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Hardeep Puri describes his experience planning for the city of New Delhi during a period of rapid growth in this video from Indian Express. He says getting stakeholders involved was critical for good results.

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When the BBC talks about "fish" in a novel way as identity it fails to look at the important issues of unemployment, failures in industrialization and modernization, failures in infrastructure building, entrenched corruption that are the main issues in the West Bengal election in 2026, as they were in the elections earlier in Bihar and Orissa states of northeastern India.That the BBC is silent or says nothing about the massive amount of poor quality and unstable unemployment in West Bengal where youth are leaving the state to find employment in the western states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and other states. BBC is silent about the "cut culture" which means a percentage of every financial transaction goes from the public or business to corrupt politicians in government and their associates, destroying any chance of economic progress. BBC along with other media say little about the lack of business investment in the state, and an environment that is not investment friendly, which means industrialization and modernization is falling behind in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa region with a population of close to 300 million people, about half the size of the European Union, located in northeastern India.In this attitude by the media including the BBC in the US and European Union one finds a feeling that is similar to that shown during the evolution of China into a modern state from the conditions of the 1930 with Japanese occupation, corrupt leadership and roadblocks to modernization and industrialization that mattered little to the world outside China and India. ...

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France and Italy are imposing strict rules for their lockdown and tougher enforcement to control spread of coronavirus. India has imposed a quarantine, a total ban on leaving the home with a televised address by prime minister Modi that set a 21 day lockdown period. Modi said "if the pandemic cannot be managed in 21 days it would set India back by 21 years." 

Fines of $3000 euros are imposed in Italy and cars seized by the police. A special form has to filled out in Italy showing where one is going and checked by police if leaving the home. In France one needs an Affidavit of Movement by Special Dispensation is a filled form required for everyone outside the home. All open air markets are closed in France and drones are used to warn people outside.

All domestic and international flights in India are stopped. All domestic passenger trains and bus services in India are also stopped.

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The place is Spain, see adjacent article on places within Spain. If you know Spanish that is an added advantage to talk to the locals. It has changed over the years. In the 1990's one could go to Madrid and freely walk out of the Puerta de Atocha main train station there with little traffic. Over the years after the financial crisis Madrid and Spain suffered. Under PM Pedro it has recovered. Yet it is not the same with international tourism from China, India, US having made visits crowded and less friendly. There is the garbage can index for tourism that tells you something is wrong when garbage cans are overflowing- it happened as tourism jumped to France in the last 2 decades- with garbage overflowing outside Notre Dame before renovation. (After 1993 Japan removed all garbage cans from streets.) About 100 million tourist visited France in 2024 and 80 million to Spain. It brings $100 billion in tourism receipts to Spain and about $80 billion each for France and UK, so that it is a key source of revenue for countries. How to make trips that avoid the rush - careful planning for season and month, finding the right places depending on one's interests nature, history, science, or other, and avoiding tours as there are plenty of resources to do it on one's own, finding right places to stay and visit, using local transport, tram and speed trains in Europe, giving enough time for each place, talking to locals and taking a lesson on Rocket languages online which uses locals and practices word pronunciation so you sound like a local. ...

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The Hindustan Times looks back at one year of lockdowns in India and the progress made. India now has the second largest number of vaccinations in the world at about 45 million and a long way to go.

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This report in The Guardian says what India urgently needs is for the US to lift export restrictions on supplies for India's vaccine factories, and tools such as genome sequencing to identify and control emerging variants of the coronavirus.

The report also points out that of the 1 billion vaccine jabs about half are in the US and Europe and the low income countries have only a tiny fraction of vaccinations. India which sent 64 million vaccine doses to countries including Brazil and Morocco, Bangladesh, in 3 months prior is reported to have sent only 1.2 million doses this month.

The crisis in India also shows the need says The Guardian for an international approach to the crisis no a country by country approach. It says the Bush plan for Aids and the the 2014 plan for Ebola in West Africa are models of an international approach that is needed now.

 

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Narrowest loss in runs at Lord's -India lose by 22 runs in Third Test vs England July 2025. 

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The US sees no contradiction to India looking for bargain priced oil from Russia to meet the growing needs of its economy and is actually furthering the goals of the G-7 by lowering the price Russia gets for its oil. It helps the economy of 1.2 billion people that like the rest of the world has struggled to fight the pandemic and has incurred the kind of heath costs that even China is now struggling to pay for. President Biden clearly understands and supports this. Democracies an only succeed if they fulfill the aspirations of their people. On this point Biden made clear in his State of the Union that he will generate what it takes from large corporations that paid no tax, to invest in America. Rather than fuel the profits of large oil companies India has increasingly chosen to use Russian discounted oil to invest in India. The Biden and Modi policies are identical generate savings and invest big time in trillions of dollars over the next few years to put democracies ahead in meeting rising aspirations that have been unfulfilled for far too long, which is where the real battles are being fought and will be won, and rightly so. US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, Geoffrey Pyatt,  said during a visit to New Delhi on Feb. 16-17- "Our experts now assess that India right now is enjoying a discount of about USD 15 a barrel in the price that it is paying for its imports of Russian crude. So by acting in its own interest, by driving a hard bargain to get the lowest price possible, India is furthering the policy of our G7 coalition, our G7 plus partners in seeking to reduce Russian revenues."  Looking at the bigger picture the problem was created by Germany under Merkel who built Germany's over dependency on Russian oil to power a cheap fuel economy it thought was in Germany's interest. This is now being reversed by the hard work of Mr. Habeck of the Green party in the coalition government of Scholz in securing alternative supplies in record time for the EU to avoid a recession. In this sense the perception created early of India which has suffered itself from invasions in 1962 and incursions in the Himalayas more recently, it is not a problem India can solve by becoming energy short at a time when it has invested so much in fighting the pandemic. A similar problem was created by Republican and Democratic administrations of the past that concentrated the supply chain in one country. India lost much investment in the last 8 years as a result of the policies of Merkel's Germany and past Republican Democratic administrations in concentrating the supply chain in one country. ...

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Abrams and De Acosta, Bellman of the WSJ look at growth and modernization in India in comparison with China and other countries. GDP per capita would take 10 years to reach the stage at which spending power of the people equals that in China today. At one point in 1980 China and South Korea were closer in GDP per capita than India. It is only now that India is accelerating towards the scale and depth of modernization done in China.  India's growth rate of over 7% is likely to surge after some of the problems in bad loans in the banking sector are cleared up. A wave of technological advances would help accelerate growth. Ease of doing business and foreign investment are on upward trend, for absorbing new technology from advanced countries. A shift to very low prices for data use with rapid development of 4G services is one of the recent achievements. Manufacturing growth remains a challenge to be tackled to create the jobs needed.  Revamping tax structures such as GST and shifting the economy towards use of electronic cash has increased revenues needed to invest in infrastructure, health and education.  As much of the potential for future growth comes from people at the lower income levels, improving social indicators such as sanitation, cleanliness, farmer incomes, universal bank accounts, universal access to health care, are steps that lay the foundation for the future. ...

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A 7 year redevelopment project is taken up for the Dharavi slum part of Mumbai between the Dharavi Redevelopment Authority and the Indian Railways. The Deputy CM of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw signed the agreement for handing over by Indian Railways of 47.5 acres of land in Dadar for the Redevelopment. Dharavi is Asia's largest slum cluster home to 58,000 families and 12,000 commercial businesses. Cost of project keeps going up from 4000 crore in 2004, to 28,000 crore in 2022. The State government is looking at a joint venture where the lead bidder for the projects- with Maharashtra government inviting global tenders- will take 80% of the stake and 20% will go to the state government. The bidding ends October 31, 2022, and the Adani Group is one of 8 bidders.

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Biden has put forward a new initiative to strengthen democracy by getting increased commitments to key features for democratic processes in the world. The idea is not to limit partnerships with other countries says Anthony Blinken, Mr. Biden's main adviser and secretary of state. This means India a key partner in both democracy and the Indo-Pacific can for defending its thousands of miles of border in the high Himalayas with enroachment of China into border areas such as Tibet, maintain its good legacy relationships with Russia as happened in last weeks Modi-Putin meeting.  The idea says Blinken is- "The US does not want to limit your partnerships with other countries. We want to make your partnerships with us even stronger." This means the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, can maintain economic and development related ties with China which contribute to their economy, and build stronger relationships of culture and democratic processes with the US, India, European Union and Japan. For this reason the White House has emphasized that this is not about the US giving stamp of approval or disapproval of which country is a democracy and which is not. Too much of that happened under previous governments including Reagan, Carter, Bush, Obama.  The situation of Turkey relates to independence of judiciary and the unwillingness to take another look at problems. There is also the issue of technology is to be used so that citizens are protected from undue surveillance. Mistakes can be made but judiciary acts as an independent branch under the arrangements of checks and balances in American, British and now European frameworks of democracy built over centuries of struggle between monarchies and the people dating back to the Magna Carta in Britain. Neglect of workers and families also is an issue for democracies as for instance the effort now taking place in Germany under Scholz to "respect" workers and families. Lack of this led to the movements in US and European democracies giving room to vent that could ultimately lead to subverting democracies in the homeplace of democracies in the US or Britain. Why such a large gathering of 100 countries? Biden understands that the processes of democracy are always being improved and are a work for each new generation. For this reason there is no perfect scorecard- an ever renewing effort to make the process work in the best interests of the people of the country one generation at a time, to improve the quality of life and do this by preserving the right of peoples to choose their governments.  Why exclude China and Russia, till recently China had a consultative arrangement to run the country and Russia has elections? On this question the response of the Biden administration is that countries commit to the process and back initiatives to "counter authoritarianism. combat corruption, and promote respect for human rights."   Pakistan because it struggles with a long legacy of shortfall in the area of education after the collapse of Mughal rule that was seen under the British, and the general poverty of the Indian subcontinent that is striving to preserve the practice of elections, judiciary, and other democratic processes that were introduced in the Punjab and Sind provinces, and elsewhere since 1900. This is true for much of Africa, and also in parts of India, where aspirations of the people are for democratic process but faced with difficulties, corruption and poverty. In India the efforts of Naoroji, Gokhale, Gandhi, Nehru and Rajagopachari, Govind Pant, almost all leaders of the period since the 1850's, and able well meaning administrators since Lord Mayo in 1868 were to let democratic processes gradually find deep roots. Biden see aspirational in the face of difficulties as acceptable, even truly remarkable, with a willingness to learn from other countries to strengthen its own processes for democracy. It is no longer an Anglo-Saxon model alone as Germany and Europe are part of this process to be renewed by each generation. So are India and Japan. India after a century of elections since 1900 gradually expanding voters from one million to 5 million in the 1930's and to 900 million in 2019, with independent judiciary in a system of checks and balances as in the US.    ...

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This opinion of the Editorial Board of WSJ says it is not clear why Taiwan has been excluded from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that includes most of South East Asia including Indonesia, and India, South Korea, Japan, Australia. The Biden administration plans to deepen economic ties with Taiwan. WSJ says this is a mistake and Taiwan should be included in the new Asian alliance led by the US. IPEF is a Asian alliance built around 4 pillars of digital economy, transparency and good governance, Asian security and rule of law, and rapid economic technological progress. Biden administration Commerce minister Raimondo says it will increase investment in the alliance countries for supply chain renewal and shift of investments away from China and into India, Vietnam. President Biden and Jake Sullivan see it as pulling in investment into the US for infrastructure and technology and into allies such as India who have the pool of manufacturing workers to compete with China in a new supply chain. Mr. Modi also sees it as he is focused on digital economy, good governance, and infrastructure with speed and scale at high levels to match rising aspirations for the economy in India. It is designed in a way that lets US, Japan South Korea and India to fill in the needs and strategies over the period to 2030 and 2040 so that US and Europe and the Free World in Asia and Latin America, Africa can preserve democratic values with matching technological and economic strength. ...

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Pakistan faces soaring food prices with the severe monsoon floods damaging crops and hurting the agricultural sector. Onions are up five times in price. About 80% of the tomato crop is damaged. Imports from India could ease the situation. Under normal trade for neighboring countries India Pakistan trade would be $50 billion in 2012, according to Mr. Boskin, who helped setup the NAFTA trade agreement. Instead it was $2.7 billion in 2012 and it was about $300 million in 2020, in OEC data.  Finance Minister Ismail talked about importing tomatoes and onions and other products from India during the floods with one third of Pakistan under water and half a million homeless.

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...

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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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In dealing with a case judges of the Supreme Court look at the law, precedents and facts of a case. They also look at the human aspect says Chief Justice Ramana of the Indian Supreme Court. He says a judge has to keep sight of the human suffering and toll in understanding a case. Judges have to see the repercussions and what happens as it echoes over time, as the new decision becomes the law of the land.

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This article in The Guardian looks at the role of British authorites in the Empire in the 19th and 20th century that led to famines. Under Lord Lytton in the 1870's and in 1943-44 in Bengal there were famines that were worsened by British policy. Throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century India's energies were sapped and its poverty deepened by the British effort to extract wealth from India through commercial policy and taxation. During the Napoleonic Wars Britain used its Empire in India to finance the war in a way Napoleon lacked.  .As can be seen in the British Residency park in Lucknow  British authorites focused their efforts on the Treasury of the collapsing Empires in India whom they replaced. The people seeing tax territories shifted from one foreign authority to another stretching over four hundred years with little difference in development needs being met. After a period of self-rule which struggled with development after Independence in 1947, India's largest state Uttar Pradesh with a population of about 300 million, is finally bringing sanitation, water, roads, housing and medicine to all parts of the state. ...

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India prepares for Republic Day during the third year of the pandemic in 2022. The Times of India has this photo essay as Republic Day approaches.

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Britain and India are seen as the most attractive destinations for foreign investment after the US, Germany and China. This is true after Brexit. In recent years Britain and India have made much progress in becoming investment destinations.

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The first virtual summit between the leaders of Australia and India takes place on June 4, 2020. The meeting is for further strengthening bilateral ties between Australia and India. This video   in the Times of India shows the opening statements in the summit by prime minister Morrison of Australia and prime minister Modi of India.

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The Oxford vaccine through testing in South Africa, the Moderna vaccine through testing in the U.S., the German vaccine through testing in the U.S., and Indian vaccine, are all racing towards completion by November 2020 or earlier.

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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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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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India's foreign exchange reserves of $295 billion cover about 7 months of imports. This is not enough in currency reserves for India's central bank to take actions to prevent a depreciation of the Indian currency, the rupee. The central bank, RBI, has taken other actions including giving local exporters 15 days to convert half their estimated $7 billion foreign exchange holdings into rupees. Analysts say the RBI is running out of policy options and is down to micromanaging the currency. India's trade deficit was at $13.4 billion in March 2012 with rising cost of importing oil and lower exports. The rupee is close to 54 rupees to the dollar.