ...

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The 22 states that formed the state of Rajasthan 22 months after independence in 1947 were part of the Rajputana Agency under the British Empire in India. It spanned 330,000 square kilometres with an agent under the Governor General in charge at Mount Abu. All had Hindu rulers except Tonk and most of them were Rajput except for Jat rulers in Bharatpur and Dholpur. These states were not affected by the 1857 revolt against British rule because they remained loyal to the British. Sardar Patel, deputy prime minister, headed the States Ministry with VP Menon as Secretary. The integration to form the new state happened in stages. The first union was the Matsya Union of Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, at the eastern edge of the Rajputana Agency by March 18, 1948. Nine other states near Udaipur in the south east merged to form the Rajasthan Union by March 25, 1948. On March 30, 1949, Patel pulled in 4 states bordering Pakistan, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, and Bikaner into Greater Rajasthan. The Matsya Union was merged into this state. In 1956 under States Reorganization Act Ajmer was added from federal rule and Abu Taluk was integrated into Rajasthan. ...

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As winter approaches pollution reaches dangerous levels in New Delhi causing a public health emergency. Millions of anti-pollution masks are now distributed at schools, colleges, hospitals and local markets. As the weather cools a thick haze from car emissions and coal power plants builds up over New Delhi making it hard to see. The cool weather appears to trap the pollutants in northern India against the Himalayan mountains creating a stifling haze. Construction dust and smoke from paddy crop burned in the Punjab adds to the problem. This year it is getting worse than ever. Pollution levels are about 20 times what is considered healthy by the WHO. The air quality index hit 494 on November 3, 2019. Some parts of the city hit 1000 on the index. Over 500 is considered dangerous and "hazardous" to health. The government of Delhi and the state and federal authorites have taken some action to close schools, ban work at construction sites, implemented odd even license plates rule for cars entering New Delhi. A survey shows about 40% of residents of New Delhi wanted to move to some other city, and 16% want to travel this time of the year to escape pollution. ...

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This report in WSJ shows a generational problem that is creating a shortage of workers in Vietnam and China, that will require factory owners to increase wages significantly. US and European government policy supports these higher wages so that some of the manufacturing can be returned to bring jobs back home.   Younger workers do not want to spend much of their lives behind factory walls, and prefer less strenuous jobs shorter working hours in the services sector. They are having fewer children and at later ages than parents, resulting in less pressure to work in their 20's for a steady income. Factories in Vietnam are offering glass walls, yoga classes, improving cafeteria food, and offering kindergarden for worker children to attract workers.  In China there is 21% urban youth unemployment at a time of factory shortages. South Asian countries such as Bangladesh have infrastructure problems, and in India factories are finding it difficult to sign up workers. In the next 2 years this will result in costlier goods in US and EU, over 3-5 years this will bring many jobs back to the home countries. ...

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African continent debt reached $1.1 trillion in 2024. About 900 million people live in African countries where interest payments on debt exceed money spent on healthcare and education. In Nigeria external debt is $40 billion, in Kenya $35 billion and Uganda $12 billion.  Take Nigeria with 220 million people. 40% of the revenue collected goes to meet interest payments on debt. For many African countries there is zero per capita income growth for a decade. During the 2010 crisis as interest rates reached new lows US and European Reagan era intellectuals including Democrats encouraged African countries to borrow at low rates and banks loosened restrictions putting more African countries into debt buildup borrowings. As interest rates went up the cost of paying the debt accumulated required more loans at higher interest rates. Nigeria paid a premium over that of 10% for a loan of $2 billion just for interest payments. The debt crisis means African currencies depreciate reducing purchasing power.  With war in Ukraine and Covid prices of food and energy rose. Only the strong and disciplined leadership and rapid industrialization provided breathing room as with Modi in India, Jinping in China, the African continent and Latin America lacked this and are feeling the pain. ...

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Indian manufacturing sector continues to grow rapidy at close to 12% as its starting off a small base and existing infrastructure needs upgrading badly and foreign investment is only now coming into India.

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Its hard to miss $1 billion in cash. This is what Price Waterhouse and Coopers, the outside auditor for Satyam Computer's books missed in its audit of Satyam. Price Waterhouse has been the outside auditor for 5 years, with the audits handled by a partner in India. This fictitious cash balance could lead to stricter standards and reporting in India.

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Iraq is Iran's most promising market for gas exports. Iraq needs the gas for its power stations now that Islamic State has been decisively cleared from Iraq. Yet Iraq is having difficulty making payments to Iran for gas supplies because banks are not ready to handle the payments with the reimposed tighter U.S. sanctions and restrictions. The deputy head of media at the Electricity ministry in Iraq, Sadoun Shehan, told WSJ that transfer of money by Iraqi banks is prevented because of U.S. sanctions. U.S. sanctions were reimposed by the Trump administration after they were lifted in January 2016. The new sanctions prohibit gas exports from Iran. Iran had hoped to make the sales and also export to the European Union when sanctions were lifted. Iranian exports of gas that started in 2017 were itself delayed for 4 years by the war from Islamic State.  Iran has the second largest reserves of natural gas in the world. The Trump administration's sanctions have led to a drop of Iranian crude shipments by 29% in 3 months and added to upward pressure on oil prices to take prices to $80 a barrel. This issue has implications for India and China, particularly India as it faces both higher prices for oil and the tight restrictions in purchase of Iranian oil. ...

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Which European port is at the center of Europe's wind energy project. Answer: Esbjerg, Denmark. On May 18, 2022 the heads of state of Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium came together to sign the Declaration of Esbjerg. Together the countries want to increase wind energy production in the North Sea to 65 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and rising to 150 GW by 2050. Esbjerg is one of the few ports in Europe and the key port serving the offshore wind industry. Industry leaders Vestas and Siemens Gamesa ship wind turbines from here, and Orsted provides spare parts that weigh several tons.  German ports such as Bremerhaven lack the infrastructure and it is tied up in disputes ending up in court. Dutch port of Eemshaven is much smaller. The harbor was recently expanded in Esbjerg by 0.5 million square metres to 4.5 million square metres or 45 million square feet. Environment groups are also part of this and there is no dissent in the planning. Here are some useful facts on wind power- Environment cost is 70 times less than that of coal fired power according to Germany's Federal Environment Agency. Within 3  to 11 months wind turbines generate the energy required to build them. No CO2 is produced in the electricity generation process but they do alter the landscape. The future of wind power giants is in the sea where the wind is reliable and strong. One such modern turbine can have an output of 10 to 15 thousand kilowatts to provide electricity for 40,000 people. Pioneers in wind energy are Denmark and Germany. Denmark gets 50% of its energy from wind power, for Germany this is 25%. Jobs are generated installing and operating these wind energy turbines. 1.3 million people are employed in it today. With additional wind propulsion energy consumption of freighters carrying most of the world's freight would be reduced by 30%. Wind and photovoltaic solar can combine for providing most of India's energy because of its sea coastline and having a lot of sun. To get an idea of what is doable in India - in Germany 41% of electricity demand is met from renewables mostly solar and wind. German farmers get 25% of their income from solar energy. Where Germany lags is in use of renewables for transport which falls to about 9% and for heating and cooling where it is about 18%, and it is making great strides to correct this. A big change is technology and how people use transport (more train than airline or automobiles), which will change the entire picture of how energy is created and used in the future. Energiewende the  term for this change is only beginning to take place with urgency in Germany in 2022. India needs to work closely with Denmark and Germany to stay in front of these developments.   ...

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A whole range of issues can be seen in the debt crises in developing countries. The margin for error shrinks with poor governance, lack of honest assessment and transparency for finances, wars and conflicts within or outside the countries, living beyond their means, lack of focus on development, infrastructure that is unproductive or unaffordable including some Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure at higher interest rates. Countries that are dependent on overseas remittances, tourism, that were hit hard by the pandemic have seen their finances further weakened reducing the margin for error even more to the point that the smallest tipping point can lead to huge crises. Once the finances are weak all it takes is an external tipping point that creates serious crisis. The war in Ukraine with shortages of wheat, fertilizer and skyrocketing oil prices acted as that tipping point. Because this was a major blow the crises have a level of magnitude that is more than a payments crisis. One sees this in South Asia in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and in the Middle East for countries such as Egypt and Tunisia shown in this WSJ report. It is now not simply a crisis but a crisis of great magnitude because in the case of Sri Lanka and Pakistan this WSJ report says that both countries foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to the point where they can pay for only one or two months of imports according to central bank data, analysts and IMF. This crisis has affected countries that were seeing steady foreign investment such as Turkey for decades, then a sharp falloff in foreign investment with a change in the climate for foreign investment. The crisis has taken the form of high inflation, significant depreciation of currency that makes imports costlier so that shrinking revenues from loss of remittances, tourism, or other sources will now have less value in supporting import needs. Lack of a credible path can delay setting a path out of the crisis. The $1.5 billion fuel and electricity subsidy made by the prime minister of Pakistan in late February was done without IMF approval leading to the IMF program having to be renegotiated. Lack of national political and cultural consensus on a solution simply makes it that much more difficult to find the way through it. In this regard South Korea was able to tackle the 1997 financial payments crisis effectively because of a national consensus. The situation in Egypt- Egypt has borrowed $20 billion from the IMF since 2016., placing it second to Argentina in aid from IMF since 1980's.  In 2020 and 2021 Egypt' government spent more than 40% of its revenue servicing its debt, and is forecast to do the same in 2022. The situation in Tunisia- A shortage of sugar, flour, and other critical supplies, and government delaying wage payments to civil servants. The government got $400 million in financing last month from the World Bank and hopes to secure a lifeline from the IMF. Compared to the period between the 2 World Wars the two bright spots are China and India where lessons of the past of civil wars, religious or political conflict, and poor governance, lack of knowledge of how the western countries industrialized and modernized, was replaced with the conviction that drives patient effort, courage in the face of adversity, honesty, and humility to learn including from western countries that have forged their own path through the same difficult road. The most difficult experiences have offered lessons which were learned- for South Korea the Korean War and invasion from the north, China the civil war and Japanese invasion, for India the partition of India and million of refugees. Stagnation from stumbled efforts also taught lessons, the Great Leap Forward in China, the License Raj with corruption in India.       ...

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India plans to incease its nuclear capacity to produce electricity by 5 fold in the next 10 years and build 30 nuclear reactors at the cost of $100 billion. The French company Areva is likely to get some contracts and two Russian companies are building a nuclear reactor and should also get some contracts. The state owned French and Russian companies are protected from civil liability while GE Energy and Westinghouse would have to take care of the liability issues as India has not joined the treaty which created a global fund to to compensate victims of nuclear disasters.

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India is an attractive place for foreign investors with the country moving up 23 places in the ease of doing business rankings of the World Bank. Growth is faster than China since 2015, and GDP is expected to double to $5 trillion by 2030, according to government think tank NITI Aayog. Corporate deal making from foreign investors exceeds that in China. Mergers and acquisitions targeting Indian companies reaching a total of $93.7 billion in 2018, up 52% from last year, according to Dealogic. Overseas purchases were $39.5 billion for India in 2018 compared to $32.8 billion for China. In comparison to China where trade tensions are increasing, India under the Modi government has improved the ease of doing business- implementing a new bankruptcy code, easing foreign direct investment rules, introduced a nationwide goods and services tax to replace a hodge podge of taxes in different states. In the consumer sector Unilever NV made purchase of a malted drink brand Horlicks from GlaxoSmithKline PLC as part of a $3.75 billion deal. Softbank led a $1 billion investment in OYO Hotels. In infrastructure Tata Steel made a $8.3 billion acquisition of steelmaker Bhushan Steel. Reliance Jio's aggressive push in mobile with low prices is leaving the telecom industry ripe for mergers and consolidation- Bharti Infratel acquired Indus Towers for $6.5 billion. Closely held family companies are also selling out their controlling stakes. ...

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In addition to a new $1 billion credit line after the earlier $1 billion credit line, India is facilitating Sri Lanka's negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Indian focus is for stronger Neighborhood and economic development in the region at an accelerated pace after earlier setbacks in the region. This can be seen in Uttar Pradesh a region as large in population as the US, which faltered for 60 years after independence, but is moving forward with both state and federal government guided efforts. This also holds true for the entire Indian Ocean region countries where Indian experience in achieving development goals can be shared. 

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Disbelief at what happened in the Sydney cricket Test with the comments of Paine to Ashwin and the activity on the crease by Smith, as Indian batsmen held on to save the day. Readers comments are interesting. One reader says Brett Lee is the Australian bowler who should be the role model for Australia. Then again Richie Benaud from the sixties and seventies going far back is what the Australians need to go back to. Other readers say this is not just Australian cricket, it is cultural in Australia.

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A multi-billion dollar auction of new bandwidth for phone operators in India was rigged to favor certain companies, according to a report by the auditor -general of India. The report says the auction was conducted by the Communcations ministry in a way "that lacked transparency and fairness." The report focusses on a few of the operators including Reliance Communications. The result is a loss of 1.76 trillion rupees or $39 billion, according to auditors. The cellphone industry in India is seeing rapid growth- 18 million new users were added in October 2010, with the total reaching 671 million. By comparison China has 830 million users. Of 122 licenses granted in the 2008 auction, 85 went to companies that "suppressed facts, disclosed incomplete information and submitted fictitious documents," according to the auditor's report. and in at least one instance, the Ministry's department of Telecommunications "miserably failed to do the due diligence in the examination of the applications," the report said....

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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.