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India under the leadership of prime minister Modi hosting the G20 meeting of world leaders may have for the world passed the test of the ages on November 16, 2023. On that day the G20 with China, India, (and Russia's Lavrov), and the US issued the statement saying-  "The use of threat of using nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today's era must not be of war." The words "Today's era must not be of war," were words Modi had stated repeatedly to the Russian president.  In dire situations that it can be conceived that small nuclear weapons with half the destructive capacity as Hiroshima bomb that could be put on a small missile could be used is a new threat. Hennigan in the NYT reports that as Ukrainian forces moved towards Kharkiv and other Russian held territory and were seen as a threat to Russian held Crimea, on October 23, 2023 the Russian minister of defense Sergei Shoigu, contacted the Defense ministers of US, Britain, France and Turkey about Ukrainian fighters it believed planning to launch a dirty bomb -a conventional explosive wrapped in radioactive material- on their own territory to frame Moscow. Hennigan in this NYT report says US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin and Jt. Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, held 3 phone calls in 4 days during this time around October 23, 2023, with their Russian counterparts. By November 16 Indian prime minister Modi and Chinese president Xi had their discussions with the Russian president to prevent accidental nuclear escalation. ...

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India is fast becoming an auto manufacturing centre with exports expected to hit half a million vehicles in 3 years. Hyundai puts out 500,000 cars a year in India. India has the local market, the qualit and the companies. And the Tata Nano is just getting started and should be on full stream after a shift of manufacturing plant to a southern location.

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A revolution is taking place in the lives of rural families in India. Under the Jal Jeevan Mission put forward by the prime minister clean drinking water from tap water will reach every family in India. It was launched on Aug 15, 2019 and plans to do this by 2024. The impact is huge. Out of 180 million rural families only 33 million families have clean drinking water from tap water in the country. Clean water brings life to the countryside and access through individual tap water connection brings a revolution to people's lives in a country of 1.2 billion people. This report in the Economic Times tells us what most of us do not know that with the growth in population from about 300 million after independence in 1947 to 1.2 billion today and the drought conditions in parts of the country, the per capita water availability has fallen sharply today. Dropping from 5000 cubic metres of water per capita in India in 1951 to 1545 cubic metres of water in 2011.  The infrastructure capital to be invested is 3.5 trillion rupees or $ 50 billion. $50 billion in cement, pipes, construction, pumps, equipment, wages, conservation, skill building, knowledge in water management to revive the rural economy. Hit hard by coronavirus it boosts the rural economy. The infrastructure project could be a model for other Asian, African and Latin American countries.  Cholera and other water borne diseases can never be eliminated without clean drinking water from tap water for all families in India. It means so much during this pandemic.  ...

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The Indian newspaper "The Hindu," said in its editorial that India's Supreme Court's decision in February 2012- declaring the giving of telecom licenses by the government without holding a public auction "arbitrary and unconstitutional" -was a lesson for other industries where unscruplous behaviour also prevails. The behaviour of the government in not investigating the issue of telecom licenses was described as severely hurting its credibility. The Asian Age in an editorial welcomed the decision as bringing in more money for the government in a public auction for the telecom licenses to help reduce the government's budget deficit. The Indian Express criticized the 4 month deadline for implementing the ruling. The Economic Times looked at it differently, saying the ruling will increase the telecom industry's capital costs and lead to delays in upgradation and raising of telecom prices.

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The meeting of G7 leaders and of leaders from India, Indonesia and Argentina, South Africa, ended with a sense that economic sanctions the preferred tool against the Russian invasion are not working after 3 months. Discussions with India, Indonesia and other poor countries show the need for the developing countries for access to their large populations of oil at reduced prices from the recent skyrocketing prices. With oil and energy purchases made by China and India and other poor countries for reasons of price discounts from $125 per barrel oil, Russia is able to sell oil in other markets making up in price for the drop in volume. 

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Much coverage in India's media on the 150th of Gandhi. This essay provides insights into Gandhi for the self-empowerment of women in India's organized and unorganized labor sector. The author worked with the Textile Labor Association founded by Gandhi and Anasuyaben Sarabhai in Ahmedabad in 1920. She reminds Indians that it is about labour and capital working together for the betterment of India not capital against labor, or labor against capital, an idea she says is lost today. Ahmedabad became a textile center in the period between the 2 world wars, and Gandhi negotiated a 35 cent increase for mill workers after a 1917  labor strike. Anasuyaben started working with mill workers after seeing a women exhausted working a 36 hour shift. Earlier she was involved in the suffragette movement in Britain  and had seen the appalling conditions for mill workers in Britain. Her brother Ambalal Sarabhai was an industrialist and her uncle Vikram Sarabhai India's leading atomic energy scientist and pioneer in that field. She says most of the stuff written about Gandhi is laudatory without going to why it worked and knowing its value in bringing dignity to millions of the poorest people in the country. By taking personal responsibility even the poorest person could find dignity and empowerment was Gandhi's idea, and with it the whole country. This idea found its best expression in the Bhagavad Gita to which Gandhi turned as he faced the problems of coolies empowerment in South Africa and rural laborers in India under colonial rulers indifferent to their condition or progress. Gandhi's idea was that this empowerment and dignity was the way out through taking personal responsibility by each person- an idea expressed clearly in his short book "Hind Swaraj" India Home Rule, written in 1910 on a steamship going back from Britain  to South Africa. Taking personal responsibility if each person did it in a country of hundreds of millions would make it impossible for a couple of thousand Britishers to remain in the country. Ideas of non-violence were instruments of action, no more, no less. This was Gandhi's idea, his and the Gita's wisdom, and his shrewdness in a situation that confounded everyone faced by problems of a vast region with mostly rural labor and an indifferent foreign government. The same idea can be translated into action in today's environment in the same way based on personal responsibility for modernization, Swachh sanitation, cleaning up single use plastic, generating employment in manufacturing, and any number of ways in key areas of development. Gandhi saw the British as more a nation of traders. Without commerce the British would have less reason to remain in India. Personal responsibility leading to empowerment for tens of millions would make it impossible for the  few tens of thousands  of British to remain as it would require too much in resources to continue in India as a colonial power. This happened in 1942 as the military leader Wavell was made Viceroy during the war and wrote back to the British government that it would require 7 divisions to maintain order in the country. Economic adviser John Keynes cautioned the British government against prolonging colonial rule because Britain could no longer afford the cost after losing a quarter of its wealth in the Second World War. This is shown in the archives cited by several authors on this period. ...

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Coach Jitendra Singh who coached Hardik Pandya from his childhood days talks about the way Pandya has matured over the years since the Karan Johar chat show episode. Coach Jitendra Singh says Pandya told him- "Coach you won't hear any negative things about me after this." The death of his father who took his two boys to Baroda to prepare at a cricketing academy has affected Pandya.

In the recent IPL final Pandya showed his captaincy skills and his skills as an all rounder with 3 wickets for 17 runs including that of Butler of the Rajasthan Royals and 34 runs batting at a critical stage for a over 50 run partnership with Shubman Gill. Pandya is seen as very close to players and encouraging David Miller who took the Gujarat Titans to win the game with superb batting.

Here the Indian Express calls this a Kapil Dev moment for India as Kapil Dev is the only cricketer in Test history to have scored 5000 runs and taken 400 wickets.

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Oracle increases its stake in a banking service provider i-flex of India.

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Foreign policy of DJT Administration in 2025- asserting US interests, reviving the Monroe Doctrine for US policy in the western hemisphere, and rapprochement with Russia, China, Japan, EU, in international trade after tariffs against unfair trade. Mead says this has improved the US standing in world affairs and also has helped other nations in the world achieve their interests in their region. EU takes on a larger role in Ukraine freeing the US to assert itself in a much needed way to protect its borders and remove threat of drug and fentanyl trafficking from Venezuela and Mexico. Russia accepted as a Northern European power and NATO is pulled back as it should have been after the Soviet Union collapsed,  (it gets the "respect" it needs from the US so that it relinquishes efforts to disturb the peace in Latin America and the Middle East). It also frees up the US from other entanglements so that it can concentrate on both competition with China and negotiating win-win solutions on trade with China. US relations with Japan and South Korea are improved and both nations are taking a bigger role in their region with other partners India and Australia -so that the US frees up resources for tackling domestic and foreign problems that ensure US regains its position as a powerhouse for manufacturing, industry and world class infrastructure in the next decades to 2050. That is the surest way to a safer, better world for Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. ...

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A quick look at the graph in this Times Report shows the carbon dioxide CO2 emissions for the US, European Union, China and the Rest of the World in 2020. For the EU it is about 3.0 billion tons of CO2 emissions, for US it is 5 billon tons, for China 10 billion tons and the Rest of the World 16.0 billion tons. What this tells us is that a lot will depend on not just China, but India and other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia in the developing world for how much CO2 emissions can be reduced to tackle climate change and other environmental problems.  For that 16 billion tons in the rest of the world reduction will depend on renewable supply and technologies to do it, rapid growth of economies in India and other countries to generate the resources and technology initiatives to get a shift from coal. Meanwhile it is a choice between having electricity for homes in rural areas in India or not. This is where bright spots such as solar technology in India that are giving quantum leaps for renewable solar energy with new technology cutting cost in successive waves of development can play a part.  ...

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US president DJT meets Indian PM Modi on the first day of his visit to the US. PBS shows the joint press conference of the two leaders as India and the US embark on a new journey. India to reach out for 1.4 billion people- and as a model for 1.7 billion people including Indonesia- reach out for Developed modern India by 2047, the 100th anniversary of India's independence from the British Empire. The US as the leading western economy meeting new challenges from China as it partners with India for 2.4 billion people living in South Asian and North American democracies and the UK/Canada/Australia/Japan the largest group of people with a common history and institutions of government based on a shared history with Britain and the Modern World it created by pioneering the Scientific and Industrial Revolution. And a shared civilization where the Bhagavad Gita meets the Authorized Version of the Bible in the religion and civilizations that provide a common heritage of the spirit. To conduct the affairs of man in ways that provide good honest governance and a shared interest in peaceful development for the welfare of humanity. ...

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PM Modi's win in Maharashtra, India's second largest state, and commercial center Mumbai with Ahmedabad, puts Vikshit Bharat plan to modernize India like China and Japan, on a firm footing. Some observers such as this one were of the view that the Chief Minister during Covid had done a good job, and that splitting his party with defections was not the right thing to do. Yet this view does not look at the infrastructure needs of the state and the nation which require effective government and government that can concentrate on delivery. It overlooks India's need to do what China and Japan have done to modernize their country in the last century. Vikshit Bharat is real, it is within reach, and Maharashtra senses this like the rest of the Indian nation. It is similar to Bumrah like Modi telling the Indian team that it had prepared well, now one should trust the process- which leads to Vikshit Bharat modernizing the nation - and give one's best. This led to Jasprit Bumrah taking the Indian team to a 297 run win over Australia at Perth after losing 3 Tests in New Zealand. A 14% vote margin for the NDA alliance called Mahayuti that is PM Modi's effort in Maharashtra, one of India's largest states which includes the city of Mumbai. This report says waves such as 2019 or ones in which Rajiv Gandhi won in 1985 were felt on the ground. This one was not anticipated. Yadav says in just 5 months after PM Modi's party lost in the Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections by 1-2% the shift is 15-16%. He says there is an additional 5 % deficit when a party contests a state election after a national election, widening the vote margin to 20 percent.  Of this he says the welfare schemes for women account for only 2-3%. The rest he can't understand.     ...

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M.r Modi recalls the blessings of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav given to him with his advice in 2014 when he became prime minister and met Opposition leaders in India. Mulayam Singh was mentored by Ram Manohar Lohia, a socialist educated at Humboldt University in Germany in the 1930's and an early activist in India's Independence struggle under Mohandas Gandhi. PM Modi who has translated many of the ideals of Mr. Lohia into practice with development work for water, sanitation, electricity, gas stoves, housing, for tens of millions, says Mr. Mulayam Singh's advice has stayed with him even today. Without the stability given by leaders such as Lohia and Mulayam Singh India could not have navigated carefully the difficult period of the first 50 years after independence in 1947. For democracy to prevail leadership of this kind is essential. America turned from time to time to leaders such as Lincoln, FDR during its history, India is in a formative period for its democracy as it goes through modernization for a country with 1.2 billion people and many languages.  ...

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How Indian software industry is working through Washington lawmakersafter hiring former US Ambassador Blackwill as lobbyist, and working through local organizations to show that it benefits the local economy whether Boeing in the local Seattle economy or in some other state or metropolitan region. This reduces the chance that outsourcing as a jobs issue gets tossed around in political battles of rival politicians and helps create an atmosphere where the advantages of free trade can be discussed in a quieter environment.

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Bay Area Transit (BART) a San Francisco institution is at risk of big cuts in service closing 15 stations, closing at 9 pm,  as work from home pandemic period changes cut ridership from 389000 in Jan 2020 to 170000 in Jan 2024. It now has a $400 million structural deficit. BART management proposes a half percentage point additional sales tax on counties in the San Francisco area- Alameda, Contra Costa, Mateo, Santa Clara, 1 percentage point addition in San Francisco. This may not address the problem fully as the ridership is declining not only because of the keyboard post pandemic economy, the fact that downtown San Francisco has a 30% vacancy rate in buildings and the lifestyles have changed from before, but also because it is less safe, reported use of crack, and a less clean friendly ride on BART. This shows how life in the San Francisco area has changed decades after Silicon Valley took over the city, and how the state of California has changed. Silicon Valley and Wall Street though it had changed America and the World when right in its own backyard institutions such as BART are falling apart, and downtowns are less safe. New York City home of Wall Street has a subway system also in bad shape, and infrastructure badly in need of repair right in the backyard of Wall Street, decades behind in quality of experience from anything found in China or Japan- and now even India. ...

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Shehbaz Sharif 70,  is the younger brother of a three term prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif. He ran Punjab province, the country's largest state when his brother was prime minister. In this way he brings substantial experience to the problems of the economy that now face many developing economies such as Pakistan.  First on the agenda is to normalize relations with the US, rebuild ties with India, and restart negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Pakistan faces severe inflation of 14% and devaluing currency that makes imports costlier as the foreign currency reserves have dropped to alarming levels of $24 billion when annual import needs are at about $56 billion. This has a direct impact on cost of living, standards of living and on industry. Shehbaz Sharif understands the situation and has said restoring the economy "will take effort, effort and more effort." A similar statement has been made by Mr. Modi in Hindi "sab ka viokas, sab ka prayas" which also mean effort, effort and more effort, which all of South Asia and Bay of Bengal, and South East Asian countries needs considering the impact of Covid pandemic, and now inflation from the war in Europe hitting food supplies. The situation is grim in other parts of South Asia- in Myanmar, in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia. The popular sentiment is also shifting as seen in the Indian part of the old British Punjab province. Mostly Sikh this part of old Punjab state in India made a complete change bringing in a new party Aadmi to improve the economy and provide good governance. In this situation all governments are expected to deliver on good governance and the economy.   ...

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Air pollution over New Delhi, India, and Lahore, Pakistan, is at "hazardous" levels, with a large surge in respiratory illness for people in the region.Some hospitals in the region are seeing triple the number of patients with breathing problems. The problem is aggravated by burning of stubble from the paddy crops by farmers in the nearby region of Punjab and Haryana. The levels of fine particulate matter PM 2.5 that are bad for lungs are hovering at dangerous levels of 300.  World Health Organization guidelines say 25 is the maximum level of exposure over a 24 hour period. Delhi administration responded by increasing parking charges in the city, and banning entry of commercial trucks, banning construction activity. This is a constant part of the news with many commentators critical of the way the central government, the Punjab government, and the Delhi government are tackling the situation, unable to enforce the ban on farm burning of stubble in the fields. Lancet medical journal points out that about 2.5 million lives in India were claimed in 2015 from air pollution. WHO puts 12 Indian cities in the top 20 for air pollution worldwide. ...

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A new state government in Bihar state, India, takes shape with Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister and 2 Deputy CM's from the BJP party. Bihar is the second largest state in India after Uttar Pradesh, with Maharashtra the third, West Bengal fourth making up the top four by population each with over 100 million people. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat make up the top 7 states each of these three with about 75 million population. Rapid economic development depends on state governments working with the federal government on investment, technologies and effective governance. Gujarat and Maharashtra form an industrial core for India with investment increasing in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which forms the rural interior in the Ganges plains. In contrast to China where industrial development is state driven led by the CCP in a centralized form embedded in the complete authority of the central government, India has to achieve this through the democratic process based on delivery of infrastructure projects and standards of living. Much of this depends on the combined effort of federal and state governments ,with seven of these eight states having this coordinated effort in 2024, at a time when foreign investment in the economy is increasing rapidly to diversify global supply chains. This provides an opportunity for India to change from a developing economy to an advanced industrial economy in stages by 2030 and 2040. ...

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Prasar Bharati takes the DoorDarshan archives to give this excellent rendering of the Nehru speech announcing India's freedom "at the stroke of the midnight hour when the world sleeps India awakes to life and freedom."  "A moment comes which comes but rarely in history..."