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France's high speed train network SNCF and its new trains TGV m are the focus of French Connections series in FR24. It is a great success for France as it connects 230 cities across France and decentralizes the country making remote areas reachable in hours. 770 kms Paris Marseille is covered in 3 hours. It has transported about 3 billion passengers since its founding in 1981 under Francois Mitterand. 122 million people traveled on TGV trains in 2023, and this is increasing by 20% a year. The trains travel at 350 kilometers an hour and are capable of over 500 kms per hour. For countries like India this is very useful to know as the first bullet trains based on Japanese technology are being built for route Bombay- Ahmedabad- Jaipur- Delhi. It shows that if it worked so well in France it can work well in the US or India. In India it could transport many times the 122 million in France and connect remote regions exceeding 1000 kms. Madras Srinagar is 3000 kms or 1900 miles. Imagine this being done in 7 hours at 400 kms per hour. It would really decentralize India. Same for the US for Austin Texas to Boston Massachusetts 1600 miles in 7 hours. It would better integrate communities in the US that are far apart socially.   ...

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BRICS is becoming an obsolete concept as Brazil, India and South Africa are essentially looking for ways in which they can increase opportunities for growth. It was a concept started by a Goldman Sachs investment banker Mr. O'Neill at a different time in 2010. The world has gone through the 2009 financial crisis, the pandemic, and the supply chain crisis with overconcentration of EU and US supply chain in China. These events are leading to a shift under the Biden administration to bring India  into the G7 into a new G8 that includes India. Only Russia, China and South Africa remain from the original BRICS. Russia because of the war in Ukraine now depends on Chinese support and trade. Brazil will gradually shift back to its position as part of the US alliance in Latin America with Mexico, Argentina and Chile. India with its plans for rapid growth to build the modern third largest economy by 2040 seeks supply chain integration with the US and EU in the position that China holds today.   ...

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The US Federal Reserve Report on Economic Wellbeing of US Households 2024-May 2025 gives some insights into the well being of American households. It shows food insufficiency households the same in 2023-2025 at 7%. The situation for cost of living remains a concern in 2024 as well as 2025. Retirement savings have improved for many middle class Americans, as confirmed by reports from Fidelity and Vanguard. The people earning less than 25,000 are 19% and about the same in 2024 under Biden as under DJT in 2025. 39% make $100,000 or more and 26% make $50,000 -$100,000. Combining the 19% making less than $25,000 and the 16% making between $25,000 and $50,000 shows about one third of the population under $50,000 living paycheck to paycheck. It would appear that $2000 DJT rebate putting $160 billion out of $550 billion of tariff revenues for 2025-2026  in the hands of 79 million households that make less than $100,000 would go a long way to keep the situation stable with optimism and hope arising from the restructuring of world trade that would bring trillions of dollars of investment into the US from Europe and Asia. A this investment plus domestic investment should bring back jobs and higher incomes to US manufacturing in small towns across America. The rest of $550 billion tariff revenue of $390 billion would go to reducing the deficit which would improve prospects for the economy in 2027 and produce a more resilient economy in 2027-2028. As shown on this page the popular Democratic Governor of Michigan in her op-ed in Washington Post supports strategic tariffs, and supports using the revenue for a check to American workers of $2000 per worker or per worker household and offers to work with the opposite party to get a WIN-WIN for the American People.  In the whole process of trade tariffs it must be remembered when seeing the inconsistent cases of tariff use by this Republican administration that these were special reason situations not aberrations or whimsical. First, it should be borne in mind that behind the appearance of DJT making tariff decisions is a carefully thought out process that took ten years to form under Reagan era Trade Representative Lighthizer who negotiated with Japan, and his deputy Jamieson for 2016-2024, and the economic and capital markets experience of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. The two cases of inconsistent application of tariffs relate to the 50% tariff on India and the reduction of tariffs on China agreement on rare earths, and the imposition of a large tarif on Japan and the EU. In the first instance with India it was intended to give Ukraine breathing room from Russian attacks as Germany steps up its military preparedness and assistance to Ukraine. With both countries it was about saving face important in Asian or any societies and it has achieved it's purpose. Reports show both Indian and Chinese refiners have quietly cut purchases of oil from Russia leading to Russian oil selling at about $20 discount to Brent crude oil. In the case of Japan the quick action to raise tariffs was intended not to get into long drawn negotiations and show serious intent- Japan is known for dragging out negotiations for years if not decades. The same is true for the European Union. With the Swiss it was about a certain disrespect of the US coming from attitudes that Swiss products were somehow superior. Not just in the long run, in 2026-2028 history will show that the effort done right - and it takes effort to get this right- to restructure world trade so that other nations are not siphoning off the benefits and leaving the US to lose its manufacturing and factories is the right one. And taken with courage and sincere desire to create a fair distribution of the benefits of world trade for too long distorted by egregious practices of competitors. It has nothing to do with 2 senators from the 1930's who were from places like the Mountain West in the US, having no concept of world trade, Smoot and Hawley, who under a irresponsible president Hoover got everything wrong. This is a carefully set out plan to evenly balance the benefits of world trade to all nations.   ...

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On the first day of the new vaccine policy on June 21, 2021, India has vaccinated 6.9 million people. India has now vaccinated 287 million people out of a population of 1.2 billion. This is a race against time as new variants caused the second wave of coronavirus in April and May of 2021 with cases peaking at over 300,000 a day.  The shortcoming of the old vaccine policy are being corrected. The entire vaccine supply process and the vaccination drive is now being handled by the federal government. Earlier during the second wave vaccine supply and the vaccination drives were under an arrangement with no clear overall responsibility. States shared responsibility with the federal government and target vaccination goals were missed, vaccine supplies were inadequate.  A similar arrangement in Germany failed and Germany's vaccination supplies were inadequate and vaccination drive stalled. This caused immense frustration in Germany in April-May 2021. Germany's troubled history before World War II led to a reliance on decentralized actions, and state governments imposed different rules in a relatively small country compared to India. This was corrected with the federal government taking on the entire responsibility for the vaccine supply and vaccination drive leading to good results today in vaccines. With India's huge population and political process of different state governments, some lacking experience in administration for a complex process, and others failing to coordinate well with the federal government, the lack of overall responsibility at the federal government posed serious risks of missing targets for vaccines and letting the coronavirus wreck the economy and public confidence. Complex negotiations with other governments in Europe and the US for vaccine manufacture in India could only be handled at the federal level. The resources and planning at the federal level were already in place in India for infrastructure and other projects, experience and setting targets in that area at the federal level could now be transferred to this task in vaccines. Somewhere in the range of 8 million vaccines a day need to be reached and sustained from August to December 2021 for India to reach the goal of vaccinated all 1.2 billion people ahead of any further attack from a third or fourth wave, say experts. This is not a choice for the federal government, it is simply something India has got to accomplish to be a healthy nation that can grow with neighbors in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan and build confidence in its Asia-Pacific region. The entire Asia-Pacific region has a lot resting on how well India achieve this goal and moves on to the next phase of assisting its neighbors in the region.  ...

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Foxconn Technology Group, largest assembler of iPhones, plans to reduce its dependence on Chinaby building plants in India. Foxconn head, Terry Gou, plant to visit India after next month. The continued trade tensions between U.S. and China are leading to many companies looking at diversifying their supply chains away from China.Manufacturing high end phones in India would help Apple get around the 20% tariff on imported phones because Apple is losing market share with its high prices. Foxconn already makes phones in India for Xiaomi. Foxconn is also looking at Vietnam.

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By March 2012 India's Aadhar project- for unique identification numbers to be given to every citizen of India- will have given out 200 million 12 digit unique ID numbers. Nandan Nilekhani, former head of Infosys, leads the project. The Indian govenment has committed $650 million for the first phase of the project, which has the personal backing of prime minister Manmohan Singh.

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The Rupee is moving close to 80 to the US dollar with increase in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve. The IMF expects the Rupee to go past 94 to the dollar in 2029. India's Reserve Bank is interested in carefully managing the steady decline so that business decisions can be made with some measure of stability. The weaker rupee will help increase exports at a time when India's is raising its logistics capabilities and creating the capabilities on the ground that will give India a key role in the new supply chain the US and the EU are building in Asia.

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US actions to conduct investigations on 18 countries under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 - March 12 2026 after the Supreme Court asks DJT to use another law for tariffs. A key focus of the investigation is to show how industrial overcapacity is deliberately built through subsidies to push product into US markets and destroy American competition. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said March 11- "Our view is that key trading partners have developed production capacity that is really untethered from the market incentives of domestic and global demand." The US and DJT have repeatedly shown how this has been done over two decades to destroy the US industrial base. Another focus is on the used of forced or underpaid labor working in substandard working conditions and excessive hours. Greer says he will have the investigations results ready by mid-July when the presidents new tariff of 15% (after the SC ruling) expires. Other probes or investigations will also be conducted. All trade agreements signed with Germany, EU, Japan, UK, India, China, and other countries will remain in place. These countries have expressed a desire to keep them in place as that offers key benefit of removing uncertainty in making business decisions. ...

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A Kyodo News poll shows about 60% of Japanese want the Olympic games cancelled. Japan faces another wave of the pandemic with a surge in Osaka and other cities. The government's handling of the pandemic is disapproved by 71% of Japanese in a Kyodo News poll. Over 80% are unhappy with the slow vaccine rollout.   India faces a surge in cases public dissatisfaction that is similar to Japan and other countries in Europe. France and Germany have a slow vaccine rollout. In India vaccination drive is affected by a lack of supplies as in France and Germany with shortages of vaccine. The European Union in April signed contracts for over a billion doses with Pfizer and India has plans for ramped up supply of its Covishield and Covaxin vaccines to 2 billion doses by December 2021. This shows how difficult it is for advanced countries and major pharmaceutical producing countries such as as India to vaccinate their populations quickly in the initial stages of the vaccination effort. In July the vaccine effort would be in its 7th month and vaccine supply constraints are expected to ease as a result of aggressive action by governments in EU, France, Germany and India. This will also enable addressing needs in Latin America, Africa and South East Asia. ...

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A former Jharkhand state governor nominated for president of India. She will be the first tribal woman elected president of India if elected. She was born in a district in Odisha in 1958 and is from the Santhal community. She was a teacher at the Aurobindo Integral Education Center before running for the state legislature. 

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With a democratically elected government not the real power in Pakistan and most power resting in the army and spy agency, India-Pakistan negotiations are going nowhere at this time. More tension in Kashmir and Afghanistan complicates the situation.

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Meeting between prime minister Modi of India and prime minister Sharif of Pakistan is unlike anything that has happened between leaders in the region since independence in 1947. Sharif told NDTV: "I intend taking up threads from where Vajpayee and I left off in 1999." Modi says Sharif touched on some emotional things in his conversation. Sharif told Modi about his visits to his mother once a week, and how Modi's visit to his mother seen by Sharif when visiting his mother touched both of them deeply. Rarely has a visit been captured in poetry in the manner Sharif did in answering a question, when he recited an Urdu couplet: "cling to the tree and hope, for spring is in sight."

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The renewable energy and coal projects of India's Gautam Adani are shown here in this report Emily Schmall and Hari Kumar in the NYT. The Financial Times looked into Mr. Adani's projects and financing and found that much of it comes from a scale of risk taking and business innovation, timely delivery that few businesses in India have an affinity for. As a result he has taken on a role of lead innovator for projects of scale in both coal and renewable solar energy for India.

 

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England India Test 4 Drawn at Old Trafford, Manchester 2025, record of 7 centuries in the two innings played.

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About half of foreign investment in poor developing countries is sent through tax havens resulting in tax revenues lost to poor countries. Here Max Bearak of the Washington Post points to a offshore to offshore transaction when Vodafone bought a company Hutchison Essar in India- Vodafone based in Netherlands and Hutchison in the Cayman and British Virgin Islands both tax havens- the result being a loss of $2.2 billion in tax revenues to India. This is about what it costs to provide subsidized meals to schoolchildren in India, says Bearak. The Tax Justice Network says the figure of Angel Gurria of the OECD that 3 times the foreign aid is lost through such tax evasion is a bit low, its estimate is as high as ten times foreign aid lost through tax evasion of this type.

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Montek Singh Ahluwalia, head of India's Planning Commission, tells a weekend business conference of the government's intention to move towards making the rupee fully convertible and lifting all restrictions on foreign exchange transactions. India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh also said the government "was far more comfortable" making this move.This would make India vulnerable to sudden foreign exchange outflows. India has foreign exchange reserves of $144 billion and is in a position to make the move, especially as it brings the advantages of attracting more foreign investment to the country. Another advantage is the opportunity to make Bombay a financial hub in Asia, especially as the Indian economy develops and India's strengths in the financial industry and its human resources in that area make themselves felt.

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The great university of ancient Buddhist India is located at Rajgir, Bihar. Nalanda University was built in 5th century AD and was the largest center of Buddhist learning for all of Asia from India, China, Vietnam to Korea and Japan. It's new campus was opened by PM Modi on June 19, 2024. Near it is the Mahavihara Budhhist temple renovated from ruins at a UNESCO heritage site. Excavations were done in the British period by the 1860's bringing to light the ruins of Nalanda, the wonder that was Buddhist India. Buddha attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in Bihar and his last years were spent at Kusinagar in Bihar, all in the vicinity of Nalanda University, a center of ancient learning that is older than all European Universities, and is only now becoming known throughout the world.

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G7 Finance Ministers plan to release 300 million barrels of oil (2 weeks worth of Straits of Hormuz lost oil production ) to keep oil prices in check. Oil Prices reach $101 a barrel after 1 week of the US Israel war with Iran. Oil going through Straits of Hormuz are 20 million barrels a day, if 300 million barrels are released that would cover another 15 days of the war. By that time safety has to be reestablished, and additional production brought from Venezuela, from Russia for use by India, so that maybe 50% of the 20 million barrels can be produced from other locations in the world to make up for the loss. Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency says-  "In addition to the challenges of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a substantial amount of oil production has been curtailed. This is creating significant and growing risks for the market. "IEA member countries currently hold over 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation."       ...

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Do you ever wonder how Japan keeps it streets so clean. There are no litter bins or street sweepers to be seen. This report in the BBC News looks at Japan's cleanliness ethic starting from school days for children growing up with the idea that clean is what you make happen with your own two hands and a broom. That is all it takes and a sense of personal responsibility infused into the culture from school days as children.  For 12 years of school life from elementary school to high school cleaning the school is part of the school routine for students. The social consciousness was developed in this way and children as they grow up learn to take pride in their cleanliness and in the cleanliness of their surroundings. This carries over to cleaning up the neighborhood.  In India's Swachh Clean India campaign their are street clean sweepers in addition to people themselves taking on the job of cleaning. This is ok for public facilities like railway stations underbridges and other public facilities, but for neighborhoods and schools making cleaning a part of the routine in schools is a good idea that needs to be universally adopted as part of Swachh India, Clean India campaign. This also holds true for all Asian and Latin American, African nations which could learn from the keeping the country clean efforts of Japan and more recently India. As India shows not having done this well before is no reason for discouragement, getting started and keeping it going, building public awareness and support is the key. This is particularly true for developing countries because it is easier to prevent illness and disease by increasing levels of hygiene and sanitation, saving hundreds of millions of dollars for large countries like India and Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, for days and productivity lost. It also pushes countries to the next stage of development faster through infrastructure development and quality of public services, quality of life.    ...

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The increasing price of wheat and the failure to modernize Pakistan's agriculture is the subject of this report in The Indian Express. The floods and the Ukraine war, lack of development in agriculture, have created a food crisis in Pakistan.