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A look at Day 64 of India's lockdown in the Indian Express.

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India's $1 billion credit line and about $2.5 billion in economic assistance comes at a critical time for Sri Lanka. Indian ties to Sri Lanka go back to the founding of the country with the landing of North Indian prince Vijaya in Tampabanni, cooper colored soil country. No other two nations have ties that go back so long in time to the Buddhist period in India when the Emperor Ashoka sent his son Mahinda with a branch of the Bodhi tree to Sri Lanka. India also provides a role model with Modi's sab ka vikas, sab ke sath, sab ka viswas, sab ka prayas, development for all, with all, with everyone's confidence, everyone's effort as the theme and policy for all of the nations in the Neighborhood Initiative. Another aspect of the ties is the revival of the Buddhist ties as India revives Buddhism and Buddhist religious places in India including Kushinagar where Lord Buddha gained Nirvana. It now has direct air links to major cities in Asia. ...

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DY Chandrachud and his father CY Chandrachud will soon be the first father son combination of Supreme Court Chief Justices in Indian history. This has not happened in Britain or US. CY Chandrachud was Chief Justice of the SupremeCourt of India from 1978 to 1985. DY Chandrachud was part of a three member bench of the Indian Supreme Court that looked at The Modi government vaccination policy in April 2021 and gave a ruling that formed the basis of Mr. Modi's action for a new and broader vaccination policy that ensured access to the entire Indian population of 1.2 billion people.

This report in The Times of India describes the son's record following in the footsteps of his father. DY Chandrachud studied at St Stephens College Delhi, Delhi University Law, and Harvard for his Masters degree in Law. His experience includes heading the Uttar Pradesh High Court in Allahabad and holding legal positions in Mumbai.

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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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The perception comes from seeing decisions made but not the process of decisions which is lengthy and even seen by participants as long, in which Mr. Modi act as a patient listener to all voices. Could'nt it be shorter is felt by some participants, yet Mr. Modi would have 2-3 meetings listening to all participants with humility before arriving at a decision. Tough decisions were made on vaccines to get to 1 billion vaccinations goal, on demonetisation and GST, and on digital India, housing schemes, bank accounts, and Jal Jeevan.  Mr. Shah points out that where earlier governments had brought bank accounts, electricity water, and cooking gas to some people, the approach of Mr. Modi was to get electricity, water, cooking gas to all homes for 1.4 billion people in India. He says Mr Modi is hard for even his colleagues to understand in terms of his passion and endless capacity for hard work for bringing essential services to every Indian, and the last Indian is a concept that not the BJP or any party had, it was entirely Mr. Modi's idea for New India. Mr. Modi he says is not the BJP or himself even, he is always thinking how could the lives of ordinary Indian be better in every way, and every rupee going to that last man in line in a nation of 1.4 billion. It can best be understood through Vivekananda's writings some 125 years ago. The passion for India and the Indian people of Vivekananda in his writings is a huge reservoir of energy for someone like Modi, that Modi has tapped into from his beginnings in Gujarat government and more so when he left Gujarat for Delhi. Vivekananda's foresight, energy, and passion for the Indian people is reflected in the efforts for New India. ...

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After a sudden surge in the beginning of May the coronavirus wave in India, its second wave, is decreasing. It is 186,000 new coronavirus cases on May 27, down from over 350,000 at the peak. In India's largest state Uttar Pradesh with a population of 210 million the coronavirus cases have dropped sharply to 4000 a day. New coronavirus cases in Delhi and Bombay are around 1000 a day. The Indian government has moved quickly to tackle this wave with decisive action to meet the sudden surge in May 2021. For the rest of 2021 and into 2022 the most important action by the Indian government has been to create a government sponsored effort of India's entire pharmaceutical company sector to reunite in production of over 2 billion vaccine doses by December 2021. After independence in 1947 one of the steps taken by India with great foresight was to create a strong pharmaceutical sector with fair and transparent pricing of basic drugs and vaccines. Something that does not exist in this manner and scale anywhere else in the world. Today this is giving India a tremendous asset in the fight against coronavirus. India is already the largest producer of vaccines in the world, the new effort will make give it a decisive advantage in meeting not only India's but the world's need for new vaccines. ...

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$6 billion transferred from South Korea to Qatar in a deal to free prisoners is now being used for humanitarian help to people of Iran overseen for purchases made by Iran's central bank by the US and Qatar. This is part of a necessary deescalation in the conflict over nuclear seen as needed at this time by all G-8 leaders including India, and also China which is also monitoring Iran following the spirit of ending the war outlined in the Memorandum. 

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At this point in May (May 22, 2026) a glimmer of hope appears for settling both the crisis in Hormuz and the Ukraine war. Pakistan, Turkey and China following DJT visit to China may be pushing Iran to lower the scale of the conflict. China's first priority was to be accepted by the US at the Beijing meeting as an equal power with the US, and keen to show its willingness to bear responsibility for peaceful resolution in conflict zones as a sign of its maturity as a world power. Much of this is not shown in the media as it is mostly done behind the scenes in communications that the media knows nothing about. Note that even in the depths of the Cold War during the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and Soviet action in Budapest, the US and the Soviets when their economies were not intertwined as the US and China are today, were still talking to each other to limit the conflicts to low level conflict. Hong Kong takeover, China's actions near Taiwan, China's presence in Latin America, Chinese cooperation with Iran, and Russia on Ukraine, China's economic competition in rare earths, are relatively smaller levels of friction considering 1950's Soviet's and the US. At the same time China and the Us are aware of a new bloc emerging in Oslo in May, where India is merging its economy with the Nordic economies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and of the European Union and Germany, creating a new bloc of 2 billion people that can only grow rapidly with India's potential to exceed growth rates of 20% in the 600 million Eastern region for a decade. EU would make the shift to strategic partnership with India displacing the vital role the European Union has played in China's growth and economy. This would create new pressures for Russian president Putin to decide it is time to listen to a friend India and de-escalate lower the level of conflict with an initial peace deal that would lead to more talks on a final settlement. Because Russia would have a harder time tackling both India and Germany at the same time. NYT shows on the same day May 22 a report on Russia and a report by the Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Sonegard that say the elites in Russia and Putin were by January 2026 having very serious discussion to change the administration, bring Igor Sechin as negotiaor to end the Ukraine conflict before serious, possibly irreversible damage, to the Russian economy. Sweden's Sonegard says that between 2020 and 2024 Russian economy declined by 8%, not grew by 13% as official figures show, inflation is much higher than 5% as official figures show, and credit is tightening, bankruptcies expected, growth even with oil prices up down to 0.4% for 2026. During 20 years running Russia Putin's No. 1 priority, his life's mission was to restore, then exceed by a large margin the living standards of the Russian people. Having at such great cost accomplished the goal of gaining recognition as a Northern Power in Europe, having gained much of Russian speaking eastern Ukraine, Putin could wisely with self respect wind down Ukraine conflict for good. The US gains something similar to Northern Power status for Russia in its recommitment to the Monroe Doctrine, with Russia withdrawing from any involvement- and China tacitly doing the same-  in the western hemisphere. With that the US can tackle its own losses that match Russian losses in lives- loss of more American lives than in the Korean and Vietnam and WWI combined to drug smuggling from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and restoring rule of law in Cuba, Venezuela, and through drug cartel free Mexico good governance in Mexico.  ...

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One way to ease the supply of oil cutoff from the Middle East to Asia (to India, Japan and South Korea) is to ease sanctions on the oil on tankers on the sea (large inventories at sea) and from Russia. US president DJT says -“We have sanctions on some countries, we are going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out. And then who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on because there will be so much peace." 

Treasury Secretary Bessent says the same thing that “waiving certain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices," would be good way to ease the impact of the war on prices.

This will help Russia balance its budget and who knows it may make it possible to open up new discussions for peace in Ukraine as the US acts as an intermediary in negotiations to end the war. From the larger interest of US, China, India + Indonesia, of Russia and Ukraine, and of Europe,it makes sense to end that war.

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Why no new infrastructure building plan is in place in the US for decades as China, now India build new infrastructure every day with a Master Plan. The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in March 2024 in the Baltimore, Maryland area. There was much hand wringing at the time and president Biden also stepped in with help. The Washington Post says 2 years later no plan is in place to build a new bridge. The cost keeps going up from $1 billion to $1.9 billion and up again to $5.2 billion, with the dates shifting 2028 to 2030. Maryland received $2.6 billion insurance payments for the damage to the bridge by a ship, yet the project is stalled in disagreements with different parties involved. Even in the streets of New York, the pedestrian pavements in Brooklyn and other places are so dilapidated but no one seems to care. Suggesting that New Yorkers are also numb to infrastructure being bad as it is, just as Mumbai residents were in the old days before infrastructure became a daily priority in India in recent years, following China's example. ...

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Ram Manohar Lohia is the Gandhian with a world view having been educated at Humboldt University in Germany, who took Gandhi's idea of the equality of all men and women into the India of the post 1950's. He mentored Mulayam Singh Yadav and other leaders who brought tribals, the lower castes, women, Muslims and others into the mainstream of Indian society in the 1990's and afterwards. He also created the first opposition movement in India giving Indian democracy a good framework. Mr. Modi has in his own way brought forward some of the ideas of Mr. Lohia and Mulayam Singh Yadav as he struggles to modernize a nation of 1.2 billion and bring Clean India, Water through Har Ghar Jal, and electricity, cooking gas, digital banking, agricultural support, food rations during covid, and infrastructure building,  to hundreds of millions of people.

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The leader of the company Jio that pioneered 4G development in India, says India will grow at an unprecedented  acceleration to become a $5 trillion economy, one of the targets of the government. He says under the "atmannirbhar" vision of self-reliant economy, his company will lead the development of 5G in India in the second half of 2021 using home made technologies. Mukesh Ambani was speaking at the Indian Mobile Congress 2020.

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Mulayam Singh Yadav was mentored by Indian Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia who was an activist in the Independence Movement after Quit India was launched by Mohandas Gandhi. Lohia is rare in India's independence struggle because he studied at Humboldt University in Germany 199-1933 and did his doctoral thesis on Salt Taxation in India following the Salt Tax protests of Mohandas Gandhi with Dandi March in 1931.  Lohia contested elections in parliament with Mr. Nehru in 1962 in Phulpur constituency Uttar Pradesh. In this sense Mulayam Singh continued the work of Lohia to provide India with an effective opposition for its democratic framework covering a billion people with as many languages as Europe and a caste system. This report shows pictures of Mulayam Singh Yadav during a difficult period when the Opposition parties began to form governments in the northern states of India and at the federal level in the years following 1990.

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The Aam Aadmi, or Common Man political party founded by Mr. Kejriwal in India. It is expected to take 20-25 seats out of 70 in the Delhi elections. India scholar Ashutosh Varney at Brown University, says the anti-corruption movement is different from earlier protests because corruption is perceived differently by today's employees working in the large pirvate sector compared to public sector employees in previous decades when the private sector was still small. For this middle class corruption takes on a different meaning as holding back the country's economy and development, and making day to day life difficult for ordinary people because of corrupt officials in the government bureaucracy. This also suggests that the anti-corruption movement will be an active part of Indian political life in the future.

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Canada, Australia, India, Brazil have some of the largest reserves of rare earth and critical minerals. Brazil has second largest reserves. This means the US can still change the current situation of a near monopoly on critical minerals by China in coming years by making the necessary investments early in these countries and in the US itself. Here is the situation in Brazil for rare earths. Brazil has said it will be open to investments that place a priority on rare earths processing within Brazil, not just rare earths commodity exports for processing in the EU or the US. China does most of the processing of rare earths in China, it imports heavily from Burma, Indonesia, Australia and Africa and does nearly 100% of the processing in China using research labs and production facilities funded by PRC government. Yet the search for and development of supplies of rare earths and critical minerals is still at an early stage so that with the necessary investments including in India, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, in Africa, and in the US, the US and Germany, EU, India can change this situation by 2030. Brazil hold 21 million tons of reserves of rare earths, about a quarter of world rare earths reserves. Just in the last 3 years since 2023 3000 permits have been filed with Brazil's National Mining Agency compared to 500 in years before this. Australia and India are also catching up in rare earths minerals investment. Australian producers Viridis and Meteoric are doing advanced work in Pocos de Caldas mining area in Brazil. Canada is doing a project in Golas state. US company Rare Earth is putting $2.8 billion in Serra Verde. All this is being pushed forward by fast track investing supported by the DJT US government. Serra Verde historically sent rare earths in commodity form to China. Now DJT administration has setup private and public financing for a 15 year supply agreement to the US. Australia's Viridis can also get funding from IDFC operated by the US with discussions underway. Viridis's $360 million  Colossus project in Brazil sends rare earth in commodity form to a French-Belgian processing company in the EU. Brazil cannot afford to be too restrictive when it comes to processing- though that remains its goal -as Brazil wants to use its advantages in rare earths to increase investments and export earnings to support its slowing economy. Over time Brazil as part of this western hemisphere and as shown in "Brazil no Espelhos" or "Brazil in the Mirror" by Felipe Nunes, discussed in the adjoining piece on Brazil, is a part of the same social fabric of the Americas and its economic structure, its supply chains, its business, its democratic framework and processes. ...

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India takes on the G20 presidency on December 1, 2023. Modi's phrase "this is not an era of war" becomes the classic part of India's vision for G20, that the next generation will miss out on development if conflict takes the place of cooperation. India stands firm on this point at the G20 and it is accepted by world leaders at the summit in Indonesia and makes it to the joint declaration as a key point. Modi also extended his hand to China's Xi Jinping showing where India stands. India's connections to Indonesia from ancient times, from the Buddhist and Hindu periods of Indian civilization, the connections to Hanuman that extend to Indonesia, were mentioned by Mr. Modi as he took on the role held by Mr. Widodo of Indonesia. India offers a new path forward and a lifestyle suited to the period of tackling climate change through its ancient Yogic civilization, Mr. Modi said.

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Anthropic and Christianity's moral laws of the universe- can it guide AI? Anthropic staff researchers seeks guidance from Catholic and Protestant church leaders at a March 2 day Summit. Goal is to give Anthropic's Claude a moral foundation. Can this be better accomplished by human beings using Anthropic or other AI media just like another media source of information alongside other human powered media run by human beings, by harnessing a strong moral awareness based on Christian, Buddhist, Vedanta beliefs of mankind from Europe and the US and from India, China and Japan? This is the approach taken at Lyrarc.com.

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The 44 kilometre stretch of rail line being built in the region of West Bengal and Sikkim will for the first time provide a direct rail connection between Sikkim and India. A project that was approved years back in 2009 will be completed in 2 years by December 2022 by the federal government. The investment in the project is 89 billion rupees or $1.2 billion. It is a strategic project for India as it integrates the Himalayan region of Sikkim and Bhutan, Nepal, with India with rapid rail connectivity. The lack of reliable and modern rail infrastructure had held back economic development in the region. This is part of the Himalayan region in India's northeast, with spectacular mountains and requires modern engineering and technology for miles of tunnels through the mountains and bridges over many rivers at high altitude. This project is a combined venture of Indian Railways and its unit Northeast Frontier Railways, and the Indian Railway Construction Company (IRCON). By completing difficult rail and other infrastructure projects in time and in budget the entire development of the Himalayan region is being moved forward.   ...

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Why the BBC would in 2023 bring back events from 2002 is mind boggling and shows its lack of respect for India's institutions and a colonial mindset, including a lack of respect for India's Supreme Court, says Shashi Vempati. Coming at a time when India is working hard under Sab ka Sath, Sab ka Vikas, everyone's support for everyone's development, and is catching up to the western nations in technology and scientific progress, investments in modern infrastructure, the BBC falls into a colonial era trap of underestimating the potential of the Indian people for advancement in the modern world.

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French Indian business cooperation enters a new phase with Ambition India 2021 that starts on October 29 at the French Senate and in a digital format. French and Indian business and political leaders will participate in this event to build new manufacturing and research relationships.

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A good look at the Indian economy is provided in this year end review by The Hindu. India navigated through a difficult environment with fluctuating oil prices and inflation in the international economic environment, and yet maintained investment in infrastructure for future growth.

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Greg Ip in the WSJ says India is shifting towards  becoming an important partner with the US and the European Union in trade under the Modi government. This report reflects the situation upto 2021 and the changes in Indian and American perceptions during the pandemic. It does not reflect the rapidly evolving situation under president Biden.US president Biden and Jake Sullivan National Security Advisor see rapidly expanding US trade and investment in India. The recent Raisina Dialogue  brings together 26 countries- named after Raisina Hill in New Delhi where India's administration is located- in dialogue with Indian leaders. Finance Minister Sitharaman in an interview at Raisina Dialogue stated that Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, was with her during a G-20 meeting, and Yellen called for friendshoring- foreign investment in democracies that respect the rule of law and provide the right conditions for investment. The right conditions are now being created in India, including infrastructure and logistics, trade practices, and assistance to foreign companies, to invest in Indian manufacturing. The conditions are being created for shifting significant number of manufacturing facilities to India in a complete redesign of the supply chain. A look at the period 1950-2015 in US-EU India relations says little of the newly evolving situation in trade in the way that looking at the US-EU China relations 1950-1990 during the Cold War would tell one little about how that relationship evolved in trade after 1990 in the 1990-2019 period for massive trade with China. The pandemic and the inflation from existing supply chain bottlenecks has led to a realization in US-EU that the existing concentration of manufacturing in one country  was a mistake and is a serious problem that needs correction.  This means an acceleration in the effort to build rapidly over the next 5-10 years a strong US-EU manufacturing presence in India for advanced technologies. India under prime minister Modi is creating the infrastructure and logistics for this to happen with large domestic investment, the help of Denmark's Maersk in port logistics, and from other countries.  Fo India manufacturing and infrastructure building is the only way to create the jobs needed to meet the aspirations of its young population. For the US-EU the redesign of the supply chain is the highest priority to cut inflation, remove potential bottlenecks, and provide a stable supply chain.    ...

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India's exports for December 2021 are at about $38 billion according to the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. In the first 9 months the exports were at $301 billion and on target for $400 billion for the current fiscal year. For 2023-24 the target is $500 billion in exports. By 2027 exports target is $1 trillion. For India this means nothing short of foreign trade being completely reimagined under Atman Nirbhar Bharat and Make in India. South East Asia is a new target for exports as new supply chains are being constructed.

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Just as with the huge Indian score at Edgbaston Test of 578, England at Old Trafford put up 669. Stokes and Root both with centuries take England to 669 1st Innings vs India, Old Trafford, July 2025. At Edgbaston Gill broke records with 269 and 161 runs in each innings. At Old Trafford Root gets to being the batsman with the most runs in Test cricket except for legendary Tendulkar. And Stokes get record of 5 wicket and a century in one Test.

In this Test series with India one record after another is broken. The Test that England won at Lord's was close India conceding by only 20 runs with one extraordinary catch by Archer of Pant making the difference with Sundar's overconfidence playing a part.