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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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This article in The Indian Express shows that even though Subhas Chandra Bose differed with Mohandas Gandhi during the late 1930's, Bose had a deep respect and affection for Gandhi in mobilizing the Indian people for Swaraj. Bose's relationship with Nehru and Patel were of people at the same level and appeared to compete for attention compared to the relationship with Gandhi which was one of mentor and follower. In the end Bose's restlessness at British refusal to negotiate Swaraj and Gandhi's patience led to Bose actively resisting British rule in 1940.  Mohandas Gandhi had deep faith in the Bhagavad Gita and believed the lines in the Bhagavad Gita where it says- "Whenever, O descendent of Bharata, there is decline of Dharma, and rise of Adharma, then I embody Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of Dharma, I come into being in every age." Gandhi wrote in his Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita on November 11, 1930- "God dwells in our hearts as the holy spirit within us, and when yearning for knowledge, like Arjuna, we take our spiritual difficulties to Him, and seek his guidance, seek refuge in Him, He is ever ready to instruct us." The other way in which Gandhi differed was in his deep insights and views of the British as a people that Bose lacked. Some of this came from his days in London and some of this from his days in South Africa working with and negotiating with the British. Mohandas Gandhi says in Hind Swaraj in 1910- "The English merchants were able to get a footing in India because we encouraged them. When our princes fought among themselves they sought the help of Company Bahadur. That corporation (British East India Company) was vested alike in commerce and war. It was unhampered by questions of morality. Its object was to increase its commerce and make money. It accepted our assistance, and increased the number of its warehouses. To protect the latter it employed an army which was utilized by us also. Is it not then useless for us to blame the British for what they did at that time? The Hindus and the Mahomedans were at daggers drawn. This too, gave the Company its opportunity, and thus we created the circumstances that gave the British control over India. Hence it is truer to say that we gave India to the British than India was lost. The causes that gave them India help them retain it. Some Englishmen say they took India and they hold India by the sword, both these statements are wrong. The sword is entirely useless for holding India. We alone keep them." Gandhi''s view of India was of a nation of shopkeepers, even citing Kruger of South Africa when he was asked if there was gold on the moon. Kruger said likely not, for if there was the British would have annexed it. By 1945 when Gen. Wavell, the Viceroy wrote back to London that he would require more army divisions to control India than Britain could afford, or the British people had the will to support or had commercial interests worth protecting after the war, the British moved up the year of their withdrawal. And began the negotiations with Gandhi for independent India.  Gandhi also says that in his reading of Vivekananda's writings the love that I had for my country became a thousand-fold. Gandhi looked to Vivekananda for inspiration in some of his ideas on Swaraj. Bose says Vivekananda's writings sent him into raptures yet saw Vivekananda "simple as a child" not realizing the spiritual strength Vivekananda had drawn from which overcomes all. As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita- "I am the Self, O Gudakesa, existent in the heart of all beings, I am the beginning, the middle, and also the end of all beings. Of the Adityas, I am Vishnu, of luminaries, the radiant Sun; of the winds I am Marici; of the asterisms, the moon."   ...

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S&P 500 up 5% in 2025 by June 27 2025 recovering 20% form lows after tariffs. Scott Bessent had promised agreement in place by July this date will be extended  yet confidence has returned that the agreements will be put in place after German chancellor Merz met with DJT at the White House. With Germany leading the way the biggest of the agreements with EU could be put in place. Additional agreements would come with India and China, and Japan, South Korea.

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Reliance Jio makes the highest bid and takes most of the 5G spectrum in India with a bid for $11.4 billion or over half of the 5G spectrum. The government had eased the size of investment by firms by allowing 20 equal instalments in payment and other measures. This prepares India and Jio to build the 5G network in India as it had done earlier for the 4G network and become the dominant low cost provider in the world. The experience gained in building 4G gives Jio the advantage in building the new 5G network in India on its own.

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GST revenue increase is important because it finances healthcare, education, infrastructure building, jal ghar and cooking gas, Digital India initiatives, housing programs in a way that has never happened before and is needed for modernizing the Indian economy. The same approach is being taken by president Biden in the US to finance his climate and tax bill of $369 billion. It is the biggest climate action bill in history and revenues to finance renewable energy transition are coming from a 15% minimum corporate tax that is being agreed to by all countries in the world including US, Britain, European Union and India. Just today the WSJ the largest biotech company Amgen in the US paid 3.5% effective tax rate on revenues for 2013 when tax rate under federal law was 35%, and the IRS is working on getting $10.7 billion back in payments due over a decade. Much of Amgen's profits of $24 billion had been shifted to a location in Puerto Rico says a report in WSJ. The development work of the free world countries including US, EU, and India cannot happen without this. Without this the US, EU and India cannot even remain competitive with China or tackle national security threats. ...

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India make a stunning comeback after being bowled out for 150 runs in the First Test against Australia at Perth in November 2024. Jasprit Bumrah led the Indian team. Here is how he approached the game where he took 8 wickets and Jaiswal -Rahul had a double century partnership turning everything around.

"I played here in 2018 so I remember the wicket can be a little soft here and then get quicker, so I was relying on that experience. We were really well prepared so I just told people to have faith in their process and ability.

"We have the opportunity to do something special."

After losing 3 Tests against New Zealand India never lost courage and confidence to turn things around. 

 

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This picture essay in The Guardian shows the 700,000 additional people displaced inside Afghanistan in 2021 in addition to the 2.9 million displaced people by 2020. The British stayed out of Afghanistan except for brief forays from concern about Russia entering close to British India. Not much happened till Zahir Shah, the King of Afghanistan was seen as not doing much for a famine that struck the country in 1972. Drought struck much of the country in 1972 leading to the deaths of over 100,000 people from starvation. The King had ruled since 1933. And for a brief period his cousin and brother-in-law Daud Khan had actually run the administration between 1953 to 1963, before being dismissed with a new constitution adopted not allowing the royal family to rule the country without consulting parliament. The poor handling of famine relief led to the fall of the government appointed by King Zahir Shah in 1972. In 1973 Daud Khan violates this constitution and assumes control of the country. British India was in 1972 the India of the Nehru period, with his daughter Indira Gandhi the democratically elected prime minister. India fought a brief war with Pakistan in 1971 that set up the new nation of Bangladesh from territory of East Bengal. India preoccupied with Bangladesh refugees did not do what the British had done to keep outside powers out of Afghanistan and maintain a stable monarchy. Daoud Khan's repression of Communist party leaders led to Communist party military factions in the army taking over the country in 1978. The Afghan military led by officers in the army's Communist factions had little support in the traditional Islamic nature of the countryside for their land reforms. Leading to a rebellion and entry of Soviet troops under a friendship treaty signed in 1978 with Soviets under Leonid Brezhnev. It is this disrupting of the stability of the Afghan monarchy or the entry of Soviets or Americans or any other foreign influence that was carefully prevented in British India by Britain's India policy, which resulted in a period of peace and stability in that region. The events of 1974 with the fall of the monarchy, and the entry of Russia in 1978 broke two of the main rules the British had observed from 1750- a stable monarchy and no outside influence in Afghanistan. A policy the British also followed for Tibet. When China entered Tibet in 1950 Nehru was too preoccupied with the millions of refugees from Pakistan and failed to prepare in the years 1947-50 for following British policy on Tibet by preparing or anticipating the entry of foreign powers. The entry of China into Tibet in October 1950 led to the Sino India border war of 1962, and led to the current situation of India facing a Chinese army all along the border of Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Nepal and all the way in the Himalayas to Kashmir. The result has been billions of dollars spent by the US every week starving domestic priorities, as president Biden observed this week, and a burial place for empires. Ten years for Russia, and twenty for the US with the same result. It has left the whole region poorer and in humanitarian crisis for 50 years, and created crises for Russia, Pakistan, India, and the US. ...

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Anton Harder in this Wilson Center publication of research uses correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and his sister Vijaylakshmi Pandit ambassador to the US in 1950, to show that the US made an offer for India to take a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. India had supported two resolutions on June 25, and June 27, first condemning the invasion by North Korea and second the organizing of a UN force of 29 countries to push back the North Korean invasion. Even though the US is not seen as actively engaging with India during that period and seeing through British eyes the colonial policies of encouraging  different powers in South Asia, that may not be true.  Who was India's foreign minister in 1950? Jawaharlal Nehru was both prime minister and foreign minister till 1964, which means there was less discussion of foreign policy than happens today during the Ukraine invasion with Jaishankar a career diplomat with 30 years experience, Rajnath Singh, and Mr. Modi, in talks with president Biden recently, and in further discussions Modi had with EU's Von der Leyen and UK's Boris Johnson, Kishida of Japan. Who was India's defense minister in 1950? Baldev Singh, a Sikh independence struggle leader was Minister of Defense for 1947-52 and tackled partition of Punjab and Kashmir issues. The rest of the years to 1957 when India faced the Chinese invasion of Tibet India's defense minister was also for most of the period Mr. Nehru, except Ayynagar in 1953, and Kailash Katju in 1955 and 1956. The controversial V.K. Krishna Menon was Defense Minister from 1957 to 1962, when Indian defenses were further neglected leading to the Chinese invasion of India in 1962, and his replacement by Yashwantrao Chavan. The purpose of this is to look back at what happened in earlier periods to understand where India stands today- and what choices it makes today. Clearly the US was looking for allies then and now. Nehru saw things from his own reading of history seeing China and India as both suffering from western invasion, not realizing that China's experience under Mao was different- that of Japanese invasion and bombing of China's major cities not just colonization of Hong Kong and other ports for trade under British trade based policies in 1850-1900. Thus a Communist Chinese version of China's defense involved taking over border regions such as Tibet putting China in direct and open opposition to India. Nehru never really grasped what was happening in Tibet and the war China fought against the Nationalists. American general Stilwell loved China deeply and had an understanding of its people as shown in Tuchman's account in her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945. Stilwell during that war had a better understanding of China, the strengths and weaknesses of Mao's China and of the Nationalists under Chiang, than Nehru. Some of these errors post 1950's and a concentration of foreign, defense and embassy positions in the person of Mr. Nehru and of Nehru family member such as Mrs. Pandit led to the Indian failure to act on Tibet and see it as see it for what it was -facing a Communist Mao led China that had fought the Japanese invasion as different from Bodhidharma's China of the history books. Bodhidharma's China will outlast Mao's China, yet it is Mao's China that India faces today. This also tells us that India has to think in new ways- as Lincoln said during a period when America was also making its own progress as an industrial nation in the 1860's. "The dogmas of the quiet past are not adequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew, we must act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." India's values are values of democracy heightened not just by Mohandas Gandhi's ideas with Hind Swaraj written in 1910 just as powerful in 2022, but also by the heights of Ladakh where elections are held in remote regions of the Himalayas. India's values are values that are also shared in the best that America has in its values and culture and in the defense of freedom.    ...

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This opinion piece in DW.com says India's prime minister should not isolate prime minister Sharif of Pakistan, as he had no part in the escalation of tensions in Kashmir. Foreign and military affairs are now run by the Pakistan Army, and isolating Sharif only entrenches the Army it says, which has kept up tensions similar to the situation in 1999 with the Kargil crisis when the Pakistan Army initiated a conflict in Kargil region. At that time Indian premier Vajpayee and Pakistan premier Sharif were improving relations. 

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It is one of the great twists of history that a dedicated Indian Civil Service Joint Secretary, follower of Mohandas Gandhi,  at a time of transformation through education of India's Madras State in 1954-63 under visionary chief minister K Kamaraj, has shaped the life and thinking of his grand daughter Kamala Harris in profound ways. Gopalan had seen and been part of the huge transformation in India wrought by Gandhi in the 1930's and 1940's. Pictures of Shyamala Gopalan with her parents P. V. and  Rajam Gopalan, and her two daughters Kamala and Maya, shown in the NYT. Kamala Harris was the first child of Shyamala who came to the US from Madras state as a young graduate student in 1954, in one of the first batches of students coming from independent India to the US.  Madras, now Tamilnadu, was being led by one of its most far sighted leaders K. Kamaraj who was chief minister from 1954 to 1963. It was Kamaraj who set up the free school lunch program in Madras state and helped bring literacy to the state and a strong educational system that would support economic development. This is important because Kamala draws her strength from her mother and her mother draws strength from her father P.V. Gopalan, a Indian civil servant in the visionary Kamaraj government in Madras state. Kamala spent time with her grandfather on visits to India which have shaped the way she thinks and her view of life. P.V Gopalan was Joint Secretary Government of India Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, and was sent to Zambia as Director of Relief Measures and Refugees to handle an exodus of refugees from Southern Rhodesia to Zambia. The two experiences as Joint Secretary, and as Director in Zambia, during the period when Kamaraj led Madras State were profound life changing experiences for this young civil servant who shared his understanding of Asia and Africa with his granddaughter in profound ways shaping her views on life, and what it means to be a good Civil Servant in public service to the people. Passing on to a new generation the ideas of public service of Mohandas Gandhi that P.V. Gopalan had witnessed at close range in his lifetime. ...

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Jenny Strasbourg of the WSJ provides this much needed report from London about the courageous decision by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to give vaccines away at no profit to the whole world, to billions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Without this brave decision by a British company and a British University the world would be a lot poorer, more variants could have happened, making us realize the great contribution Britain has made and how indispensable it is to the planet. Add to this the effort of Indian companies including Serum Institute that provided the manufacturing facilities and capabilities for making most of the British vaccine. AstraZeneca delivered 2.3 billion doses of the vaccine globally as of mid-December, according to the company. The International Monetary Fund estimates that low and middle income countries received 3.25 billion vaccines as of Dec. 11, About half of this or 1.6 billion doses were Astra Zeneca shots. This is a bigger share than any other vaccine by far and a life saver to the world. AstraZeneca stepped up early in a true to the best ideals in Britain to meet the needs of the world-  aiming to deliver 3 billion doses in 2022 and sell them at no profit as long as the pandemic continues. As the shot does not need cold storage it is ideal for India and other Asia, Africa and Latin America. "We are all very proud throughout the company of the impact we have had," says AstrZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. By far the biggest manufacturing was done at Serum Institute of India which supplied 1.3 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to 70 countries. Mr. Modi pushed forward the export of vaccine made in India to the world from the beginning in the same spirit of cooperation and the best ideals that Britain was living upto. Serum Institute can produce as much as 250 million doses of vaccine a month making it possible for India to tackle the vaccination population of 1.3 billion people.   None of this could have happened without Oxford University and AstraZeneca and Indian companies with Mr. Modi's active support living up to the best ideals of Britain and India for the world. "When you add up the benefits to humanity, I think you'll find the vaccine holds up pretty well in terms of the ill health it has prevented, and the deaths it has prevented," says John Bell, a senior Oxford academic who in 2020 guided the University through its vaccine-partnership talks with Astra Zeneca. Because in the real world AstraZeneca shot has held up so well it is also a choice for booster shots. ...

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Shinzo Abe's 2017 trip to Mohandas Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, India, struck a chord in India. He was awarded the Padma Vibushan India's highest civilian honor. Abe said about relations with India as he opened the bullet train projects financed by Japan - "JAI India, JAI Japan" with the first two letters of Japan and the first of India making JAI. Both Abe and Modi had the foresight to build closer relations between Japan and India starting two decades earlier.

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India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington D.C. that estimates have been made of what the British took out of India over two centuries and this has come to $45 trillion in today's value. India suffered humiliation for two centuries from 1756 to 1947 with British rule. The country was "bled" and this was first documented by a member of parliament Dadabhai Naoroji in 1901 in London in his book explaining the causes of India's deep poverty in his book with the title- Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. For the first time detailed financial figures were put together on what Britain took out of India and India's Mohandas Gandhi says this was how he learned about how much India suffered economically under British rule with the neglect of agriculture, the peasants and landless laborers making up the vast population of India. Taxation was burdensome on a poor population during most of the period. Railways and mass communication only helped keep the vast region together under British rule and most of the budget went into security and policing for the Empire. Investment in industry or agriculture was neglected for most of the nineteenth century and half of the twentieth. Strangely the first Indian edition of Naoroji's book was only in 1962 with most Indians unaware of what had happened and where this was first documented. Even Cambridge educated Nehru looked at the railways and mass communication as British contributions to india when in actual fact this was of a strategic security aspect for the British in a vast region, and little was done to improve the standard of living of the people in the villages who worked in subsistence agriculture. Gandhi's task was to increase awareness at the grassroots level of the condition of the country. Something he never hesitated to do even writing to the Viceroy who was in charge directly showing how the budget in the 1920's was entirely lacking in any funds for India's development. This letter can be seen today in the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the museum for Gandhi in his home state of Gujarat. One of the lesser known facts about the independence struggle is that Gandhi wrote a little book in 1910 with title "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship making its way back to South Africa from Britain where Gandhi led a deputation for rights of Indian coolie laborers in South Africa. I picked up this book at the original home of Gandhi and his parents in Porbandar, India, recently. In this book "Hind Swaraj" written in 1910 we find astonishingly all the details of the planned struggle for independence that were to happen over the next 20 years. In 1930 with a new edition Gandhi wrote that he had followed this unchanged for 20 years and would change nothing except one line in the book. The book in 1910 was promptly banned by the government of Bombay, yet Indian editions appeared soon afterward. It is written in question and answer format with Gandhi himself posing the questions which he answers, some challenging his view of India, Britain, Indians and the British. He did not blame the British, and called for Indians to take responsibility for letting the British rule in India happen and what was the best way out.  ...

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2014 Xi visits Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram as is shown in this picture in BBC News and is curious how the weaving is done by hand taking a try at it with prime minister Modi, both sitting on the floor Asian style. In 2020 China advances its troops in a part of Ladakh leading to a clash with Indian forces. What happened? India's resilience in the face of the pandemic and the bright future for its economy, greater integration with the American and European Union economies in its draft plan to 2030. A sense in China's leadership that India's modernization would follow in the same way that China's and South Korea's have followed Japan's modernization. A sense also that better relations with the US and the European Union would require better relations with India, as an indispensable condition. A sense also that the issue of Taiwan was a bigger issue and a core interest for China than the border disputes in the remote regions of the Himalayas. It just did not make sense to have a conflict with India in the priorities of China to 2030 or 2040. That India needed to be seen not through the lens of the British but as an ancient nation that had similarities with China and Japan from its Buddhist roots. ...

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A drop in the positivity rate to below 5% and cases dropping to below 100,000 after peaking at 400,000 in May. This report in the Indian Express looks at the details behind India's successful effort at bringing down the cases that was done over a period of 30 days with a combination of effort from the central government, state governments and healthcare workers. The turnaround was achieved effectively in Uttar Pradesh a state of 210 million people so that per thousand population had dropped to below that in the US state of Michigan about 2 weeks before that was achieved in Michigan. This was the result of an extraordinary effort at all levels in India.

Risks of the new variant exist in all countries that are reopening aggressively. Talk about huge open air concerts and filled sports stadiums in the US show that complacency can happen as countries reopen.

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PM Modi tells parliament in a reply to the president's address yesterday laying out the government's program, that if India operated at the speed of previous governments before 2014 it would take three decades to get to No.3 in the world's economies. Instead India plans to move from the 5th largest economy in the world to No.3 by 2030. He pointed to the investments that the government had made in providing housing, income support, water, on a scale uparalleled in history to bring 250 million people out of poverty. The four pillars of the programs are Nari Shakti women's progress, Yuva Shakti youth progress, Anna Data farmers progress, and strengthening the industrial infrastructure of the country. The prime minister pointed to previous prime ministers having doubts about what India could achieve in the community of nations and compared it to the convictions, the hard work and the single minded determination of the people driving progress today who have no such doubts. ...

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A message for Mr. Modi, Nirmala Sitharaman and all who see Indian exports as a key driver in the economic recovery. Indian logistics costs are at 14-16% compared to 8-9% in nations of Europe and the US. This Economic Times report shows 20 Government of India ministries and agencies are involved in logistics for exports. A recent shipment of mahua flowers from Chhatisgarh to Le Havre port in France was held up for 2 weeks at Mumbai's Nava Shheva port, as cited here in the The Economic Times. Logistics help from Maersk helped China build its industrial capabilities. The port capabilities in logistics grew year after year from small beginnings in the 1990 period. Mr. Modi is starting this process in India as it is a key driver for foreign investment in the country. As China's logistics capabilities grew companies had the confidence that products manufactured in the country could be delivered to US and Europe efficiently and at low cost. This process takes a decade and the time to start building this capability is now with plans, stretch goals, investment and timely delivery. Maersk, a Danish company, has a big role to play in this effort in India. Government incentives could play a role, as well as negotiations with Maersk and with the assistance of the government of Denmark for technological collaboration at Indian ports. ...

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The emergence of a national party in India is the subject of this editorial in The Hindustan Times. The Indian National Congress led by Mohandas Gandhi led the way to transitional home rule in the 1930's under the British, independence in 1947, with the party running India till 1962 under Mr. Nehru, one of Gandhi's assistants. This was followed by a breakup of the party into different factions with one faction led by Nehru family forming governments under Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi. This faction then lost its popularity in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and became a regional party with presence only in a few states of India and very little in the south. By 2014 a new party the Bharatiya Janata Party had emerged that had a strong presence in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and in the northeast of the country. It still lacked a strong presence in the south. This has happened in the 2020 Telengana elections, says Hindustan Times. By getting a strong performance in the Hyderabad region the BJP now has a strong presence in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka where Bangalore is located. Only Kerala and the Tamilnadu region around Madras, have their own regional parties in government. In the east the Bihar elections showed BJP as the leading party to form government to push the development agenda in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It is now well positioned to take this theme of rapid development to West Bengal state around the Kolakata (Calcutta) area, a state that has lagged far behind in development under a regional party that was an offshoot of the Indira Gandhi faction of the Congress party. As is common in India national political parties split into factional parties with infighting that split again into purely regional parties. This has further undermined the them of development through failed governance in India. The BJP under the current prime minister is now the exception to this because of its themes of health, governance and development, with Development at the top of the triangle supported by Health and Governance at the base of the triangle. The BJP which started out as a small business oriented upper caste party also changed its image under prime minister Modi. The slogan "Sab Ka Vikas, Sab Ke Saath," (Development for all, with all) has given the BJP support of the lower castes, the Scheduled class and the backward castes in India. This make it a truly national party with support across all socioeconomic and demographic groups. The prime minister's own background growing up working in his father's tea shop near a railway station in Gujarat has also given the party a new image of being with the working classes and the average man. His experience in Gujarat delivering on development projects and infrastructure, energy, has also given the word "development" new meaning for a modern India, very distant from the period when poor governance failed to deliver on development and modernization. Bold moves have cleared the way for a nationwide approach to development, yet decentralized, with rapid development based on accumulation of technologies, human skills, land and capital. A singular focus on the needs of the ordinary people is evident when the prime minister talks about the effect of firewood burning stoves used in cooking by hundreds of millions of rural women for their families. He says the smoke from burning this firewood in the home has the effect of smoking 400 cigarettes for each woman. Rarely has this happened since Mohandas Gandhi took up the situation of village women in the backcountry and lack of clothing in the period under the British.   ...

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In a bold decision that shows courage and foresight president Biden lifts IP protection for Covid 19 vaccine patents of American companies such as Pfizer, Moderna, J&J and Novavax. This has huge implications for vaccination supplies for countries such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, that are hard hit by the pandemic as well as the rest of the world. It will open up manufacturing additional vaccine supplies in countries as diverse as France and India, that can ramp up quickly because of already established pharmaceutical bases.

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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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One consequence of the change in climate change policy is addressing the unaffordability crisis for cars. It would reduce the price of cars by about $2400. It removes the tighter emissions standards of the Biden administration giving automakers some relief. Price of car had surge under the Biden administration. As gas prices are brought down this is an effort to bring down car prices. How does this affect global emissions? Diana Roth from the DJT Transportation Department says- "It's gone to China, where it's made in a dirtier way. So to say that we're reducing global emissions by ending energy intensive manufacturing in some countries, then having it go to China and India, where it's made in a dirtier way, does not reduce global emissions." This suggests it is not necessarily true that global emissions that affect climate change are reduced when the US by itself alone cuts emissions and this then saves lives in a significant way. That does not offer the complete picture. And the current approach under DJT is to temporarily give affordability and cost of living priorities equal consideration for policy an approach accepted by the Biden administration. ...

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For the country with the largest population in the world of over 1.2 billion people who had just gone through a once in a century pandemic would it have been right to import oil at prices that made it harder to invest what was needed in infrastructure and rapid growth? This is why president Biden and NSA adviser Jake Sullivan believe India has taken the right step to import at the lowest price possible to not divert funds that are so desperately needed for infrastructure to build the metros, fast railways, roads, bridges and airports the people of the country need. India's stand on invasions with millions of women and children turned into refugees is for an end to this war - Gandhi's position on a war such as this or Vivekananda's is not hard to read.

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A lawsuit was filed against the Indian Government in the state of Karnataka on July 5 challenging the removal of tweets on Twitter social media site that could disturb the social fabric in India. Does a foreign company know what is best for a country of 1.4 billion people with 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India? Or is it merely a pretension brought out by the chaotic spread of technology in the US and in the world without regulation of any sort leading to many egregious faults and damage to society.  Even the Indian government has to think hard and make much effort to find what is best in the culture and traditions of India's best leaders, and its long history back to the period of Lord Buddha and the Vedanta in 653 BC, what India should take forward. To combine this with the best that India has learned from Britain and Europe in science and technology, and the best environment for science and technology to be nurtured. The following languages are in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India- Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Nepali, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, Dogri. Most Indians cannot even list these languages and never heard of some of them. Most Indians are still learning about the depth and history of their country and what has held it together culturally and as a people. Forget about Twitter being able to list them much less know about where India should be headed in the 21st century. Or is it a pretension so called tech companies make these days without reflecting on what this means. It took India and Indians hundreds of years just to get to the point where they can reflect on the history of India. The struggles shown on The Residency park at Lucknow (1857), and at Dandi Salt March (1930) led by Mohandas Gandhi, are merely the more recent, with ones before that, and before that into the mists of time.  Even after colonization India is unique, seeking after the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi to find the best that it can learn from other countries in Europe and the US to shape its future, and fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life. Hundreds of millions without water or cooking gas in their homes, their aspirations, and the aspirations for decent housing, for a Clean India with the infrastructure that Europe and America take for granted. That is the burden shouldered by the leaders and the government responsible to society of 1.4 billion people that speaks in 22 languages. And shared in a larger sense by 1.8 billion people in Asia all the way up to the Indonesian islands that also share these aspirations for a better life.   ...

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The heat wave in India is hurting agricultural production in India. Production losses for wheat could range from 6% to 10 or 15%. The mango crop is hit hard with losses of about 70% and quadrupling of mango prices. Mangoes are part of the identity of India and mango farmers get a new high from a bumper crop. This year has been bad for farmers in the north in India's mango belt including Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

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In the meeting in the Oval Office Biden and Modi had this to say about India US relations. Modi called it a "transformative" decade. Mr. Biden called it a "new chapter" in ties, taking on tough challenges in coronavirus vaccines for the rest of Asia outside India and China, tackling climate change, and ensuring rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.  Biden's view- "I think that the relationship between India and the US, two of the largest democracies in the world, is destined to be stronger, closer, tighter, and I think it can benefit the whole world." A look at the US under the Biden administration shows a US that is very different from that of the US in the period of presidents since Harry Truman when he met Jawaharlal Nehru at the White House in October 1949. Biden sees the US needing renewal of its infrastructure, reviving worker incomes and families, regaining its leadership of the free world, for its role and place in the world. Throughout the period 1949 to 2020 for 70 years India was never seen as a modernizing nation of 1.2 billion people. For most of this period it lacked the good governance and speedy implementation of modernization of economy that is essential for a truly good relationship. By releasing the potential of the younger generation in a country where people under 35 years form the major part of the population, with good governance and development agenda, the Indian prime minister has changed the entire dynamics of the India US relationship. This is happening in the way China had done in its relationship with the US after 2000 by modernizing the country. India is now the country with huge potential and the country the US sees as helping it build its own role and place in the world. The sheer size of India and its population with countries around it in the east such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam with shared values in south and southeast Asia bring together a population of close to 2 billion people much larger than China, to determine the direction of Asia.  This is the new chapter that president Biden has in mind, and it is also the "transformative decade" in the eyes of prime minister Modi as India finally puts behind it years of bad governance, and speeds up modernizing its economy.   ...