Will it be a bad thing if the meek inherit the earth?

Miriam Quick writes about five numbers that will define the next hundred years. The population of the world will grow to 11.2 billion with an average age of 42 years, which means there will huge increase in the elderly. Last year the population rose by 83 million, the size of Germany. By 2050, 6.3 billion, that is 66% of people will be living in cities, with all the problems of providing utilities, transport and clean air. 47% of jobs in the US will be vulnerable to automation. There will be a 664% increase in the production of solar energy but fossil fuels will still constitute 86% of energy requirement. As if that is not bad enough, Matt McGrath writes that water resources are being depleted at an 'alarming' rate, to produce food, already. 43% of water for irrigation comes from underground aquifers which are not be replenished fast enough. Pakistan, India and the US export the largest amount of food grown with unsustainable water. Parts of India are chronically water deficient so that the government has to run trains to supply people with water for drinking and daily use. Following 2 years of severe drought the government started taking steps to conserve water by reducing waste through drip irrigation and to store rain water by digging ponds. Historian Ramachandra Guha hints that water disputes between states are being used by politicians as election ploy and should be handed over to experts who will consult farmers on how best to conserve this precious resource. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been arguing about share of Cauvery River water for a century. Last year Jats in Haryana disrupted supply of water to Delhi to press for their claims for reservation in government jobs. All this is for the future. The world may not survive till 2050 or even 2030. North Korea has been carrying out missile tests creating fear in the US and Japan. The US has a huge base in Okinawa and another in Guam and does not rule out preemptive strikes against North Korean missile silos. Japan has also been talking about preemptive strikes. That will surely provoke a retaliation from China, the US will have to protect Japan and we could have attacks on the most populated centers of the world. Stephen Hawking predicts that Artificial Intelligence could wipe out the human race. Scientists keep talking about intelligence but that is not the danger. The danger is that AI is an algorithm, which must be logical, therefore it will not understand why human beings are illogical. We are being warned of the spread of bacteria resistant to all antibiotics but that is nothing compared to the danger of an entirely new kind of bacteria created by an amateur in his garage by using a home kit of Crispr. The good news is that wildlife will thrive if human beings disappear from earth, even if the world becomes radioactive, as has happened in Chernobyl. Let the meek inherit the earth.

People tend to unite in the face of criticism.

"Indian democracy can do with a weak state, the Indian Republic cannot," writes Kunal Singh. "The fundamental rights of a citizen, or the republican values in our Constitution, curb the powers of the democratically elected government. But the real effect of these rights has been gradually eroded due to various exceptions introduced to the fundamental rights both by the legislature as well as the judiciary,.." As a democracy India elects its government so politicians pander to certain communities at the expense of the individual, so that minorities, that is Muslims, suffer. A strong state would protect minority rights, suggests Singh. Not so writes Sagarika Ghosh. "The liberalisation of 1991 showed that achieving high growth in the Indian context is not about asserting state power but rather about rolling back the powers of the state," she writes. She thinks that Modi will fail because,"Hindutva with its rigid social hierarchies implies an assault on individual freedoms at different levels..." What is a 'state'? A state is a defined geographical area within which only the government has the legitimate right to use power. According to that definition, it seems that Ghosh is right. The Indian state exercises its power brutally on anyone protesting its actions, as the Congress did in 2011, when it sent the police to beat up supporters of Baba Ramdev who were sleeping in the early hours of the morning. One woman died later. The Supreme Court censured the government for this brutality but by then it was too late. The writers are angry because the BJP won an absolute majority in the recent assembly elections in UP without fielding even one Muslim candidate, but the more they curse Hindutva the more it unties Hindu voters, who feel that their interests have been neglected in an effort to promote secularism. Valerian Rodrigues writes that Modi has very cleverly entwined Hindutva with development which has brought disparate groups together. There is no doubt that Modi is concentrating as much power in his hands as possible, adopting the ways of the Congress in increasing handouts, appointing obedient governors and forming governments in Goa and Manipur, where the BJP had fewer seats than the Congress, by enticing smaller parties with posts of ministers, wrote Ronojoy Sen. Digitization is a sinister move to increase the power of the government by collecting information on citizens, wrote Anantha Nageswaran. The new rules on funding political parties will increase corruption, wrote Milan Vaishnav. Demonetization was actually a confiscation of cash by the state, wrote Prof Errol D'Souza. Hindus were divided into different groups with different traditions. It was democracy and the Constitution that brought uniformity by enacting laws, such as the Hindu Marriage Act, wrote Prof Dipankar Gupta. Condemning Hindutva only unites Modi's supporters. The only way to stop him is to point out his bluffs.

What use is an on-off selective regulator?

"In the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) books, Reliance Industries Ltd made unlawful gains worth Rs 447.27 crore (Rs 4.47 billion) in November 2007, while trading in derivatives of subsidiary company, Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL)," writes Mobis Philipose. Shares of RPL were sold at Rs 60 per share at an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, in 2006. Following the IPO, Reliance Industries, the parent company, held 75% of the shares of RPL while Chevron bought a 5% stake at Rs 60 per share, with a provision that it could increase its stake to 29%. "In early November 2007, rumours that Chevron will buy a sizeable stake in the new refinery at a hefty valuation had sent RPL shares soaring to as high as Rs 295 per share." So did Reliance deny the rumors and protect shareholders? No. Instead it sold off shares of RPL at these sky-high prices and then took short positions in the derivatives markets to take advantage of the coming crash in the stock price, making a neat profit of Rs 5.13 billion. To us, who are ignorant of high finance, this is as clear a case of insider trading, which is gaining from share sales through knowledge which only company officials possess, as you can find. Sebi's own rules make insider trading an offense, but instead of filing criminal charges against Reliance officers it has only asked it refund Rs 4.47 billion. Compare that with the prison sentence on Rajat Gupta, who was accused of passing information to his friend Raj Rajaratnam, even though he did not profit personally from the information. Rajaratnam is serving an 11 year sentence. The famous Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for selling shares when her broker told her that the directors of a pharmaceutical company, ImClone, were dumping shares of the same company. You would think that a stockbroker is supposed to provide such information. Surely, Sebi should have filed criminal charges against Reliance officials? "But at the end of the day, if the worst that things can get, in terms of monetary consequence, is that you'd have to return unlawful gains, then rather than act as a deterrence, the order may well encourage those who like to live on the edge," writes Philipose. As is usual in India, Reliance has promised to appeal, which means that it will drag on for years. Contrast this with Sebi's hounding of Subrata Roy of Sahara, who has been incarcerated for years for failing to pay back its investors, even though not one investor has complained. In fact, Sebi itself cannot find these investors. Contrast this again with Sebi's foot dragging in the case of DLF, a real estate company, where there was a specific complaint. That had nothing to do with the fact that Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, made around Rs 2 billion from DLF. What use is a regulator which regulates selectively?

India can be useful to both Israel and the Arabs.

Although the date has not been announced yet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Israel later this year, the first visit to the country by an Indian prime minister, writes Bobby Ghosh. This will be historic because both MK Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were against the formation of the Jewish state, so India voted against it at the United Nations in 1948. India finally recognized Israel in 1950. India always supported Palestinians against Israel, although Arabs always supported Pakistan against India. "What is astonishing, though, is the absence of even a murmur of protest from India's friends in the Arab world," writes Ghosh. Islamist terrorism is a threat to Arab rulers, there is fatigue for the Palestinian cause and they are being criticized for not taking refugees from Syria. In fact, Arab leaders are more concerned about the rise of Iran. "Arab leaders have determined that Shia-ruled Iran represents an existential threat to their Sunni-dominated regimes, and recognise that, in this, they have common cause with Israel. Netanyahu's trenchant tirades against the theocracy in Tehran have an enthusiastic audience in Arab palaces." Saudi Arabia has very long border with the south of Iraq, which is Shia, and Iran is supporting a Houthi rebellion in Yemen, to the south of the Kingdom. Arabs were angered by Pakistan's decision not to support them in Yemen. Kuwait already bans visitors from Pakistan. On the Israeli side, they must be worried about the rise of antisemitism everywhere. A journalist wearing a Jewish skullcap was spat at and threatened on the streets of Paris. Attacks against synagogues and on Jews is rising all over Europe, there were 1,309 incidents of hate against Jews in Britain last year and recently a Jewish cemetery was vandalized in Philadelphia, in the US. The Human Rights Council at the UN named Israel as the worst violator of women's rights in the world, last year. Israel has always depended on the US for protection and saw the nuclear deal with Iran as an existential danger to itself. Obama touted the deal as a means of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but critics saw the deal as legitimizing Iran's nuclear ambitions. It did not help that Isreali Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama hated each other. The Arab regimes would like to cooperate with Israel against Iran. But how? "For six decades, their propaganda machines portrayed the Jewish state as an abomination, and have normalised anti-Semitism among their citizenry. The rulers of these states cannot now afford to be seen breaking bread with Israel, and so can only play a form of diplomatic footsie..." writes Ghosh. Which is where India comes in. We can mediate secretly between Israel and the Arabs, buying defence equipment from Israel and persuading Arabs to cut off financial support for Pakistan's terror apparatus. Is Modi up to it?

Being hit with a sandal is better than being shot.

Shiv Sena MP, Ravindra Gaekwad, boasted of slapping and hitting an Air India duty manager, 60 year old R Sukumar, 25 times with a sandal. In reaction most of the major airlines have banned Gaekwad from flying. This being India his party shamelessly defended him, saying that anyone can commit a mistake, but that does not mean that he should be barred from flying. Yesterday the Congress and Samajwadi Party extended support to Gaekwad. Husain Dalwai of the Congess said,"He is a famous leader in Osmanabad. We should keep in mind how the officer talked to Gaekwad." We should be grateful that the "famous leader" did not shoot the manager dead as Rocky Yadav, the son of a Bihar politician did when his car was overtaken by a 19 year old boy. As is usual in India, Rocky Yadav was let out on bail and all the witnesses 'turned hostile', which means they withdrew their testimonies. Who will take on a politician, or his son, in India? Scholars have been studying why crime and politics are so intimately mixed in India. Elections are expensive and political parties like candidates who have their own money, illicit maybe, and the goons to intimidate opponents, wrote Soutik Biswas. Milan Vaishnav believes that it all started with the zamindari system, writes Pramit Bhattacharya. A zamindar was a landowning baron who exercised his power through "violence and coercion". Indira Gandhi banned corporate donation to political parties, which led to the need for illicit funding. Criminals are naturally attracted to politics because it provides them with immunity. But, why do people vote for them? Is it because they are mostly illiterate and so are not aware of the criminal records of these politicians? No, says Vaishnav. People vote for them because they are seen as strongmen who can get things done. Our civil servants are perhaps the most corrupt in the world, which means that 69% of Indians admitted to having paid a bribe to avail of routine services. Prime Minister Modi must bring an end to the sense of entitlement of politicians and the VIP culture, writes Raghu Dayal. Not just politicians, we have over 500,000 VIPs who throw their weight around. Will Modi stop the VIP culture and the sense of entitlement that goes with it? So far the evidence points the other way. 114 MLAs of the 312 seats, that is 37%, that the BJP won in the UP assembly election this month have serious criminal charges against them. Modi must have known this when these people were selected as candidates. For all his talk of taking on the Gandhi family he seems to be scared of them. Robert Vadra has been mocking him. After saying that civil servants will not be allowed to accept gifts he gave in and last year he surrendered to demands of civil servants to be allowed to go abroad for junkets funded by foreign institutions, which could well be Pakistani or Chinese. Besides, Modi has been in politics since the age of 8 and is used to entitlement. He will give speeches but nothing will change.

Forget the differences, focus on the similarities.

"Is Modi 2019 a done deal?" asks Chetan Bhagat, meaning is his victory assured in the general elections in 2019. He concludes that barring some catastrophic event no one can stop Modi winning comfortably. The Congress does not listen to people. "Rahul Gandhi doesn't inspire India's youth." "Regional parties, which came into being when national parties ignored a particular state, seem to be losing some relevance, at least in a few places." Why has India changed? "The great battle that took place on our peninsula was not between the natives and our colonial overlords, but between a new way of thinking and an old way of existing," wrote Amit Verma. Our early leaders, including Gandhi, were all inspired by liberalism imported from the West, which was inspired by the Enlightenment. This liberalism has been replaced by conservatism with the rise of Narendra Modi. "The biggest manifestation of conservatism in India is what we call the Hindutva right," wrote Verma. However, what is the proof that liberalism is better than conservatism? "It is an escalating global war between rising forces of nationalist populism and the idea of liberal democracy," fulminates Gautam Adhikari. He thinks that these changes "won't survive long amidst the hurricane of change, technological and civilisational, that is buffeting the globe". Perhaps he should look at the world. Properly. Nationalism is rooted in culture and culture makes us completely different. Bengal and Bihar are adjacent states but the people could not be more different. Language, food, music and social customs are so different that they could be on different continents. Only nation and Hinduism are common. Modi is not going to be stopped by angry contempt for the voters, which was classically demonstrated by Hillary Clinton's dismissal of supporters of Donald Trump as "basket of deplorables". The people replied at the ballot box. Some commentators present rational arguments why Modi is not as different as he proclaims himself to be. Ronojoy Sen sees little difference between Modi and the Congress. He has adopted the same pro-poor rhetoric of the Congress, going back to Indira Gandhi, he has given tickets to defectors from other parties, like the Congress, the BJP has rushed to form governments in Goa and Manipur despite having fewer seats than the Congress, and it has appointed partisan governors, like the Congress used to do. Kanti Bajpai gives figures to prove that Modi's boast of 'vikas', meaning development, is a sham. Economic growth is no faster, foreign direct investment just a tad higher, few jobs created and manufacturing actually shrank by 3.7%. Even his program of building toilets is going nowhere, with half the people still defecating out in the open. And, for all his shouting about ending corruption, 114 recently elected BJP MLAs in UP, that is 27% of total BJP MLAs, are facing charges of serious crime. This is what opposition politicians should be pointing out. Sadly there seems to be no one capable of bluffing the people like Modi. For the time being.

Why defend it if it's not working?

India is one of the unhappiest nations on earth, coming in at 122 out of 155 nations. The US is at a respectable 14th place, although it has dropped one place, compared to the last survey. Mortality among white middle-class Americans is increasing. A study by Anne Case and Angus Deaton showed that economic struggles are linked to suicides and alcohol and drug overdoses. Why, when the US is the richest nation on earth? People between 45 and 54 year of age have been hit the hardest as poor job prospects have combined with failing marriages and broken family life to create misery. White non-Hispanic men with an education level of high school or less have been affected the most. Those with 4 year or more of college have not been so affected. Death from drug overdose has soared. In 2015, 52,404 people died of drug overdose, more than the combined mortality of gun related deaths and car accidents. Death from painkillers is the highest but heroin overdose has also increased because it has become cheaper. White Americans have been hit the hardest. Donald Trump has promised to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure but that will not help the middle-class who have been battered by the loss of manufacturing jobs, wrote Ian Bremner. Per capita growth has dropped from 2.3% from 1948-2000, to less than 1% from 2000-2016. Justin Fox quoted Paul Theroux who wrote,"I found towns in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas that looked looked like towns in Zimbabwe, just as overlooked and beleaguered." Angus Deaton found that more than 3 million in the US are having to survive on less than $1.90 per day, the international poverty line, so that "life expectancy in much of Appalachia and the Mississippi  Delta is lower than in Bangladesh or in Nepal". Pretty dire. Not everyone is suffering. Those who are rich are getting richer as stock prices have soared to highs not seen for 20 years, not since the dot-com bubble. This was because of record low interest rates to stimulate economic growth and the bond buying program which increased the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve from $900 billion to $4.5 trillion. The Fed raised interest rate by 25 basis points earlier this month which is seen as the beginning of tightening of monetary policy. One reason for the loss of jobs is that the US had a trade deficit of $502 billion in 2016, which means that it is importing most of the goods it needs. That is weakening the economy, wrote Kimberly Amadeo. You would think that since previous policies have produced these dismal figures Democrats would help Trump try new policies, while ensuring that things do not go out of control. But Democrats have decided to adopt a scorched earth strategy to stop Trump at all costs. Not much different from our lot, are they?

We can have one or the other, cannot have both.

"Is a tighter monetary policy on the cards?" ask Joshi and Deshpande. What they are asking is whether the Reserve Bank will keep interest rate high to control inflation. Inflation is a sustained rise in prices which hurts consumers and reduces the buying power of the currency, thereby hurting savers by reducing the value of the money they have saved. Prices may rise when demand is more than supply or when the input cost, that is the cost of raw materials and energy, rise. Most advanced economies target an inflation rate of 2% after New Zealand adopted it in 1989. What is more important to us is that the Federal Reserve in the US also targets a rate of 2%, although some economists have argued for a higher target of 4%, while the Reserve Bank of India has set a target of 4%, plus minus 2%, which means it can vary in a wide range of 2-6%. This means that the rupee is able buy less than the dollar every year. One dollar bought Rs 7.5 in 1966 but it has gradually increased to around Rs 65 today, briefly falling to around Rs 40 in 2007. So what? The problem is that most imports, especially oil and gold, are valued in dollars and a fall in the value of the rupee immediately causes a jump in prices. Politicians are sensitive to high prices because they hurt the poor and lose elections. But people use a wide variety of goods and services, so which prices to monitor? There is wholesale price inflation, which is cost before goods reach the consumer, there is consumer price index, which is the value of goods and services we buy, and there is core inflation, which is based on what we pay, minus food and fuel, which are very volatile. So how to keep prices under control? The RBI watches consumer prices, raising interest rate when prices rise and lowering it when they fall. In February, the RBI kept the interest rate at 6.25%, when everyone expected it to be lowered because CPI had fallen to 3.17%. Analysing the RBI's action Salunkhe and Patnaik feel that it was because core inflation remains sticky at 5%. Why? Because services, such as healthcare, education and housing are expensive and the demand for these cannot decrease, wrote Aparna Iyer. A high interest rate is supposed to reduce prices by increasing the cost of borrowing so that demand comes down. Does it work? Karthik Shashidhar argued that interest rate is useless in controlling inflation. High prices may lose elections, but economic growth is equally important. "Consumption spending now comprises 83% of total spending, up from 78% a decade ago." To stimulate growth the government wants to spend more on job creation. It wants low interest rate to be able borrow more. The danger is that if it increases spending prices will rise. Maybe the RBI is warning the government.

The real problem is school going children, not babies.

Although India has improved a lot in recent decades female participation in the labour-force has not increased, finds Professor Stephen Klasen. "Economic growth has been high, averaging 6-7% in the 1990s and 2000s; fertility has fallen substantially; and female education level has risen dramatically, albeit from a low level. In other regions, including Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, similar trends have led to large increases in female participation. Yet National Sample Survey (NSS) data for India show that labour force participation rates of women aged 25-54 (including primary and subsidiary status) have stagnated at about 26-28% in urban areas, and fallen substantially from 57% to 44% in rural areas, between 1987 and 2011." In fact, Indian women are actually leaving the workforce, with female participation dropping from 37% in 2005 to 27% in 2014, wrote Harry Stevens. Why? Childcare, unhelpful in laws, and social stigma would have been worse earlier. It maybe because of increase in husband's income and social schemes, such as MGNREGA. A study by Professor Sumit Agarwal et al found that MGNREGA encouraged men to drop out of factory jobs, so it must be supporting rural women to stay at home. Adding to this confusion the parliament has passed a bill to increase maternity leave, presumably paid, from 12 to 26 weeks, and forces companies to establish a creche if it has more than 30 women workers. So is it going to increase the number of women in the workforce by reducing the responsibilities of childcare or will it deter companies from employing women? When such a law was passed in Chile companies responded by reducing salaries of women by 9 to 20%, in Spain companies cut the number of female employees, while in Scandinavian countries female employment increased, but only part time. Nidhi Gupta and Priya Ravichandran argue that although the bill only benefits 10% of women, who work in the organized sector, it is still a good thing because it helps companies to achieve gender diversity. This will enormously increase inequality by helping highly paid women in senior positions, leaving poor women to struggle. How many women can afford to build a nursery next to her own office like Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, did? However, all this may become moot if 69% of jobs are lost by 2050, as predicted by the World Bank. But it is not just babies. With nuclear families someone has to stay at home to receive children when they return from school. Schools should work during normal working hours of 9AM to 5PM, with no vacations. Teachers and students would be allowed holidays in between in staggered fashion. Teachers are highly unionised and politicians will not dare to tackle them, So the problem will not be resolved.

Collective punishment protects the guilty.

Vodafone and Idea Cellular are to merge. The new entity will have 400 million customers, generating Rs 816 billion in revenue. The merger will bring down operating costs, reduce debt by sale of assets and, by pooling spectrum, will become number 1 or number 2 in prominent circles. Although it will start off with equal share for both companies, Vodafone will reduce its share to 26% by selling off rest of the shares. Idea will have first rights to buy the shares at an agreed price of Rs 130, otherwise Vodafone will sell them to other buyers. After spending billions of rupees on its operations in India why has Vodafone lost interest? Because it is not making profits as it should. Why? Spectrum costs were too high. said Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone, in an interview. The government auctions spectrum to raise money. However, instead of awarding a combined licence for the whole of India, it has divided the country into circles which are auctioned individually, increasing costs manifold. In 2008, spectrum was allocated at low prices, causing enormous loss to the exchequer. The Supreme Court canceled all 122 licenses in 2012. Collective punishment is common in India. It obviates the need for painstaking investigation to catch the culprit, years, sometimes decades, of court cases, and it protects the guilty by spreading the blame to everyone, including the innocent. No wonder that foreign companies have largely exited the country. Docomo is trying to flee by selling out to Tata but the Reserve Bank is objecting to the method of payment. Demonetization of high value notes was a prime example of such collective punishment. It was proclaimed as a fight against black money and was loudly cheered by the majority of people, who saw it as a bloody nose for the rich. Not one criminal went to jail and the rich managed to launder most of their cash, prompting the government to announce an amnesty scheme. It caused enormous hardship for all citizens, as shown by 74 notifications issued by the government in 50 days. This was Modi's gamble for absolute power. The poor suffered the most but were happy and rewarded Modi with a thumping victory in the assembly elections in UP last month. There are 3 municipalities in Delhi, all of which go to polls on 22 April. The BJP controls all three but Modi has decided that tickets will be denied to all sitting councillors, including honest ones, because of allegations of corruption. Naturally, all of them are incensed and there are discussions of forming a new party to contest against the BJP. Now Aadhar will be mandatory for filing tax returns. So we have to provide fingerprints and iris scans, like criminals, to pay taxes so that Modi can enjoy a life of absolute comfort, with food, residence, travel, utilities, and healthcare provided free for life. No wonder Indians are the saddest people on earth.

Can a Yogi develop Uttar Pradesh for everyone?

Appointing Yogi Adityanath as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh is a retrograde step for the BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wrote an editorial in Mint. Speaking about Muslims, Adityanath apparently said,"In places where there are 10-20% minority population, stray incidents take place. Where there are 20-35% of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35%, there is no place for non-Muslims." Sounds bad. But then, why are Hindus fleeing districts in West Bengal? Writing for Bloomberg, Mihir Sharma scorns the idea of 'love jihad' wherein Muslim boys seduce Hindu girls to turn them into Muslims. "If they convert one Hindu girl, we will convert 100 Muslim girls. If they kill one Hindu, then 100 we too will..." said Adityanath, allowing the crowd to complete the sentence. "Enslaving the families of the Kuffar and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if anyone were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking verses of the Qur'an and the narrations of the Prophet," said Dabiq, a magazine published in English by ISIS. These are Arabs and so understand what is written, which we do not. "Muslims have ruled India for 1100 years. Lacs of Hindus were beheaded. Crores of Hindus were converted into Islam," said Maulana Jhakeer Naik. "It is out of fear that Hindus even today chant: 'Hindu Muslim Bhai Bhai'. This is the strength of Islam." True. If they ruled the country for 1100 years why are Muslims in India so backward that they compare themselves with Dalits. Muslims complain about discrimination but Maulana Wahihuddin denied that there is any. The new state of Telengana has reserved 12% of jobs and places in higher education for Muslims. Muslim rule was not just in India. Genghis Khan established a huge empire stretching right across Europe. This was followed by the Ottoman empire which stretched from the Middle East all over eastern Europe. There are 48 Muslim majority countries in the world but not one is economically as advanced as the US, Europe, Japan, or South Korea. By 2070 Islam will be the largest religion in the world according to Pew Research Center. Why then do they complain of being victims? So what of Adityanath? Turns out that he is popular among Muslims in his constituency of Gorakhpur in eastern UP. Muslims are employed in his ashram and he welcomes anyone with problems. The anger against Adityanath's appointment is because of a hatred of Hindutva by a section of the 'liberal' media. "But there is no contradiction between development and Hindutva, even militant Hindutva of the Yogi Adityanath variety," writes Manas Chakravarty. "Hindutva and capitalist development march hand in hand, until recently in khaki shorts." Even after so much slaughter we Hindus are still thriving. Isn't that strength?

Chinese are concerned about privacy, we remain naked fakirs.

"China's communist government has never shown much concern for the privacy of Chinese citizens. If you have something to hide, the thinking goes, we probably need to know it," writes Adam Minter. "In one form or another, surveillance and monitoring have evolved into a well-honed form of social control." Last year 4,261 people were arrested for 1,886 cases related to cases of theft of personal data, leading to a loss of $13.2 billion. With 700 million people online privacy has become a concern. Alipay, a mobile payments system, forces users to sign an agreement giving perpetual rights to reveal personal details to third parties and 44% of Chinese websites had vulnerable security. Last year an 18 year old girl suffered a fatal heart attack when she discovered that she had lost her personal information and tuition. If Chinese companies want to expand overseas the government has to tighten privacy. What about here in India? The Narendra Modi government is forcing every citizen to acquire a biometric identity card, known as Aadhar, by making it mandatory for buying train or plane tickets, for watching cricket matches and even for school exams. Thus the state is collecting information regarding innocent activities of almost every person in the country. Why? This is the basis of a sinister police state. The Attorney General dared to argue in front of the Supreme Court that the Constitution does not give us any right to privacy. Unfortunately our courts take so long to resolve cases that 99% of people over the age of 18 years have already been coerced into acquiring Aadhar cards. Even if judges decide that Aadhar is detrimental to privacy, politicians and civil servants are unlikely to give up all this information which allows them total control over our lives. Modi wants India to become a cashless society which, along with Aadhar, will open up every detail of our lives to the government. Every article we buy, every move we make by bus, plane, train or taxi, every movie we watch or every meal we eat out will be known to those in power. This would have been a dream to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, the KGB in the Soviet Union and the Stasi in East Germany. Managing big data has many risks, wrote Ernest Davies. Fake news, lack of privacy and lack of accountability are the dangers. Already crucial identity data have been stolen. Our banks are completely open to hacking but deny that they are vulnerable so that they never compensate customers for any loss that they incur due to hacking. Amit Jaju makes recommendations for improving bank security but banks are unlikely to spend money to protect customers. If China had democracy it would be as poor as India, mocked Chinese media. Correct. The Communist Party uses coercion but tries to make the nation rich, our lot masks coercion with handouts. China is rich, we will remain poor.

Is the Union of India protected by too many differences?

"In India we often express legitimate concern about threats to the integrity of the Union, as relating, for instance, to Maoist and regional insurgencies," wrote Professor Vivek Dahejia. "But think for a moment that burgeoning economic, social and other disparities among sub-national regions in large federal states have historically fed secessionist movements at least as much as ideologically or religiously inspired insurgencies." The disparity in wealth between the rich south and west of India, compared to the poor north and east, is just as much a danger as the huge diversity in religion and cultures. The disparity is increasing wrote Chief Economic Adviser, Arvind Subarmanian and others. "Disparities have been strengthening, not weakening, over time. The less developed states are falling behind the richer ones instead of catching up." In the world, poorer countries are catching up with richer countries and poorer Chinese provinces are catching up with richer ones. In India it is the opposite, despite no borders between states and free movement of people. "The average Tamilian today earns four times more than the average Bihari. Just three decades ago, the average person in the then richest state, Maharashtra, earned less than twice the average in the poorest large state, Bihar," wrote Praveen Chakravarty and Dahejia. To get rid of difference in tax rates between states, the government is to introduce the Goods and Services Tax. The expectation is that if land and labor are cheaper in Bihar then industries will move to that state from the richer states, thus making them equal over time. But what if the opposite happens? What if companies find it easier to start business in states which have a large pool of educated workers and rich consumers to buy their products. GST will make it easier for them to transport goods to poorer states, increasing disparity. It was the economic differences between the industrialized north and the agricultural south of the US that resulted in the Civil War in 1861. Perhaps, to prevent any move towards secession freedom of speech is restricted in India. Successive governments have been authoritarian, including those of the left wing Congress, writes Aakar Patel. Indian citizens can be locked up under various repressive laws without due process, and sentences are harsh. Not so. Our courts are extremely loving towards criminals. Sanjeev Nanda received a paltry 2 years sentence for killing 6 people, including 3 policemen, and destroying evidence. Courts regularly allow withdrawal of charges of heinous crimes against politicians. There are so many differences that there is no unified protest. The Union is safe.

Without allies China has limited options.

"The more power China has accumulated, the greater has been its difficulty in gaining allies, underscoring that leadership demands more than brute might," wrote Brahma Chellaney. "Contrast this with the strong network of allies and partners that the US maintains in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere." China used to have a strong influence on Myanmar, but it cannot take the Burmese for granted any longer. China is building an economic corridor through Pakistan, and is also going to station over 100,000 soldiers in Pakistan, making it a vassal state. The other friend is North Korea, but here relations have become prickly of late, with North Korea accusing China of "mean behavior" and "dancing to America's tune", presumably in anger at China's suspension of coal imports from North Korea. There is bad blood between North Korean President Kim Jong Un and China's President Xi Jinping. It was customary for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to pay respect to Beijing but Kim Jong Un has refused to do so, just as Xi Jinping visited South Korea in 2014 but not the North. North Korea is developing new missile technology capable of reaching the US. New US Secretary of State threatened pre-emptive strikes against North Korea to prevent the development of missiles capable of reaching the US but the risks of retaliation with nuclear or chemical weapons is very high. Kim Jong Un executed his uncle and China's friend General Jang Song Thaek in 2013 and on 13 February he got his brother, Kim Jong Nam, killed with a nerve agent, VX, which has been banned as a weapon of mass destruction. This removed any chance of Beijing trying to replace him with his brother and gave warning of the consequences of attacking North Korea. "Despite its exasperation, China's options against the Kim Jong Un regime are limited, given that it does not want the North Korean state to unravel -- a scenario that will result in a reunified and resurgent Korea allied with a US." US troops right on its borders is a nightmare for China. When a tribunal ruled that artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea are illegal, Chinese state media responded by labeling the US and Japan "worrying eunuchs". The Chinese behaved with extreme discourtesy before Xi Jinping's visit to Britain in 2015. When British media reported these incidents the state controlled Global Times described the British media as "reckless gossip fiends and barbarians". Chellaney described how Chinese aid for infrastructure projects turn into debt traps for China to blackmail the receiving nations. The biggest headache for China will be if Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un come to an agreement allowing the US to invest in North Korea in return for a halt to its nuclear and weapons programs. That will bring Americans right up to its border. What will it do then? Attack North Korea? 

Our poor are better off than US poor. Can we relax now?

"Is Mississippi worse off than Bangladesh?" asks Justin Fox for Bloomberg. Paul Theroux wrote,"I found towns in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas that looked like towns in Zimbabwe, just as overlooked and beleaguered." To which Annie Lowrey replied,"The state of Mississippi, the poorest in the country generates about $30,000 of goods and services per person every year. In Zimbabwe, that number is $1,700." If that is so why are 3 million people in the US getting by on incomes of less than $1.90 per day, the international poverty line? The difference is that rural people in poor countries do not pay rent and spend very little on transport and childcare, which are making life a misery for the poor in the US. So poor people in poor countries are better off than the poor in the US. One photographer spent months taking pictures of the poverty in Florida, showing homes in disrepair. The Federal Reserve believes in the wealth effect of rising asset prices, so they keep interest rate as low as possible to encourage consumer spending, wrote Barry Ritholtz. "The rule of thumb has been that for every $1 increase in a household's equity wealth, spending increased 2 cents to 4 cents. For residential real estate, the increase is even greater: consumer spending increases 9 cents to 15 cents (depending on the study you use) for every dollar of gain." Trouble is that equity ownership is highly uneven so low interest rates result in asset price bubbles and increased poverty. Rise in real estate prices result in higher rents which is stopping young people in the US from moving out of their parental homes. In 2014, 32.1% of people between 18 and 34 years of age were living with their parents, compared to 23% in 2000, because of a lack of jobs and high education loans, said a report from Pew Research Center. "The loss of manufacturing jobs over the past generation has taken a particularly heavy toll in the United States," writes Ian Bremmer. Per capita growth in the US has dropped from 2.3% per year from 1948-2000, to less than 1% per year from 2000-2016. "A 2015 study conducted by Ball State University found that automation and related factors, not trade, accounted for 88% of lost manufacturing jobs." If that is the case why did the US import $500 billion worth of goods from China in 2015? Chana R Schoeberger wrote that companies are increasing their profits at the cost of workers, which is why living standards are falling. So, what of India? Politicians are boasting about GDP growth rate of 7.1% but this growth is without creating new jobs. Most jobs come from manufacturing but the new Goods and Services Tax rates are so high people will not be able to afford anything. At least we can say that our wretched poor are better off than those in the US. Great.

We belong to our nation. Can anyone belong to a company?

"Why do organizations fail in large numbers?" asks Biju Dominic. In the 1920s the lifespan of a company in the S&P 500 was 75 years, in the 1970s it was 27 years, while now it is down to just 15 years. "In the euphoria of the progress of the global economy or few national economies doing well, we conveniently forget the humongous failure rate of individual organizations. While a few unicorns are created every now and then, we forget that many more companies (some of them world leaders like Nokia) are biting the dust at an alarming rate," he writes. Why so? Companies select the best talent from a pool of applicants, train them rigorously and give each employee well defined responsibilities but still they fail. It is because companies are hierarchical, where power is concentrated at the top, while nation state have moved from monarchy to democracy, "where power was devolved to the individual citizen". Some companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, take advantage of their size to adapt to new market demands, wrote Justin Fox in Bloomberg. While companies have a rigid structure based on the belief that all human beings are rational nation states have come to use behavioral sciences to serve their citizens better. Politicians create a narrative to get their citizens to support their policies, wrote Professor Ricardo Hausmann. But is it always for the good? Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a master at creating false narratives. First he accused officers of the armed forces of plotting a coup, which was thrown out by the courts, wrote Professor Dani Rodrik, and then he accused Fethullah Gulen of masterminding a failed coup. Now he is accusing European countries of being anti-Islam Nazis. Companies are often at the mercy of policies followed by politicians. Successive governments reduced the industrial heartland of the US into, what is known today, as the 'Rust Belt'. The final nail came in 2000 when the Republicans passed a bill giving China 'normal trade relations'. More than 5 million jobs were lost as cheap imports decimated US manufacturing. Hugo Chavez won 3 elections by using Venezuela's oil money for social schemes for the poor. Today its economy has collapsed and people are starving, despite having the largest oil reserves in the world. When companies fail they disappear, as happened to Enron, but a country cannot disappear. People try to survive somehow. Why are people ready to risk their lives in armed forces for nation states but employees do not show the same degree of loyalty, asks Dominic. Because you can get another job but you cannot ditch your country. Politicians never get punished for the harm they do. That is the tragedy.

Why to Europe and the US, why no refugees to China?

After the trauma of Brexit, when Britain voted to exit the European Union, Europeans are celebrating the victory of the center-right Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, in the Netherlands general elections, which took place yesterday. The greatest delight is from the loss of Geert Wilders of the far-right who had campaigned to take the Netherlands out of Europe and stop Muslims from entering the country. However, Wilders has increased his seat count from 15 to 19 while Rutte is losing 10 seats, from 41 down to 31. The biggest loser is the Labour Party which has collapsed from 38 seats in the last parliament to just 9 seats today. The Labour Party paid for being in a coalition with Rutte's party, just as the Liberal Democrats were punished in Britain in the 2015 general elections, when they went down from 57 seats to just 8, for having been in a coalition with the Conservative Party of David Cameron. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's new executive order, temporarily restricting citizens of 6 Middle East countries from travelling to the US, has been blocked by a federal judge in Hawaii. A previous order restricting citizens of 7 countries from visiting the US was blocked by a federal judge in Washington state. This time Iraq was taken off the list. But why do these people want to go the US and not to the rich Gulf countries? Because these countries have closed their borders to Syrian refugees, citing security concerns. Add Iran to the list and you have nations demanding that the US should be secular and welcome refugees, but they will not take in any. In all this cacophony not one liberal has demanded that China should also show some humanity and take some of the burden. China is the second largest economy in the world at nearly $11 trillion, with foreign exchange reserves of over $3 trillion. In 2015 China relaxed its one-child policy, which saw the number of births increase to around 18 million, but that is below replacement level. By 2030 number of people over 60 years of age in China will be 25% of the population, compared to 16% in 2015. By contrast the number of working people, between 15-59, will be 80 million fewer. So, China could do with an injection of young people to improve its demographics. Housing them will not be a problem because there are many ghost cities standing empty where refugees will get instant shelter. So, why are they not clamoring to go to China? Because the Communist Party, which rules China, is openly against Islam. That does not stop this uncivilized nation from helping Pakistan with arms. To get around a comic house arrest Hafiz Saeed has appointed his brother in law as head of JuD. Indian Muslims are also quite explicit in their talk. There can be no peaceful solution, can there?

Would a coin be more accurate?

Indian stock markets rocketed up 1.71% yesterday when the market opened after a long weekend. The Nifty closed at an all time high of 9,087 points while the Sensex closed on 29,442.62, highest since March 2015. A study in the US found that, compared to money market funds, equity values are highest since the dot-com bubble, wrote Bloomberg. Money market assets are at $2.7 trillion, equities are valued at $26 trillion. Most fund managers are bullish on equities, predicting record levels by the end of the year. Stock markets and economic indicators are up in the US, Eurozone and in Japan. In the US unemployment is down, business confidence is up and Purchasing Managers indices are rising. So what is the problem with high share prices? The Bank of International Settlements said that while households have reduced their debts corporations have borrowed more, wrote Anantha Nageswaran. Debt in G-20 countries have gone up by 29% from 2008 to 2016. The International Monetary Fund said that Greek debts are on an "explosive" path. Greek debt may reach 275% of GDP by 2060, warned the IMF. These debt levels are unsustainable. The renminbi will continue to fall, creating problems for the Chinese economy as capital flight increases, and the Eurozone is a bubble, waiting to burst, predicted Nageswaran. Even the US could go into a recession later in the year and the stock market will crash, which will bring down the dollar. Not so says Ajit Ranade who predicts a "dollar winter". As the Federal Reserve increases interest rates capital will flow out of emerging markets back to the US strengthening the dollar. As currencies become weaker there could be a crisis, like the Japanese crisis of 1985 or the East Asian crisis of 1997. The Malaysian ringgit fell in November as Trump won the election and global bond yields rose sharply. Asian currencies will remain under pressure. Not everyone is so pessimistic. Jim O'Neill finds 6 reasons why the global economy is resilient. The US unemployment is down, manufacturing index is rising, there a new orders for manufacturing, Chinese retail spending relative to manufacturing predicts restructuring, the ratio of Chinese retail sales to industrial production is inching higher, South Korean trade has begun to rise and Germany's business climate is improving. The global economy might be growing at 4%, thinks O'Neill. So what of India? All politicians, civil servants and business tycoons in India totally believe in the miraculous benefits of low interest rates. Sadly, both wholesale and retail inflation have gone up in February, which means that the Reserve Bank may not oblige. The stock market is in bubble territory and will fall, thinks Nilesh Jasani. So many experts, so many opinions. Better to toss a coin?

You can't win elections unless you win the poor.

"Women need jobs, not handouts," wrote Lalita Panicker. "The greatest hindrance to women's progress is the perception of their economic worthlessness," she wrote."But for millions of Indian women, the power to negotiate has been denied to them because they don't have the economic wherewithal to do so." Women empowerment means giving them money, which goes to the family, but little in way of giving them skills. All politicians, including women, are to blame, says Panicker. The proportion of women in the workforce has shrunk from 37% in 2005 to 27% in 2014. By 2016 it was down to 24%. As the economy of a poor country grows women tend to drop out of arduous agricultural labor, said Sher Singh Verrick of the ILO. As the economy improves further other avenues open up. The problem is that these types of work are mostly for people with higher education. India does have a lot of women in very powerful positions. They are in the best position to know the skills required in the fast changing business world of today so they should give leadership and collect funds to train women and girls in the skills required. Trouble is that handouts on taxpayer money is free for politicians, cash is very visible and it takes little time to distribute, whereas training women takes a long time and is not visible. Hence, all politicians love handouts. Modi went one step further. He demonetized high value notes to show the poor that he was harming the rich, who have black money. In vindictive delight poor voted for him in droves in the recent assembly elections. In fact, it was the middle class which had to queue up for hours to access their own money from banks, the rich got most of their money laundered. Demonetization is a gimmick that can be carried out only once. The poor may have won him these elections but there are some furious people around. Perhaps, Modi understands that because he said,"Today, the middle class has to bear the greatest burden of taxes, of rules and regulation, and observe social norms. Once the poor begin to carry their own burden, the burdens on the middle class will reduce." Which is pure bull because instead of increasing job opportunities are going to decrease. MJ Akbar waxes lyrical about how Jan Dhan accounts, which are zero balance accounts for the poor, are "the most transformative reform in banking history". It is just another sly tax on the middle class because banks have increased charges to cover the expenses for these accounts. "A handful of banks exploit customers in a repressive financial system and often this is done by forming a cartel, taking advantage of the weak consumer protection architecture in Indian financial system," wrote Tamal Bandopadhyay. Power comes from winning elections and Modi will do anything to win. Women and the poor will get more handouts.

If polls are always wrong, who gains?

"One possible reason opinion and exit polls failed to anticipate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s spectacular performance in the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh was that they couldn't quite figure out how to treat the 2014 general election," writes Karthik Shashidhar. In 2014 the BJP got 40% of the popular vote in UP which gave it 90% of seats in the Lok Sabha, whereas in the 2012 assembly elections it got just 15% of votes, which gave it 50 seats in the assembly. Except News 24 Chanakya, which gave the BJP 285 seats, all the other exit polls predicted a hung assembly. In fact, exit polls got all the 5 states wrong. In Punjab a poll of exit polls, which takes an average of all the polls, gave the Aam Aadmi Party 54 seats, it got just 20. In Goa it made BJP a winner with 18 seats, it came second to Congress with 13, while in Manipur it gave victory to the BJP with 25-31 seats, but it came second to the Congress with 21. So opinion and exit polls got almost all the results wrong. But this is not limited to India. In the presidential election in the US last year every opinion poll gave the election to Hillary Clinton, except USC/LA Times which consistently predicted a victory for Donald Trump. Exit polls predicted Clinton wins in all the vital battleground states of Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania, but Trump won all of them. With just 50 out of a total of 403 seats in the old assembly the BJP should have concentrated on its strongholds to maximize its chances, writes Shashidhar. "Based on the data, however, it appears that the BJP has not followed this strategy. Instead, the party went for a broadbased strengthening across the state, and scored victories even in constituencies where its vote share was in the low single digits in 2012." Trump campaigned in and won counties won by Obama, majority of Clinton's votes came from the heavily populated Democrat states of California, Hawaii and New York.  Clinton got 2.9 million more popular votes than Trump, but could only manage to win 487 counties, less than Obama's 689, to Trump's 2626 counties. Instead of the 2.9 million if Clinton had just 100,000 more votes in key states she would have been president. Clinton's campaign team was so sure of winning Michigan that they did not pay attention to the state, Trump won Michigan by a mere 10,000 votes. Trump not only won the presidency but dragged down ballot Republicans to victory as well. Trump claimed that he campaigned for electoral college votes and would have campaigned differently for popular votes. The pollsters got it wrong in the US in 2016 and in India in 2017. Why? Perhaps, they are not polling a large enough sample across a majority of counties, because of the cost and difficulties involved. Still polls give television channels a chance to increase eyeballs and pundits a chance to show how clever they are. Even if they are always wrong.

Are the 2019 general elections decided already?

Results of elections for assemblies in 5 states were declared yesterday and showed a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in both Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. As the state with the largest population, of nearly 224 million people, UP gets to elect 85 members of parliament, the largest number of all states in India. Bihar comes a distant second with 54 MPs. Out of a total of 403 seats in the UP assembly the BJP won 312, far higher than two-thirds majority. The Congress got a mere 7 seats out of the 105 it contested losing out even in Amethi and Raebareli, which are the parliamentary constituencies of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi respectively. In Uttarakhand, which was a part of UP till 2000, the BJP won 57 out of a total of 70 seats, the ruling Congress got just 11 seats and Chief Minister Harish Rawat lost both the seats he contested. Naturally, all the pundits have gone ballistic, saying that demonetization of high denomination notes had no effect and that Modi is on course to win general elections in 2019. But we need to step back and take a deep breath. 2019 is still far away and "a week is a long time in politics". UP has a habit of throwing out the party in power, so maybe the Congress suffered for tying up with the ruling Samajwadi Party. The Congress wiped out the Akali Dal/BJP combine in Punjab, winning 77 out of 117 seats. Despite accusations of immense corruption against the Badals both father and son have won their seats. In Goa, which had a BJP government, Chief Minister Parsekar along with most of his cabinet lost. The BJP got 13 seats out of 40, the Congress got 17. In Manipur, which the BJP were sure of winning, it got 21 out of 60 seats, the Congress got 28. The BJP could yet form governments in these 2 states by bribing smaller parties and independents but the fact is that it was second to Congress in both. Perhaps the biggest news is the humiliation suffered by Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, who was hoping to become the chief minister of Punjab. His Aam Aadmi Party came a distant second with 20 seats in Punjab and got no seat in Goa. He has done almost nothing for Delhi. The roads are in disrepair, prolonged electricity outages are frequent and there is filth everywhere. This despite a budget of Rs 476 billion for the last financial year. Ruchi Gupta wrote that Kejriwal's claims of working for the poor are just bluff. There maybe come truth in that. The Comptroller and Auditor General reported that AAP spent Rs 287 million in advertisements outside the state of Delhi for no good reason. So what about Modi? Will he be the monarch of India for life? Indira Gandhi won big in elections in 1971 and again in 1980, even after the notorious Emergency. Rajiv Gandhi won a landslide in 1984 but lost his way thereafter. After big victories come big blunders. We wait.

The CIA needs to change, but not the way they think.

Earlier this week WikiLeaks released CIA documents which show that the CIA hacks into smart phones and television sets and makes it appear as if Russians have done it. Writing under the pen name of Alex Finley, a former CIA operative laments changes in the agency's priorities from old fashioned human intelligence to open patrolling with army units to counter terrorism. "Attending soirees and rubbing elbows with international VIPs wasn't how you tracked down terrorists, who hid in hillsides and remote compounds in hostile territories. Chalk marks on a street lamp to signal a meeting; dead drops in a park, filled or emptied after hours traipsing through a bustling city to determine whether you were under surveillance - these techniques now seem obsolete," he writes. "Gone were the days it seemed, of risky brush passes in a heart-pounding, adrenaline-filled four second period when an officer was 'black' - meaning free, just for a moment, from hostile surveillance and able to pass a message to an asset." George Smiley stuff. But the Russian are still practicing these methods. But why is Russia still an enemy, even after the breakup of the Soviet Union? It is because the West continued to treat Russia as a continuation of USSR instead of welcoming it as a friend, wrote Jonathan Marcus. Boris Yeltsin was treated as drunken buffoon by the Clinton Administration, wrote Michael Crowley. The US advised 'shock therapy' and privatization which resulted in a collapse in the economy and the ruble. Clinton expanded NATO into Eastern Europe, which were part of the Comecon alliance earlier. This humiliation resulted in the rise of Vladmir Putin, who has set about making Russia strong again so that it will be taken seriously by the West. Russian tanks are to be armed with 'pterodactyl drones' which can circle 100 meters above the ground for an indefinite period. Russia has developed robots that can pinpoint and kill humans from a distance of 4 miles. It has unveiled a super-nuke missile, named Saturn 2, 2000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The GRU hacked into an app used by the Ukrainian army to fire its howitzer guns. They were able to pinpoint the location of the howitzers so that 80% have been neutralized. Lisa Dickey has been visiting Russia for 30 years and has never seen the people so proud of their nation as under Putin, who enjoys an 82% popularity rating. The biggest danger to the world today is China and not Russia. If a war breaks out in Asia the entire global economy will suffer. Putin will pass one day, but Russia will be there. Does the US intend to have a permanent enemy on the borders of Europe forever? Make friends with Russia, concentrate on China. That is the road to peace.