Everyone an Einstein? Is it possible?

"All political parties have unquestioningly and unthinkingly -- indeed almost reflexively -- adopted communist precepts and principles; whether it's the centrist Congress or the supposedly right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, the most important doctrines of communists and socialists have been accepted. We are all Leftists now," wrote RS Kapoor. Writing about Marxism, Prof D Gupta agreed that "over three fifths of his recommendations in The Communist Manifesto are already in place in most actually existing democracies. Progressive income tax, national central banks, state run communication services, cultivating waste lands, right to work, eradicating town and country differences, providing free education and, finally, banning child labour comprise the bulk of "communist policies" advocated in the Manifesto." "A liberal believes that capitalism can be humanized," wrote H Razer. "A socialist is skeptical about this. A communist doesn't believe it at all." Indian politicians believe that "prosperity is a zero sum game: if somebody gets wealthy, it must be at the expense of others", resulting in perpetual class war, thinks Kapoor. "They know that ressentiment (suppressed envy and hatred) is an emotion far stronger than hope." Hence, "A communist seeks the abolition of property, whether held by the state, private firms and citizens; they want all of us to own everything equally and become our own dictators." Trouble is, there can be only one dictator. Public anger at the enormous difference in wealth maybe dismissed as "mere envy or jealousy", wrote N Smith. "But resentment of the super-rich is not simply envy. It likely has to do with notions of fairness." India is a socialist country and the word 'socialist' was added to the preamble of the Constitution by Indira Gandhi in 1976. Socialism means state control of all means of production. By that definition India is not fully socialist as there is a thriving private sector. But the government still retains control over banks, railways, oil, insurance and minerals, leading to, "Corruption, cronyism, nepotism, investment and divestment based on patronage and not profit. These are what have kept India down," wrote M Kilcoyne. "If you're of Indian descent in the UK you are far more likely to succeed in exams, far more likely to go to university, and far more highly paid, than the rest of the population." The Congress proposes to distribute Rs 6,000 per month to 50 million of the poorest families if elected to power, called NYAY. 'Nyay' means justice. Analysing the scheme Prof VA Nageswaran is of the opinion that "the Congress party is delivering a curse to millions of Indian families" through NYAY. Not so, wrote V Kaul. Giving reasons why it will do good, he feels that "basic income scheme is an idea whose time has come". Trouble is some people are hugely intelligent, like Einstein was. Since it is not possible to make everyone an Einstein should Einstein be made stupid by surgery? It can be done, but should we?

A US slipstream could pull us along.

Research by Prof B Eichengreen has shown that a country's economic growth tends to stagnate when "average incomes are either around $11,000 or $15,000 a year. This is the famous middle income trap," wrote N Rajadhyaksha. "The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that average incomes in China will be $10,098 this year." The initial rapid growth in a poor country is due to rising inputs but the next phase must be based on increasing productivity. China has tried to deal with the problem through financial stimulus which has resulted in fiscal deficit close to 10% of GDP. "Some China bears are convinced that a Minsky Moment is just round the corner." "The China slowdown is an opportunity for India to close the gap." China will be a $14 trillion economy this year and India will be close to $3 trillion, so if we grow 1% faster it could take forever to overtake China unless we undertake economic reforms which push our growth rates up to double digits. But, the Chinese do not play fair. The US is locked in trade negotiations with China over its sly restrictions on US companies, its preference for Chinese companies for state contracts and its blatant theft of intellectual properties. China is expert at making promises and then breaking them as it sees fit. The US is demanding strict enforcement of any deal and the right to retaliate if China tries tricks. China is calculating that President Donald Trump will soften is stance as his re-election in November 2020 comes closer, but if Trump wins next year he could come back harder because he will not stand again. " A high court in Tamil Nadu has lifted a ban on a Chinese app TikTok provided it removes pornography form its contents. "Remember that Indian content creators have always been locked out of the Chinese internet," wrote N Pai. "India can ban TikTok without losing much." There are alternatives but, "On the other hand, ByteDance, on its own admission, loses $500,000 every day it is not available in India. New Delhi must not fritter away the leverage." Do we have the guts? As is usual, China has treated our government with contempt by showing a reduced trade deficit with the mainland, while turning a trade surplus of $3.9 billion with Hong Kong in 2017 to a deficit of $2.7 billion in 2018. "We are amazed at the rise of China but we don't appreciate the role meritocracy has played in in this great miracle," wrote G Das. Meritocracy is a dirty word in India. "China has decent colleges in almost all provinces," wrote SA Aiyer. "By contrast the higher education debate in India is dominated by the provision of quotas for sundry castes." We hope the US wins. That may open doors for us. 

Really enjoy the elections. Lose over 200.

The fourth phase of the general election in India will be held today. 128 million people will be voting to select their representatives out of 961 candidates contesting 72 seats of the Lok Sabha. That is almost the combined population of Germany (83 million) and Spain (47 million). "It's clear from the North to the South, money power influences Indian democracy the most," wrote S Shekhar. A party worker campaigning in a village near Varanasi, Prime Minister Modi's constituency, was told by a woman that he would have to pay if he wanted her vote. Since only the rich can pay for votes, 449 members out of 543 in the present Lok Sabha are "millionaires or billionaires". "It's not surprising that until now cash, alcohol and drugs worth about Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion) have been recovered in various raids after the Lok Sabha elections were announced." Since money is the main requirement for victory, spending in these elections "could top $7 billion, making it one of the priciest elections globally", said the Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi. Modi started a scheme for electoral bonds where the donor remains anonymous, apparently to root out black money. Needless to say 92% of funding for Modi's party the BJP is from corporate donations. "The lack of transparency allows conflicts of interest and quid pro quos to flourish," said Milan Vaishnav, who researches the political economy of India. With so many candidates standing the vast majority lose so badly that they forfeit their deposits, wrote B Pradhan. A candidate contesting for a Lok Sabha seat has to deposit Rs 25,000 as security, which is forfeit if he gets less than 1/6th of the total votes cast. "Over 64,000 (76.88%) candidates who contested the Lok Sabha elections from 1951 have lost their security deposit for failing to secure at least one-sixth of the votes polled in the constituencies where they fought the polls," wrote S Joy. The highest was in 1996 when 90.94% lost their deposits. In 2014 the government collected Rs 145.7 million from forfeited security deposits. A large number of candidates stand knowing they are going to lose. These 'small candidates' cause enormous anxiety to the main parties because even a few hundred votes may make a difference in the first-past-the-post system we have. Major parties may put up dummy candidates with the same caste or similar sounding name as opponents. Some small candidates hope to be paid to drop out. However, many contest to enjoy democracy. There are those who lose repeatedly and are known as 'Dhartipakad', which means 'one who clings to the earth', wrote A Ghosh. Kaka Joginder Singh from Bareilly lost 300 times over 30 years and distributed sweets after a defeat. 94 year old Nagarmal Bajoria has lost over 200 elections, including against previous prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Perhaps, these are the true nationalists.

They pronounce judgements from on high.

"A former employee of the Supreme Court has made allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi in an affidavit that she has sent to all the judges in the court," wrote AA Mahaprashasta. The alleged sexual harassment happened on October 10 and 11, 2018. "The woman has since been dismissed from service and seen her whole life fall apart. First, her husband and one of her brothers-in-law -- both employed with the Delhi Police -- were suspended on allegedly frivolous grounds. "Next another brother-in-law who was appointed junior court attendant" "was also dismissed from service without reason." "Finally, she was arrested in a case of bribery in March 2019" but the bribe giver has indicated that "he was not keen to pursue the matter". She says that her legs were chained all night after arrest. A panel consisting of three sitting judges, SA Bobde, NV Ramana and Indira Banerjee, of the Supreme Court was set up. Justice Ramana has been replaced by Justice Indu Malhotra after "trashing" the woman's claims. Suddenly, a lawyer Utsav Bains filed an affidavit that he was approached by a "fixer" who wanted to discredit the Chief Justice. A parallel inquiry, chaired by former justice of the Supreme Court AK Patnaik, "will look into the allegations that disgruntled employees were part of a conspiracy to frame the chief justice in the sexual harassment case". So, the case has already been decided against the complainant and the inquiry is merely to find proof. The response of the CJI to the allegations "showed not just lack of sensitivity, but also of propriety. In his defence, he appeared to cast doubt on her integrity and tried to contrast it with his own, which he sought to establish via the irrelevant example of a modest bank balance". "He went as far as to contend that the complaint was an attack on the judiciary." Despite creation of the inquiry committee, "doubts persist over the committee's legality, over whether it can at all scrutinise allegations made against the CJI, and over whether its composition lacks a moral base in that no external members have been included", wrote S Parthasarathy. "In the legal profession, sexual harassment is rampant. It is extremely difficult for women to come forward," said M Sood. "The question is, should such a thing happen, is there impunity? The answer is, yes," said K Nundy. Both are advocates of the Supreme Court. "That lawyers are generally dishonest is a well-known fact. Lawyers are (frequently) humorously called liars, and because they are the middle-men between judges and litigating public, they act like dishonest brokers," wrote former justice of the Supreme Court Ruma Pal. Relating the case of police falsely implicating a rickshaw-puller in the  rape and murder of a little girl, S Shekhar asked "when will the judicial process become sensitive in a country where 106 incidents of rape take place every day? If the Supreme Court is breaking the law, the answer is 'never'.

How to know when to act?

Last Sunday suicide bombers attacked 3 Christian churches across Sri Lanka and 3 luxury hotels in the capital Colombo. At first 359 people were feared to have died in the blasts but that figure has been revised down to 253. This is perhaps the only 'good mistake' to come out of a tragedy that should and could have been avoided, wherein both the president and the prime minister were not informed about at least 3 warnings from India. Seven suspects are still on the run although 3 of them could be among 15 people, including 6 children, killed in a shootout yesterday. Sri Lankan police are not as incompetent as has been made out in the media. In January, they discovered 100 kg of high powered explosives buried in a coconut farm and arrested 4 people. There are those who argue that poverty is the root cause of terrorism, but here a wealthy family was behind the attacks. 33 year-old Inshaf Ibrahim, who blew himself up in Shangri-La hotel, owned a copper factory. The father Mohamed Ibrahim is a wealthy spice trader. The pregnant wife of one of the brothers detonated a suicide vest, killing her 2 children and 3 policemen. Sri Lanka has a long history of violence. A civil war between Hindu Tamils and the majority Buddhist Sinhalese lasted from 1983 to 2009, when the army vanquished the Tamils by slaughtering over 40,000 civilians and shooting Tamil leader Prabhakaran's wife, daughter and son in cold blood. The 12-year old boy was given some chocolate and then shot at close range. Suicide bombing was invented by the Tamils and used to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Would the army take a similar approach to Muslims remains to be seen. After the Mumbai attacks in 2008, the Multi-Agency Center (MAC) within the Intelligence Bureau was revamped but it missed the suicide bombing at Pulwama in Kashmir in February, which killed 40 soldiers. "On a typical day, the MAC generates 10-15 alerts but when a big event takes place or in a packed election season, the number of alerts can go up to 100,000 per year." Clearly, it would take enormous manpower at great expense to follow up each piece of information, which is impossible, but they do a tremendous job by preventing a a lot of "lone-wolf or ISIS scale attacks within the country". India had warnings of the Mumbai attacks, "But the Indian Navy did not find the intelligence actionable enough and the Mumbai police believed, after the attacks started, that it was witnessing gang warfare, not a terror attack," wrote S Gupta. According to a book published recently, Jesus was a scholar who lived among the Nagas in the east of India and was abducted by a UFO, according to one Chan Thomas. The CIA censored the book for 50 years. Did they classify this as top-secret intelligence?

Pushmepullyou economics. Does it work?

Why is India a poor country? asked M Sabharwal. "India still has poverty because the brilliant politics after 1947 was coupled with nutty economics that sabotaged competition, entrepreneurship and productivity." "Too many Indians work in low productivity geographies (Karnataka has the same GDP as UP with a third of the people), low productivity sectors (50% of our labor force in agriculture only produces 14% of GDP, while IT employs 0.7% of our labor force and produces 8% of GDP)", low-productivity firms and low-productivity skills. Too much regulation with "60,000+ compliance rules, 3,600+ filings, and 5,000+ changes every year" are suffocating the economy. The Congress President Rahul Gandhi announced an income supplement of Rs 6,000 per month to 50 million of the poorest households in India, called NYAY, without increasing taxes or fiscal deficit. In conditional cash transfers (CCT), such Bolsa Familia in Brazil and Prospera in Mexico, payments are linked to children attending school and getting regular health check ups, whereas NYAY is guaranteed, wrote V Thomas. To pay for additional subsidies the economy has to grow at a high rate but, "What's more concerning is the way the RBI is opening the floodgates to liquidity," wrote A Mukherjee. The Reserve Bank (RBI) "has snapped up $10 billion in two auctions in over a month, buying the US currency for reserves and agreeing to reverse the trade in 2022". The RBI buys and sells dollars regularly to stabilise the rupee, which is why our foreign exchange reserves increased to over $400 billion in recent days. Foreign funds invested over Rs 270 billion in our stock market last month. This would tend to make the rupee stronger which would hurt our exports by making them more expensive. So, if the RBI buys and sells dollars anyway why give a commitment to reverse the trade in 2022? How much difference will $10 billion make in a $2.5 trillion economy? Expectations are rising among the young who want jobs "With job security, good pay, benefits", wrote Prof A Banerjee. With enormous disruption expected from Artificial Intelligence a "minimum income guarantee" is essential, to prevent social discord. Superabundant capital has resulted in a new form of business which concentrate on collecting millions of consumers without bothering about profits. They pay little in taxes. The IMF suggested that they should pay a minimum amount of tax to the host country while SA Aiyer suggested a 2-3% on revenues, rather than on profits. India is doing both already. We have a minimum alternative tax on companies that make no profits and taxes on revenue on infrastructure firms, wrote R Jagannathan. Perhaps, that is the problem. Distributing subsidies and increasing liquidity are attempts to increase consumption while putting a lid on creating wealth by imposing too many regulations and taxes. Pushmepullyou economics. Will it work?

What happens if the bubble refuses to pop?

"This stock market boom is nearly 10 years old," wrote Prof VA Nageswaran. And yet, "In general, 84% of companies going for an initial public offering (IPO) lack profits. Ten years ago that figure was 33%. The current profitless share offerings match the situation in ... the year 2000." That was the year when the dot.com bubble peaked and the following year it crashed, wiping $5 trillion of investor wealth. Fearing a market correction later in the year IPOs are being brought forward this year. "Ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft, respectively valued by investment banks at US $120 billion and $15 billion, are to be placed in early 2019 to beat the collapse," Wrote Prof J Colley. "Both are loss makers -- with Uber's losses approaching US $4 billion in 2018 after a US $4.5 billion loss in 2017." If we take technology unicorns, which are start-up companies with valuations of over $1 billion, "11 out of 12 unicorns lack profits". Such is the complacency in the market that, "Mistaking Zoom Technologies, a penny stock, for Zoom the videoconferencing company, investors pushed up the former's share price by nearly 54,000% from $0.005 to $2.70". "Markets tend to undergo manic-depressive cycles" which result in "bull markets, frothiness and and sometimes outright bubbles; eventually however, they overreact to some negative shock by becoming too pessimistic, shedding risk, and forcing a correction or bear market," wrote Prof N Roubini. "Moreover, central banks, particularly the Fed, have become super-dovish again, and this appears to have reversed the tightening of financial conditions that produced the risk-off in late 2018." "The latest Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA ML) survey showed 86% of money managers do not believe that the inversion of the US Treasury yield curve signals an impending recession," wrote Kamat and Jethmalani. Inversion of yield curve occurs when yields on short term bonds are higher than on long term ones, signalling a risk of recession in the short term. However, there are many risks, including, "A potential slowdown in China, trade wars, destabilization in the euro area, central bank liquidity traps and an unexpected rise in inflation were pointed out as the top five risks by asset managers in an Institute of International Finance (IIF) survey." President Donald Trump has been asking US Federal Reserve to reduce its Funds Rate to prevent share prices from dropping. Lose monetary policy "has contributed to social unrest, rising income and wealth inequality and to the rise of authoritarian nationalism in countries around the world by creating real wealth effects but phantom economic recoveries," wrote Nageswaran. The Indian government has appointed a retired civil servant as governor of the Reserve Bank to reduce rates. Industrialists borrowed huge sums at low interest rates which they had no intention of repaying, wrote A Mukherjee. Naturally, crony capitalists contribute generously to crony political parties at election time. Is it really a bubble? Or are the professors wrong? 

It is not as simple as in 2014.

"Thackeray was deep in love with Modi and the "Gujarat model" through 2013-14. However, the unalloyed bhakt has turned a ferocious antagonist, a hard hitting challenger," wrote S Koppikar. He admits that "he fell for Modi's public relations exercise" but "has since woken up to the dangers of the Modi model", thus telling people not to repeat the mistake of 2014, when Modi won on a landslide. Raj Thackeray is the nephew of the founder of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, and founded his own party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), after his cousin Udhav Thackeray, son of Bal, became chief of Shiv Sena. Raj Thackeray's speech is "peppered with video evidence, data, and clever use of Marathi idioms". "Thackeray's pattern is to call out Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for their 'fakery, lies, publicity blitzkrieg, and dictatorial tendencies'". Vinod Tawde of the BJP complained to the Election Commission but it can do nothing because Raj, or his party, is not contesting this election and he does not mention support for any candidate. "Perhaps no other sitting prime minister has scored so low on the popularity charts in Tamil Nadu," wrote AR Venkatachalapathy. "In the hugely popular pro-Jallikattu protests in January 2017, anti-Modi slogans were legion though he had little if anything to do with bullfighting." "Every slight to Tamil pride, every perceived threat to Tamil identity gets associated with Modi." At least a dozen Tamil films with anti-BJP messages have been released. While incumbents regularly get booted out in other states how do political parties hang on to power for decades in Bengal? "Short answer: a giant, octopus-squid whose tentacles reach each household in every village and mohalla," wrote A Barman. This is because of total control of public distribution by the state government. The previous Communist government "monopolised the distribution of fodder, fertiliser, whatever the village could need, through the party". The TMC of Mamata Banerjee has taken over the corrupt system. "What is happening in West Bengal is a systematic debasement and criminalisation of public life," wrote S Dasgupta. "Today, a mood of resignation is also accompanied by a growing sense of shame." If there is a hung parliament, Modi may have to contend with his minister for road transport, highways, shipping, water resources, river development, and Ganga rejuvenation, Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari has no national recognition and though, like Modi, he is a member of the RSS, the organisation is backing Modi. However, if Modi is unable to get a majority, other parties maybe more amenable to a BJP government with Gadkari as prime minister, rather than Modi. In 2014, Modi got 216 seats from 11 states but he may get only 50% from the Hindi belt this time, wrote MK Venu. The election may not end on 23 May with announcement of the results. 

Rs 5 per day, 3 bars of soap and one pair of slippers every year.

As India is in the midst of a general election, with hundreds of experts speculating on which politicians will form the next government and enjoy the riches that come with it, thousands of our fellow citizens are facing starvation in refugee camps in Tripura. These are people of a tribe called the Bru who fled from the adjoining state of Mizoram in 1995 when young Mizos attacked them. "Take immediate steps for distribution of ration, otherwise all the displaced Brus will have to launch a democratic agitation, including a blockade of road and looting of Government relief Godown under the banner of MBDPF," they wrote in a letter. MBDPF stands for 'Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Forum'. At present, government assistance to the Bru consists of "Rs 5 per day and 600 grams of rice to each adult migrant, Rs 2.50 to each minor, three soaps in a year, one pair of slippers every year and a mosquito net in every three years". This is nowhere near the average of Rs 181 per day for 100 days a year under the MGNREGA scheme, or the Rs 6,000 being distributed to all farmers every year by this government, or the Rs 72,000 promise by Mr Rahul Gandhi to 50 million poor families, should the Congress win the election. There is no shortage of food in India as an increase in production and fall in exports has led to low food prices. "Compared with population growth of 14% over the last 10 years, production of pulses, vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs and meat has grown between 40% and 84%," wrote M Nandurkar. Lower food prices are not because of a glut in production but because of low demand, wrote R Kishore. "The latest available data (for 2013) shows that among 177 countries in the FAO's list, India is ranked 137th in food supply per capita, 145th in protein supply per capita and 146th in fat supply per capita." Food prices have dropped globally, so that even in the US, "where farming is extremely mechanised and practiced on very large farms, prices cannot cover the cost of production for important crops such as wheat and cotton". Demand for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), which are articles of daily use is falling in rural areas. Demand for private and commercial vehicles is weak and companies have reduced production to manage inventories. Our steel exports have fallen while imports have increased and household savings fell to 17.2% of GDP in 2017-18. The World Bank has advised India to grow the share of exports in the economy and not depend on domestic demand. Tribal people are ignored by every government, even though they are the original Indians. Perhaps, the Bru could manage with 2 bars of soap and sell one for food while they watch politicians celebrate victory with alligator smiles, thick garlands and sweet laddoos. That is what elections are all about.

It is an unfunny comedy.

As expected, comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidential election in Ukraine yesterday, but what is shocking is that he received nearly 75% of votes cast, humiliating former President, Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky won despite having no policies, except promising to clean up corruption and control the oligarchs. People are so fed up with established political parties that they voted for Zelensky in a deliberate insult to politicians. It is somewhat like the NOTA (none of the above) vote in India, the difference being that politicians in India have made it useless, by making NOTA an invalid vote, while in Ukraine, people were able to show their contempt for all politicians by electing a complete outsider with no experience in politics. Ukraine's economy is expected to grow at around 2.5% this year with inflation at 7-10%, so Zelensky will have to institute structural reforms. After weeks of protests, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was removed from power on 11 April by the military and is now being held in Kobar high-security prison. $351,000, 6 million euros and 5 billion Sudanese pounds were found in his house, stuffed in bags which once held 50 kg of grain. The military council has promised a return to civilian rule but protesters do not believe "remnants" of the old regime. While agreeing to a civilian government the army said "it will hold on to control over the interior and defence ministries", which means the police and the army. Senior officers of the army were complicit in the genocide in Darfur in which over 100,000 people are said to have died. 60 protesters have apparently been killed in the recent protests. Complete handover of power may result in charges against these generals resulting in long prison sentences, as officers in Argentina discovered when they were jailed for crimes committed 40 years back. A similar situation is playing out in Algeria where protesters are demanding a complete regime change, after forcing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to refrain from standing for a fifth term. Algeria's oil wealth was being divided among the military, the higher bureaucracy and some business leaders and people want all of them out. People are still protesting in Tunisia, the birthplace of Arab Spring. "Thousands of Tunisians, including many young men, left the country to join ISIS in Syria, Iraq or Libya; proportionately its militants made up one of the highest percentages of ISIS fighters from the region." The Egyptian parliament has changed the constitution to enable general-turned-politician Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to stay on as president till 2030. Thousands are protesting in Morocco for release of those who had protested earlier. Perhaps, electing a comedian is best. At least he can make people laugh, while they are crying. 

Can so much division be good?

One man in Uttar Pradesh chopped off the index finger of his left hand after mistakenly voting for the BJP, which is the party of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he wanted to vote for the BSP, which was formed as a party for lower caste Hindus and is led by Ms Mayawati. Ms Mayawati has chosen not to contest these elections but will campaign for an alliance she has formed with SP and RLD. India stopped using paper ballots since electronic voting machines (EVMs) were first used in assembly elections in 1998. Each political party has been allotted a symbol by the Election Commission of India because large numbers of people are illiterate. So, there is the name of the candidate, the name of the party and the symbol of the party next to each button and the voter is required to press the button of his choice to register his vote. Although BJP and BSP may sound similar the symbol for the BJP is a lotus flower and that for the BSP is an elephant so even a totally illiterate person should have no trouble distinguishing the two. The alarming thing is that he chopped his finger in disgust, showing how divided our society is. Anger is not limited to supporters of the BSP. BJP candidate Pragya Thakur created a storm when she said that Hemant Karkare was killed because she had cursed him. Thakur was charged with terrorism after a bomb hidden in a scooter went off in Malegaon in Maharashtra in 2008. Thakur later apologized for her statement but claimed that she had been falsely charged and tortured while in police custody. Karkare was killed in action during the Mumbai terror attack in 2008 and is a hero. Thakur is standing as BJP candidate against Congress leader Digvijay Singh who initially blamed Hindu groups for the killing of Karkare. The other accused, Lt Col PS Purohit was swiftly reinstated in his post by the army, which never accepted his involvement, after being released on bail. India maybe the only nation in the world where politicians seek to gain minority votes by falsely blaming a whole community for terrorist attacks. Then there is the difference between the north of India and the south. The BJP is seen as a party of Hindi speakers and has little presence in the south, except in Karnataka. Far away from India's land borders with Pakistan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh, the south is less concerned with defence matters and has other concerns. People of south India resent being stereotyped as Madrasis by people of the north. Southern states feel that they a smaller share of total tax collections from the center while states like Bihar and UP get more. While patriotic films were very popular in the north, films in Tamil Nadu were anti-establishment and anti-Modi. A country so divided is very difficult to govern. On the other hand, it can never become a dictatorship. A blessing?

Did he or didn't he, that is the question.

President Donald Trump's approval rating dropped by 3 percentage points to 37 following the publication of the Mueller report, compared to 40% on 15 April. To put it in perspective, the approval rating for the US Congress was 21% on the same day. Attorney General William Barr released a redacted report on 18 April even though such reports are not released. According to the CNN, Trump is guilty of serious crimes but it would be better to let voters decide whether to punish him during his re-election bid next year, rather than trying to impeach him, because Republicans are so terrified of his base that they will vote against it. "Mueller's depiction is of a President unfit for any traditional concept of his office -- covering up, lying, dangling pardons, trampling constitutional norms and viewing his campaign as an 'infomercial' for his businesses casts an indelible stain on his administration." "Realistically, Democrats may be unwilling to pay the price of an impeachment investigation" because "most voters have little stomach for House impeachment hearings and would prefer to concentrate on an electoral remedy on Trump's transgressions". Or they may not. CNN has been known to be against Republicans and has been accused of publishing 'fake news' by Donald Trump. Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign but "chose not to make any formal conclusions about whether Trump obstructed justice". "Mueller looked into 11 separate patterns of conduct as part of the investigation into obstruction, including Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey; efforts pressuring Jeff Sessions, the previous attorney general, to reverse his recusal from the investigation; and Trump's efforts to fire Mueller himself." James Comey is a narcissist who definitely interfered with the presidential election in 2016 when he suddenly announced an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails in October, just days before the election. Previously, in July he had decided that Clinton would not be charged but had been "extremely careless". The FBI is an investigative agency and, as its director, his job was to pass on his findings to the Justice Department and not make a theater out of it. Mueller's ego seems to have been hurt by Trump's desire to fire him because he wrote that "under the law someone can be guilty of obstruction of justice even in the absence of an underlying crime". Elections are still 18 months away and by that time all this will be old news even if Democrats try to milk it by way of endless hearings. The economy picked up in the first quarter of this year with higher retail sales and lower unemployment. Stockton in California is to start a program of universal basic income. This is the state that Hillary Clinton won 4.3 million votes in 2016. Economy versus socialism, it could be very interesting.  

The death of Jet may help other airlines to survive.

So, Jet Airways, India's oldest private airline is dying a slow agonising death as it stopped all flights since yesterday. A catalogue of mistakes by the man who founded the airline, Naresh Goyal, such as buying loss making Air Sahara in 2007 and losing seat capacity by buying smaller planes, along with the misfortune of rising oil prices with a falling rupee sounded the death knell for the airline. Jet was struggling with debts of $1.2 billion and could not find a buyer who would bring in new capital or persuade its lenders to lend more money to keep its operations going. Between 2011 and 2013 banks, especially those in the public sector, were lending money to companies without caring whether they would be repaid, wrote Unnikrishnan and Kadam. "There was a time (2011-2013) when everyone rushed to give money to corporations, no matter what the credit perception was. Everyone expected a miraculous pick-up in the economy," said a former banker. As Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Raghuram Rajan forced banks to declare their bad loans and and not to lend to those companies until their loans had been repaid. During the high growth years of 2006-2008 bank lending went up in the belief that growth will continue, so they were unprepared for the crisis of 2008, said Rajan in a written reply to a parliamentary committee. Jet is not the only airline with massive debt. Air India has a debt load of Rs 550 billion but is kept alive by regular transfusion of taxpayer money because it is owned by the government. Which means Air India can resort to unfair competition by reducing ticket prices without fear of failure. It has demanded Rs 90 billion, more than the total debt of Jet, from the government to be able to service loans maturing this year. Politicians see air travel as a luxury, catering to the rich, so they tax it heavily. Also because politicians and civil servants get to fly for free. Passengers have to pay a user service fee to the company running the airport. There is a baggage charge for x-ray screening of baggage.  There is GST on the base price of the ticket, lower for economy than on business class. There is excise duty on aviation fuel levied by the central government in addition to basic customs duty. States add their own taxes on aviation fuel, further raising costs. Compare with zero fuel tax in Germany which is a high tax country. The International Air Transport Association has repeatedly asked the government to reduce taxes on airlines but politicians refuse. Indians are very price sensitive and "the facts seem to suggest that regardless of increasing prosperity, we are still very much bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers", wrote M Sharma. The fall of Jet Airways may help other airlines by increasing prices of tickets. We hope so. 

A swelling middle class.

Expectations are rising among today's young people so that they are unwilling to take mundane jobs, such as frying pakodas for a living, wrote Prof A Banerjee. A rising number of youth who are underemployed "now see themselves as unemployed", while "a rising fraction of jobs offer provident fund contributions, which is a marker of a desirable job". "In a study of young men and women who had signed up for a training program leading to precisely those kinds of jobs, only about half of those who got a job offer accepted, and of those, a third quit within the first few weeks." "The jobs were too unpleasant". "They were from families who could ill-afford this -- about a third of their households owned a fridge -- but they just hated it too much." The professor suggests "a minimum income guarantee" that will stimulate rural consumption and "jump start our stuttering growth process". Rural demand for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) is expected to grow at 11-12%, which is lower than the earlier forecast of 13-14%, and volume growth will be 8.5%-9.5%. A 12% growth is hardly fizzling out. Growth in rural demand slowed because of tighter liquidity due to depressed prices of agricultural products. A government survey in 2015 showed that unemployment rate varied from 0.9% in Gujarat to 10.6% in Himachal Pradesh, 12.5% in Kerala and 19.7% in Tripura. India guarantees compulsory education to all children up to the age of 15 years but children are learning very little, wrote R Banerji. Our children need to learn "different ways of approaching problems, critical thinking and collaborative work". A study by the Azim Premji University said that 5 million men have lost their jobs between 2016 and 2018, but the real worry is that most jobs are being created for uneducated people and least for those with university degrees. The Congress has guaranteed a minimum income of Rs 72,000 for the poorest 50 million families every year. Competition for subsidies will increase our fiscal deficit, wrote R Jagannathan, but V Kaul found that it can only be good for the economy. A minimum income guarantee will increase consumption among the poor but Prof Banerjee does not explain how higher sales of toothpaste and soap will create more jobs. Using possession of cars and two-wheelers as parameters, India's middle class would be around 40% of the population and, at 13.7%, the Rural Middle Class is the single largest category, wrote Ramanathan and Ramanathan. Which maybe why young people from these families refuse jobs they do not like. But is that a reason for income guarantee?

AI will be dangerous only if they are designed to be.

Prof Nageswaran and Raghuraman wrote that "Artificial Intelligence (AI) would have to make moral choices in the very near future". "But can humans do a good job of coaching AI to exercise moral choices?" "We rely on heuristics or short-cuts for making decisions, and continue to do so even if we are told that the decisions are sub-optimal." "To top it all various biases plague our choices." "On the morning of 26 September 1983" "Soviet satellites that comprised Russia's early warning system were reporting that five Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) had just been launched from an American base" towards the Soviet Union, wrote R Matthan. The cold war was at its height and, just 3 weeks earlier, the Soviets had shot down a Korean Airlines aircraft killing US Senator Larry McDonald. "It was against this background that Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer at Serpukhov-15 had to take a call." He went with his gut feeling that this was a malfunction and saved the world from a nuclear winter. But, human beings aren't infallible and it is "because of these human frailties that we decided to build automated alternatives that are fairer". At present, AI is extremely easy to fool by 'adversarial attacks', wrote S Samuel. A Tesla car was fooled into changing direction towards oncoming traffic by placing 3 stickers on the road to suggest that the road was veering to the left. By using a 'perturbation image', AI can be made to diagnose a benign mole as malignant. The danger of AI is that it may use any means, not anticipated by its programmers, to arrive at its goal, wrote K Piper. Thus, finding a means of cheating at a video game may not be dangerous but removing human controllers to enhance its capability may appear to be entirely logical to it. "The problem isn't that AI will suddenly decide we all need to die; the problem is that we might give it instructions that are vague or incomplete and that lead to AI following our orders in ways we didn't intend," wrote D Matthews. What if some people are gaining from AI malfunction? They will resist attempts to terminate the program until it is to late. Technology has been evolving alongside human beings, wrote T Chatfield, and this is getting faster. There is a danger of reaching a point of 'Singularity': "a technological point of no return beyond which, it's argued, the evolution of technology will reach a tipping point where self-design and self-improvement take over, cutting humanity permanently out of the loop." If all this is alarming, E Siegel thinks that, "Artificial Intelligence is a fraudulent hoax". AI may not want to conquer the world but rogue nations like China certainly do. A university in China is recruiting students to develop killer robots. These will kill indiscriminately. AI may not be dangerous. Humans certainly are.    

If top economists can't make sense, how can we?

Retail inflation came in at 2.86% in March, compared to 2.57% in February, which is still well below the target set for the Reserve Bank (RBI) of 4%, plus/minus 2%. Food prices comprise nearly half of the prices of all the goods and services used to calculate retail inflation, so a rise of 0.3%, after "five consecutive months of contraction", is not of much concern. Wholesale price inflation (WPI) rose to 3.18% in March, with food inflation at 5.68% and fuel at 5.41%. Oil companies have been asked not to increase prices of fuel in line with the international price of crude oil, as they did before and during assembly elections in Karnataka last year. The bad news is that industrial production grew at only 0.1% in February, with manufacturing declining by 0.3%, compared to a growth of 8.4% in February last year. Capital goods sector declined by 8.8%, compared to a growth of 16.6% last year. If we produce less we will import more. Although exports increased to record level of $331 billion in the last financial year, imports rose to $507.4 billion so that the trade deficit increased to $176.4 billion. If it wasn't for Indians living abroad and sending money to families in India our current account deficit would have shot up. At $79 billion inward remittances are the highest in the world. Our highest trade deficit is with China, at $59.3 billion in 2017. To mollify India about the huge deficit China narrowed the deficit to $57.4 billion, but the trade surplus of $3.9 billion with Hong Kong in 2017 turned into a deficit of $2.7 billion in 2018. So, combining trade with China and Hong Kong our deficit increased from $55.4 billion in 2017 to $60.1 billion in 2018. Our economic growth is too reliant on domestic consumption and unless exports increase substantially India is unlikely to compete with rich countries, said World Bank Chief Economist for South Asia Region Hans Timmer. "At the same time you've seen also of the last couple of years that the current account deficit widened -- an indication that increasingly growth came from the non-tradable sector -- from the domestic sector, and that makes it difficult to export more," he said. To make matters worse, the US is set to "withdraw zero-duty entry for Indian exports under its Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP). wrote SA Aiyer. This will "hit $5.7 billion of Indian exports covering 5,111 tariff lines". "In bilateral GSP talks, US demands were modest." "But the Modi government would not budge an inch." Though the World Bank predicted that India's GDP will expand by 7.5% in 2019-20, IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath expressed doubts about the authenticity of our GDP figures. If inflation is low it means domestic demand is low. Since our economic growth is dependent on domestic consumption how is the GDP growing when demand is falling? Very confusing.

More elderly than children: are robots the answer?

A report form the OECD economics think tank warns that "the middle classes are being 'hollowed out', with declining chances of rising prosperity and growing fears of job insecurity", wrote S Coughlan. In "most of the big economies in Western Europe and North America, the 10% highest earners have increased their income by a third more than middle earners." "In the United States over the past three decades, the top 1% of earners have increased their slice of total annual income from 11% to 20%." Property prices have risen more than income and millennials are in danger of slipping below middle class. This may give rise to "new forms of nationalism, isolationism, populism and protectionism". Last month the US Federal Reserve decided not to increase its Funds rate this year. "The Fed's signal that it will keep interest rates on hold for the full year reflects concern that the economy is slowing, lower energy prices are weighing on inflation and risks from abroad are dimming the outlook," wrote J Smialek. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its forecast for global growth from 3.6% to 3.3% in 2019, but expects it to go back up to 3.6% in 2020. "For the first time in history, there are more elderly people in the world, than young children, according to the United Nations." That means that there will be fewer people paying taxes for the care of the elderly. "There are now 705 million people over-65 on the planet, while those aged 0-4 number about 680 million." In Japan in 2014, "At 21.3 million, the number of registered pet dogs and cats now outnumbers the total number of children under the age of 15, at 16.5 million." It was the baby boom after World War II, along with increase in productivity, that resulted in high growth rates, wrote R Sharma. Now that birth rates are falling a low economic growth rate will be the new normal. The slowdown in global growth is supported by a fall in global debt. According to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the world incurred only $3.3 trillion of debt in 2018, compared to $21 trillion in 2017. Total debt stands at 317% of global GDP. A study claimed that digital technology will destroy 45 million jobs by 2025, but "Productivity gains through digital technologies will help create up to 65 million new jobs during the same timeframe". But, there will not be enough people with the technological knowledge to fill those new jobs. The only way to raise employment levels maybe to encourage companies to spend more on labor than on technology and to grow low-skill, labor-intensive sectors, such as tourism, construction and services, wrote Prof D Rodrik. Let robots look after the elderly, while young people work. That may create a new middle class.

Chinese rates for Mr Das.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das is visiting Washington where he announced a brilliant "out of the box" suggestion that the conventional practice of changing interest rate by 25 basis points needs to be changed. "If easing monetary policy is required but the central bank needs to be cautious in its accommodation, a 10 basis points reduction in the policy rate would perhaps communicate the intent of authorities more clearly than two separate moves -- one on the policy rate, wasting 15 valuable basis points of rate action to rounding off, and the other on the stance, which in a sense, binds future policy action to a pre-committed direction," he said. No it doesn't. The Federal Reserve in the US changed its stance from raising interest rate at least twice in 2019 to no change, because of a softening of the US economy. It also slowed reduction of its balance sheet from $30 billion per month to $15 billion. Chinese interest rates varied from 6.310% to 6.560% to 5.100%, which means that the Chinese central bank does not change rates by 25 basis points. As far as citizens are concerned, what would be the benefit from a 10 basis point change in interest rate? Only the State Bank of India (SBI) has recently committed to linking its lending rate to the repo rate, set by the RBI, but only on short term loans of over Rs 100,000. Banks lend money from savings of depositors. Household savings rate has slumped to 17.2% of GDP in 2017-18, so banks have to offer higher interests to attract depositors which restricts their ability to pass on lending rate changes to customers. Why waste time by changing interest rate by 10 or 5 or 2 basis points? Because it helps the biggest borrower -- the government. By the end of January this year, the government had borrowed Rs 6.34 trillion, which was 121.5% of the budget estimate. Gross borrowing is expected to rise to Rs 7.14 trillion by 2020-21. Total government debt stood at Rs 83.40 trillion on 31 December 2018, of which 83.3% is internal debt. With such astronomical numbers, even a 1 basis point reduction in interest rate helps the government to cut its interest bill. Mr Das is a retired civil servant and was appointed as Chairman of the RBI to help the government, which he has done by reducing the interest rate in February and April. The government borrows money from the market by selling bonds of different duration. Unfortunately, yield on 10-year benchmark bonds rose to 7.5% from 7.42% after the April rate cut. It was slightly softer at 7.409% on 12 April. Mr Das is loyal to the government. The markets are not impressed. 

The empire strikes back.

After 7 years of hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, "Julian Assange, the 47-year old Australia-born founder of Wikileaks, was arrested, forcibly bundled into a police van and brought before a London court on Thursday where he was found guilty of a bail offence and remanded in custody." Assange was allowed to stay at the embassy by the previous President of Ecuador Rafael Correa but is not liked by the present President Lenin Moreno. "The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange," tweeted Correa. "Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget." He will most probably be extradited to the US where he is charged with "conspiring to steal military secrets with Chelsea Manning". "According to the indictment on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist (then Bradley) Chelsea Manning crack the password on US defense department computers." The charge of hacking has been introduced deliberately to deny him any First Amendment defense by claiming that he had published information he had received. The reason for US anger is that, "The most damaging leaks emerged in 2010, beginning with a video showing a US military Apache helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians on a Baghdad street in 2007." US justice system is not ideal. "The rate of wrongful convictions in the United States is estimated to be somewhere between 2 percent and 10 percent," wrote John Grisham. "Can there really be 46,000 to 230,000 innocent people be locked away?" However, US citizens committing crimes abroad, on citizens of other countries, are protected. Lynndie England, the torturer of Abu Ghraib, received a slap on the wrist only because pictures of her depravity were released online. Britain persuaded Peru to release Michaella McCollum, who was caught smuggling 11 kg of cocaine into Peru and who is now looking to make money out of her crime. The actual whistleblower Bradley Manning, who changed his sex to a woman and has become Chelsea Manning, was pardoned by Obama. Supporters of Assange see his behavior as "evidence of vulnerability, rather than of malice and narcissism", wrote R Khatchadourian. Assange's critics see him as "a man with no core beliefs except augmenting his own power". Saint or sinner, Assange will serve time in prison. At least he showed that powerful nations are still committing genocides. Mai Lai was not an isolated incident. 

No harm in nuclear bunkers if they create jobs.

An advertisement for a new residential complex in Delhi promised all the usual amenities, "But then you notice an extra-ordinary feature of this housing project: it offers a nuclear bunker," wrote an incredulous TK Arun. This is clearly an effort to be different from other projects to make it attractive to buyers. "Demand in real estate started declining from 2013. By 2016, it had hit an all time low," wrote AK Sharma. A large portion of the price of any property used to be paid in cash, called black money, to avoid taxes, but now that has become difficult so demand has fallen. Official corruption is still present. "Developers have to seek clearances from multiple departments. They have to ensure compliance with a large number of rules and regulations that may be subject to revisions and pay steep official charges and fees," wrote Tandil and Gandhi. "Speed money and bribes are common in the process leading to cost escalations." This is bad news because construction is source of earning for millions of unskilled labor. "The sector employed over 40 million workforce in 2013, and as per projections, it is slated to employ over 52 million workforce by 2017 and 67 million workforce by 2022." This means it will "generate over 15 million jobs over the next five years". "Over 80 percent of the employment real estate and construction constitutes minimally skilled workforce" which provides a means of escape for farmers if crops fail. From 2016 to 2018, 45% of new jobs were for people educated up to Class 5, 26% were for those who studied up to Class 6-9, 12% for those who studied up to Class 10-12 and less than 6% for graduates and above, wrote M Vyas. "There were 48 million self-employed people as of late 2018." "The quality of work of most self-employed persons is so poor that they do not even consider themselves to be employed. Neither do the daily wage laborers or agricultural workers." Education does not seem to confer any advantage. People surviving on subsistence level earnings feel especially aggrieved when they compare with government employees. "Although somewhat dated, a World Bank survey revealed that average annual salary of a government employee in the UK during 1995-2000 was 1.4 times the average British citizen's income. This ratio in Indonesia was 1, China 1.2, the US 1.4, South Korea 1.5, Argentina 1.9, Singapore 2.9, and Malaysia 2.9. For India, it was 4.8 times the average income of the Indian citizen," wrote R Dayal. A candidate for a bye-election in Tamil Nadu J Mohanraj has declared assets worth Rs 1.76 trillion and debts worth Rs 4 trillion to draw attention to corruption in government. Nuclear bunkers may well be needed if the jobless get angry. 

Too much of anything is not good.

"India's population grew at 1.2% a year between 2010 and 2019, marginally higher than the global average of 1.1% a year in this period, but more than double China's 0.5% a year, according to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) State of the World Population 2018 report." India is not alone. There has been a baby boom in the developing world, with Niger recording the highest fertility rate, whereas fertility has fallen steeply in developed countries. Developed countries are never going to achieve economic growth rates of the "postwar miracle years, when growth was boosted by expanding populations, rising productivity and exploding debt", wrote R Sharma. With falling fertility, growth will remain subdued, which may not be a bad thing because fewer people means low unemployment and high GDP per capita. Rapid population growth should stimulate high rates of economic growth in poorer countries but report from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said that poverty levels in Africa will remain the same because development will not keep up with population growth. UNFPA report also suggested that "The shrinking size of families in India contributed to India's economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s". In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus predicted that population growth will outstrip food supply, leading to famines. That did not happen as modern methods of farming, with better seeds and refrigeration, resulted in a so much food production that over 2 billion tonnes of food are thrown away each year. Malthus could not see it, but mathematical models suggest that humanity will die off due to climate change if the human population keeps on expanding. In 1348, an epidemic of plague killed millions in Britain. Following this, "Real incomes shot up by 250 percent between 1300 and 1450," said Prof R Tombs. Colonisation of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century, killed so many people, it disturbed earth's climate," said a report by A Koch and colleagues. As agricultural land was taken over by fast growing vegetation it chilled the planet. The worry for politicians is that falling birth rate will mean increasing proportion of old people. With fewer young people paying taxes and more spending on the elderly, economic growth will stop. After decades of discouraging childbirth China is now encouraging people to have more children. Old people in Japan are committing minor crimes to be sentenced to prison where they get free food and company. Reducing population will not improve climate because people will only consume more, wrote L Stone. As for India, "Employment for young people is critical, as is developing public policies for the elderly on pension, services and support, and customised safety nets." The more you divide $2.5 trillion GDP, the less it becomes.

Is anti-incumbency a factor? It did not work in 2009.

The general election in India is starting tomorrow. There is a belief that people tend to vote against the party in power. One study suggested that 'anti-incumbency' is strong in rural populations and in Hindi speaking states, which should be a disadvantage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, but it also says that an incumbent from the BJP has a greater chance of winning than one from Congress. However, the BJP has 267 seats in the present Lok Sabha compared to just 44 for the Congress, so even a smaller percentage of loss could translate to a greater loss of seats for the ruling party. Also, the Congress increased its share of seats from 145 in 2004 to 206 in 2009, even though it was the major party in government, with Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Caste is said to play a very important role in Indian elections but class is also important because parties compete to announce subsidies to show how much they care for the poor. Most people may not understand or care, but the Economic Times has published a scorecard for this government. After an initial spurt, economic growth has tapered in the last two years, but GDP per capita has continued to grow. Total tax collection has increased by 200 basis points as a percentage of GDP and there has been a jump in the number of people filing tax returns. However, direct tax collection will be Rs 500 billion short of the target set in the budget. Retail inflation has been comfortably below the 4% target set by the Reserve Bank. This is largely due to a fall in prices of food, especially vegetables, as growth in production has been much higher than population growth, wrote M Nandurkar. Building of roads increased sharply under this government. Elsewhere, figures are not so good. The government has masked the fiscal deficit by forcing public sector units (PSUs) and the Reserve Bank to pay higher dividends, by not paying the Food Corporation of India for food subsidies and by selling shares of one PSU to another and showing it as revenue. Experts have their own views. Agriculture, manufacturing and services are not creating enough jobs, wrote C Bhagat, while companies are unable to fill vacancies because of lack of requisite skills. Education and skilling will increase employment. "History shows that no country has become a miracle economy -- defined as achieving 7 percent GDP growth for over a decade -- without buoyant exports," wrote SA Aiyer. India failed to stop the US from withdrawing zero tariffs on $5.7 billion worth of exports which will benefit our competitors. To grow our economy to the next level we need a state with a $1 trillion economy, wrote Abraham and Verma. Canary Wharf in London is just over 40 hectares in size and generates 50 billion pounds in business every year. Mumbai port is over 900 hectares and could be developed to produce a greater magnitude of wealth. But, only after winning the election.

This is what they say about us.

"The low-caste-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party, which holds sway among the so-called "backward" castes and Muslims, have decided to contest elections vote-rich Uttar Pradesh state in a rainbow coalition headed by BSP President Mayawati," reported the Associated Press. "In Uttar Pradesh, lower-caste people are 22% of the population, "backward" people are 45%, and 19% are Muslims. The remaining 14% are upper caste." In 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi won an overwhelming 312 seats, out of a total of 404, in assembly elections in UP in 2017. With upper castes comprising just 18-20%, the BJP must have attracted large numbers of voters from backward castes and dalits to relegate the SP to a distant second with 47 seats, while the dalit party BSP came third with just 19 seats. In the last parliamentary elections in 2014, the BJP won 71 seats out of 80 allocated to UP. No one knows how many seats BJP will get in states outside the Hindi belt in elections starting in 3 days, but astrologers, vital for any election in India, are already predicting a victory for Modi. "In his five years as prime minister, Modi has pushed to promote this secular nation of 1.3 billion people and nine major religions -- including about 170 million Muslims -- as a distinctly Hindu state," wrote Emily Schmall for the Miami Herald. Modi is standing from Varanasi where he has "commissioned a grand promenade connecting the sacred Ganges River with the centuries-old Vishwanath temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the god of destruction". His economic record is not stellar, with "unemployment data that showed joblessness had reached its highest level in 45 years, demonetization was a failure and agriculture is suffering. But he has changed the narrative, as "Leaders of the opposition Congress Party, which has stood for secularism since before India's independence, are trying to prove their Hindu credibility." Western media were quick to cast doubt on the success of the Indian Air Force in bombing a Jaish e-Mohammed training camp at Balakot within Pakistan. Satellite images were used to show that all the bombs missed their target and destroyed some local trees. Pakistan is claiming that India is preparing another attack between April 16 and 20. Whether that is an excuse to carry out another terrorist attack on Indian soil in an attempt to influence the elections is something that only the Pakistanis know. From a low in 2013 terrorist attacks within India have been rising, shows a BBC chart. While toilets have been built and domestic gas connections have been provided to millions of poor Indians, rural debt is rising, conviction rates of rapists is still low and the manufacturing sector remains weak. Foreigners seem to know a lot about us. Does it mean India has become important?