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The world today is in a much better position to complete the transition to zero dependence on the volatile Middle East for oil. Today in 2026 the world's largest nations 1. US   2. China  3. India  4. Germany are all free of Middle East oil (India through waivers for Russian sources). European Union and UK is at about 12% which can be quickly substituted from the US+ Venezuela and other sources. US is self sufficient in oil and gas and exports oil to the UK, India, Germany and the European Union. Canada is self sufficient. Germany gets only 6% of its oil from the Middle East, the UK 12%, Spain 13% and Italy 14%. The Iran war is likely to shift more of the needs of UK, Spain and Italy to other more stable sources including oil from the US and Venezuela managed by the US, and other sources. This means that US policymakers can act in the best interests of all the nations of the world for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles. Germany is moving rapidly to renewable energy and this could bring its dependence on the Middle East to zero. India will meet its needs from Russia for the time being till it also shifts to oil from US+ Venezuela. India get 55% of its oil from the Middle East or about 2.7 million b/d. Russia was an important source of oil for India till the US trade agreement called for it to shift- a 30 day waiver and extension means India can get this oil from Russia without sanctions for the duration of the war. Reducing European demand and Indian demand frees up oil for Japan and South Korea on the world market the other 2 countries dependent on Middle East oil- Japan importing 95% of its oil consumption with imports of 2.5 million b/d and South Korea importing about 2 million b/d or 70% of its consumption. This means Japan and South Korea need a new strategy as they are overexposed to one source just as Germany was and learned a difficult lesson to diversify its sources. Japan has learned to reduce consumption for the same level of GDP and some of this can be through conservation, also tried in Germany in the last 4 years. During the 4 years. of Ukraine war Germany had to find ways to diversify sources Japan and South Korea will need rapidly to do the same in the Iran War. This means that only Japan and South Korea because of their lack of policy direction and vigilance have allowed this overdependence on the Gulf region,  (even as Germany diversified its sources, DJT and Israel were firm on nuclear weapons policy) they failed to see signs that they should diversify. Today in 2026 the world's largest nations 1. US 2. China 3. India 4. Germany are all free of Middle East oil (Indi through waivers for Russian sources), European Union and UK is at about 12% which can be quickly substituted from the US+ Venezuela and other sources.    ...

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In speaking about Indian democracy and human freedom not mentioned was the unprecedented food security or freedom from hunger that was offered to one sixth of the world's population in India since March 2021, year of the pandemic. Not mentioned was the unprecedented health security or freedom from viral epidemic that was offered to the same people in that period with 900 million vaccine doses. Not mentioned was the freedom of expression in 15 Indian languages including freedom to write about the government at local, state and federal levels in the country with a wider spread of language and regional dialects than Europe for 75 years since independence. Not mentioned was the struggle within this democracy to give the younger generation of people under 30 who make up the biggest part of the population an opportunity for the first time in about one thousand years to take charge of their own future. All this one can see with open eyes and open mind. These are also the young people who have the most to gain or lose from the wrong actions at the wrong time, as they take up the challenges of modernization of a clean and vibrant infrastructure friendly India of the future.  ...

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India's development of the India Middle East Corridor with rail and infrastructure links is a plan that is pursued with cooperation of Saudis, UAE, Kuwait and Gulf region. This is an economic development plan that seeks to invest in the entire South and West Asian region. Just as Europe after 2 wars has emerged from that with the French, Germans, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe forming  the European Economic Community that later became the European Union, the Gulf states and India which faces the Gulf states across the Arabian Sea are seen as one region that can trade with the European bloc and the US on better terms. A lot of the investments that were wasted in wars are now being channelled into infrastructure development and regional development with resources of manpower from India and with assistance from the US. Le Monde should say that it is good for all- geopolitics and socialist or religious ideologies led to so many wars in the Middle East. Modi is from Gujarat where priorities are not religion- priorities are trade and the economy since the overseas trade from the 14th century. ...

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The most watched and most popular radio and television show in the history of the world is Mann Ki Baat- What's on my mind and in my heart- given monthly on the last Sunday of each month by prime minister Modi of India. This is how the production setup takes place in this video from Times of India. It shows Modi talking about a nation on the move, vibrant, aspiring with curiosity and adventurous in spirit, about a billion and a half people and majority under 35 years, on the march to a better future. 

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France and Italy are imposing strict rules for their lockdown and tougher enforcement to control spread of coronavirus. India has imposed a quarantine, a total ban on leaving the home with a televised address by prime minister Modi that set a 21 day lockdown period. Modi said "if the pandemic cannot be managed in 21 days it would set India back by 21 years." 

Fines of $3000 euros are imposed in Italy and cars seized by the police. A special form has to filled out in Italy showing where one is going and checked by police if leaving the home. In France one needs an Affidavit of Movement by Special Dispensation is a filled form required for everyone outside the home. All open air markets are closed in France and drones are used to warn people outside.

All domestic and international flights in India are stopped. All domestic passenger trains and bus services in India are also stopped.

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Depleting ground water reserves are leading to water shortages in India's cities. About 40% of India's people lack drinking water by 2030, according to government think tank NITI Aayog 2018 report. Water shortages are hitting cities such as Chennai. This report looks at the water shortage in remote Himalayan region Ladakh. WOrld Resources Institute points out that India is the 13th most water stressed country in the world, with a population three times the combined population of 16 countries that are water stressed. By 2030 water demand will double in India. The government is giving drinking water top priority in its plan for the next 5 years as key to development.  One of the problems is that farmers in the northern plains pay little for gorundwater use resulting in the planting of water intensive crops. The government plans to promote conservation of water as a national priority with education on this subject of water critical to achieving its objective of providing 100%  access to drinking water for Indians. Drip irrigation with minimal water use is also being encouraged to conserve water. ...

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Mysteriously Catherine Ojha, a European anthropologist, is cited here for what the word Bharat means to Indians. One only looks to the movement for freedom of hundreds of millions in southern Asia under Gandhiji to realize that it was for the freedom of Bharat that they were fighting for against the British Empire not the entity that was British India. It was the people of British India that financed Britain's defense in the Napoleonic Wars around 1800. Juan Mascaro the Cambridge historian who completed the translation of the Penguin Classics Bhagavad Gita had better grasp of India than an obscure except for French and other European language readers such as Ojha. 

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DW.com's Aditya Sharma takes a deeper look at India's efforts to tackle climate change before the COP26 Glasgow Summit. Mr. Modi will attend the global summit in Glasgow, Scotland, COP26. Chinese president Xi Jinping is not expected to attend. India is the only major country to be on track to achieve its targets set in the Paris Climate change Agreement, according to the UN Environment Program's Emission Gap Report.  This report in DW.com says India plans to reduce the emissions intensity of GDP- volume of emissions for every unit of GDP- by around 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels. India is also nearing its goal under 2015 Paris Agreement for achieving about 40% share of non fossil fuel based electricity generating capacity, which the government expects will be achieved by 2023, 7 years ahead of schedule. Behind this are ambitious goals for solar energy generation set by prime minister Modi, after his first experiments with new solar energy technologies when he was running the state government in Gujarat state. Modi sees new technologies of the future playing a big role in making it possible to achieve ambitious goals way ahead of schedule. This is the unique approach India is adopting of pushing ahead with newer and newer technologies. ...

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India's 135 thermal power plants ahve just 4 days of coal stocks as of October 1, says the Financial Times, citing the power ministry. The power ministry has instructed plants to build up stocks. China is already facing a power shortage after coal fired plants were asked to cut down the use of coal to meet emissions targets. In early August coal fired plants in India had 13 days of stocks. With coal prices rising India did not buy enough coal to build up inventories. The manufacturing sector suffered a contraction in China for the first time since the pandemic started in 2020. China has instructed state owned energy companies to secure supplies of fossil fuel to prevent winter shortages. This further increased price of coal. Coal from Indonesia went up from $60 a ton in March to $200 a ton in September discouraging imports. The result is that with limited supplies and rising prices of coal India faces a perfect storm and power cutbacks as in China. ...

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India takes on the presidency of the UN Security Council in August. India will be a supporter of international law, says External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Maritime security and UN peacekeeping will receive India's attention. India is elected non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

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A sign of the growing people to people relationship of the US and India is the number of Indians in US graduate schools which went up from 68,000 to 102,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year, up 48%. There almost as many Indians taking the GRE exam for entry into US graduate schools in 2023 as Americans taking GRE in the US. Another sign of the expanding people to people relationship is the decision of the Biden administration to give 1 million visitor visas to Indians in the coming year. In India physical sciences and humanities for GRE exceed engineering by a wide margin, showing the shift in subjects. Under India's new education policy NEP the shift is to a more multidisciplinary approach and allowing students to mix science subjects, math with humanities. This approach is seen as best for India to produce a new generation that can think for itself better than the purely engineering science or medical track graduates of the past who had limited knowledge of the humanities. This overly engineering focus has prevailed in the educational approaches of Japan and China during their rapid growth period. India under the Modi administration is betting on a wider knowedge of different and contrasting subjects and disciplines for its future. ...

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A study published by UNICEF shows that of 55 countries only three showed increase in popular perception of the importance of children's vaccines- India, China and Mexico. The Vaccine Confidence Project is conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study says a total of 67 million children missed out on vaccinations between 2019 and 2021 the years of the pandemic, vaccination coverage decreased in 112 countries, and much backsliding in vaccination happened that needs to be corrected.

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The number of countries visa free entry is the wrong way to give passport rankings as learning from other countries and cultures, learning about their scientific advances and manner of thinking is key to the huge changes that happened in Asia- in first Japan by 1900, South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, by 1960's, China by 1990's and India by 2010- as the people of these countries interacted with Europe and the US. Interaction with Europe and the US is key for Asian nations.  This happened even earlier as Americans by 1880's interacted with Europe through ship voyages across the Atlantic in 7 days. This brought knowledge of scientific advances and ways of thinking from Europe to the US accelerating pace of industrialization in the agricultural economy in the US in the 19th century.  In 2025 the visa free access for US and EU to some of the advanced Asian nations, Japan and China is key to bringing back knowledge of scientific and other advances to the US and EU.  India and China should be compared. At Munich and other German EU airports China has the kind of visa free and fast track entry that does not exist either for the US or India. The writer experienced this on a recent visit in 2025 with a US passport denied entry to the fast track lane reserved for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other travelers. India's bureaucracy, and US's lethargy, and the sheer lack of serious effort comparable to China and Japan in getting fast easy access to EU is to blame , particularly for the travelers who are most likely to gain from such interactions, the educated middle class and business people of India and the US. One could go so far as to say that one of the keys to China's advances is its ties to Germany and Hamburg and entry ports in Netherlands to the EU. EU is the source of technologies and of scientific knowledge freely available to China 1990-2025. For this to happen advanced logistics and ship- port building had to take place. India must do the same and much faster than anything that happened before 2025 at a pace as fast as China's if it is to reach it's potential in the world economy alongside the US and EU. ...

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How the threat of the energy offensive by Russia against Germany and the European Union was met and tackled successfully.

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After Mohandas Gandhi one of the main leaders of modern India is one who came from the untouchable castes, the lowest caste in India's caste system which had declined over centuries. Babasaheb Ambedkar comes from Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra from a family that had gained its way out of the caste constraints by working for the British East India Company. He later studied at Elphinstone College in Bombay, and went to Columbia University on a scholarship. He finished Masters degrees at Columbia University and later at the London School of Economics, in economics and political science.  Returning to India he wrote "Annhilation of Caste" in 1936. Mohandas Gandhi was at this time working on his own movement to get rid of the untouchability that over centuries made its way into the original caste system and weakened the foundations of Indian society. To understand this one has to know that in many upper castes it was seen as becoming an outcaste even to travel overseas, which by itself may have led to the decline that India experienced in the period 1500-1950, and which Gandhi personally experienced and fought his way out of. By 1942 even the British recognized Ambedkar's efforts and he was Minister of Law and Justice in the war cabinet. In 1947 Ambedkar was chosen to lead the team that would write India's Constitution. In his latter years Ambedkar became a Buddhist and has written several books on Buddhism. By 2015 Ambedkar day was recognized as a public holiday by the new government and his memory is enshrined in the efforts now underway in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh to bring modern ideas, and modernization through next generation infrastructure, and opportunity for Dalits of which caste Ambedkar was one, and the same for all of the 250 million people of Uttar Pradesh, almost the size of America. ...

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The Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to grow by 13% to $24 billion in 2010. R&D is a special focus, as new drugs can be developed at much lower cost in India. Mr. Piramal, for instance, kept the R&D operation of Piramal when he sold the rest of the company to Abbott Labs of the USA. The Piramal lab in Mumbai has 300 researchers and scientists, and Mr Piramal says he can develop new drugs at a tenth of the $1.5- $2 billon cost it takes for this in the USA and Europe.

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A $100 billion infrastructure project to create a high tech manufacturing and freight corridor between New Delhi and Mumbai with a third of the money coming from Japanese public and private money will be announced this week during Japanese Prime Minister Abe's visit to India this week. Japanese investment in India is expected to rise from $515 million in 2006 to $5.5 billion in 2011. Lack of infrastructure has been a key constraint to investment in Indian manufacturing and this project hopes to address this problem. This would include airports, ports, and a high speed freignt line for the 1500 kilometres between New Delhi and Mumbai. CEO's from companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, Canon, Hitachi have joine a new Japan-India business leader forum. Toyota plans to increase manufacturing capacity to 600,000 in India by 2015. Japan played a major role in the rapid modernization of Korea, China, and now is likely to do so in India as well.

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Jasprit Bumrah will be the new captain for India's cricket team as it plays a final Test match against England led by Ben Stokes. Stokes led England to a 3-0 win in Test matches against New Zealand with Joe Root in top form.

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India vs England cricket Test series 2025 ends with Siraj bowling out Atkinson and India winning by 6 runs. "Test cricket" going back to the days of Gary Sobers and Richie Benaud in 1960. In one Test at the Gabba in Brisbane in 1960, the West Indies and England were down in the last ball to one run and the game ended with a tie, both teams at the same score. That Test is considered the most or one of the most memorable of all time. This one with Gill and Siraj, Root and Stokes joins that one. For all days at Headingley, Old Trafford, Lord's, Birmingham, and the Oval, crowds packed the stadium, and a billion people watched the series in India, UK, Australia, US, and other countries on television.

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In this report in TOI, Vijay Gokhale, former foreign secretary, points out the big shift taking place in how Germany like the US is paying attention to its mistake of overconcentrating its supply base and investments in one country, China. This type of overinvestment in one country does not make sense for a country for its supply chain, until one accepts that China succeeded to a great extent in building next generation infrastructure, logistics, and ease of manufacturing in China. India is only now learning this lesson- and Modi's experience in Gujarat stemming from studying China's evolution as an industrial nation. Lessons that are now being applied all over India to do, to build the kind of next generation infrastructure and logistics that would make it attractive to make in India and invest in India for Germany and the US. Gokhale describes the intense discussions that are taking place in the inner circles of all three parties, Merkel's CDU out of power questioning Merkel's policies of building so much concentration of business in China, the SPD questioning why it went along, and the Greens knowing that India is their natural partner and the one partner that thinks and acts most like the Greens Baerbock and Habeck. Baerbock is critical of the sale of a stake in Hamburg port to China. No other German leader is like Baerbock, who feels really at home in India in a way that few German leaders have during her recent visit. There is so much change in the Biden administration and in the three major parties thinking about China and how the future of the western nations rests squarely on India's shoulders and its young aspiring population of 1.2 billion, that even India under Modi's leadership for technological change and infrastructure has not kept pace with these changes. This is why Gokhale calls it tectonic. ...

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Dipti Deshpande writes in the Economic Times that how India's economy recovers depends a lot on how well the government tackles the problems of vaccine supplies, vaccination staff and incentives for vaccination to the public, vaccination logistics, and vaccination skepticism. Vaccination plays a large role in the reduction of fear and permits resumption of normal activity as seen in the US, UK and France. Government education of the public on vaccine safety should be conducted on an organized basis across the country starting now for the gaol of vaccinating the entire population by December 2021. In the 200 days remaining in 2021 the government would have to administer over 1000 million doses or at the rate of 5 million doses a day just for the single dose population, with the second dose meaning additional supplies and logistical effort, organized health staffing, all to be organized.  The thrust of this article is that the economy and especially laggard sectors such as services would gain a fully powered recovery if the problems of vaccine supplies and vaccination drives are resolved early with preparation, lessons learned, and proactive action all taking place immediately. The period after the decline in cases to below 50,000 a day which is fast approaching for India is one that needs to be used to take deep yogic breaths, and prepare the Indian mind for the next challenge for government and nation.   ...

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India is taking a strong stand in talks in Bonn, Germany, for investment funding to tackle climate change and to help areas affected by climate change. Agricultural crop in India is reduced from the heat wave's impact and cities are sweltering from the heat wave. Climate change action is a priority for regions such as India. The Bonn talks are preparatory to another meeting after Glasgow summit. The next summit is in Egypt Nov. 7-18 2022.

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India faces tariff of 25% with policies of reliance on Russia for arms and oil,  Mexico Canada and South Korea face higher tariffs August 1 2025 as they are holdouts now that UK, Japan, EU, Indonesia, Vietnam have agreements with the US on trade.

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India's foreign minister S. Jaishankar echoed pm Modi's remarks on BJP's 44th foundation day- "The way Lord Hanuman discovered his strength and performed infinite feats, I think we discovered our strength in 2014, and have kept discovering it since then." In the past Jaishankar has said Lord Krishna and Lord Hanuman were the greatest diplomats.