Editorials - 08-08-2022

The BJP is seeking to encourage and exploit the schism within the Indian Muslim community

At the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national executive meeting in Hyderabad recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised the party workers to reach out to the marginalised and weaker sections of the minorities. This was also the party’s first official attempt to win over the Pasmanda Muslim community. This was predictably welcomed by sundry Pasmanda Muslim leaders in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but sent more than just ripples across the Muslim community. Many read in it the government’s attempt to break the unity of India’s largest minority. Some scoffed at the thought of caste-based divisions in the community, pointing out that there is no caste system in Islam and that attempts to ameliorate the lot of the deprived are mere tactics to augment the party’s vote bank.

What the scriptures say

On paper, their claims are borne by the tenets of Islam. It was the casteless, classless society that Islam offered that attracted many lower caste Hindus to Islam. Indeed, Islam recognises no distinctions based on birth, caste or class; the accent all along is on universal egalitarianism. The Prophet in his last sermon told his audience, “An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab or a White over Black, except by deeds of piety”. To this day, Muslims stand together in a prayer, shoulder to shoulder, in mosques across the world. Who stands to one’s left or right or in front is immaterial. The imam too can be from any segment of society. The differences of race or creed never overpowered unity. As the famous poet Muhammad Iqbal, who pennedSaare Jahan Se Achcha , wrote on the subject, “Ek hi saff main khade ho gaye Mahmood-o-Ayaz/ Na koi banda raha, na koi bandanawaz (Sultan and slave stood side by side/ Then there was no servant nor master, nothing did them divide)”. There is a Hadith which says all Muslims are like a body: if any part hurts, the whole body should feel the pain. The Quran’s Surah Al-Hujurat, verse 10, calls believers as brothers and encourages them to settle quarrels, if any.

A unique category

Beautiful and inspirational as it is, this often remains confined to the scriptures. The modern Indian Muslim society is not a replica of the one envisioned by the Prophet. While it seeks to uphold all the tenets of faith in matters of prayer-fast-pilgrimage, socio-historical factors make Indian Islam a unique category where an unwitting blend of Hindu tradition and Islamic value coexists in harmony. Of course, the overwhelming numerical superiority of the majority community has had a crucial role to play in this. So has the fact that Indian Muslims include millions who changed their religion but brought along their socio-cultural practices with them to the new faith. For instance, Indian Muslims have concepts such as‘teeja ’ and ‘chaleesva ’ (roughly third and 40th day of mourning the dead), much like the‘tehrvee ’ (13th day) concept among Hindus. Similarly, if among Hindus, girls often had the suffix of ‘Kumari’ added to their name before marriage and ‘Devi’ afterwards, Muslims girls had suffixes such as ‘Jahan’ or Parveen’ but seldom used their father’s name or surname.

Muslims are divided into the Shia and Sunni sects. The Sunnis have further sub sects, such as Hanafi (a majority of Indian Muslims subscribe to this school), Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi. Most differences pertain to their interpretation of Shariah.

While almost all the differences among them are ideological, and in some ways, universal, what is uniquely Indian is the presence of caste among Indian Muslims. As they say, in India you can change your religion but not your caste. Thus we have the anomaly of terms like Dalit Sikhs and Dalit Christians, though both faiths do not subscribe to the caste system. Among Muslims, we have Syeds, often called the Brahmins of Islam. They trace their descent to the family of the Prophet. Along with Shaikhs, Mughals, Pathans and others, they bring up the Ashraf category of ‘noble’ Muslims who are said to hail from the Arab peninsula or Central Asia. Then we have Ajlafs or commoners, usually converts. Finally, we have Arzals whom some sociologists equate with Dalits.

Social stratification

Keeping the Hindu caste system as the reference model, the caste system among Muslims is far from exploitative. The ‘purity and pollution’ model is largely absent. For instance, there are no restrictions on pursuing education at an institute of one’s choice or even purchasing a house in a certain locality. A Pasmanda Muslim or a Muslim OBC — say, a Saifi (carpenter) or an Ansari (weaver) or Salmani (Hajjam or barber) — is considered as capable of leading prayers in a mosque as, say, a Syed or Shaikh and Khan. What men of these categories might struggle to do is to marry Syed or Shaikh women. Again, the rules are different if a Syed or Shaikh man marries a Pasmanda woman. The same norms of male hegemony apply as in Hinduism, where too it is easier for an upper caste man to marry a lower caste woman than for a Dalit man to marry, say, a Brahmin woman. In fact, the clearest example of acculturative influence of Hinduism among Indian Muslims can be seen in the matrimonial advertisements in newspapers where it is common to find expressions like, ‘A Syed family seeks match for their boy’ or ‘A Sheikh family seek a suitable match for a girl’. The advertisements, without putting in so many words, are as much about a hunt for like-stationed and like-birthed families as exclusion of those hailing from other social strata. It is a mind-boggling blend of Islamic identity and Hindu social practice.

Of course, this social stratification is widely prevalent though considerably more rampant in the West Bengal-Bihar-Jharkhand-eastern Uttar Pradesh belt. Here, if a man gives only his initial name while meeting a person for the first time, it is not unusual to be asked, ‘Is ke age kya lagate hain (What do you use after the initial name)?’ It is a far from a subtle take on the caste origins of the person. In Bihar, there are reportedly caste-specific cemeteries. In places like Delhi and in the towns of Uttar Pradesh, the ‘reservation’ in cemeteries is subtle. People from certain parts of the country or certain vocations are buried, while others are often denied this. Under the circumstances, almost 30 years ago, Pasmanda Muslims started uniting under banners such as the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, the All India Muslim OBC Organisation, and the All-India Backward Muslim Morcha, said to be the umbrella body of 32 backward castes. According to the Sachar Committee Report, 40% of Indian Muslims are ‘pasmanda’. Around the same time, we heard the slogan,‘Dalit pichhda ek saman, Hindu ho ya Musalman (All Dalits-Backwards are alike, whether Hindu or Muslim)’.

It is this schism that the BJP seeks to encourage and exploit. Paradoxically, some of the policies of the government since 2014 and the right-wing party’s foot soldiers have united the Indian Muslims like seldom before. On the one hand, we saw how Muslim women led the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests across the country with no questions being asked of their caste origin. On the other, we saw repeated attacks on Muslim dairy farmers and animal transporters, sending the community into a huddle with not just Syeds and Saifis uniting, but even the Shias and Sunnis burying the hatchet and telling each other, ‘The mob does not ask for your sect or caste when it attacks. Being a Muslim is enough’.

The larger question today is, ‘Is being Muslim enough for all faithful?’ Or, as the BJP insists, ‘Is it all about being a Pasmanda Muslim today?’

ziya.salam@thehindu.co.in



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At 75, the country must be judged by the extent to which it has advanced human development

Within a few days, India will complete 75 years as an independent political entity. The event is not without historical significance, for among the countries that emerged from Britain’s vast South Asian empire in 1947, India alone has maintained some stability. Stability, however, would be a low standard by which to judge India’s journey since 1947. So, how should it be judged, then? A recent commentator has argued that India may not have succeeded in economic terms but has remained a democracy, which is something to be proud of. But, surely, democracy is not only about the protocols of governance but as much about the outcomes that it produces. Thus, while the idea of democracy being ‘government by discussion’ establishes the norm that decision-making under a democracy ought to be participatory, this representation loses sight of democracy’s central aim.

Empowering the individual

The significance of democracy is that it aims to empower the individual to lead the kind of life that he or she values. With this understood, on its 75th anniversary India must be judged by the extent to which it has advanced human development. When the economy is viewed as an ecosystem for enabling human development, the extent to which it has succeeded must be part of the assessment of democracy itself.

This was implicit in Jawaharlal Nehru’s message to the nation on August 15, 1947. Nehru had first queried, rhetorically, “Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour?”, and answered this as follows: “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India. To fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease. To build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions that will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” This understanding of the goal of Indian independence by the most consequential Indian of the moment was shared by millions of his compatriots who had participated in the movement for national independence.

Distant goal of opportunity

Nehru himself was not sanguine about the challenges that lay ahead, though. In his speech to the Constituent Assembly the previous day he had asked if India’s political representatives would deliver what was at stake, which was an India where equal opportunity prevailed. We can now see that this goal is far from having been attained.

From an economic point of view, though the demarcation is not always clear cut, there is a layering of the population according to caste and gender. Gender-based inequality is rampant in India; within every social group, women are worse off than their men. They are less nourished, less educated and have a representation in the institutions of governance far lower than their share of the population. While they participate equally in the elections, they are denied a place at the high table of governance, as it were. What is not evident in the official statistics, though, is the extent of women’s autonomy with respect to their lives. This is reflected in the very low female labour force participation in India compared to the rest of the world. It reinforces their secondary position in society by adding economic deprivation to the social restriction that discourages them from working outside the home.

Regional differentiation

On development indicators pertaining to health and education, not to mention poverty, China does far better than India. While this should hardly lead us to rush to celebrate human development in China — for personal freedoms are severely restricted in that country — it should certainly alert us to the failure of democracy in India to advance it.

However, the cliché that “whatever you may say about India, the opposite is also true” carries over in this instance too. There are States in India which compare quite well with China on human development indicators. So, there is a regional differentiation when it comes to development here. The commonly remarked upon pattern is that the south and the west do better than much of the rest of the country, the exception being the northeastern States, some of which have made remarkable strides in this sphere. And, the difference is considerable. For instance, data released by NITI Aayog in 2021 show multi-dimensional poverty in Bihar to be over 50% while it is only a little more than 1% in Kerala. Why, it may be asked, is it that in a country with mostly uniform laws across it, social and economic development is so uneven?

As with many institutions, democracy too is embedded in society, leaving some of its functioning to be determined by the social structure. The south and the west of India show greater development because they have witnessed greater social transformation. This has taken the form of a weakening of the traditional hierarchy, allowing for a greater say in governance of once-excluded groups, which leads to the adoption of a public policy that furthers the well-being of the latter.

For instance, the superior human development indicators of Kerala and Tamil Nadu have followed this social transformation. However, despite the progress made, the imprint of patriarchy and caste, respectively, remain writ large over the social map of even these States, pointing to the distance to be travelled to the attainment of equality of opportunity.

Nehru seems to have anticipated that merely adopting democracy as a form of governance would not assure a fulfilling life for all Indians. He could see that it was necessary to create the “social, economic and political” institutions that would enable this. It is important to realise that such institutions are not exclusively built or even promoted by the state. They can also arise from civil society, i.e., they may be created by the people themselves. However, in an India where universal public education was not seriously attempted, the potential for the creation of such institutions was limited.

Subversion of democracy

Not even Nehru was prescient enough to see the subversion of democracy by the Indian state that was to come after his time. First, there was the Emergency, and today, while the Constitution may not have been abrogated, civil liberties have a precarious existence. The freedom of expression of individuals is curtailed, the press has been intimidated and the religious minorities, particularly Muslims, feel insecure. There is a perceived weaponisation of the law by the state.

Towards the end of his life, Nehru publicly rued the fact that India had not achieved sufficient progress in agriculture, wryly observing that we seem to have imagined that crops would “somehow grow on their own”. After 75 years, we may have come to recognise a similar truth about our democracy. We seemed to have imagined that simply leaving things to our political representatives would somehow deliver us a happy country. Now we have learned that, rather like a plant, democracy too needs nurturing and realised what is meant by the maxim “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. It is not as if all Indians have ignored their role, as seen in the heroic efforts of Right to Information activists who have at times paid with their life for challenging both vested interests and the Indian state. On balance, though, India’s middle classes, who have benefited greatly from the economic policies of the past 75 years, have contributed relatively little to safeguard democracy in their country.

Some fear that the era of civil liberties is over in India, but this would be premature. We are still an electoral democracy, and the history of elections holds a clue to possibilities in the present. For a poor country, Indians displayed an unusually strong commitment to civil liberties in 1977. However, in 1989 and 2014, they conveyed that they also want their representatives to be free of even the slightest taint of corruption. Indeed, the political parties that led the restoration of liberty in 1977 would have been aided by Jayaprakash Narayan’s incorruptibility.

Pulapre Balakrishnan teaches economics at Ashoka University, Sonipat



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India has grossly underestimated the issue of illegal mining, which damages the environment and causes revenue loss

With the increase in the pace of development, the demand for minor minerals such as sand and gravel has crossed 60 million metric tons in India. This also makes it the second largest extractive industry on the planet, after water. However, while laws and monitoring have been made stringent for the mining of major minerals consequent to the unearthing of several related scams across the country, the fact is that rampant and illegal mining of minor minerals continues unabated. In many instances, one comes across gravel being removed from agricultural lands or fallow lands of the government near major highways or construction projects, as the contractor finds it easier and cheaper to do so even though the estimates for such work include the distance (called ‘lead’) to transport such gravel from authorised quarries.

Issue of regulation

Unlike major minerals, the regulatory and administrative powers to frame rules, prescribe rates of royalty, mineral concessions, enforcement, etc. are entrusted exclusively to the State governments.

The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notifications of 1994 and 2006 made environmental clearance compulsory for mining in areas more than or equal to five hectares. However, the Supreme Court of India after taking cognisance of a report by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on Environmental Aspects of Quarrying of Minor Minerals (2010) directed all State governments to make the requisite changes in the regulatory framework of minor minerals, requiring environmental clearance for mining in areas less than five hectares. Consequently, the EIA was amended in 2016 which made environmental clearance mandatory for mining in areas less than five hectares, including minor minerals. The amendment also provided for the setting up of a District Environment Impact Assessment Authority (EIAA) and a District Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC).

However, a State-wise review of EACs and EIAAs in key industrial States such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, shows that these authorities review over 50 project proposals in a day and the rejection rate at the State level has been a mere 1%. This raises a pertinent question on whether introducing clearances alone can help eliminate irregularities in the illegal mining of minor minerals? The situation now indicates that the problem is even more complex and widespread and that a robust technology-driven enforcement approach is required.

The problem of illegal mining of minor minerals is often under-estimated, thus accentuating undesired environmental consequences. There have been numerous cases of the illegal mining of dolomite, marble and sand across States. For example, in Andhra Pradesh’s Konanki limestone quarries alone, 28.92 lakh metric tonnes of limestone have been illegally quarried. However, the relentless pace of sand mining poses grave concerns.

Observations by agencies

The United Nations Environment Programme, in 2019, ranked India and China as the top two countries where illegal sand mining has led to sweeping environmental degradation. Despite this, there is no comprehensive assessment available to evaluate the scale of sand mining in India. Nevertheless, regional studies such as those by the Centre for Science and Environment of the Yamuna riverbed in Uttar Pradesh have observed that increasing demand for soil has severely affected soil formation and the soil holding ability of the land, leading to a loss in marine life, an increase in flood frequency, droughts, and also degradation of water quality. Such effects can also be seen in the beds of the Godavari, the Narmada and the Mahanadi basins. As has been pointed out in a study of the Narmada basin, sand mining has reduced the population of Mahseer fish from 76% between 1963 and 2015.

It is not just damage to the environment. Illegal mining causes copious losses to the state exchequer. As per an estimate, U.P. is losing revenue from 70% of mining activities as only 30% area is legally mined. Similarly, the absence of royalty has caused a loss of Rs. 700 crore in Bihar while non-payment of various cesses due to unregulated mining has resulted in a loss of Rs. 100 crore to Karnataka and Rs. 600 crore to Madhya Pradesh in 2016-17.

Judicial orders, state response

Judicial orders are often neglected by State governments. For instance, as in the report of the Oversight Committee by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Uttar Pradesh (where illegal sand mining has created a severe hazard) has either failed or only partially complied with orders issued regarding compensation for illegal sand mining. Such lax compliance can be seen in States such as West Bengal, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh too.

A State-wide review of the reasons behind non-compliance suggests a malfunction of governance due to weak institutions, a scarcity of state resources to ensure enforcement, poorly drafted regulatory provisions, inadequate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and excessive litigation that dampens state administrative capacity.

Protecting minor minerals requires investment in production and consumption measurement and also monitoring and planning tools. To this end, technology has to be used to provide a sustainable solution.

The power of technology

Satellite imagery can be used to monitor the volume of extraction and also check the mining process. Even for past infractions, the NGT and administrative authorities can obtain satellite pictures for the past 10 to 15 years and uncontrovertibly show how small hillocks of earth, gravel or small stone dunes have disappeared in an area. Recently, the NGT directed some States to use satellite imagery to monitor the volume of sand extraction and transportation from the riverbeds. Well-planned execution of these directions increased revenue from minor minerals mining in all these States.

Additionally, drones, the internet of things (IoT) and blockchain technology can be leveraged to monitor mechanisms by using Global Positioning System, radar and Radio Frequency (RF) Locator. State governments such as Gujarat and judicial directions such as the High Court of Madras have employed some of these technologies to check illegal sand mining.

Amar Patnaik is a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, from Odisha. A former Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) bureaucrat and an academic, he practices law now. The views expressed are personal



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The available technologies for identifying data fudging are still inadequate to address all possible situations

An editorial inNature Genetics in January, ‘A very Mendelian year’, reminded us of the 200th birth anniversary of Gregor Mendel, the ‘father of modern genetics’, on July 20, 2022. The legacy of Mendel is intriguing. Mendel performed controlled crossing experiments on around 29,000 plants with the garden pea between 1856 and 1863. He registered many observable characteristics, such as the shape and colour of the seeds, the colour of the flower, and formulated two principles of heredity. His seminal paper, ‘Experiments on Plant Hybridization’, was published in the Proceedings of the Brunn Society for Natural Science in 1866. He, however, gained posthumous recognition when, in 1900, the British biologist William Bateson unearthed Mendel’s paper.

The issue of falsification

Importantly, in 1936, eminent British statistician and geneticist, Sir Ronald Fisher, published a paper titled ‘Has Mendel’s Work Been Rediscovered?’ By reconstructing Mendel’s experiments, Fisher found the ratio of dominant to recessive phenotypes to be implausibly close to the expected ratio of 3:1. He claimed that Mendel’s data agree better with his theory than expected under natural fluctuations. “The data of most, if not all, of the experiments have been falsified so as to agree closely with Mendel’s expectations,” he concluded. Fisher’s criticism drew wide attention beginning in 1964, about the time of the centenary of Mendel’s paper. Numerous articles have been published on the Mendel-Fisher controversy subsequently. The 2008 book,Ending the Mendel-Fisher Controversy , by Allan Franklin and others recognised that “the issue of the ‘too good to be true’ aspect of Mendel’s data found by Fisher still stands.” Fisher, of course, attributed the falsification to an unknown assistant of Mendel. Modern researchers also tend to give the benefit of the doubt to Mendel.

In fact, the 1982 book,Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science , by William Broad and Nicholas Wade is a compendium of case histories of malpractice in scientific research. While data fudging in the scientific and social arena is understandably more likely in today’s data-driven and data-obsessed world, data and the resulting conclusions, in many cases, lose their credibility. Data is expanding; so is fudged data.

In a paper published in 2016 in the journalStatistical Journal of the IAOS , two researchers illustrated that about one in five surveys may contain fraudulent data. They presented a statistical test for detecting fabricated data in survey answers and applied it to more than 1,000 public data sets from international surveys to get this worrying picture.

Also, Benford’s law says that in many real-life numerical data sets, the proportion of times of different leading digits is fixed. A data set not conforming to Benford’s law is an indicator that something is wrong. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service uses it to sniff out tax cheats, or at least to narrow the field to better channel resources.

Judging the fudging is not easy though. The available technologies for identifying data fudging are still inadequate to address all possible situations. Several procedures for testing the randomness of data exist. But they may only shed doubts over the data, at best. It’s difficult to conclude fudging in most cases. Data may, of course, be non-random due to extreme inclusion criteria or inadequate data cleaning. And remember that a real data set is just a single ‘simulation by nature’, and it can take any pattern, whatever small likelihood that might have.

Still, an efficient statistical expert will be able to identify the inconsistencies within the data as nature induces some kind of inbuilt randomness that fabricated data would miss. However, if raw data is not reported and only some brief summary results are given, it’s very difficult to identify data fudging. Still, if the same data is used to calculate different types of summary measures and some of the measures are fudged, quite often it’s possible to find inconsistencies. There is nothing called ‘perfect fudging of data’.

Back to the Mendel-Fisher controversy. In her 1984 review of the bookBetrayers of the Truth , Patricia Woolf noted that Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Galileo, Newton, Bernoulli, Dalton, Darwin, and Mendel are all alleged to have violated standards of good research practice. “[T]here is scant acknowledgement that scientific standards have changed over the two-thousand-year period from 200 B.C. to the present,” Woolf wrote. The importance of the natural fluctuation of data was possibly not so clear during Mendel’s era as it is today, for example. Thus, it’s possibly unfair to put these stalwarts under a scanner built by present-day ethical standards.

Judging the fudging is a continual process, empowered with new technologies, scientific interpretations, and ethical standards. The future generations would keep judging you even if your conclusion is perfect.

Atanu Biswas is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata



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After gaining some buoyancy, the Congress boat is again rocky now in Telangana

The lack of unity in the party, the alleged autocratic functioning of the State party president, and dissidence are all shaking the Telangana Congress boat, which had been sailing smoothly until a a month ago despite a few hiccups.

After two successive defeats in the Assembly elections of 2014 and 2018, the party has been gearing up for the next battle: the general election of 2024. The Congress has been accusing the K. Chandrasekhar Rao family of indulging in corruption in the prestigious Kaleshwaram project ever since Mr. Revanth Reddy took over. The huge debt of the State, which is to the tune of nearly Rs. 3 lakh crore, has also been a major weapon of the party against the TRS. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A. Revanth Reddy has been countering the government’s claims with eloquence. All these seemed to be good signs for the party.

However, the resignation of Munugode MLA Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy began to rock the boat. Following his resignation and attack of Mr. Revanth Reddy, leaders such as Dasoju Shravan also quit the party accusing Mr. Revanth Reddy of not respecting the backward classes or the idea of social justice and joined the BJP. Mr. Raj Gopal Reddy’s resignation will lead to a bypoll within in a few months if the Assembly Speaker accepts his resignation when it is tendered.

Mr. Raj Gopal Reddy’s loss is not just that of a mere individual. His elder brother and sitting MP from Bhongir, Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, who, along with Mr. Raj Gopal Reddy, met BJP leader Amit Shah a few days ago, can influence voters in five or six constituencies. If Mr. Venkata Reddy also joins the BJP, which seems unlikely now despite his meeting with Mr. Shah, or decides to support his brother, the perception battle will weigh in favour of the BJP, at least in the bypoll. Mr. Venkata Reddy too hit out at Mr. Revanth Reddy for reportedly dragging him into the resignation issue of his brother. The brothers wield considerable influence in Nalgonda district, which has been a Congress bastion for several decades.

Days after Mr. Raj Gopal Reddy announced his resignation from the party and the Assembly, Congress leaders put up a show of strength by holding a public meeting to instill confidence among the cadres. Pleased by the turnout, the party now hopes to undo the damage by roping in two party stalwarts from Nalgonda district — N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and K. Jana Reddy. Meanwhile, the TRS is waiting to grab the seat, especially since it lost two out of the four bypolls to the rising BJP.

The episode exposes chinks in the Congress’s armour. The lack of unity in the party and the low confidence of senior leaders in Mr. Revanth Reddy is likely to prove costly. A relatively a new entrant into the Congress, Mr. Revanth Reddy has not been able to gain the confidence of seniors like Bhatti Vikramarka, D. Sreedhar Babu, T. Jayaprakash Reddy and the three influential Reddys from Nalgonda.

The winner of this bypoll will definitely emerge more confident. If the Congress wins, it will heave a sigh of relief. There will be pressure on Mr. Revanth Reddy to secure the seat for the party. If the TRS wins, it will gain some confidence as both the Congress and BJP are locked in a serious battle to emerge as the main challenger to the regional party. The TRS is keen to demolish the perception that the BJP is strong in Telangana. And if the BJP wins, it will be chuffed as it has been making strides in the State despite having no historical roots. Mr. Raj Gopal Reddy’s political future too is at stake.

ravikanth.ramasayam@thehindu.co.in



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A rate increase was needed to prevent inflation expectations from stymieing growth

The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee on Friday raised the benchmark interest rate for a third straight meeting as policymakers battle to rein in inflation that has persistently ‘remained at or above’ the prescribed upper tolerance threshold for six months. The 50 basis points raise takes the policy repo rate to 5.4%, and, more significantly, to a level last seen in the pre-pandemic second quarter of fiscal 2019-20, when a growth slowdown and retail inflation of about 3.2% warranted a rate cut. As the MPC’s Jayanth Varma had pointed out in June, when the MPC had recommended a 50 basis points increase, the impact of the 90 basis points total increase from May still left the real policy rate at the time lagging behind the RBI’s 100 basis points increase in retail inflation projection for the year — from 5.7% to 6.7%. It is only now that the cumulative increase totals 140 basis points, and puts the central bank slightly ahead of the curve. Still, as Governor Shaktikanta Das acknowledged, consumer price inflation, even if off April’s eight-year high, remains ‘uncomfortably high’ with inflationary pressures broad-based. And with the MPC’s own forecasts for the second and third quarter pegging retail price gains well above the upper tolerance mark of 6%, at 7.1% and 6.4%, respectively, the rate setting panel had little option but to continue the withdrawal of monetary accommodation to prevent inflation expectations from getting unmoored and stymieing growth by retarding consumption.

From an external sector and exchange rate perspective as well, globalised inflationary surges are prompting policy tightening in advanced economies that is in turn roiling currency markets including appreciably weakening the rupee and adding imported inflation to the mix. Noting that ‘successive shocks to the global economy’ had led multilateral institutions including the IMF to lower their global growth projections and ‘highlight the rising risks of recession’, Mr. Das remarked, “disquietingly, globalisation of inflation is coinciding with deglobalisation of trade”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resultant impact on trade flows from the conflict zone have upended supply chains for several commodities and added to price pressures for a range of goods. The latest geopolitical tensions triggered in East Asia by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in the face of Beijing’s dire warnings, and China’s decision to respond with aggressive military drills around one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, could also impact global trade at a time when uncertainty and risk aversion are already high. Mr. Das’s confidence in the ‘resilience’ of the economy’s fundamentals notwithstanding, it is probably apposite for the MPC to hereafter heed Mr. Varma’s exhortation by ‘providing projections of the future path of the policy rate’. This would help anchor price gain expectations firmly and surely enhance the RBI’s inflation-fighting credentials.



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The U.S., China and Taiwan are left picking up the pieces after Nancy Pelosi’s visit

That the four-day military exercises conducted by China, in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, concluded on August 7 without incident comes as a relief to the region. The drills saw the Chinese military not only cross the median of the Taiwan Strait but fire conventional missiles above Taiwan, aggressive acts that could have easily led to unintended escalation. That they did not lead to any incidents is credit to the sober response from Taiwan’s military, which said it monitored China’s exercises, some of which were held within 12 nautical miles of Taiwan, but chose to neither engage Chinese aircraft and warships, nor shoot down missiles. If the drills were certainly provocative, China’s justification is that they were a needed response to draw a red line after what Beijing has seen as needless American provocation that triggered this entire crisis. The August 3 visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the first such high-level engagement in 25 years, was in China’s view further evidence of Washington “hollowing out” its commitment to a One China Policy.

As the dust settles now, it is difficult to see what all three parties – the U.S., Taiwan and China – will ultimately gain from a visit that appears to have been driven more by Ms. Pelosi’s political inclinations than any well-considered long-term strategic objectives. It is thus not hard to see why even U.S. President Joe Biden and the U.S. military had cautioned against a trip that brings no lasting strategic benefits for Washington. For Taiwan’s 23 million people and for President Tsai Ing-wen, the rare high-profile foreign visit was no doubt welcome in the face of increasing global isolation on account of China’s pressure. That short-term benefit may, however, be offset by the fact that Ms. Pelosi has arguably left Taiwan with a far worse strategic environment. China’s military has indicated its actions have now heralded a new normal in military activity across the Taiwan Strait, bringing it ever closer to Taiwan’s shores. Beijing and Washington, meanwhile, are left picking up the pieces of an already strained relationship that is now teetering on the edge of an abyss. The focus must now turn to cooling the temperatures. Doing so will be easier said than done with the low levels of trust between the world’s two biggest powers. In response to Ms. Pelosi’s visit, Beijing last week said it will cut off military channels with Washington by cancelling three key dialogue mechanisms, that too at a time of heightened military tensions. War, it is said, is too important to be left to the generals. The same may be said of relations between nations: they should not be hostage to personal ambitions of politicians.



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New Delhi, Aug 7: The Pakistan Government announced to-day that all Indian civilians detained in that country both before and after the December War would be released soon in implementation of the Simla Agreement. But the Pakistan Radio which broadcast the announcement did not disclose the number or catergories of Indian nationals who would be allowed to return to India following this decision. According to information available in Delhi, about 600 Indian civilians are in detention in Pakistan at present, including those imprisoned earlier for routine offences like illegal entry or violation of visa rules. About 300 of them are civilian internees who were taken into custody from the Indian border villages occupied by the Pakistan forces during the recent conflict, especially the Hussainiwala enclave near Ferozepore. The Pakistan Government has formally communicated to the Government of India its decision to free these interned Indian civilians soon. The International Red Cross has been asked to arrange for their release at the Wagah border post between Amritsar and Lahore on a mutually convenient date.



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The challenge for Dhankhar, however, would be to persuade the government to allow the Opposition its say in the Rajya Sabha — his pre-BJP career as a Janata and Congress legislator should come in handy.

Jagdeep Dhankhar was elected the 14th Vice-President of India on Saturday. His huge victory margin indicates that he managed to draw support even from the Opposition ranks, a fact underlined by the Prime Minister in his congratulatory message. This could be seen as an endorsement of Dhankhar’s credentials as a leader to hold high office as much as it signifies the failure of the Opposition to stay together in an important political contest.

The V-P, as the chair of Rajya Sabha, has the onerous task of conducting important legislative business in a very polarised House. The immediate task for the new V-P would be to take the Opposition into confidence and, while drawing the line on discipline, to ensure that it’s done with an intent to accommodate rather than exclude. Dhankhar’s formidable record as a politician — he was a Union minister in the Chandra Shekhar ministry in 1990, MLA in Rajasthan and Governor in West Bengal — and a lawyer — he is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court — should stand him in good stead in the V-P’s office. He joins an illustrious group of leaders — from philosopher-statesman S Radhakrishnan to the much-liked Venkaiah Naidu — who upheld the dignity of the office and won the respect and admiration of MPs across party lines. Unfortunately, Dhankhar’s tenure as Governor of West Bengal was marked by frequent run-ins with the TMC government. That’s an image he may need to live down as V-P since this office, like that of the Governor, expects its occupant to rise above partisan interests and preside over the Upper House in a fair and objective manner. In fact, the TMC, the second-largest opposition group in Parliament after the Congress with 36 MPs, took a narrow-minded decision to abstain from the V-P election. Earning his spurs in a coalition era, Dhankhar, surely, shouldn’t let that history come in the way as he engages with the Opposition, which includes the TMC. The TMC, too, should realise that Rajya Sabha isn’t the place to fight its old Raj Bhavan battles.

The challenge for Dhankhar, however, would be to persuade the government to allow the Opposition its say in the Rajya Sabha — his pre-BJP career as a Janata and Congress legislator should come in handy. The onus of making Parliament more productive lies with the government, which needs to reach out to the Opposition to facilitate the smooth functioning of both the Houses. Dialogue and debate are essential features of parliamentary democracy and the executive ought to walk that extra mile to engage with the Opposition and ensure that the latter contributes to legislating. Unfortunately, that’s not been the case in recent times: The current session itself has been marred by the suspensions of more than 20 Opposition MPs. Dhankhar may have to don the robe of not only an impartial arbiter but also a persuasive negotiator whose primary intent shall be to protect the Rajya Sabha’s sanctity as an inclusive and participatory legislative space. Welcome, Mr Vice President.



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The timing of the Foreign Ministry’s clearance to the ship reinforces a worry that is true for India’s entire neighbourhood.

If Sri Lanka did not know or understand this sufficiently before, hopefully it does by now — Delhi has a really serious problem with Colombo’s do-we-care attitude to its security concerns. Since it came to light that a Chinese military vessel, the Yuan Wang 5, was to call at Hambantota Port on August 11 and stay over for a week, India had been pressing its grave concern over this to Colombo. After a tense week of negotiations between the two South Asian neighbours, Sri Lanka has told the Chinese that the visit of the ship “be deferred until further consultations are made on this matter”. The Sri Lankan note verbale appears to convey that the matter is still open for negotiation, but it would be unfortunate if Colombo believes it can invite the ship back at a later date. China’s Yuan Wang vessels are strategic platforms, and they form part of the People’s Liberation Army support force. A vessel of its surveillance reach has never before sailed in the waters that Yuan Wang wishes to access. The Sri Lankan attempt to pass it off as a “research vessel” on an innocuous refuelling stop was either naive or disingenuous, but in either case, self-defeating.

China vs India on its soil is hardly a sporting fixture that Sri Lanka can watch from the ringside without getting hurt itself. This is the second time in 19 months that Colombo has tried to make light of India’s security concerns on account of the Chinese presence in Sri Lanka. Last January, the Sri Lankan government awarded a renewable energy project on three islands close to the Tamil Nadu coastline, to a Chinese firm. It took much diplomatic energy on India’s part, and a commitment to develop the same project through a grant, to have that decision reversed. India’s massive assistance to Sri Lanka since January was certainly not tagged with the note that Colombo should stop being friends with Beijing. But a cavalier attitude to India’s real security concerns is a sure way to lose Delhi’s goodwill at a time that Sri Lanka needs it most.

The timing of the Foreign Ministry’s clearance to the ship reinforces a worry that is true for India’s entire neighbourhood. Instability in any country in the region, whether that is Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan or Afghanistan, tends to impact India adversely and in unexpected ways. The Chinese ship apparently got its clearance from the Foreign Ministry on July 12. This was three days after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to flee in a navy boat as a sea of people stormed his official home. Clearly, there were some who believed that the political vacuum in Sri Lanka was ripe for exploitation. Who exactly gave that clearance should be a matter of interest in Colombo, as that person was not just acting on behalf of interests inimical to India, but against the interests of Sri Lanka as well, by trying to sabotage the new equilibrium in the relationship.



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C Raja Mohan writes: Good news from India's eastern frontier with Bangladesh raises a hope: If we can do it in the east, where the sources and consequences of Partition were far more complex, it should not be impossible to normalise the western frontier with Pakistan

The news from India’s western frontier with Pakistan is rarely positive. There is little expectation of change as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Independence and mark the partition of the Subcontinent. The persistence of cross-border terrorism, the conflict over Kashmir, the militarisation of the frontier, little connectivity, poor trade relations and no formal inter-governmental negotiations paint a bleak picture of the India-Pak border.

The inability of successive generations of Indian and Pakistani leaders to bring a closure to Partition in the west makes the talk of a “100-year war” credible. The only trend that can counter this pessimism is the good news from India’s eastern frontier with Bangladesh — that it is indeed possible to transcend the bitter legacies of Partition and build a mutually-beneficial relationship.

If we can do it in the east, where the sources and consequences of Partition were far more complex, it should not be impossible to normalise the western frontier — hopefully well before 2047. In contrast to the talk of a 100-year war between India and Pakistan, Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi have proclaimed a “sonali adhyay” or “golden chapter” in bilateral relations.

Cynics would discount that rhetoric; pessimists continue to see the cup as half empty. But there is no question that the bilateral relationship dominated by endless contentions at the turn of the millennium has transformed into a very productive partnership. For both Delhi and Dhaka, the reinvention of the bilateral relationship has been one of the most significant successes of their recent foreign policies.

The work on rebuilding ties began in earnest in 2010, when Sheikh Hasina came to India after taking charge of Bangladesh as prime minister for the second time in 2009. Hasina and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarked on an extraordinary effort to address most bilateral problems—including border settlement, river water sharing, cross-border terrorism, market access to Bangladeshi goods, and connectivity.

With impressive progress in many of these areas, Singh travelled to Dhaka in September 2011; but West Bengal chief Mamata Banerjee rained on the parade by refusing to join the delegation at the last minute and pulling the plug on the agreement to share the Teesta waters. The visit was salvaged by other agreements, including the settlement of the land boundary that had been pending for decades.

But the Manmohan Singh government struggled to get Parliament to approve the boundary settlement. Part of the problem was the rejection of the settlement by the main opposition party — the BJP. Recognising the strategic significance of a settled boundary with Bangladesh, Modi reversed the position of the BJP after he became the PM in 2014. He won support for the shift from the BJP units in Bengal and Assam, and got parliamentary approval in 2015.

Modi also accepted the award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on settling the maritime boundary dispute between Delhi and Dhaka. Bangladesh had taken the issue to international arbitration. In normal circumstances, the bureaucrats in the two capitals would have argued for another couple of decades without settling the dispute. But Delhi moved decisively to accept the verdict and removed another long-standing territorial dispute in bilateral relations.

While the unresolved land and maritime territorial disputes constitute one of the main problems in India’s relations with Pakistan, their resolution with Bangladesh transformed the context of bilateral relations.

Cooperation on cross-border terrorism that began a couple of years earlier helped build much-needed political trust between the two national security establishments. The incremental opening of the Indian market for Bangladeshi goods and Dhaka’s willingness to let Indian goods transit to India’s northeast boosted bilateral relations.

The last few years have seen bilateral ties grow rapidly. On the connectivity front, we have seen a substantive movement towards reopening the border that was largely shut down after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. Trans-boundary bus services, reopening of railway lines, and the revitalisation of waterways are restoring connectivity in the eastern subcontinent that was severed.

Bilateral trade volumes have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years touching nearly $16 billion last year. Bangladesh is one of India’s top export markets. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and has overtaken Pakistan by a good margin in South Asia. India and Bangladesh have also developed inter-connected power grids facilitating Dhaka’s purchase of power from India. It currently buys about 1200 MW of power from India and an additional 1500 MW is in the pipeline.

The progress on the India-Bangla front could have been more expansive if the governments of West Bengal were enthusiastic about regionalism in the eastern Subcontinent. Neither the Left parties nor the Trinamool Congress that have ruled West Bengal for so long have had a transformative agenda for regional cooperation in the eastern subcontinent.

Today the northeastern states have realised the immense benefits of deeper economic engagement with Bangladesh — none of them more important than ending the geographic isolation of the region. Assam today is at the forefront of imagining a bolder agenda for deepening economic ties with Bangladesh.

For India, the expansive partnership with Bangladesh has significantly eased its security challenges and laid the basis for peace and prosperity in the eastern subcontinent. For Bangladesh, discarding the temptation to balance India and embark on a cooperative strategy has allowed Dhaka to focus on its economic growth and lift itself in the regional and global hierarchy.

There were efforts by India to replicate these kinds of moves with Pakistan; but Islamabad and Rawalpindi have not been ready to accept even the simplest of initiatives on trade, connectivity, or trans-border energy cooperation. India has had no choice but to live with the sovereign choices of the Pakistani leadership.

Rather than regret the unfortunate dynamic on the western frontier and bemoan Pakistan’s reluctance to let the SAARC become a vehicle for regional cooperation, Delhi should focus on consolidating the “golden moment” in the east. There is no shortage of issues in the east that need to be addressed by Delhi and Dhaka. They include protecting the rights of minorities, sharing the waters of more than 50 rivers, promoting cross-border investments, managing one of the longest borders in the world, facilitating trade and preventing illegal migration, countering forces of religious extremism, promoting maritime security in the Bay of Bengal, expanding defence cooperation, and mitigating climate change in the shared regional environment to name a few.

Many of these issues are alive and continuously threaten to destabilise the growing strategic partnership. Solving problems and tending to the relationship must necessarily be a continuous effort rather than episodic. Nor can Delhi and Dhaka take each other for granted and let domestic politics overwhelm the logic of bilateral cooperation. The 75th anniversary of independence offers Delhi and Dhaka a special opportunity to elevate the ambition for their bilateral partnership.

The writer is senior fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express



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Randeep Singh Surjewala writes: Centre has weaponised money laundering law to target political opponents. SC has been blind to this threat to democracy

The PMLA judgment has resulted in stellar commentary by some very credible voices. A core concern that merits greater attention is the invidious threat to democracy that the agency poses post this Supreme Court judgment. This is not a presumption but a stark reality. Consider the following: In August of last year, the Supreme Court asked the Narendra Modi government how many legislators were being investigated under the PMLA. Of the 122 sitting and ex-legislators, barely three names belonged to the ruling BJP. Does this represent an absence of offenders in the ruling party? Of course not. What it represents is the selective misuse of the agencies.

A similar number of cases is pending with the CBI against leaders of the Opposition. Consider also the cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and CBI that go into cold storage as soon as the leaders in question join the ruling party. Innumerable examples stand out in West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Goa and so on. This establishes how the draconian abuse of process by the ED has come to the point of being a punishment in itself.

The cardinal constitutional duty of the Supreme Court is to defend the Constitution against the might of the administrative executive as also the abuse of legislative majority to cripple fundamental constitutional guarantees. Abuse of the PMLA and its creature, the ED, does both. A simple question to ask is: Did the Court redress this diabolical attack on changing the scales of democracy by the grossest abuse of the PMLA law by the ruling government? The answer is clearly no.

What the Court failed to realise is that the ED has become a tool in the hands of a regime to consolidate and remain in power as also to seek revenge. Recall the raids on former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s relatives around the time of the Punjab election. Or the raids on (and arrest of) D K Shivakumar around the time the government in Karnataka was toppled. Or on Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut as the government in Maharashtra was illegally toppled. The wholly unfounded harassment and questioning of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for days together, illegal barricading of their houses and the arrest of former Home Minister P Chidambaram in the past are glaring examples of revenge-seeking for actions taken in Gujarat during the UPA government. That this context was factored into the Court’s reasoning is very unfortunate.

Another point the Supreme Court has failed to realise is these agencies can move much faster and cause far more devastation, than what courts can remedy with immediate action. Courts can only intervene post an action. What happens in cases like National Herald where the agency has been investigating the allegations for the better part of a decade? Over 100 questions have been asked and answered in over 50 hours of questioning. Yet no FIR has been produced, no ECIR, no chargesheet. What can the leaders who are being harassed seek as relief from the courts?

Consider also the abysmal rate of convictions. Only 23 persons have been convicted by the agency, leading to a reported conviction rate of just 0.5 per cent. Review this in the context of the massive jump in ED actions. There have been over 3,010 ED raids between 2014, when this government came to power, and now, in contrast to 112 raids in the 10 years of the UPA government. So many valuable public resources are deployed with little to no result. The argument that the process is slow holds little water when you consider the dedicated resources the ED has and the special courts (adjudicating authority and the PMLA appellate tribunal) constituted to hear just the matters before it. It is a different matter that the government has not appointed a judge to head the PMLA appellate tribunal for the last two years. This is because conviction is not the objective. Intimidation is the end goal.

This is part of a larger and more sinister design. Last December, the Modi government introduced a law that allowed the Centre to extend the terms of the directors of ED and CBI up to a total of five years each. However, these extensions would be given in episodic and piecemeal increments of one year at a time. This would rob the officers of total autonomy and render them entirely vulnerable to the whims of the executive. B R Ambedkar had emphasised the importance of fixed tenures to ensure that the officer could not be influenced by the threat of removal or inducement of reward. This principle was reiterated in the Vineet Narain and Alok Verma judgments of the Supreme Court. What was even more brazen about this law was that it was brought about to defeat a Supreme Court judgment, which specifically directed that the term of the current ED director could not be extended. I challenged this law and the Supreme Court is currently examining it.

Due process requires accountability. It requires that an agency answers for excesses and that its processes be subject to the disinfectant of sunlight. In the case of the ED, with its draconian powers of seizure and arrest, deployed at the singular command of a government inebriated on power, the Court has, in effect, permitted them to draw a veil over their activities. This is a cancerous tumour for a healthy democracy.

The law needs to be ringfenced, perhaps even repealed, now that we have seen what it can do in the hands of a government which so brazenly prizes its political survival over national interest. We realise our error in believing that the law would always be open to judicial scrutiny as it was in our time. We hope that the Supreme Court realises its error before it is too late.

The writer is a Member of Parliament and general secretary of the Indian National Congress



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Shikha Aggarwal writes: The implications of the visit must be seen in the context of China’s national rejuvenation project, the legitimacy of the CCP, and Xi Jinping’s personal agenda.

Few events in international politics better exemplify the volatile cocktail of geopolitical contestation, competing nationalisms, and domestic political compulsions than the recently-concluded visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan. While the US and Taiwan acted as per the democratic rationale of their polities, China’s actions had to follow the diktats of its communist system.

The Party-state established by the Communist Party of China (CCP) in 1949 was premised upon a “social contract”, albeit with CCP characteristics, with the Chinese people. This contract underpins the party’s legitimacy within the Chinese body politic. Therefore, it is as much a survival strategy by the CCP as it is a governance technique. As the Party evolved from a revolutionary entity to a governing establishment, this contract too transformed — the lofty romanticism of “liberation” was replaced by the imperatives of “peaceful development”. Today, this socialist utopia is defined by the “national rejuvenation” ideal. Interestingly, the Taiwan question remained a constant feature of the various avatars of this contract.

Though an old political jargon, national rejuvenation under Xi Jinping is the clarion call of a civilisational state and not merely a cherished ideal of a republican experiment or Communist state. In this version, national rejuvenation is both flexible in its ideological scope and expandable in its territorial ambitions. Importantly, the nationalist rationale of the rejuvenation construct is not sourced from narratives of victimhood suffered during the “century of humiliation”; it is located in the glory of an imagined past, and is thereby both more assertive and aggressive in its orientation.

In addition to being a nationalist project, national rejuvenation is equally a personal investment by Xi. Successful reclamation of every entity and ideal that belongs to the landscape of “rejuvenation” could seal his position as the leading figure within the CCP pantheon. Therefore, China’s increasing bellicosity towards Taiwan needs to be located within the dynamics of CCP’s political expediency, Chinese nationalism, and Xi’s ambitions.

While Pelosi’s visit was not a first by a US House Speaker, the logic of “rejuvenation” politics warranted a belligerent response from the Chinese side — regimes that aspire to claim the pre-eminence of antiquity cannot be perceived as compromising on their “core interests”, either by a domestic audience or the international community. In this paradigm, any act that facilitates Taiwan’s recognition as a political entity is anathema as it violates the spirit of national rejuvenation, and, thereby, the contract between the CCP and the Chinese people.

Though the visit and its effect on US-China relations have implications for Xi’s leadership, they do not necessarily impact his plans for the upcoming 20th Party Congress. While there are sources of criticism and dissatisfaction with Xi’s foreign and economic policies within the higher echelons of the CCP, the Chinese president has meticulously invested his last two terms in dominating the institutional framework of both the Party and state. Therefore, there is limited scope for any elite dissatisfaction to take the form of an effective opposition against Xi in the immediate future.

Further, the democratic logic of a direct correlation between policy criticism, fluctuating public opinion and the prospects of a leader cannot be extrapolated upon the Leninist structure of the CCP in its entirety. The Central Committee that will choose China’s next leadership line at the 20th Party Congress will have the highest number of delegates from the provincial party committees. As mentioned in an earlier article (‘Extraordinary Power of Xi, IE, June 15), most of the newly-elected provincial party chiefs hold work experience in provinces where Xi earlier served as the party chief. Furthermore, the delegates from all contingents shall be indirectly vetted by the Organisation Department which is headed by Chen Xi, a long-time confidant of the President.

While Xi’s prospective third term appears to be largely immune from the visit, he might have to confront some serious criticism from the party elders at the upcoming CCP meeting at Beidaihe. This criticism could be most serious on two substantive points in Pelosi’s address at the Presidential Office. Pelosi referred to “self-determination” as one of the core values of US-Taiwan relations. And as highlighted by a retired senior Indian diplomat, she used the formulation “the people of Taiwan” instead of “people on Taiwan” as mentioned in the Taiwan Relations Act. The significance of this departure in diplomatic parlance will not be lost on the Party elders.

Since the Taiwan question is intrinsically intertwined with the legitimacy of the CCP, and Xi’s personal agenda, China will not launch an outright war until the military balance favours the US. Moreover, with an almost-guaranteed third term, there is limited utility for any war over Taiwan for Xi at the moment.

At the same time, the strategic community needs to take cognisance of the non-military methods being professed by the Chinese leadership and academia to realise the goal of national rejuvenation and, thereby, the resolution of the Taiwan question. A noteworthy development was the Central Conference on United Front Work (UFWD,) held from 29-30 July. At this conference, Xi urged the UFWD to develop an action plan to foster pro-unification sentiments within the Taiwanese public, businesses and intelligentsia.

As the CCP marches ahead with its imperialist project to subsume Taiwan, the Taiwan question shall continue to remain the defining feature of international politics in the years to come.

Aggarwal is a Senior Fellow at India Foundation. She is currently based in Taipei as a Visiting Fellow at the National Chengchi University. She is also a Huayu scholar at NTNU



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Surjit S Bhalla writes: Indeed, it is much higher than expected. It is time for the debate to shift to quality of expenditures

One of the stylised beliefs in India, and amongst some leading economic commentators both in India and abroad, is that our tax/GDP ratio is lower than what it “should” be. Many ills are laid at the door of this hypothesised low tax/GDP ratio. It is conjectured that we have a lower rate of investment, a higher fiscal deficit, and lower GDP growth — and all because the tax ratio is too low. There can be reasonable doubts about the presumed links, an issue on which I have relatively little to say. For the record, I have long argued that there is no empirical evidence to indicate a causal relationship between tax ratios or fiscal deficits and growth — or even a statistical relationship. There is, however, a well-established relationship between investment and growth.

Proceeding, there are three important fiscal variables in the economy — taxes, fiscal deficit, and debt. They are inter-related — lower tax revenue means higher fiscal deficit, for the same level of expenditures, and higher deficit means higher debt. All three, directly or indirectly, are assumed to affect growth and/or inflation. The relationships are complicated, and have provided grist for a number of PhDs, with many more to come. Our goal in this article is to look at the first of the trinity — the tax/GDP ratio (hereafter Xtax). We look at Xtax in an uncomplicated way, just facts, and interpret the evidence.

Two common observations on Xtax for India — first, it is low at around 10-11 per cent of GDP and it has stayed at close to that level for the last 20 years. In 2019, it hit a decade low of 10 per cent of GDP, the same as in 2014. Second, in comparison with our peers, it is much lower. Hence, logic dictates that we should strive to increase Xtax.

But which country should we compare India with? A common observation (surprisingly also offered by economic experts) is to look at the tax-GDP ratio in G20 countries. This is the beginning of a set of misinterpretations committed either knowingly, or unknowingly. Because simple logic dictates that tax collected is a function of the average level of per capita income. Per capita income in the G20 varies from around $2,100 (India) to around $65,000 (US). But before going “there”, there is a more fundamental issue that needs to be resolved. The 10-11 per cent figure for India is the tax/GDP ratio for taxes administered at the central level. Taxes in India, as in many other large, especially federal, countries, are collected at both a federal and state level. And many economies have local (municipal) taxes as well. The tax collected is the sum of all these taxes. That is the Xtax that needs comparison.

Until now, collecting such disaggregated data for a large set of countries was, well, impossible. In a recent web publication, the IMF has come to the rescue and for which kudos are due. On their World Revenue Longitudinal Data set (https://data.imf.org/?sk=77413f1d-1525-450a-a23a-47aeed40fe78) data are presented for all countries, from 1990-2019.

In this pre-pandemic year, among G20 economies, India’s tax-GDP (Xtax) ratio of 16.7 per cent was higher than that of China (15.9 per cent), Mexico (14.1 per cent), Indonesia (11.0 per cent), Saudi Arabia (5.9 per cent) and Turkey (15.9 per cent). While reassuring, such a simple head-to-head comparison is not very meaningful. A more informative indicator of whether a country is taxing too much or too little in comparison with others is to look at the tax-GDP ratio adjusted for PPP per capita income (and excluding resource-rich economies like Russia and Saudi Arabia and countries with population less than 3 million). Prediction via a simple regression of Xtax on log PPP per capita GDP can yield one estimate of the tax gap — the difference between actual and actual adjusted for level of income.

Table 1 reports the averages for 104 countries for the period 2011-2019. The world average tax gap is -1.3 per cent; India is +1.2 per cent for the nine years 2011-2019. So, India’s tax GDP ratio averages 2.5 percentage points more than an average economy. Among 70 Emerging economies (excluding AEs and countries belonging to the former Soviet Union), India’s rank is 20 — Xtax in India is higher than 50 peers on a systematic basis. Zilch evidence, therefore, that India’s tax/GDP ratio is too low. For every year for which data are available 1990-2019, India has had a positive tax gap — there is little evidence that a higher tax/GDP ratio helps growth.

But this is all before the tax collection revolution post-2019 (a structural change?), a subject matter to which we now turn.

Corporate tax cut 2019: For years, the advocacy in India was to increase revenue from corporate tax (one of three major components of tax revenue, the other being income and indirect taxes). The slogan: India Xrat was low, so raise corporate and income tax rates. “Because the rich should pay more taxes”; because inequality was increasing, and high, and because such higher taxation would lower the fiscal deficit and increase growth. A small minority had argued the opposite — that higher corporate tax rates stifle investment, increase tax un-compliance, and lower growth.

In a series of articles starting with ‘Maximise revenue, minimise tax’ (IE, July 13, 2019) Karan Bhasin and I argued against the heightened Indian wisdom. We argued that to increase tax revenue, we needed to decrease tax rates. (Incidentally, I had also argued that demonetisation would have a very positive effect on tax compliance a week after November 8, 2016!) We were dubbed Laffer curve groupies and faced criticism (and ridicule!) from more knowledgeable “experts” who said that empirical evidence around the world (for example, the US) meant that if tax rates were lowered, revenues would decline, the fisc would increase, as would inequality. A triple whammy that is best avoided.

In September 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, going well against Indian established conventional wisdom, lowered the corporate tax rate by around 10 percentage points. This was one of the largest corporate tax cuts in world history. Unfortunately, the pandemic struck the world a few months later and disrupted world economies. However, now, three years later, we can assess the efficacy (or not) of this bold experiment in Modi 2.0. For the three months April-June 2022, corporate tax revenues, y-o-y, are up 30 per cent. Using fiscal 2019-20 as a base, corporate tax revenue has increased by 66 per cent, GDP by 33 per cent — an average tax buoyancy of 2.0 over three years. The previous largest tax buoyancy was in 2006-7 when the world was buoyant — and this was when the world was Covid-depressed! Tentatively, the tax-GDP ratio in the fiscal year 2022-23 will average over 18 per cent in India, a level close to Japan and the US.

What the data conclusively show is that the debate on the Indian economy should shift away from simplistic notions (borrowed from the West?) of the tax-GDP ratio being low in India. The debate should shift to expenditures, and quality of expenditures (and perhaps to reform of the direct tax code). In this regard, PM Modi’s suggestion that freebies be critically examined is most timely and welcome.

The writer is executive director, IMF representing India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Views expressed are strictly personal



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Saugata Bhattacharya writes: RBI, government must act in coordination during an economically challenging period

In its latest meeting, the members of the monetary policy committee voted unanimously to increase the policy repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.4 per cent. This was in line with the RBI’s views on the need for pre-emptive action and a front loading of rate hikes to quell the second-order effects in the face of repeated supply shocks. The repo rate was 5.15 per cent in February 2020. So, in effect, the RBI’s policy has not only been normalised, but has actually tightened compared to the pre-pandemic level. Even the lower bound of the rate corridor, the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) rate, at 5.25 per cent is now above the pre-pandemic repo rate.

While the policy rate hike was widely expected, more anticipated were the MPC and the RBI Governor’s forward guidance on the trajectory of policy — on both monetary policy and liquidity instruments. So, how do we see monetary policy evolve over the rest of the year and beyond?

The first signal was on the stance of policy. Given the front loading of rate hikes, retaining the policy stance rather than shifting to “neutral” was a bit surprising. The reasons for one MPC member differing on this will become clearer after the minutes of the meeting are released. However, reading between the lines, this retention of stance might be interpreted as being a bit more hawkish than “neutral”, which implies that rates might be both increased or cut, depending on economic conditions. This might have been construed as a signal that rates had risen to a “neutral” point. The governor reinforced this by emphasising that with the growth momentum expected to be resilient, monetary policy should “persevere further in its stance … to ensure inflation moves closer to the target of 4 per cent”. Hence, further tightening is on the cards.

But by how much? First, now that policy is largely normalised, the pace of tightening is likely to moderate. The urgency of aggressive rate hikes and tightening of liquidity has somewhat moderated, although risks remain. Going forward, more conventional increases of 25 basis points are likely. Second, RBI’s research suggests that the “real natural rate” — the rate at which policy is neither loose nor tight – is 0.8-1 per cent. This operative interest rate is usually the three-month T-bill rate, which in “normal” times averages 10-15 basis points above the repo rate. Considering that monetary policy is calibrated over a one-year horizon and using the RBI’s inflation forecast of 5 per cent for the first quarter of 2023-24, the “natural” repo rate will be around 5.85 per cent. Considering the tightening phase of the current cycle, the terminal repo rate — the level at which monetary policy will pause — is likely to be around 6.25 per cent.

But all this will depend on evolving inflation and growth conditions. The RBI’s growth projection for 2022-23 has been retained at 7.2 per cent, with growth frontloaded in the first half. CPI inflation is still forecast to average 6.7 per cent.

Inflationary pressures are likely to wane in the second half of 2022-23, particularly if the recent drop in industrial metals prices persists over the next few months. IIM Ahmedabad’s Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES) shows cost inflation expectations, while still high, are moderating. A more or less normal monsoon might help in keeping food prices stable. However, risks remain. Demand for consumption goods seems to be resilient, enabling some further pass-through of input costs. Activity in domestic services sectors has also improved, largely as pent-up demand which confers greater pricing power. Combine this with tight labour markets and rising wage costs in some tech-oriented sectors.

Consequently, domestic growth prospects seem robust. High frequency indicators of economic activity have recovered after some weakness in June. In addition to resilient demand, there is evidence of a closing of the “output gap”. The RBI’s survey shows manufacturing capacity utilisation at 75.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021-22 (relative to its long-term average of 73.7 per cent); this is likely to have moved up even higher thereafter.

However, global growth and trade are forecast to significantly slow down in 2022 and 2023, largely due to aggressive tightening by G-10 central banks and a slowdown in China. The IMF predicts global trade volume (both merchandise and services) to slow to 4.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent in 2022 and 2023, down from 10.1 per cent in 2021.

With world growth and trade flows moderating, along with a drop in commodities prices, India’s export growth is likely to be lower than last year. The current account deficit remains a concern. Although India’s external balance sheet remains quite robust, as is evident from various balance of payments and debt metrics, and reportedly low unhedged foreign currency borrowings continued tightening by global central banks, particularly the US Federal Reserve over the rest of 2022, will keep India’s external financial conditions tight and likely limit portfolio capital flows. However, there are some signs emanating from these central banks that the hitherto front-loaded tightening might moderate going forward. This will take some pressure off the rupee, though, exchange rate volatility management will remain a part of the overall monetary policy management framework.

As part of this framework, during the earlier phase of policy normalisation and the recent tightening, liquidity management has played an important role in influencing short-term money market interest rates. The current latent surplus liquidity — the existing funds with banks and the Union government’s unspent revenues parked with RBI — is over Rs 5 lakh crore. While the extent of liquidity surplus during the Covid months has come down, these levels are still much higher than RBI estimates of non-inflationary levels of surplus, which is around Rs 1.8-2.4 lakh crore. We do expect that this will gradually fall with cash withdrawals and some potential RBI dollar sales in the coming months.

The central bank, in coordination with the government, has ensured an orderly evolution of economic conditions during a very complex and challenging environment. The exit process now will also need the same adroit use of policy instruments.

The writer is Executive Vice President and Chief Economist, Axis Bank. Views are personal



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In a sign that the BJP-JD(U) alliance is in danger of going off the rails unless BJP’s central leadership intervenes, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has skipped another Union government event as his party president Lalan Singh alleged that repeated attempts were being made to weaken the JD(U). This time Nitish has missed the interaction between the Prime Minister and state chief ministers, after being absent from the swearing-in ceremony for President Droupadi Murmu.

While Nitish’s recent recovery from Covid can be an excuse for missing the key meeting, the CM’s presence at two state government events the same day has raised eyebrows. Lalan Singh’s suggestion that Chirag Paswan was made an accessory in a conspiracy to bring down JD(U)’s assembly strength and that the model was sought to be replicated again, signals the possibility that Nitish may be preparing the ground for an eventual split.

Union home minister Amit Shah, in a visit to Patna last week, had asserted that BJP and JD(U) will fight the 2024 elections together. Nitish knows that he is indispensable to BJP until then. In the past, whichever side JD(U) has gravitated to got the upper hand in elections. Nitish also knows that there will be no attempts to destabilise JD(U) at least from the BJP side as the government is surviving on a slender majority. In contrast, RJD needs just a few MLAs from the treasury benches to stake a claim to form the government.

In 2016, Nitish had suddenly quit the mahagathbandhan after months of dissension with RJD. In 2013, Nitish unexpectedly sacked his BJP ministers from the cabinet after the party elevated Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. Are the recent developments pointing to another sudden switch of loyalties by Nitish? Does BJP have an ace up its sleeve like in Maharashtra? The coming weeks could provide an answer.



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More evidence of BJP’s dominance of national politics comes from Jagdeep Dhankhar’s commanding victory in vice-presidential elections. “Neutral” regional parties like BJD and YSRCP had more reason to vote for Dhankhar, despite BJP being a local competitor, than for dispirited opposition parties. The national governing party always has an edge in pocketing votes from parties not exactly aligned to it in President and VP elections. With no particular political significance to these two posts, regional parties recognise that an opposing vote isn’t worth the trouble of antagonising the Centre.

But the monsoon session’s near-washout should set BJP thinking. Governing parties will always encounter dissent in legislatures. Legislation, protest, debate and scrutiny go hand-in-hand in parliamentary politics. The cross-party support to Dhankhar should prompt him, as RS chairperson, as well as LS Speaker Om Birla to rethink the manner in which both Houses are running presently. Summary suspensions of protesting MPs are clearly not helping reduce disruptions. Parliament should not be aping state legislative assemblies where MLAs are routinely suspended and roughly escorted out. A more even-handed approach by presiding officers to give more space to matters like debates is necessary. Good debates on issues like inflation, jobs, China, Agnipath and public finances can help in policy formulation. Such engagement would also help Parliament set an example to state assemblies, a majority of which sit for less than 20 days a year.

VP elections also pose searching questions to the opposition. With just 20 months left for the 2024 elections there is no semblance of the opposition unity needed to challenge BJP. Mamata Banerjee’s ambition to emerge as opposition beachhead has taken a hit with her inexplicable decision to abstain in the VP polls. Congress’s USP that it is the sole party with a national footprint to challenge BJP may now regain traction. Yet its defeats in successive state elections and Rahul Gandhi’s on-again off-again approach don’t enthuse other parties. Like Mamata abstaining in the VP polls, Congress may have to prepare for a situation where more regional parties, including current allies, think less and less of it as an alliance leader. If there’s no opposition unity of even a superficial kind, at least in some states opposition parties will eat into each other’s votes. That can only be good news for BJP.

 



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Yesterday NTA said the CUET exam will now go on till August 28. For too many Class XII students, this year feels like a never-ending nightmare of exam dates. In CUET’s second phase, major technical glitches have been the main culprit. There have been server issues, snags in downloading papers and security protocol failures, and late on Friday NTA cancelled exams at around 10% of the centres. It attributed this to “administrative/logistics/technical” reasons. But its own under-preparation is the main worry point.

Unlike, say, JEE-Main that has only two papers, CUET tests 54,000 unique subject combinations. Naturally, the latter demands a more complex IT architecture and sturdier infra. The question now is whether centres that got delisted in the middle of the exam cycle – setting up affected students for fresh rounds of uncertainty – should have been deemed fit in the first place. NTA should invest in system upgrades at, say, the Kendriya Vidyalaya network. This will also have wider positive multipliers. There are plans to hold CUET twice from the next academic year. The spillover effects of its glitches and delays on the entire higher education cycle will be even worse, unless an earnest audit of what went wrong this time is done. Education ministry must ensure accountability at NTA.

What’s worse for students is that they get their admit cards really close to exam dates, often leaving them scrambling to make difficult travel arrangements. The toll of this security precaution has proved very high. So, alternatives must be found. Put students’ peace of mind first.



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These strides are not happening by a nation simply willing them. GoI's Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), set up in 2014, along with private outfits like Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), JSW Sports and GoSports Foundation, have been working hard - and professionally - making 'Indian athletics' no longer an oxymoron.

In competitive running, a slow start off the blocks can be strategic - to conserve energy for that final burst. A slow start, however, can also be just that - resulting in trailing through the race. Indian track and field sports, no doubt, has had a slow start of the latter variety. But there is a noticeable picking up of pace. Of the 61 medals India has picked up at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games (CWG), 8 are in athletics, including the sole gold won by Eldhose Paul in triple jump. At the 2018 Queensland CWG, the haul had been 3. But the numbers don't quite tell the full story.

Much of India's athletic mythology has swivelled around 'legendary' medal-missers - Milkha Singh nearly winning a bronze in 400 m at the Rome Olympics, P T Usha nearly winning in 400 m hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics. At the just-concluded World Athletics U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia - a 'higher' platform than CWG - Rupal Chaudhary became the first Indian to win two medals (silver in 4x400 m relay and bronze in 400 m). In 2018, at the same meet at Tampere, Finland, Hima Das had won an historic gold for India. Neeraj Chopra, of course, became India's darling with his javelin Olympic gold last year. The catchment areas of boxing, wrestling, shooting, badminton and hockey are being joined by our runners, throwers and jumpers.

These strides are not happening by a nation simply willing them. GoI's Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), set up in 2014, along with private outfits like Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), JSW Sports and GoSports Foundation, have been working hard - and professionally - making 'Indian athletics' no longer an oxymoron. Much yet needs to be done for India to punch its weight. But Indian athletes are no longer default also-rans.

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​​​Both FDI and remittances are driven by policymaking at the state level, which encourages entrepreneurship and migration. Technology has become the star attraction for FDI with infotech clusters cornering the biggest slice, and white collar migrants have kept remittances stable over the course of the pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked states to focus on reducing imports and increasing exports by identifying opportunities. States have been urged to promote trade, tourism and technology through Indian missions. This is sound advice, considering recent improvements in India's export performance have come about through a better mapping of Indian districts with foreign markets.

Both FDI and remittances are driven by policymaking at the state level, which encourages entrepreneurship and migration. Technology has become the star attraction for FDI with infotech clusters cornering the biggest slice, and white collar migrants have kept remittances stable over the course of the pandemic.

Both trace back to education outcomes that GoI hopes to improve through the National Education Policy (NEP). States would do well to draw up a timeline for implementing the programme that sets out to improve productivity of the largest labour pool on the planet. India is not creating jobs to keep pace with its economic growth. States must accept their inadequacy in this area. Services-led growth is ultimately constrained by labour productivity. Mature economies derive a large part of their economic momentum through wage-earners with tertiary education. Indian states must align syllabi to enable its labour force to find employment opportunities as machines take over unskilled jobs.

Resource mobilisation for social infrastructure will be facilitated by improved collections of GST. The tax is yielding some of its promised efficiency gains, but it is quite some way away from delivering its full potential. Modi flagged this as another focus area for states, underlining its criticality in India's becoming a $5 trillion economy. The recent surge in GST collections should ease some of states' reservations over revenue elasticity and could lower barriers to its expansion and streamlining that are holding it back. States would take the next step in improving their finances if they encouraged small enterprise that led to job creation and improved tax collection.

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Will Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) part company with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) once again? Recent events do suggest that something is afoot in Bihar. Mr Kumar has skipped important political functions in Delhi. RCP Singh, the only JD(U) representative in the Union Cabinet was first denied a Rajya Sabha re-nomination and then let go from the party. JD(U)’s national president has now accused Mr Singh of being a BJP stooge who wants to weaken the JD(U). Without prejudice to whether or not the JD(U) jumps ship (once again), there is a larger message from the continuous tension in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar.

As the dominant political party in the country, the BJP is not willing to play second fiddle to any regional alliance partner in the states. This holds at the level of both ideology and balance of power within alliances. The JD(U) got a reality check on this in the 2020 Bihar elections when it was sabotaged by Chirag Paswan, who fielded candidates against the JD(U) while being a part of the NDA at the national level. Mr Paswan’s targeted rebellion made the JD(U) a junior partner of the BJP in the NDA in Bihar, something which had never happened before. This has made Mr Kumar’s chief ministership look like a favour from the BJP.

Mr Kumar has been trying to get even with the BJP for this treatment by trying to champion issues such as demanding a caste census (and an increase in the existing 50% cap on reservations), which can potentially antagonise the BJP’s upper caste base — the NDA in Bihar is often described as the coalition of extremes — by rallying other Mandal-based parties such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). By showcasing his attempts to actively forge old-style other backward classes solidarity, Mr Kumar has tried to maintain a credible threat to the BJP, which faced a bitter defeat in the 2015 assembly elections after an effective Mandal consolidation by the JD(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). However, as the fate of the 2015 grand alliance tells us — Mr Kumar parted ways with the RJD citing corruption cases against Lalu Prasad and his family — a Mandal-based political formation is not likely to be very stable either. Whether or not the JD(U) deserts the BJP this time, the NDA in Bihar is unlikely to shed the acrimony and paranoia which has come to signify it.



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A 1-2 in the triple jump, a silver in the 3,000m steeplechase, a silver in the long jump, a silver and a bronze in the 10,000m race walk, a bronze in the high jump, a bronze in the women’s javelin — and all this without the talismanic Neeraj Chopra to boost the medal tally. India’s medal haul at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) underlines how our athletes are excelling in newer arenas and that, rather than the overall medal tally, should be our main focus. The weightlifting and boxing competitions have historically allowed India to set the standard at the Games, but the results in track and field show that the country is finally starting to catch up with the world.

The competition wasn’t world class in all events, but it was still way higher than what many Indian athletes are used to, and by winning medals, they have shown that national records aren’t just a made-in-India phenomenon anymore. Much of this comes down to better coaching and understanding of sports science, but the big change is the amount of exposure the athletes are getting. They are taking regular trips abroad, not just to train but compete as well, and as a result, they are no longer awed by the competition. Avinash Sable believed the Kenyans were beatable in the 3,000m, M Sreeshankar came to CWG expecting to medal in the long jump, and the same is true of many other athletes. Much of sport comes down to do belief and trusting in the method and this is an India that is starting to do both those things. Chopra has shown Indian athletes that they can be the best in the world, but it was up to the others to follow through and now, even though these are small steps, they are showing they can.



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Borders sometimes appear blurry and meaningless in today’s digitised world. Yet, they come into sharp focus when a crisis appears on the horizon. The economic crisis confronting South Asia today is one such reminder. If you were living across the border in any other country of this region, your economic prospects would have been grim.

There are four large economies in South Asia: India, which produces an annual output well over a trillion dollars; Pakistan and Bangladesh, each of whose output exceeds $100 billion every year; and Sri Lanka, whose output tends to be a little below $100 billion in a normal year. Of the four, India is the only country that doesn’t require funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to pay for its imports today.

The rest need dollar funding from the IMF to mitigate a balance of payments (trade-financing) crisis. Bangladesh’s trade-financing problem is less severe compared to Pakistan’s or Sri Lanka’s, but it too needs the IMF’s help. An IMF loan is a bitter pill since the funds are accompanied by stern prescriptions the borrowers must follow. India’s last SOS to the IMF was in 1991 when another war had driven up oil prices, causing a spike in India’s import bill.

Since 1991, India has never required IMF bailouts. Even during the currency crisis of 2013, India had adequate forex cover to tide over any short-term emergency. For Pakistan, the current IMF loan will be the 12th since 1991. For Sri Lanka, it will be the sixth such loan over the same period. For Bangladesh, it will be the third IMF package over the past three decades.

Seven-and-a-half decades after the British colonialists left the subcontinent, only one successor State has been able to attain true economic autonomy. India’s relative stability in an unstable neighbourhood makes it a curious outlier.

India’s resilience seems to be driven by three distinguishing factors. The first is the Indian State’s relatively conservative economic policy mix. Since 1991, both state and Union governments have largely tried to live within their means, bringing down average public debt levels. The pandemic has led to a sharp reversal in that trend, but some amount of fiscal consolidation is already underway this year.

On the external front, Indian policymakers — at the finance ministry and at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) — have, till recently, focused on liberalising trade flows more than capital flows. Within capital flows, equity rather than debt flows received greater encouragement, keeping risks low. After the Asian crisis of 1997-98, RBI realised the need for building a war chest of forex reserves. We are still reaping the benefits of such policies today.

The second factor is India’s economic diversity. The range of goods and services produced in India exceeds that of its South Asian peers. Bangladesh has several development achievements to be proud of. But its economy is essentially a one-trick pony, relying overwhelmingly on garment exports. Unsurprisingly, India ranks far ahead of its South Asian peers on the Harvard Growth Lab’s economic complexity rankings, a measure of economic diversity.

Economic diversity builds economic resilience in two ways. First, it ensures that some growth engines are up and running when others get battered by global shocks. Second, it leads to a proliferation of lobbies. This means that any one lobby can drive economic policies only to a limited extent, or only for a limited period of time. It encourages politicians and policymakers to tread the middle path, avoiding policy adventurism.

The third factor underpinning India’s economic resilience is its constitutional stability. Apart from a 21-month period in the mid-1970s when the constitutional liberties of Indians were suspended under the Emergency, the Indian Constitution has acted as an abiding anchor for India’s society, polity, and economy.

Our neighbours haven’t had such luck, with the constitution getting changed more than once in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Younger Bangladesh hasn’t seen its constitution get rewritten, but it has suffered a long era of military rule when constitutional liberties were significantly diluted.

In their 2009 book, The Endurance of National Constitutions, the American scholars Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton showed that the average constitution has lasted only 17 years since 1789. Constitutions of post-colonial countries, which gained independence after World War II, have had especially short lives.

Despite its weaknesses, the Indian Constitution has allowed disaffected communities across the country to hold on to the “idea of India” even under the gravest provocations. The long period of deliberations on the constitutional framework led by the economist-turned-lawyer BR Ambedkar ensured that India’s basic operating system has survived the test of time.

Yet, it is worth keeping in mind that the forces of linguistic and religious chauvinism that have wreaked havoc in the rest of the neighbourhood find patronage in this country as well. There are other threats too. Several institutions set up by the builders of modern India have decayed over time. India’s youth is becoming restive about the slow pace of job creation.

Without social cohesion, inclusive growth, and institutional renewal, India’s economic autonomy will be at peril. Our exceptional history is no guarantee of our future well-being.

Pramit Bhattacharya is a Chennai-based journalist

The views expressed are personal



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It was a short visit. It was paid by a representative of the legislative rather than the executive wing of the United States (US) government. And she may have intended it as the last act of global statesmanship before potentially retiring later in the year. All these facts notwithstanding, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is of considerable significance as the realms of power and principles see great churning in contemporary international politics. As a Democrat long critical of China’s human rights record, Pelosi framed her visit in terms of her support for Taiwan’s democracy. But the visit sheds light on a foreign policy question that rule-abiding States, regardless of whether they are democratic or not, confront in times of global crisis: How should they respond to bullying behaviour of States out to undermine the basic rules of international politics?

Revisionist States — especially those like contemporary Russia and China that seek to change territorial arrangements upheld for decades using military force — invariably threaten international peace and stability. World War II gave four answers about how rule-abiding States can respond to such militant territorial revisionism: Appeasement, neutrality, capitulation, and confrontation. Britain appeased Nazi Germany through the 1930s. The US was effectively neutral until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. France capitulated. And Britain under Winston Churchill — this writer being no fan of the imperialist — chose confrontation.

Here is how the policies played out. London learnt that appeasement delayed German belligerence rather than preventing it from breaking out. Washington realised that as a great power, it could not sit out a great power war, no matter how distant it was from the theatres of raging fires and deafening guns. France — were it not for Charles de Gaulle, its importance to post-War European security, and the wisdom of Churchill and Roosevelt — would have suffered much more than a humiliating occupation. It was only confrontation — led by Soviet Russia, Britain, and the US — that worked, leading eventually to the founding of the contemporary international order. The lesson? Stand up to the bully or allow it to gain strength, delay an inevitable conflict, and pay a higher price.

Decades of overall peace and stability in great power relations caused the lesson to fade out until Vladimir Putin sent his missiles across the Ukrainian skies in February. He had been saying he would redraw Europe’s map. He did in 2014. But the West did everything but confront Moscow and draw a line. Worse, some aspects of European policy amounted to appeasement of Putin. It didn’t work. Western capitals and chancelleries are gradually picking up the lesson, but it is lost on many “global intellectuals” on the Left and the Right who advocate what is appeasement in all but name.

Russia is a regional bully, but its invasion of Ukraine has extracted a global cost, especially on the three critical Fs: Food, fuel, and fertiliser. China is an Asian bully of global proportions, and Asia is now the heart and lungs of global politics and economy. Like Moscow recently and Berlin in the 1930s in other contexts, Beijing, too, has made clear that it would use force if necessary to “integrate” Taiwan. The effective response of those concerned is to believe the rhetoric and assume an invasion is inevitable. Think backwards from there and the import of Pelosi’s visit is clear: America has stood up to Beijing and stared back on this occasion. It may be no more than a moment, but it matters. It asserts American commitment to building and defending a rules-based order centred on Asia. It should strengthen the case for Japan’s revising strategic posture. And it should make New Delhi more assertive vis-à-vis China.

Between 2014 and 2019, New Delhi tried to reach a political understanding with Beijing with a view to bettering the earlier understanding whereby the territorial dispute was bracketed off from the rest of the relationship and two pathways were created for resolving the first and developing the second. In the summer of 2020, the Chinese killed the spirit of Wuhan while a virus originating there killed people in India and around the world. India regained some tactical ground in the initial months of the standoff, but the larger strategic picture has since developed to China’s advantage. The understanding on managing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has collapsed. Political conversation is absent. Diplomatic conversations haven’t yielded much. And military talks drag on while the People’s Liberation Army digs in, on Indian territory, for the long haul. New Delhi did not appease Beijing. And the policy of top-level political engagement as it shored up its strategic profile on the borders may have made sense. But it has been insufficiently assertive for over two years, during which time Asian geopolitics has sharpened, making it difficult to keep the bilateral problem separated from the larger regional dynamics. But that is not a bad thing.

The lesson discussed above is also applicable to India. New Delhi need not view the China question in terms of democracy versus authoritarianism or the West versus China — examples of political and cultural framings in international affairs that it finds discomfiting. Assertion towards China would amount not to aligning with the West, but acting according to a principle of wider relevance, namely the bully must be stood up to. It is in India’s national interest to do so. It is also consistent with its desire to shape a rules-based Asian order and act as a leading power. The LAC should be a good place to start.

Atul Mishra teaches international politics at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR. The views expressed are personal



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In July, the Supreme Court (SC) passed an order directing its registry to mask the names and addresses of parties before it so that they do not appear in online search results. This direction came at the request of a couple engaged in a matrimonial dispute, who claimed that easy accessibility of court records was not only stigmatising, but also an infringement of their privacy. The couple relied on the right to be forgotten as the basis for this relief.

The growth of the internet has radically transformed the speed and ease with which information can be gathered and disseminated. Irrespective of whether the information relates to a minor indiscretion or a heinous crime, and whether it pertains to the recent past or an incident from decades ago, it is accessible to all within seconds, forever. Consequently, concerns about the permanence of digital memory have contributed to the need for a right to be forgotten.

But when the offending information is contained in news reports or court records, its removal must be balanced against the right to free speech and the principle of open justice. Given these competing interests, it is surprising that the SC did not apply any standards or principles to justify how this was a fit case for redacting personal details from a court order. This creates a real risk of lower courts passing similar orders without considering whether the facts merit such protection.

Judicial orders on the right to be forgotten must, therefore, be based on objective standards or principles capable of being uniformly applied. The 2019 bill on data protection sets out some of these principles. These included considering the sensitivity of the information in question, the scale of its disclosure or accessibility, whether the individual involved is a public figure, or if the information is of public importance.

An additional consideration is whether less restrictive means can achieve the intended result. Take the example of individuals accused of theft but later acquitted after a trial. Even after the acquittal, they find it difficult to find employment because search results for their names show old news reports naming them as accused.

If the news reports were factually accurate at the time, their deletion would be an undue infringement of the right to free speech. However, a direction to only delist such reports from search engine results might serve the purpose. Better still, the de-listing could further be restricted only to searches carried out for the individuals’ name, and not for all searches related to theft reportage generally.

Second, given the crucial rights at play, the procedure for enforcing the right to be forgotten is an equally important concern. That is, who decides what information to redact, remove from search results, or the source altogether? Under European Union law, the right to be forgotten requests are decided by publishers and search engines. This framework has been rightly criticised, given publishers and search engines have no duty to uphold rights, much less fundamental rights. This concern too was addressed by the 2019 bill, which contemplated the creation of a regulator who would decide such requests.

The right to be forgotten was also subsequently endorsed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee in its 2021 report on the 2019 bill. However, on August 3, the government suddenly withdrew the bill, citing the need for a comprehensive legal framework for the country’s digital ecosystem.

Consequently, individuals have again been left without an appropriate legal remedy to seek redressal against publication of irrelevant or outdated information about themselves. Courts cannot fill this legal vacuum since such requests typically involve directions against third-party publishers or search engines, who may not be parties before it in every dispute. However, to the extent that courts can grant relief based on the right to be forgotten, it is hoped that they will spend time framing appropriate principles to ensure just outcomes.

Kritika Bhardwaj is an advocate practising in Delhi

The views expressed are personal



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A time capsule dug up for posterity which is now, a compendium of memoirs, of narratives, essays and recollections from the golden period of Indian cinema. What exactly does one call a book that includes it all and more; the raconteurs among those who lived the era that saw the making of magnum opuses which defied time to transcend generations?

As India celebrates 75 years of its Independence, it’s only fitting to recall the glowing passages in the 110-year-old journey of our moving pictures — from the silent era’s inaugural year (1912) to the 1931 release of the first Talkie, Ardesher Irani’s Alam Ara. The period covered by the book in discussion is closer in history, coinciding with our freedom from the British yoke.

What draws the Hindi (Hindustani) film aficionado to Yeh Un Dinon Ki Baat Hai, Urdu Memoirs of Cinema Legends, is the testimonial it gained from the iconic lyricist-film-maker, Gulzar: Iss Kitab ne mujhe eik zamaana tohfe mein diya hai, mere haathon mein dua ki tarah rakha hai (This book has gifted me an era, placing it in my hands like a blessing).” Still a prolific writer, Gulzar, 88, first wrote for Bimal Roy’s 1963 classic Bandini (to the music of SD Burman) and never looked back.

Much of the material used by the author, Yasir Abbasi, a professional cinematographer, has been culled from Urdu film magazines he accessed from private collectors across the country. Most of those periodicals that ceased publication two decades ago were discarded as ‘filmy stuff’ rather than being catalogued for their rich literary sections. The only exception to the rule was Patna’s Khuda Baksh Library. “The out-of-print Urdu magazines I sourced were with private collectors who were unwilling to lend. I worked out of their homes to prise out texts for the book,” recalled Abbasi. The result was gratifying as praise came from young readers and contemporary filmmakers such as Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

It’s hard to fathom how regular libraries in Urdu-speaking areas couldn’t spot archival value in the magazines they junked. For instance, by what stretch of imagination or learning can a write-up by Kaifi Azmi on Sahir Ludhianvi or the one on Sa’adat Hasan Manto by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan be considered less than a work of literature? The same holds true of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s impressions of Prithiviraj Kapoor and his son, Raj; Character-actor Iftikhar’s take on his much-celebrated friends and co-artistes Ashok and Kishore Kumar; and the legendary music composer Naushad’s engrossing story of the equally accomplished, K Asif who directed Mughal-e-Azam.

That’s not all! The book carries ‘perspectives’ and ‘reminiscences’ by Dev Anand, Balraj Sahni, Kamal Amrohi, Nasir Husain, I S Johar, Dharmendra, Talat Mahmood, Johny Walker, Ajit, Javed Akhtar, and Shakeel Badayuni. It opens with early trail-blazer Nargis’s moving tribute to Meena Kumari under the caption: “Meena, Maut Mubarak Ho (Meena, congratulations on your death).” She goes on to write: “Your baaji (elder sister) congratulates you on your death and asks you to never step into this world again. This place is not meant for people like you.”

Born Mehjabeen, Meena Kumari is remembered for the central roles she played in such time-enduring films like Baiju Bawara, Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam and her estranged husband Kamal Amrohi’s period classic, Pakeezah. Lonely and uncared for, she succumbed to alcoholism-induced cirrhosis at age 39, shortly after Pakeezah’s 1972 release.

The cinema in the book’s scope is a bygone chapter retaining lure in the memorable art it handed down. One feels compelled to reproduce in commemoration certain riveting passages that at once are a celebration of Urdu periodicals and the language (Hindustani) which was the lingua franca of our Talkies. Translated to English from Urdu, several writings, barring a few, were done in the lifetime of protagonists under the writers’ lens.

In his 1984 recollections of K Asif (1924-71) and Mughal-e-Azam, Naushad, arguably the best composer of his generation recalled the making of the music and the dialogues that set it apart as a work of cinematic excellence. In the scene where Anarkali is to be entombed (for being the love of the prince) is asked to state her last wish. She desired to be made the queen for a night. That outraged Akbar (played by Prithviraj Kapoor) and (what could possibly be) the response of Anarkali (enacted by Madhubala) to the king’s rage was the subject of discussion in one of the many story sessions.

All three scriptwriters had readied their versions of the scene. On hearing others, K Asif looked askance as Vajahat Mirza. In response, Mirza spat out the paan in his mouth to declare: “All this is nonsense! What’s the need for such protracted wordplay?” He then opened the small case in which he carried paans, took out a piece of paper from it and said, “Anarkali will deliver one sentence... She’d offer salaam and say: This menial slave-girl forgives Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar for her murder.” That’s how the story panned out on the screen. Rest is history.

Naushad also dwelt on Asif’s rocky relations with his film’s financer, Shapoorji of the Shapoorji-Pallonji fame who built Bombay’s best-known milestones — Church Gate and Marine Drive. There were endless tiffs over the film’s budget that ballooned over the decade for which it was in the making. The two almost fell out — the producer threatening to bring Sohrab Modi as the director — when Asif constructed the expensive Sheeh Mahal set to shoot the evergreen number: Jab pyar kiya to darna kya. The matter got resolved when Asif overcame the technological challenge, proving wrong the sceptics who insisted it was impossible to shoot the song on the multi-mirrored set.

Naushad was curious as to why a successful builder got entangled in film financing. Shapoorji told him that Akbar was his favourite historical character: “It was my dream to showcase his greatness to the world.” Asif also had his moments of tension with Dilip Kumar who played Akbar’s rebellious son Salim who fell for Anarkali. “I’m making Mughal-e-Azam, not Salim-e-Azam,” he’d tick off the super-talented actor on hearing him complain of Akbar getting more dialogue than the character he was playing.

Focused as he was on people behind the camera, Naushad did not say much about the film’s stars: Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Madhubala. Very much part of the book is a self-portrait Dilip Kumar did for the Shama magazine in 1973. The other two actors figure at length in articles by character-artiste Iftikhar and Khwaja Ahmed (KA) Abbas, a highly regarded filmmaker, journalist and screenwriter.

In his thumb-nail autobiographical sketch, Dilip Kumar talked of the “cloak of sorrow” he had to forever wear to fit the ‘tragedian’ tag foisted on him early in his film career. “It affected my persona... I began to feel I wasn’t destined to experience joy and success. The condition caused great turmoil in my life, shackling the playful spirit in me,” he wrote. As his cinema image took a toll on his personal life, he reached out to psychologists in England who advised him to explore light-comical roles to avoid becoming a stultified personality. “(So) when I was offered Azaad (action-comedy, 1955), I lapped it up. It was a turning point in my life and my evolution as an artiste—a time when the fragmented bits of my character came together again.”

The personal side of Madhubala and Kishore Kumar, the eccentric singer-actor-director she married, is brought out vividly by Iftikhar who was friends with Kishore and his elder brother, Ashok Kumar aka Dada Moni. In a 1976 write-up, he disclosed that Madhubala and Kishore married after she broke up with Dilip Kumar and his wife left him. As they were working together in films, Madhubala, suffering from an incurable heart ailment, broke down one day and proposed to Kishore: “I don’t want to die unmarried. I want to die as your wife.” They tied the knot but never consummated; Kishore steadfastly adhering to the doctors’ advice against any physical relationship on account of the sensationally beautiful Madhubala’s precarious medical condition. “They slept on the same bed,” wrote Iftikhar, “but couldn’t come close as a regular couple.”

Writing about Prithviraj Kapoor, K A Abbas recalled his role as Lord Ram in Debaki Bose’s Seeta, the first Indian talkie to be shown at an international film festival (Venice). “His was a novel portrayal of Ram — the manner in which he translated the character elicited a kind of reverence that had not happened in the Indian films earlier.” Likewise, the Akbar he played 25 years later was no less majestic than the original.

Having written critically acclaimed blockbusters for Prithviraj’s eldest son, Raj Kapoor, Abbas revealed that he first offered the story of Awara, a path-breaking Bollywood film, to Mehboob Khan (who later made Mother India) with the suggestion that he cast the father-son Kapoor duo as its central characters. But Khan wanted Dilip Kumar in place of Raj who, on getting wind of it approached Abbas and grabbed the rights for the story. “Raj is like an engine... I believe if the engine could be connected to an appropriate train, my thoughts could be spread far and wide. This is why I write for him despite knowing that he’ll end up making compromises and I’ll have to accept them. I feel that whatever he may do, my ideas and beliefs would travel a fair distance,” remarked Abbas, whose socialist beliefs drove his writings. “The changes made during Awara were minimal; he compromised (the script) more in Shree 420; by the time Bobby came out, I had to say that it was Raj Kapoor’s film, not mine.”

Dipped in admiration that’s a rarity among peers, Kaifi Azmi’s essay on Sahir Ludhianvi opened with his appraisal of Talkhiyaan, the latter’s 1943 collection of poems which came in the middle of World War II. “The poetry of Sahir was devoid of entangled, indeterminate, soulless indulgence that young writers passed off as poetry in wartime... I wondered where this talented poet was hiding all this while,” wrote Kaifi with a formidable body of work of his own.

Sahir was pretty young when Kaifi wrote about him. He said those who don’t know him closely might be unaware that the disappointment with his surroundings cultivated a kind of scepticism in his temperament. If a producer increases his fees, he starts thinking about whether there was a motive behind it; if a girl wishes him, he gets worried about a raise in his list of failures, and if a girl actually falls in love, then his heart proclaims: The weariness in your breath, the silence in your glance, In truth, could all be a mischievous trick, what I may consider signs of romance. Those smiles, that eloquence, could merely be your habit (translation of Sahir’s own lines in Urdu).

Kaifi indulgently portrayed Sahir as a restless man incapable of hiding emotions: “He’s quick to identify the positive and negative aspects but arriving at a conclusion is not his strongest point. Leave aside life’s greater problems, it’s not easy for him to decide which shirt to wear along with which pair of trousers.” At another point, he observed: “The deprivations, defeats and dilemmas of his personal life have softened and melted Sahir so much that all he’s left with are feelings... He hasn’t written any shoddy verse till now. As long as anarchy exists, he won’t either...” Sahir died in 1980, aged 59. His subsequent work proved that Kaifi prophetically judged his boundless talent.

If Sahir wrenched hearts with Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hain (Pyaasa), Kaifi had us weep with Ab tumhare hawale wata saathion (Haqeeqat). Such were the men and women whose many gifts, ideas and work journeyed with India in her early years. As the country turns 75, they’re remembered for what they bequeathed.

HT’s veteran political editor, Vinod Sharma, brings together his four-decade-long experience of closely tracking Indian politics, his intimate knowledge of the actors who dominate the political theatre, and his keen eye which can juxtapose the past and the present in his weekly column, Distantly Close

vinodsharma@hindustantimes.com



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United States (US) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's high-stakes and controversial visit to Taiwan lasted less than a full day between the night of August 2 and August 3.

Accommodated strategically in Pelosi's packed and globally tracked schedule — possibly during the lunch hosted in her honour by President Tsai Ing-wen on August 3 — was a meeting with Mark Liu, chairperson of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

There was a reason for that: TSMC, in brief, makes the world run.

It is the largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips required to run the core of machines — mobile phones to fighter aircraft and everything in between.

Which makes Taiwan indispensable to the world — including the two countries loudly and aggressively sparring over it, China and the US.

Control of the semiconductor industry is at the entangled core of the hostility involving the three countries besides the fact that merging Taiwan with the mainland – which Beijing calls reunification — is part of the ultimate “rejuvenation” goal for the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Taiwan’s position as the leader in the semiconductor industry globally has made it both strategic and vulnerable in the geopolitical tussle between the two countries

In the last few years, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has frequently — and at this post-Pelosi moment continuously — crossed the 177 km-wide Taiwan Strait to make a show of its military might, adding a threat that taking over the island by force is a matter of when not if.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and its final “return to the motherland” is President Xi Jinping’s key goal for historical and ideological reasons — part of his legacy-building — as he gears up for his unprecedented third term as the country’s leader later this year.

It was in the face of escalating aggression from China that in an interview with Reuters last September, Taiwan economy minister Wang Mei-hua said the semiconductor industry is deeply intertwined with the island’s future.

“This isn’t just about our economic safety,” Wang said. “It appears to be connected to our national security, too.”

There’s little doubt about it.

A Chinese military invasion will impact the industry and cripple the global supply chain. And that existential threat ensures a US security cover over the island. Or at least the promise of it: Washington doesn't want the cutting-edge industry to fall like a ripe fruit in Beijing's hand.

A self-ruled democracy of around 23 million people — a population that’s less than neighbouring China’s, Shanghai — Taiwan has a unique hold over the world: Taiwan’s share of the global semiconductor manufacturing sector was over 60% in 2021 with the top Taiwanese chip foundries being TSMC, UMC, Powerchip and Vanguard. TSMC contributes around 50% of that.

The chip industry in Taiwan accounted for 15% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018 and the percentage may further reach over 20% in 2022, the Taipei-based Isaiah Group, which calls itself a boutique research firm focused on the tech industry including semiconductors, told Hindustan Times.

It has taken decades for Taiwan to develop the critical — and highly paying — industry as it painfully transitioned from a military dictatorship to a vibrant democracy with individual rights and press freedom.

Unlike China, which has grown exponentially in the past few decades but has increasingly clamped down rights, taking no time to stamp out dissent, and is diplomatically more aggressive than ever: More so in the last few years under Xi.

(The 2021 GDP per capita in China was $12,259; Taiwan’s is at $33,775, according to the International Monetary Fund.)

It took decades for the semiconductor sector to grow in Taiwan.

“The very first manufacturing unit was set up by UMC (United Microelectronics Corporation) in Hsinchu, Taiwan in 1980. During the period from the 1970s to 1980s, the Taiwan government aggressively supported the semiconductor industry and — in turn — the returns of the technology-driven industry helped to (further) build the semiconductor sector in Taiwan,” Lucy Chen, vice president of Isaiah Research, said.

In the event of an invasion and disruption of the semiconductor supply chain, the impact will be felt globally.

“If there is a risk of Chinese invasion in Taiwan, we believe it may be quite tough for the global economy and technology. Viewed from this angle, the semiconductor capacity of TSMC and UMC accounts for more than 60% in the world, which means any invasion or risk to Taiwan may have a global impact rather than a regional one, unless the technology and capacity can be well transferred to other countries in advance,” the Isaiah group said in a report shared with HT.

“Secondly, (companies like) Apple, AMD, MediaTek, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm all have high percentages of wafer input in TSMC. If the above IC design houses have no sufficient capacity to manufacture their chips, numbers of downstream EMS (electronics manufacturing service) providers in China for Apple/Android smartphones and notebooks may also suffer the brunt due to the lack of IC chips. It will lead to ripple effects on the technology industry,” the report said.

China is well aware of the situation in the chip sector, and its own dependency.

That’s why as a response to Pelosi’s visit Chinese authorities suspended imports of Taiwanese citrus fruits and fish, and exports of sand but left out the semiconductor industry though its official media said the ban on exporting sand (from China to Taiwan) will impact it.

In 2016, President Xi Jinping, in a speech on cybersecurity and informatisation, said that "the fact that core technology is controlled by others is our greatest hidden danger..."

Frankly, it’s not very hidden but China can do little about it for several years ahead. Beijing knows that.

“Taiwan is a vital supplier of advanced semiconductors to countries in the West but also to China, which means that it is highly unlikely that Beijing will target Taiwan-made chips with economic coercion. Cutting access to these and cutting this link with Taiwan would make no sense to China from a strategic standpoint,” Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, from National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, Taiwan, and former political advisor in the European Parliament, said.

Ferenczy argued that in the backdrop of Covid-19-triggered disruption, the strategic value of cutting-edge semiconductors for economies around the world has increased.

“As tension in the Strait grows, it is not in the interest of China to cause disruption of global proportions that would impose harm on its own economy. Instead, Beijing will seek to target its coercion to areas where there is an asymmetric dependence, such as in fruit trade with Taiwan,” she said.

China, however, is working hard to become self-sufficient in the sector.

“China's integrated circuit (IC) industry registered stable growth in 2021 with its sales exceeding 1 trillion yuan (about $158 billion) for the first time,” official news agency Xinhua reported, quoting data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association. China remains the world’s largest market for semiconductors as well.

It's also pumping billions into the tech sector under the “Made in China” programme.

“Actually, we see China’s semiconductor industry growing slowly in developing advanced technology as it is limited by US sanctions. However, we also see the recent escalation of the US-China trade war accelerates the process of semiconductor localisation in China,” Isaiah Group’s Lucy Chen said.

The US is trying to localise the critical industry as well.

The “Chips and Science Act”, passed by the US Senate in late July, is a legislation to subsidise the domestic semiconductor industry.

The Act, according to a Reuters report from Washington, provides about $52 billion in government subsidies for US semiconductor production and an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth $24 billion.

Sutirtho Patranobis, HT’s experienced China hand, writes a weekly column from Beijing, exclusively for HT Premium readers. He was previously posted in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he covered the final phase of the civil war and its aftermath, and was based in Delhi for several years before that

The views expressed are personal



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What do you think are the two most important ingredients that have been introduced to Indian restaurant cooking over the last half century or so?

One obvious candidate for that distinction is the industrial broiler chicken. Entire generations of Indians have forgotten that taste of chicken because everyone now uses broilers which can be large but taste of nothing. When people say chicken is a meat with no flavour, they are wrong. What they should say is: The chicken used by restaurants in India has no flavour!

The industrial egg, the child of the mass-reared chicken, is the other related candidate. Most people have forgotten that eggs used to have bright yolks, the colour of sunshine. They think it is normal for the white to be a watery mess. In recent years, there has been an attempt to go back to basics and to sell eggs from chickens which are not raised in cages. But this is still a niche market. The egg you will be served for breakfast —even at the average five-star hotel —will be disgusting.

I could go on. Noodles mark an important shift in our culinary habits but I think their real influence has been less in the restaurant sector and more in our homes where instant noodles (made by brands like Maggi) have become an important part of the cuisine.

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You could also make out a case for mayonnaise which I have written about at length before. We never used mayo at home when I was growing up. But now, many middle-class households regularly buy bottles of mayo made by such Indian brands as Veeba and Cremica. Usually, the most popular mayos are the flavoured ones--- with things like chilli and butter chicken masala. But, they are mayonnaise nevertheless.

The mayo boom is still a home thing. Restaurants always used mayo and they continue to do it: No change there. A stronger case should be made out for soya sauce which is a restaurant favourite. We always had soya sauce in India but we ate it only when we went to old style Chinese restaurants, which were not quite as popular then as they became after the 1990s.

But now soya sauce is ubiquitous. Partly this is because of the boom in Indian Chinese food, a local cuisine in which any masaledaar dish can become Chinese once soya sauce has been added. The sushi boom is also based on the popularity of the marriage between rice and soya sauce. When Indians eat sushi, it is nearly always an American-style sushi roll which is first dunked into a bowl of soya sauce. It is the rice-soya hit that is the key to the soya boom. Serve sushi without soya and most people will find it too dry.

I hesitated about including soya sauce in my list of the ingredients that have transformed restaurant cuisine in the last half-century because most Indians will argue that it is only popular at a certain kind of restaurant. I hesitate also to include monosodium glutamate, better known under the Ajinomoto brand name because chefs will flatly deny using it though we all know that they do.

Ajinomoto was first used in Chinese restaurants in India (though the Ajinomoto Company is Japanese) as a flavour enhancer. This meant, Chinese cooks said, that it did not alter the flavour of the dish but that it sharpened the flavours. In no time at all, chefs at Indian restaurants also started adding Ajinomoto to their curries. The packaged food industry began to use it extensively too.

Then, Ajinomoto came under a cloud after American doctors said that it could lead to headaches or tremors in those who ate it. The claim was overstated: Yes, a few people do have an intolerance to Ajinomoto, but many more people are allergic to peanuts. Do you also ban peanuts then?

It is now clear that Ajinomoto is not the villain it was made out to be but chefs are still reluctant to admit they use it (though it turns up everywhere) and packaged food companies try to conceal how much monosodium glutamate their products contain. So yes, Ajinomoto has become a constant presence in restaurant kitchens, but it is the one ingredient that does not dare speak its name.

So, what would I pick as the top two newcomers to Indian restaurant cuisine?

Well, cheese would certainly be one. It is not just processed cheese. It is also paneer. Till about 30 years ago, paneer was mainly a North Indian thing. Now its popularity has spread all over India. It is not unusual to find paneer masala or paneer mutter on a menu in South India. Even Gujaratis who have such a well-developed vegetarian cuisine of their own are forsaking fresh vegetables for paneer.

And then, there is processed cheese, a complete stranger to Indian cuisine. But restaurants now use cheese in all sorts of things. You will find processed cheese in murgh malai kababs. Street food guys will grate it over dosas, uttapams and even pav bhaji, dishes that clearly don’t need it. A cheese naan made with Amul cheese cannot be more than a couple of decades old and yet, you now find it everywhere.

So yes, cheese is one of the two most important ingredients to enter the Indian kitchen over the last few decades.

The second is the more surprising one. The tomato. We all know that the tomato was discovered in South America and made its way to India by way of European traders and colonists. But frankly, that is not so unusual. The chilli and the potato followed the same route and took no time at all to become an integral part of Indian cuisines.

The tomato, on the other hand, took much longer. Think of the great restaurant dishes that use tomatoes --- butter chicken or dal Bukhara. Both were invented only in the mid to late 20th century and they were restaurant creations. The traditional Punjabi black dal does not have tomatoes. Butter chicken was invented in the 1950s. The British chicken tikka masala was created in the 1970s.

Ask your grandmother for her recipes. You will find that no matter which part of India you are from, there were hardly any tomatoes in the food that your grandmother’s generation ate. Even now, the great cuisines of India depend on tomatoes much less than they do on, say, the chilli.

As you may have guessed, the reason I mention cheese, tomatoes, soya sauce and Ajinomoto is because I have a theory about how Indian tastes have developed over the last few decades. My theory is that most recent developments in Indian restaurant cuisine have been caused by the subcontinent’s discovery of umami flavours.

I have written about this before and I think more work needs to be done to knock my theory into shape. But even intuitively, I think you will agree that the flavours we like now are not necessarily the flavours your grandparents enjoyed.

But then, isn’t that how cuisine develops?



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It is rocket science. Any imprecision in preparation and execution of a mission will show up to spoil the record book as Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) may have found out in its SSLV launch that placed two satellites in wrong orbits that were elliptical instead of circular. Isro’s record with maiden launches has been less than perfect as history would show that the SLV, ASLV and the reliable workhorse PSLV, which delivered many a mission for the space agency with remarkably regular success later, had also failed at the start.

India’s first attempt at launching a heavy communication satellite failed when GSLV-F02 did not complete its mission in 2006. It is undeniable that the list of ISRO failures just got much bigger with three major failures in the last four years — the moon rover crashed in 2019, the GSLV failure led to the loss of a 2-tonne payload in August 2021 and now comes the loss of two small orbiters in 2022.

The immediate task may be to study the situation and analyse the failure rather than try to fix what Isro admitted are “unusable satellites”. The bigger challenge will be to pass the credibility test when it comes to small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) operations, which are a lucrative global business, especially in the era of the Internet and instant communications when clusters of small satellites are being placed in orbit regularly by private space players in the USA.

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Isro had built a spotless record in commercial launches with its PSLV to bring in business worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Its foray into launching small satellites may, however, have suffered an inauspicious start. But one failure, particularly with a maiden launch, should take away nothing from the achievements of India’s space division over decades since the indelible image of an experimental rocket being taken to the Thumba launch centre on the back of a bicycle emerged.

The saving grace is the architecture of the latest rocket seems to have performed well and rocketry may not have been responsible for the anomaly that led to the mission failure. The query as to why the satellites did not attain the required altitude if the rocketry was perfect must be addressed by Isro before the next development flight.

In the commercial space business in which India has also roped in private enterprise, it is ultimately reliability that counts and that can be proved only over time as the PSLV did for a certain segment of satellite launches. India’s cost advantage may bring more launch missions but the focus would have to be on pre-launch preparations as India is also committed to a human space mission to be carried out with the GSLV vehicle with the complex cryogenic stage.

In the final analysis, no sense of mission urgency should be compelled by the commerce of launches. Isro’s goal has to be far higher than revenue and it would have to earn the lessons of a triple failure if its space programme is to soar again.



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The Union health ministry last week issued a detailed list of dos and don’ts as India reported one death due to monkeypox and nine confirmed cases of the viral disease. The focus of the guidelines is to avoid the spread of the disease which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a ‘public health emergency of international concern’.

As of now, more than 25,000 people have been affected by the disease in 80 countries spread across all continents, the majority being in Europe. According to WHO, monkeypox virus, transmitted from animals to humans and is found mainly in central and west Africa, causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled skin lesions.

Early isolation of the infected person from others is the key to the prevention strategy as prolonged exposure to the virus is understood to be a precondition for a person to contract the disease. Using hand sanitisers and washing hands with soap and water, covering mouth with masks and hands with disposable gloves when close to a patient, and using disinfectants to sanitise the environment around are also part of the guidelines. The government has warned against stigmatising people affected with the disease as it will stop people from seeking medical aid, further threatening the public health system. The government has also constituted a task force to closely monitor the situation and formulate effective responses.

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No country is safe from pandemics and even epidemics at a time when the world is so closely connected. The only way to protect the people is to enhance public health infrastructure, which must focus more on awareness and prevention than earlier. There must also be a network of diagnostic facilities which facilitate early identification of the arrival of new vectors. We must realise that we as a nation are vulnerable to public health emergencies and the defence of the people must have short, medium and long term elements in it. In short, healthcare must get a higher place in the nation’s agenda than it gets now.



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On July 31, Osama bin Laden’s successor as the global head of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, stepped out on to the balcony of his Taliban safe house in Kabul’s tony Wazir Akbar Khan area to catch a breath of fresh air and a bit of sunshine. About 40,000 feet above, an American Predator B (aka Reaper MQ-9) drone loitering to get a glimpse of him caught him in its camera, and after its operators in Nevada, in the western United States, confirmed it with facial identification technology, ordered it to fire its single Hellfire R9X missile. The Hellfire is a small 100 lbs and five-foot-long air to ground missile (AGM) and races down a reflected laser beam with unerring accuracy. It costs about $150,000.

The R9X, which was developed at the express request of Barack Obama, who wanted to minimise collateral damage due to an explosive charge, is a kinetic weapon which unsheathes multiple blades from its fuselage as it approaches the target at almost 900 mph like a whirling swordsman. Al-Zawahari didn’t stand a chance against a Hellfire racing down at over 925 mph.

The United States and some other countries have a whole array of space satellites orbiting at preselected trajectories to watch over their areas of interest. These satellites not only listen to targets, but also track them and identify faces and vehicles by their plates.

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Osama bin Laden never looked up while on his morning walk at his Abbottabad residence but he was recognised by his height, the length of his shadow at the time of the day and by his gait. Al-Zawahari was either careless or underestimated America’s appetite for his head. He still had a $25 million reward, appetising enough for any informants.

The number of active mobile phones across the world are over 15 billion, which means that many people have more than a couple. Of these 7.2 billion are smartphones connecting people with huge reservoirs of information and content. India has 1.28 billion and China has 1.9 billion phones. The US follows with 327 million and a dysfunctional country like Pakistan has 125 million. Even in countries with little semblance of a government or a state, like Somalia and Afghanistan or Mali or Libya, there are functioning mobile phone networks.

As of June 30, 2021 there were 4.86 billion Internet users world over. Of these, 44.8 per cent were in Asia, 21.5 per cent in Europe and 11.4 per cent in the whole of North America. India was one of the last countries operating a telegraph service and as of end-2021 even that is in the past. Literally, it’s all up in the air now.

But since data exchanged on cellular and Internet networks fly through the ether and not as pulses racing through copper wires, they are easier to net by electronic interception. But these nets catch them in huge numbers. This is where the supercomputers come in. The messages that are netted every moment are run through sieves of sophisticated and complex computer programmes that can simultaneously decode, detect and unravel, and by further analysing the incoming and outgoing patterns of calls and data transfers for the sending and receiving terminals or phones, can with a fair probability of accuracy tell the agency seeking information about what is going on and who is up to what?

The problem is that since this information also goes through the mobile phone network and Internet Service Providers (ISP), and the data actually gets decoded from electronic blips into voice and digital data, the private players too can gain access to such information.

A few years ago we had the case of the infamous Amar Singh CDs, which titillated so many with its graphic content and lowbrow conversations featuring the likes of Anil Ambani, Jayaprada, Bipasha Basu and some others. Then we had the episode of the Niira Radia tapes, where we were privy to the machinations of the Tata Group’s corporate lobbyist in the nation’s capital fixing policy, positioning ministers and string-pulling media stars. But more usefully than this, a mobile phone, by nature of its technology, is also a personalised GPS indicator. It tells them where that phone is at any instant it is on. Al-Qaeda terrorist and US citizen Anwar el-Awlaki was blasted by a Hellfire missile fired from a CIA Predator drone flying over Yemen with the co-ordinates provided by Awlaki’s mobile phone.

Since a mobile phone is usually with you, it tells the network (and other interested parties) where you are or were, and even where you are headed. If you are on a certain street, since it reveals where exactly you are and the direction of your movement, it can tell you where the next pizza place is or where and what is on sale there. This is also a breach of privacy, but often useful to you. But if you are up to no good, then a switched-on mobile phone is a certain giveaway.

That’s what gave away Osama bin Laden in the end. A momentary indiscretion by a trusted courier and bodyguard and a name gleaned from a long-ago water-boarding session was all that it took. To know what happened next, see Zero Dark Thirty by Katherine Bigelow (now on Netflix and YouTube).

The US National Security Agency’s eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both from various organisations and individuals, the Internet, telephone calls, and other intercepted forms of communication.

Its secure communications mission includes military, diplomatic and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications. The NSA is all hi-tech. The NSA collects intelligence from four geostationary satellites. These satellites track and monitor millions of conversations and the NSA’s banks of high-speed supercomputers process all these messages for certain phrases and patterns of conversations to decide if the persons at either end were worthy of further interest. Link this information with the data from the CIA’s spinning satellites watching the movement of groups, individuals and vehicles, and you have a broad picture of what the people are doing. According to the Washington Post, “every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications”. The NSA and the CIA together comprise the greatest intelligence gathering effort in the world. The overall US intelligence budget is now declared to be $62.8 billion.



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The government told Parliament this month the Indian Space Research Organisation will conduct its first abort demonstration test on India’s ambitious astronaut mission before December 31. It’s hoped India’s first uncrewed mission will be launch by 2023’s end, as part of a `9,023- crore project.

The Gaganyaan mission is one of Isro’s most challenging undertakings and four Indian Air Force officers, whose names remain confidential, are training for the mission and working with Russia’s Roscosmos.

India is among only a dozen nations that have put an object in orbit. We first did this 40 years ago, and this is something the world’s richest man hasn’t been able to do though his space company is two decades old. The reason so few succeeded is that orbit is hard. Things stay in orbit only if they achieve a speed horizontal to the earth of 27,000 kmph. If this “escape velocity” isn’t achieved, the object falls back. The restrictions physics imposes on rocket design is what makes this difficult: over 90 per cent of a rocket’s weight is just fuel.

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Advances in rocket technology happened broadly in two phases. The first was in the 1950s and 1960s. The Russians put the first object in orbit, the first living thing (a dog) and satellite, the first man in orbit and the first spacewalk. The Americans followed. Within a decade, the world went from having no satellites to humans on the moon.

But after that, the high costs, boredom from the American public and the failure of the Soviet moon rocket ended the energetic race. After 1972 the US went from having a capacity to put humans on the moon (deep space) to limited capacity in lower earth orbit, just a few hundred km. After the Space Shuttle programme ended a decade ago, America had no ability to put humans even in low earth orbit.

Today that capacity exists only with Russia using its very old rocket, China and SpaceX. China first put humans in orbit around two decades ago and has a manned space station orbiting 400 km above the earth, something only the United States and Russia have done, before a group of nations (that doesn’t include India) developed the International Space Station.

Isro has plans to put humans in orbit in the next few years. This won’t be easy. The rocket for this failed earlier this month when its third stage didn’t fire. Even so, India has done very well, though its capacity is limited by funding and access to technology. Our rocket boosters are powered by an ancient engine first designed by France and using low-efficiency, toxic fuels called “hypergols”. We have some experience in more efficient cryogenic or supercooled fuels (that failed third stage was cryogenic) running on an indigenous engine, but India’s capacity largely isn’t at the level of more advanced countries and companies. Isro has no ability to reuse rockets, raising costs.

In the past few years, a new space race has begun. It’s being driven by private companies and China. The motivations are different. America wants a base on the moon, there are plans to colonise Mars (the gigantic second stage of the rocket for this was test-flown in Texas this year). To get a sense of its scale, consider it will take 150 tons to Mars, while Isro’s Mangalyaan orbiter sent to Mars in 2013 weighed 15 kg. There are plans to mine asteroids for rare minerals and bring them to earth, to occupy Mars permanently and change its climate to make it more earth-like. That’s the scale of the ambition, and it’s being pursued as you read this.

What this means is that a vast technological gap is opening up and will continue to open up between those doing this — some private firms, the US and China — and the rest of the world. This gap won’t be limited to the resources their capacity gives them access to. It will also empower them with new technologies they will develop in the next decade as they do things that nobody else is doing or can do.

The spinoff tech from the first space race and tens of billions of dollars put into innovation six decades ago produced the personal computer, the mouse, Lasik, artificial limbs, freeze-dried food, water purification and GPS. More breakthroughs of this magnitude will come, first to those who develop them and perhaps then for wider commercial use later. We will see these before the decade’s close.

We must consider what colonies of humans, of many nationalities, on another planet may mean for earth. The idea of nation-states and borders will appear to be a little silly when our species is colonising the solar system. It is possible enormous change will sweep over the world when breakthroughs at a planetary level come, and they will not be easy to predict or stop.

Perhaps all of this won’t happen for some reason and the space race will end or pause. As we have seen, innovation in space technology collapsed immediately after the moon landings. America lost its capacity to land men on the moon and still does not have it. Something could hinder or pause the current race as well. But it’s hard to think what this might be: there is considerable progress and interest already and the billionaires funding it aren’t only eyeing profits as they push mankind out into the stars.

It appears India will be among the nations consigned to being among the watchers and not participants in this key phase. We must consider the implications and what that means for us in a future that we are rapidly hurtling into.



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