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Different visions of primary education, one from the Cambridge Primary Review, and the other from Sir Jim Rose, for children in the UK. Sir Jim Rose thinks there is a lot of overcrowding of subjects in primary education or curriculum overload, and wants to go back to a core curriculum, computer skills, a foreign language, and replace the 12 subjects taught with 6 crosscutting areas of learning. Cambridge Review doesn't see overcrowding as the problem but the lack of good quality teaching of subjects outside the narrow diet of numeracy and literacy. They don't like the dumbing down to core subjects and want to see a broad, rich and balanced curriculum. The Government is following Sir Jim Roses's report as it has been commissioned by the government and is written by one government report writer. By contrast the Cambridge Primary review is independently conceived and has been years in its preparation and draws on international experience and many experts. They are both very different in their perspectives. This is too important an issue, the educational upbringing of a whole new generation of children, to be left to a kind of random selection without discussion of the different views and their merits. ...

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

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In this look at China's One Belt One Road Inititative, DW.com analyst Siegfried Wolf is critical of the way it was put together. It has no institutional structure, and is mostly based on bilateral not multilateral arrangement, and lacks transparency. He says its will complicate geopolitics in the region. This is already evident with Japanese foreign minister Kono calling for Japan, Australia, India and the U.S. to come up with an alternative to OBOR. Wolf says the EU has concerns about corruption, exclusion of regions inside countries such as Pakistan in economic arrangements, and seeks free trade guarantees. His biggest criticism of the Silk Road Initiative is that being based on Chinese loans it will pose a severe challenge in terms of debt buildup for weaker economies. This was already evident with the effort to convert part of about $6 billion in loans to Sri Lanka, through a $1.12 billion lease to China of the port of Hambantota. Wolf says many of the projects inside OBOR were already planned before it was setup, and now put under OBOR as part of president Jinping's initiative.  ...

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Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves dropped to $2.9 billion in February 2023, says this report in the WSJ, enough to cover 2 weeks of imports and a fraction of debt servicing requirements. Under an IMF agreement that is being negotiated $1.1 billion will be given by the IMF, which would lead to further lending by other countries and banks based on IMF oversight. This includes putting $630 million in  additional taxes and increasing the price of electricity. Successive governments have decided to avoid the IMF conditions of increasing taxes and price of electricity. Donor countries such as Saudis and Qatar, UAE, would step in once IMF oversight is in place and invest in airports, power plants, oil and gas companies, and make loans to Pakistan once the IMF oversight is in place, says WSJ.   Sri Lanka faced a similar situation after it delayed an IMF program and loan, leading to financial crisis. The situation is now stabilized with the IMF on the verge of making a $2.9 billion loan and other banks making loans on the basis of IMF oversight. In Sri Lanka's case India is a serious donor, investor and supporter of Sri Lankan recovery. ...

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Following the pandemic and the floods Pakistan is in a precarious position with its finances. The IMF estimates $25 billion in debt servicing requirements per year for the next 3 years. Pakistan's situation is similar to Argentina and Sri Lanka, countries that have gone to the IMF. International financial institutions are owed $41 billion and China $30 billion.

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Nirmala Sitharaman brings together France, Japan, and India to bring attention to resolution of debt issues of Sri Lanka, Ghana and other countries during the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington D.C.

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The idea that strongmen and populist politics are the problems of Sri Lanka is misleading. In the recovery of 2023-2024 it is PM Ranil Wickremasinghe with the help of PM Modi's financial loan assistance and arrangement through the IMF that put Sri Lanka back on the road to recovery.  Sri Lanka was called Ceylon during the colonial era. It became a Portuguese colony in 1505, and by 1600 a Dutch colony from which the Dutch extracted spices and cinnamon. In 1802 it was transferred by treaty to the British till independence in 1948. British left 1948 a country with an economy generating surplus from exports of coconuts, cinnamon, rubber and tea which financed a generous welfare state with subsidized rice. Under the British literacy was highest in South Asia. The failures were in race relations over two decades of war 1977-2009 by the attitudes of Sinhalese and Tamil leaders, and lack of a role model in northern India as PM Modi offers today for modernization. The second is the colossal failure of the "cut" politics where governments use their office for a cut in every business transaction which PM Modi has fought against with calls for good honest governance. The governments after 2009 continued these policies and let the central banks funds be depleted in the process leading to the financial crisis, inflation and inability to fund imports. Lessons are being learned and PM Modi is setting the path for all of South Asia for investment in infrastructure and modernization, good governance and Vikshit Bharat- developed India 2047. Sr Lanka is part of this vision for South Asia and Indonesia with 1.7 billion people.   ...

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Najib Razak of the UMNO United Malay National Organization who succeeded post independence leader Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia is implicated in the1MDB scandal that also involved Goldman Sachs. $4.3 billion is estimated to be stolen from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. Razak is given a15 year jail sentence in a scandal that has rocked Malaysian politics and reduced confidence in Malaysia's investment for modernization. irreparable harm is done to the nation's British inherited institutions for law and order, responsible parliamentary government, following the long premiership of Mahathir, ethnic nationalist "putra" movement of the UMNO, and the governments that followed Mahathir including Razak. Similar problems have affected other countries with ethnic nationalist movements in Sri Lanka where corruption and mismanagement of the state finances and treasury led to lack of funds for essential imports, and in other countries in Asia. Corrupt practices and misuse of state funds intended for development became a feature of government in Indian states following the rule of the Indian Congress party under Jawaharlal Nehru, with ethnic nationalism creating ethnic states in India, and causing irreparable harm to development and modernization with lack of capital and policy decisions. This has led to the lag of modernization in India with China of about 10-15 years that also affects defense at the Himalayan border with China as China's hybrid state capitalist economy surpassed India and matched the US in 2 decades 2000-2025. Only now is India under responsible governance pushing to close the gap and modernize rapidly under a new government in it's third term. Much of the thinking that accompanied post independence decolonization is now under question with it's assumptions that decolonization alone would lead to development is debunked. Modernization as China and India has learned comes from the good and responsible use of abundant capital, abundant labor, and abundant management resources, abundant technological access, good policy and plans at the federal and state levels, and good sustained leadership from the top. ...

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AP/NORC poll March 2023 shows 7 out of 10 adults in the US feel that the US is spending too much on development assistance when the budget for USAID is $40 billion. In general Republican administrations prefer foreign aid to be adminstered by the State Department not a separate agency. USAID was setup during the Cold War with the Soviet Union by president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Today it adminsters programs for HIV/Aids and for pandemics, health programs that can be done through the State Department. Attitudes have shifted following the pandemic with 9 out of 10 Republicans opposed to foreign aid through USAID. Some of the criticism is that it funds bureaucrats favorite programs. The actual impact is now uncertain in the developing of an economy. For example Sri Lanka benefits more from aid and development assistance from neighbor India than from programs of USAID as it tackles the current economic crisis following the pandemic. India pulling together the aid through IMF for Sri Lanka, and the investment in energy from India is way more important than the small USAID programs.  ...

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Sir Edwin Lutyens and Baker- design of Central Delhi North and South Block Secreteriat in New Delhi opened in 1931 under the British Empire and were the offices of the prime minister and ministries till 2025. Independent India emerged only 18 years after Lutyens designed the new capital with broad avenues and huge brick structures in symmetrical lines east to west. The shift to Kartavya Enclave, new parliament buildings takes place in 2025 94 years later. North and South Block buildings will be converted into museums, for years they had become hard to operate as government offices with designs from another age.

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Ministers of foreign affairs and defense from the U.S. will visit India for the 2+2 India - U.S. Ministerial Dialogue. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Esper will meet Indian ministers Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh for closer ties on October 27. The American ministers will also visit Jakarta, Indonesia and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Their goal is for a open and free Indo-Pacific region through cooperation of the nations in the region.

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USAID Administrator Samantha Powers talk at the IIT- Delhi is covered in detail in the Indian Express. Powers says India's aid to Sri Lanka with $3.5 billion in credit lines during the pandemic is an example of the kind of help the US and India have made to assist poor countries. She sees ever broader and deeper cooperation between the US and India to help African, Asian and Latin American nations build a better future.

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This video report in DW.com shows a Romanian worker shortage of 500,000 workers. During the early postwar period and for many years following that Romanians immigrated to Germany looking for work. Workers from Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan, Philippines are filling the need for foreign workers in the Romanian economy which is growing since it joined the European Union.

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China's cooperation agreement with the Maldives islands, and construction projects including a Friendhsip bridge from the capital Male to another island are leading to rivalry between China and India, the U.S. The Maldives are seen as part of the maritime corridor for China to the Middle East. The location makes the Maldives useful for China's Belt and Road Initiative. President Jinping visited the Maldives in 2014.

Debt financing by China is seen as leading to Sri Lanka turning over the port of Hambantota to China after Sri Lanka could not pay back the loans.U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson says infrastructure financing can lead to unsustainable debt leading to loss of sovereignty for small nations.

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China has over the last 10 years expanded its investments and trade with Latin America to match that with its earlier investment in Africa. China's trade and investment structures in Latin America are designed differently to correct for earlier mistakes in Africa where investments turned into a debt trap for African nations. This time China invested slowly in Latin America and created better terms for loan repayment. A look at the public debt to China as percentage of GDP shows for Brazil $30 billion is less than 1% of GDP of $2.174 trillion (World Bank). After the outcry on public debt to China of Pakistan and some African nations China has a different strategy and Brazil has a different strategy slowing borrowing and focusing loans on infrastructure projects with good returns on investment. Brazil total debt to China since 2005 is $30 billion with loan borrowings slowing down (China's strategy) in the last decade, and carefully arranged by Brazil. Contrast this with $26 billion owed by Pakistan to China on GDP of Pakistan of 338 billion in 2023- 7.7 percentage points. Sri Lanka owes $24 billion to China on $84 billion GDP of Sri Lanka- 28 percentage points.   ...

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The National Maritime Heritage Complex as a World Heritage Site is shown here in the Indian Express, as prime minister Modi opens  the maritime site of the Indus civilization that existed in India in the period 2500 BC to 1500 BC. It was discovered in 1921 by Sir Hubert Marshall in the region that extends from Gujarat to Sind and the Punjab settled by the Harappan people. The four oldest civilizations are the Mesopatamian, Egyptian, Harappan Indus, and Chinese civilization, which makes this an important part of human history and cultural development.

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The head of failed bank HBOS or Halifax Bank of Scotland, which needed $17 billion of British taxpayer money, and was merged with Lloyds Bank after heavy losses, is Sir James Crosby. In a strange turn of events he ends up as a trusted advisor to Prime Minister Brown and becomes deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Britain's regulatory agency. Sir James obviously knighted, obtained the appointment to FSA in 2006 when HBOS was growing rapidly, the losses came in 2008. But just as in the USA some of the people who were in the financial institutions or in regulatory agencies where alot of bad judgement or lack of necessary fiscal prudence was exercized, are still in positions that have as their principal task getting the US or Britain out of this crisis in financial institutions. In this case a House of Commons' committee investigating the banking crisis released written testimony that Sir Crosby summarily fired one of his executives Paul Moore after warning that HBOS bank was moving too fast in acquiring billions of dollars in new debt. One line in the Moore testimony is telling in its description of what happened at HBOS, as it must have in a host of other places in the US and Europe: " Sadly, no one wanted to speak up for fear of stepping out of line with the rest of the lemmings who were busy organizing themselves to run over the edge of the cliff behind the pied pper CEO's and exectuive teams that were being paid so much to play that tune and take them in that direction." End result, Crosby resigns his position before Prime Minister Brown is embarrassed and faces tumult and questions in the British House of Commons....