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Geoff Lemon compares the  youngest batters on the Indian and Australian Test cricket teams and their graceful batting, Shubman Gill and Cameron Green. Shubman Gill's century gave India a good start against Australia leading to superb batting from Kohli with 186 and his partnership with Axar Patel in the fourth Test match against Australia.

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The Raisina Security Dialogue, India's version of the Munich Security Conferen ce was attended by the security chiefs of 26 countries. It was held in New Delhi March 1-2. Security chiefs from UK, France, Japan were present. The Conference is organized by the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency and the National Security Council Secretariat  (MSCS) which reports to Mr. Ajit Doval, Indian National Security Advisor.

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India's foreign exchange reserves reached an all time high of $545 billion in October 2022. By December this had dropped to $561 billion because of the central bank RBI's effort to maintain the value of the Indian currency in relation to the US dollar. This is at Rs 81 to the the dollar in Dec 2022. India' needs healthy foreign exchange reserves to finance imports for its industrialization and investment efforts to modernize the country. Inflation is also a priority to keep the cost of living at levels that provide affordability. This is at about 5% in Dec. 2022. Finance minister Sitharaman cited this as key achievements. Including large foreign investment inflows as part of changing the supply chain to include India as a manufacturing hub for the west. This sets the stage for long term growth.

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Indian exports to China declined in the covid pandemic years when China experienced little or no growth. This has worsened the trade deficit, yet this is temporary. Imports have worsened with Chinese dumping of products into the country. This should not alter India's policy of building close trade and investment relations with the US and the European Union as its main partners. This is also consistent with the prime minister's Atman Nirbhar Bharat policy. The author of this report in Hindustan Times says policy should integrate India with China and Factory Asia, yet this ignores India's growth trajectory as it is only now building up momentum and will for the next decade see the kind of growth Japan and China made in their peak growth period, even as China slows down and forms a smaller part of the global supply chain. US policy is for India to form the major part of the supply chain replacing China at some point as the leading supplier, even though it is moving gradually to get there. India should make policy as Modi has done for 2030, then 2047, and reach its own potential acting in concert with US and EU. ...

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The UNESCO report on Water scarcity and contaminated water. It creates awareness on World Water Day but comes across as a largely academic exercise, ask any rural woman in India and she knows the significance, question is what should have been done and the resources are there. For action it has to come from nations,, large nations such as India from it's Jal Jeevan Mission, China and Japan transferring the knowhow and technologies to Africa and Latin America and other parts of Asia. The period after a pandemic is also a time to focus efforts on  doing this. How it undermines girls and women and their participation in society is part of the understanding in India, and uppermost in the minds of Indian leaders and technologists, and in the mind of PM Modi. Unfortunately the UNESCO reports fails to even cover right up front in its summary how Jal Jeevan is being done for 1.4 billion people in India to have clean tap water so that people in Africa and Latin America can see that this is possible, if in the Himalayan regions possible in their region it is possible. Just see for yourself in India. ...

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Every year India Youth Day is observed on the 12th of January on the birthday of Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda 1863-1902 preceded Mohandas Gandhi in the first period of the Indian struggle for Independence from the British Empire. The book Hind Swaraj by Gandhiji which set the blueprint for India's independence struggle was inspired by and followed in 1909 only a few years after Vivekananda's death in 1902. Vivekananda also inspired Indonesia's Sukarno in the struggle for independence from the Dutch Empire during the 1930's and 1940's. The population of India and Indonesia which represent the height of the ancient Vedic civilization of South Asia is in 2025 1722 million. It also encompasses China Japan Korea and Vietnam with a population of 1750 million when we consider India as the centre of Buddhist civilization. About 3.5 billion people with a common heritage in ancient Vedic and Buddhist civilization. Matched only by Christian civilization with 1.0 billion people in the Americas and 750 million in Europe. Combined this is two thirds of the world population. Under the British, Dutch and French Empires India was kept separate from cultural and religious contact with Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Japan. There is a convergence of culture and religion in Asia in the 21st century first between India and Indonesia and Vietnam, and second between India and Japan, Korea. That convergence will grow between India and China in the rest of the 21st century as ancient but modern civilizations with a common history. ...

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Farmers near Jodhpur, Rajasthan and the farming of Guar beans which are used for hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas.

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VW hopes to expand in India with a plan to increase market share from 2% to 10%. VW has a plant in Pune, and Skoda has a plant in Aurangabad. In contrast to China where buyers look for high tech features such as mobile connectivity, buyers in India are looking for affordable cars of good quality. VW is interested in the Indian market because further growth of car sales is expected doubling from 3 million cars in 2016 to 6 million in 2030, according to CAR automotive research center. As part of the long term expansion VW has formed an alliance with Tata Motors, a leading Indian automaker.

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A new Pew Research Center Survey shows prime minister Modi enjoying 88% popularity, very high ratings for a world leader. More unusual is that Modi's popularity was 87% in a Pew Survey in 2015, showing extraordinary resilience. This comes after moves to remove the large denomination rupee notes under what is called demonetization to take out some of the black money in India and increase tax revenues that were lost due to evasion. In South Asia tax evasion is rampant, much more than in countries like Italy of the eurozone. The move was difficult as it required being sudden, and a shift to use of debit cards and ATM's which required additional effort, slowing the economy. The other moves such as on GST tax were designed to facilitate doing business in India with one tax and free movement of goods replacing different state by state taxes. Business has not responded quickly to support Modi, and the Indian economy being prepared for the long term growth Modi hopes to generate is slowing in the short term. GDP growth has dropped to 6%. A bullet train planned in western India with help from Japanese financing and technology is being criticized unfairly because of the collapse of an old bridge near a railway station in Mumbai. Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes at Pew Research, says the survey was done after demonetization but before the GST tax overhaul. This is not likely to change Modi's high ratings. The GST overhaul has been on the agenda for many years for all political parties in India. The views of Modi are not necessarily the same as for his BJP party which are lower for the party, the party gaining more from Modi's efforts and leadership, including in his home state of Gujarat. ...

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Panoramas of Lost London-Wealth, Work, Poverty and Change by Philip Davies, shows the London of the British Empire stretching from Canada, India to Australia, and its diverse buildings around 1905. It shows the world of Dickens in the poorer neighborhoods and the buildings of the upper classes. This is the world that gave birth to the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution that changed first Europe and the World, with the advent of steam power, ships, science and electricity. 

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Some estimates of the cost of the Iran War for the US are about $13 billion over 10 days of the war. US president DJT asks Congress for $200 billion to finance the war. Iran refuses to back down on the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. Much of the oil going through the Straits of Hormuz goes to Asia, 90% from Kharg Island in Iran goes to China. Oil from the UAE goes through the Straits to Japan and India.

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Iraq as two states in one now dragged into Iran War by Iran sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces that are part of the two state government. It points to a never ending conflict in this region, even after Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Finding alternative sources of oil and accelerating renewable energy are ways to stay away from the Middle East, easier to accomplish through innovation and rapid progress than sourcing oil from the region.  Irreconciliable differences between religious sects complicated further by the artificial countries created of Syria and Iraq created by the British and French Empires from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire by 1921 are enough reason to stay out of the Middle East conflicts for the US, Russia, India, China, the European Union.  The British and French colonial powers that drew up the map of Iraq and Syria created states with different populations that made no difference to them in 1921, but which create unmanageable and impossible to run states today. This is learning from the bitter experience of 50 years of conflict and wars that led through war distraction to deindustrialization of the US and European Union, and consequently to the tariff wars with China, a process that is still unwinding today. The US is better off developing new oil supplies as it considers another push in renewable energy, the EU, China and India have the resources to make a new push for renewable energy and efficient use of energy similar to Germany and Japan, using additional supplies from the US as a transition point. Imagine combining the energy technological innovation that is a bigger motivation combining the scientific minds and resources of China, Japan, India, the US and Europe, than the dislocation and internal strife inside these countries that is generated from the Middle East -that is itself the legacy of irrational decisions made by colonial powers of the 1920's,  1930's and 1940's that remain a hundred years later- impossible to resolve except by working with new solutions for energy outside of the region. ...

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India decides not to join the China sponsored Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. India says it has significant issues in providing market access that would hurt Indian industry and agriculture. Prime minister Modi called it a question of conscience. All parties in India now oppose RCEP because of a fear of India being flooded with cheap Chinese imports. Japan and China, South Korea, all protected their local industry to give it catch up time to come up to western technological and production levels before allowing limited access to U.S. and Europe. The U.S. has reverted to protecting its industry from cheap Chinese imports by rejecting the Trans Pacific Agreement, showing that advanced industrial countries can also be hurt by cheap subsidized imports if they are not careful. Workers in less densely populated areas were worst affected statistics show. Lacking the voice of larger urban areas and tech industry they were ignored leading to the situation the U.S. and Britain face today of a working class set adrift. ...