What is it that the IMF is not telling us?

The International Monetary Fund has cut its prediction for growth in the global economy from 3.4% to 3.2%. India's growth rate was predicted at 7.5% but the report says," Fiscal consolidation should continue, underpinned by revenue reforms and further reduction in subsidies. Sustaining strong growth over the medium-term will require labour market reforms and dismantling infrastructure bottlenecks, especially in the power sector." Which is another way of saying that government must not exceed its spending target, so that inflation does not rise, the GST bill must be passed, labour laws must be reformed, population must be reduced to cut the subsidy bill and politicians must be stopped from promising free power to win elections. The Purchasing Managers' Index in March was 52.4 and output prices are rising. Core inflation, which does not include volatile food and fuel prices, rose to 4.9%, which means there is an underlying tendency for prices to rise. If the monsoon is good this year it will bring down food prices, which will mean lower retail inflation, but rural consumption will rise pushing up core inflation. It will be interesting to see what the RBI does with the interest rate. A lot will depend on the rupee. If it goes down it will help exports but increase prices of imports, especially oil, which will push up inflation, but if the rupee strengthens imports will become cheaper which means the Prime Minister's efforts of 'Make in India' will be that much harder. The strength of the rupee denotes its exchange rate against the dollar, which depends on what the Federal Reserve does with interest rate in the US. China has been gradually devaluing the yuan against the dollar, to protect its exports, and the Fed has been restrained for fear of upsetting China. The IMF has projected a healthy growth rate of 6.5% for China this year, as it restructures its economy away from investment towards domestic consumption and services. But some believe that China is not rebalancing its economy but is creating another real estate bubble instead. At the moment it is in a 'sweet spot' between bubbles but a hard landing is almost inevitable. Chinese companies are withdrawing their bonds from sales, $7 billion worth of sales were cancelled last month. Yet the level of debt is increasing. The non-financial private sector debt is 205.2% of GDP and the general government debt is 43.5%, for a total of 248.7% of GDP. It was 234.2% of GDP in December 2014. Since the crisis of 2008 non-financial debt has risen by $6.5 billion per day in China. Central banks have run out of ammunition to stimulate growth, prompting some economists to suggest a common currency for the entire world. We have one Greece because of the Euro, imagine 100 Greeces. Things must be pretty desperate if they are discussing fruit-cake ideas. Maybe they are not telling us the whole truth. Oh boy.

Should India trust these seductive whispers?

US Secretary of Defence, Ashton B Carter is in India. But why? Apparently because India and US are strategic partners, locked in an embrace that " will build a bright future that benefits both our nations ". " We share a commitment to important principles, including peaceful resolution of disputes, freedom of navigation and overflight, countering terrorism and a belief that countries should make their own security and economic choices free from coercion and intimidation," he writes. Do we? He should ask his boss, President Barack Obama who saw no difference between terrorist attacks on India, orchestrated by the ISI of Pakistan, and those inside Pakistan, by extreme jihadist groups, in a joint statement with Nawaz Sharif in October 2015. He presumed to lecture India on nuclear weapons, again equating us with Pakistan. Will the US guarantee safety of " navigation and overflight " over artificial islands that China is building in the South China Sea? The US supplied sophisticated military weapons to Pakistan in 2013, is supplying F16 fighter aircraft and has promised to supply attack helicopters to Pakistan, despite repeated attacks on India, originating from Pakistan. So much for being " free from coercion and intimidation ". This is certainly Obama's gratitude for Pakistan handing Osama bin Laden over in 2011 so that he could win re-election in 2012. So why is Secretary Carter filling us with gas? " While in India, I will work to advance our cooperation on aircraft carriers and jet fighter technology, and new agreements for science and technology cooperation," he writes. Aha, now we understand. He wants to sell us outdated aircraft carriers and fighters for huge amounts of cash. Have we not learnt any lessons from the Baku/Admiral Gorshokov/Vikramaditya saga which cost us in excess of $2 billion for a rust bucket of 1988 vintage? The US is building smaller nuclear weapons, raising tensions in the world. Not being prepared for the aftermath of the killing of Gaddafi in Libya was a mistake Obama said recently. It was not a mistake, it was a heinous crime. Not to learn from the chaos precipitated by the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is the act of an imbecile. To unnecessarily invite tension with Russia by instigating an armed coup in Ukraine was also the act of an imbecile. But Obama is no imbecile, although he may think he is too smart. Elected by a combination of black racism and white political correctness he probably wanted to show his relevance by a complete lack of scruples. Mr Carter is " confident that now more than ever, the strategic handshake between the United Sates and India will continue to benefit each of our nations ". God save us. Must never trust the seductive whispers of a forked tongue.

Maybe a dose of 'voodoo economics' is the right medicine.

The Sixth Economic Census shows that the growth in the economy from 2005 to 2013, during the reign of Dr Manmohan Singh, with a D Phil in Economics from Oxford University, did not create regular jobs. In fact, 5 million jobs were actually lost between 2004 and 2010. The share of jobs in non-agricultural establishments fell from 89.18% in 2005 to 82.57% in 2013, which is very bad because a proven way to reduce poverty is to move people out of agriculture into other long term employment. In 2005, 19.54% of rural people were employed in agriculture which increased to 31.01% in 2013 while employment in non-agricultural establishments in rural areas fell from 80.46% to 68.99%. Countries which have reduced poverty have done so by encouraging big enterprises, with high productivity and innovation. In India most enterprises employ less than 5 people. In 1990, 93.41% of establishments had less than 5 workers, accounting for 54.45% of total number of workers. After 23 years the number of establishments employing less than 5 workers has risen to 95.5%, employing 69.52%. Micro and small enterprises provide 84% of employment in manufacturing in India, while in Malaysia it is 27.5% and 24.8% in China. No wonder then that China beats India on every parameter from infrastructure to Human Development Index to medals tally at the Olympics. A lot of the growth that occurred was in the construction sector, which employs mainly daily-wage laborers, and was based on black money generated from a plethora of scams. A combination of very high real estate prices with rising circle rates, which is the market price estimated by the government, has resulted in a slowdown in this industry. In India politicians are always looking to increase taxes to pay for handouts, to win elections. In the US, Ronald Reagan's policy of lower taxes with tighter government spending was derided as 'voodoo economics' but resulted in creation of 20 million jobs and a growth rate of 3.5% of GDP. Reagan inherited a decade of stagflation, that is slow growth with high inflation, but did much better than Obama has done. Median household income shot up 10% under Reagan but has remained flat under Obama and national debt was 53% of GDP while it has grown to 102.7% of GDP under Obama. Reagan had a strong faith in the constitution of the US, which would have made his policies highly moralistic. Our politicians are only interested in self enrichment and continue with failed policies which are keeping the country poor. Ted Cruz, who is campaigning to be the Republican candidate for president, proposes a flat tax of 10% and a reduction in the powers of the Inland Revenue Service. Here the extortion of taxes is such that the tax department has had to refund an excess of Rs 1.17 trillion. Policies to help the poor only increase poverty. The US teaches how to get rich. Will they learn?

The whole world is angry, except those who should be. Why?

India is an unhappy country, coming 118th in the world happiness index. We can see that people are angry by the fatal incidents of road rage everywhere. But how can we be less happy than Somalia at 76, Pakistan at 92 or Palestinian Territories at 108, which are all failed states. Is it because people in these countries are resigned to their fates because everyone, except politicians, army officers and jihadists, is equally poor, while in India society is divided into different layers of prosperity and people feel frustrated because they feel they are being denied their potential? But India is not alone. The whole of the Middle East is in turmoil. There was great elation in 2011 when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the President of Tunisia, scarpered to Saudi Arabia when the country erupted after a street vendor, named Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire. People have become disillusioned with the revolution as corruption has not diminished, there are no jobs and they feel poorer. With nothing to do and no future to look forward to young men in Tunisia are joining ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Al Nusra front. Arab Spring has turned into Arab Winter as Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Syria are in turmoil, Egypt has elected a general as president and Lebanon does not have a president. There is anger all across the Middle East. There is anger in Europe as governments seem paralysed to stop millions of migrants from pouring in. They are worried about becoming minorities in their own countries and consequent loss of culture. Although the US is number 13 in happiness people there are also angry. This was noticed by Donald Trump who has become a big headache for the establishment Republicans. People are worried about the economy, about jobs, about illegal immigrants and about terrorist attacks, especially after San Bernadino. People are angry in Britain as the economy falters and the government tries to balance the budget by cutting social security. Britain will be voting in a referendum on 23 June whether to remain a part of the European Union with both the sides accusing each other of dirty tactics. The Brits are worried about the economy, about immigration from Europe, with the fear of rising crime and the jump in the price of real estate, which is preventing the young from buying their own homes. We Indians are angry because we have no control over our lives. Politicians are elected by a minority of people, based on religious divide, caste or handouts and then impose policies on us, not because it helps the country, but because they want to enhance their own powers by increasing divisions. Thus, the Delhi government is enforcing odd-even rules for men car owners when studies show that it is of no benefit. The Congress is celebrating Muslim votes in Assam by allowing unchecked infiltration from Bangladesh. And honour killings continue in Tamil Nadu, probably in anger against 69% reservation in the state. So much anger will surely explode. What happens then?

If there is not enough water how can there be enough jobs?

The rate of unemployment in rural India is 7.15% and in urban areas it is 9.62%, overall rate in the whole country is 7.97%. Are the goons working for 'syndicates' in Bengal counted as employed? " There are four pillars on which Trinamool Congress is standing, bribes, extortion, syndicates and chit funds. Using these they came to power, and using these they want to stay in power,' said a CPM official. Of course, but will it be any different under the CPM or Congress? Having committed so many crimes the Trinamool has to stay in power somehow, revenge will be swift and bloody it they lose. No wonder, Trinamool MLA Sabyasachi Dutta claimed that his syndicates are providing jobs to thousands of young men, thus sustaining thousands of households. Is it going to get better? Difficult to be optimistic. The fall in the price of oil is causing a lot of Indians to lose their jobs in Gulf countries. Indian colleges just give theoretical knowledge so that students are unprepared for the changing jobs market. We are now in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. India missed out on the previous three, it will be a disaster if we miss out on this one. Artificial intelligence and robotics will change how people work so that only a few, with the right education, will flourish. What a pity that the fees at IIT colleges have been increased from Rs 90,000 to Rs 200,000 per year. This gives an instant advantage to the rich. Politicians insist that students should take loans from banks because they will get high paying jobs once they finish, so repaying will be easy. Will it? Bernie Sanders, a 73 year old Senator with socialist ideas, is drawing large crowds of young people and giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the race to be the Democratic candidate for presidential elections in November. Why are young Americans gravitating towards socialism? Because jobs with good salaries are scarce so that many are struggling to pay off their student loans. Surely colleges in emerging nations are not as expensive as in the US? Fights are breaking out in colleges in South Africa because poor students are finding it increasingly difficult to afford a university education. It will be much worse in India because reservation students will not pay a paisa even if they are extremely rich. There is something very fishy about the published rate of unemployment because 75% of women in India do not work. When it comes to permanent jobs the ratio is one woman for every 4 men. Anyone who can get a job in an IT company tries to get transferred to the US. If nothing at least give birth in the US so that the baby can get US citizenship. The drought in Maharashtra is a warning that there are too many people in India. There can never be enough jobs for so many. Without jobs there will be 'syndicates' everywhere.

How about a tax on genetic inheritance?

Ever since Professor Thomas Piketty wrote his bestseller, 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century', there has been a flood of articles on inequality. The trouble is that pundits use the word 'inequality' when they mean 'poverty'. But they are not the same. After all, a man earning $1 million a year cannot compare with Bill Gates, but is not going to resort to " violence and instability ". An article seeks to make a case for reducing inequality, apparently because it results in economic growth. It gives the usual figures about the effects of poverty on development of children and lauds the socialist policies of Latin America because,"...progressive policies were at the heart of the economic expansion itself: a new generation of better-educated workers entered the labour force, earning higher salaries and reaping the dividends of social spending." If socialist spending was responsible for higher growth should it not be blamed for the recession in Brazil and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, with rising poverty? How do you make everyone economically equal? One way would be to make every beggar a billionaire. But how? Everyone is born, not only in different circumstances, but with different talents and abilities. There is only one Narayan Murthy or one Sundar Pichai, because they are exceptional. So the only way to make everyone equally rich would be to print lots of notes and distribute them equally. That will result in a collapse in the value of the currency, with resulting hyperinflation, and a collapse of the economy. The other way is to reduce the wealth of the rich by taxing them heavily. Communism was a highly idealistic system, where all assets belonged to the state which rewarded citizens according to need, not ability, and created a classless society. It turned out to be a highly brutal system, giving rise to Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and Brother Number One, Pol Pot, among others. People hate being restricted. Even in Stalin's Soviet Union people smuggled Western music into the country, etched on X Ray plates. The Panama Papers show how the wealthy avoid paying taxes by hiding them in tax havens. The Chinese are transferring large sums of money overseas because they are worried about the falling value of the yuan. Finally, many countries in the world levy an inheritance tax in the belief that inheritance creates unfair inequality because it is a windfall gain for beneficiaries, who have not done anything to earn it. So should Mr Mukesh Ambani have been forced to pay crippling taxes when he inherited his father's business? In which case what about Ms Ashwarya Rai? She is rich because of her great beauty.  Beauty cannot be acquired, it is in the genes inherited from parents. So should there be an inheritance tax on genes? And if on Ms Rai, what about geniuses like Einstein or CV Raman? Forcing equality on human beings does not work. Focus on eliminating poverty instead. Honestly.

Local solutions cannot improve global weakness.

Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde thinks that there are political dangers to the global economy. She sees " weak growth, no new jobs, no high inflation, still high debt - all those things that should be low and are still high ". " What we fear is this sort of very new mediocre," she said. Countries need to carry out " structural reforms, fiscal stimulus and monetary policy ". Politicians are reluctant to carry out structural reforms, which maybe painful, and fiscal stimulus may lead to increasing deficit, which is seen as irresponsible, so the entire weight has fallen on monetary policy, which has seen negative interest rates in Japan, Eurozone, Denmark and Switzerland and quantitative easing in the US, the UK, Eurozone and Japan. With virtually no interest to pay average household credit card debt in the US has reached, $7,800, the highest since the recession of 2008. Easy borrowing means that the global real estate market will see investments of over $1 trillion this year. Low interest rates help only those who are credit worthy, which means the rich, while the steep rise in real estate prices means that the poor are unable to buy assets and have to pay increased rent. Which is why Lagarde said that the " cards are stacked against the common man - and woman - in favor of elites ". The US unemployment rate is down to 5% so why is the Federal Reserve holding back from raising rates? Because the global economy, especially that of China, is weak, a large number of people in the US are long term unemployed and wages are stagnant, while stock prices are near all time high and corporate profits are soaring. The global debt has reached over $200 trillion, which is 3 times the size of the entire global economy. China's debt has gone up from $10 trillion to $30 trillion but experts believe that there is no danger of a meltdown like 2008. Trouble is if banks in China and emerging markets have to clean up their books lending will fall, growth will slow down, commodity prices will fall further and we will be in another recession. When Tata announced its intention to sell its loss making business in Britain it sent shock waves around the country with the fear of losing 40,000 jobs. The Business Secretary rushed over to hold talks with the Tata Chairman in Mumbai. Why such panic? Because poor children in Britain are dependent on free food they get in schools and have to starve when schools are closed, during vacations. Why is Tata making such losses in Britain? Because China is dumping steel on other countries at very low prices because there is less demand in its slowing economy. The EU wanted to impose an anti-dumping duty of 66% but David Cameron blocked it because he thought he could increase trade with China. It is so bad that a right wing newspaper is accusing Margaret Thatcher of being responsible. Politicians can focus only on their country, so nothing improves. Unless there is a crisis. 

Why lecture now when they chose to do nothing?

Well known names from the decade of Congress economic disaster have been popping up with advice in recent days. The previous Governor of the Reserve Bank, D Subbarao said that inflation hurts the poor the most and " Cutting interest rates was not necessarily the solution to stimulate investment, there are other constraints." Hear, hear. Strange then that Mr Subbarao was frantically reducing interest rates from 9% in July 2008 to 4.75% in April 2009, when the Congress was running for re-election, even though the average retail inflation was rising from 8.32% in 2008 to 10.83% in 2009. It would rise to 12.11% in 2010 and was 10.92% in 2013 when his term finished, because he started reducing interest rate from April 2012, under pressure from the Congress. He is right when he says that low interest rate alone does not stimulate investment. Companies will not invest in new business unless there is demand for their products and with low consumer confidence demand is likely to be tepid. The interest rate was reduced by 25 basis points to 6.5% yesterday. Some argue that the rate of retail inflation in India is driven mainly by the cost of food, which is dependent on supply, therefore trying to reduce consumer demand by increasing borrowing costs will not bring down the rate of inflation. After all, people must eat to survive. True, but if the cost of other articles of daily use come down then we can better manage the rising cost of food. Rural people spend 54.2% of earnings on food, while urban people spend 36.3%, which means there is considerable benefit to people if other prices are falling. The reason prices of food articles are rising at a slower pace is because prices jumped by 75% in the latter half of 2013. This is known as base effect. The main reason why politicians scream for lower interest rate is because it lowers the cost of borrowing for the government, which is the biggest borrower by far. The estimated borrowing for this financial year is Rs 6 trillion. What is the harm if the government is able to borrow more cheaply? Surely, it would be beneficial if more money is spent on vital infrastructure, such as roads, water and electricity supply, which will increase business, but with elections almost every month it is more likely that the money will be used for handouts to bribe voters, which will increase deficit and reduce growth, as happened with the Congress. Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia writes that corporate investment is getting squeezed because households are saving less, while combined deficit remains high. He recommends a new Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act to discipline government spending. Pity he did not rein in irresponsible spending by the Congress when he was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. Pity there is no apology, only pontificating.

The US and UK benefit from tax evasion, so it will stay.

Leaked documents from a law firm, Mossack Fonseca in Panama, have revealed the names of hundreds of people and firms hiding money through shell companies, created for that purpose. This is not the first time details of secret accounts have been revealed. There was the Luxembourg leak in 2014 and there was a leak of Swiss bank accounts last year. In this case, Mossack Fonseca seems to have taken details of customers like any bank in India, known here as Know Your Customer or KYC. As usual the list does not include any British or American names, so are we to understand that the British and Americans are all angels with halos around their heads? Which is not strange when we see that the most of the tax havens in the world are controlled by Britain or the US, including the City of London and the state of Delaware in the US. There are names of some Indians, including film stars and businessmen, but not a single politician or civil servant. How is that possible? This after all is the land of scams, worth trillions of rupees. Why is it that politicians and civil servants are never exposed? We can only speculate. They maybe hiding their wealth in real estate, in India or abroad, or they may have accounts in the US or UK, which maybe why our government allows Pakistan to send terrorists to kill Indians whenever they feel like, while the US uses drones to freely bomb terrorists in Pakistan. We will never know because they protect themselves behind the shield of the Official Secrets Act. Who decides what is secret? They do. An Indian Prime Minister dies in a foreign country in 1966 shortly after signing a deal with Pakistan, returning all the territory acquired by the sacrifice of our soldiers, and we still do not know the report of his autopsy or the circumstances of his death. Did he actually sign that agreement with Pakistan, or was his signature forged? More than seventy years after he vanished we learn that the Congress has been destroying files related to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Who knows how we have been betrayed time and again. We get no returns for paying taxes. We see our money being used by politicians and civil servants go abroad for junkets, award themselves shameless pay rises and beg for large houses from the government, while distributing our money in handouts, to win elections. It is no wonder that people who have earned their money through talent and hard work, as Mr Amitabh Bacchan, should want to protect it. Why do the US and UK offer tax havens while lecturing the rest of the world? Maybe because it provides huge amounts of funds on which they pay no interest. It helps their own companies to avoid paying taxes. Legally, as Vodafone did when it avoided paying Rs 110 billion in taxes to India. As long as there are taxes there will be people advising on how best to avoid them. We will happily pay taxes if we have power. Till then the cat and mouse game will go on.

Why wait for a nuclear incident? Act now.

During a protest against Islam by far-right activists in Molenbeek in Brussels yesterday a Muslim woman in a burqa was deliberately run over by a car. The passenger even took photos of the woman as she lay on the ground. People are seething after the recent bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a metro train. Molenbeek
is where the Paris bomber, Salah Abdeslam was captured last month. Just a few months back, rallies across Europe were welcoming migrants with great enthusiasm, except Hungary, which has been against them from the beginning. Then reports of rapes started pouring in, beginning with Cologne in Germany, along with terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels and suddenly there is growing anxiety in Europe about the wisdom of allowing in so many migrants. Yesterday's hit and run on an innocent woman will be used as evidence by Muslims who see themselves as victims. Just as Pakistan claims to be a victim of terrorism rather than the planner, organiser and supplier of terror attacks, especially against India. The mystery is not that they keep attacking us, the real mystery is why we let them. We even allowed a bunch of these scoundrels into Pathankot Airbase but, as expected, they denied any proof of their involvement. We should declare Pakistan a terrorist state, cut off all contacts, build a fence along the border, lay land mines along the fence and shoot at anything that moves. The Chinese love them so channel the scum north into China. The trouble is that there are a lot of apologists for terrorists. The UN Commission on the Status of Women has named Israel as the worst offender against women's rights and not Saudi Arabia or Iran, or even China, which are the countries with the highest execution rates, with no exceptions for women. The policy of appeasing terrorists resulted in the Paris and Brussels attacks, because they were allowed to move around without restriction. Authorities are in a bind. They have to try to calm people's fears or else there will be more attacks against Muslims. The European Union was conceived to stop wars between European states by uniting people in a sort of commonwealth with free trade, free movement of people and a common currency in the Eurozone area, which earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. No one foresaw that Jihadists will take advantage of this peaceful union to carry out terror attacks. The trouble is that by trying to minimize crimes by migrants they lose trust of the people who believe rumors spread by social media. Vigilante groups are springing up to stop the inflow of migrants. Each country is looking to its own security, hoping to deflect terrorist rage by being politically correct. If governments do not take collective action it will burn the whole world, like global warming. But elections are more important, until a nuclear attack takes place. That will wake everyone up. Till then we must wait and watch people dying.

Why blame a few bad apples when the entire basket is rotten?

Collapse of a bridge under construction in Kolkata killed 24 and injured over 70 people. It is a relief that hundreds did not die, given the population density in India and especially in Kolkata. Some employees of the company have been charged with murder and others may also face charges. The company constructing the bridge, IVRCL has refused to take any blame, hinting darkly at sabotage. The company owes over Rs 103 billion to a number of banks. The so-called promoter has only 8% equity in IVRCL, which makes him a minority shareholder, so why is he still running the company. It now appears that IVRCL has been blacklisted more than once by government agencies in other states for poor quality work and even death of workers due to negligence. Surely, the Chief Minister would have known about the company's record when she came into office in 2011 and should have terminated its contract. Vijay Mallya, who owes Rs 90 billion to banks, flew out of Delhi Airport with 11 bags and no one saw him. The Enforcement Directorate is now issuing summons after summons for him to appear for questioning. Scary, what? Mallya is not the only one with huge loans, his debt is small compared to what others owe. Mallya is in trouble because he gave personal guarantees to borrow money and he likes to show off his wealth. Couple of years ago rat poison in antibiotics killed 13 women in Chhattisgarh. The doctor was arrested even though he had no means of knowing what the medicines contained. In each case we see some people singled out for blame. Cases drag on for years and after sometime another disaster takes place and people forget the old ones, which drag on through the courts, until eventually they are be thrown out or the accused die of old age. So why waste police time with these charades? Because it allows the real culprits, politicians and civil servants, to avoid blame.  People are arrested, journalists write long articles about them, politicians of all parties rush to avail of the photo opportunity, a few hundred thousand rupees of taxpayer money is distributed to grateful families, while the real culprits go unpunished. Surely, it cannot be that bad? Or can it? One MLA of the Trinamul party stopped blood donation by workers of the CPM Party for the victims of the bridge collapse in Kokata because that might earn the CPM votes in this month's elections. Economists are aware of this tendency by politicians to blame a few 'bad apples' so that no blame attaches to them. The difference is that death is taken seriously in other countries. Maybe, because they have fewer people, while we have too many. Excess of people, zero value. Politicians rule.

Why is our government hostile to taxpayers?

In a chilling letter, reminiscent of brutal feudal barons of yore, the Revenue Secretary in the Finance Ministry has asked the Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Atulesh Jindal to explain the " laxity shown " by field officers in collecting direct, or income, taxes. " The CBDT requested for reduction in BE target which was done. In spite of that it now appears to me that RE target may also not be achieved. If that happens, Board and field functionaries will have to explain why it happened. Responsibility will also have to be fixed," he wrote. Is he asking tax officers to beat up citizens to extract more taxes? What does 'BE' stand for? Blood extraction? Perhaps, His Excellency is worried about financing the humongous jump in salaries of non-productive civil servants by the Seventh Pay Commission. To intimidate citizens it has been decided that anyone earning more than Rs 5 million in a year will have to declare his net worth. Why? If anyone has some property lying around it could be worth Rs hundred million. Is that a crime? He would be paying property tax on it anyway. Even 2 years after the general election in 2014, 105 Lok Sabha MPs, about 20%, are yet to declare their assets, which is supposed to be mandatory before voting takes place. One rule for them and one rule for us, what? Telangana, a state already loaded with a debt of Rs 1.3 trillion, is seeking bank loans to increase salaries of MLAs by 400%. The Delhi Government, formed by the Aam Aadmi Party, which translates to a party for 'ordinary people', has the honor of being first off the block. The Bihari government of Mr Nitish Kumar distributed gifts to MLAs but has no money to pay teachers. Apparently this is for thanksgiving, which is only right because we, the people, are the turkeys. Taxpayers have been ordered to file their total income from interest earned from savings so that a few more rupees maybe wrung out of them. Since banks deduct tax at 10%, if total interest earned exceeds Rs 10,000 in one financial year, it is not possible to hide such income. It is not that the CBDT has collected less tax but it has collected way more than we are supposed to pay, because of the pernicious Tax Deduction at Source, or TDS, policy followed by our government, because it has had to refund Rs 650 billion to taxpayers already. It is such waste of time and money that it beggars belief. Perhaps, the esteemed Secretary has not accounted for the fact that people are paying less tax because those of us who do not work for the government have become poorer because of high inflation and very high indirect taxes. This is reflected in the fact that people are saving less. And if we save less we earn less interest. It is definitely not a government of or by the people, it is not even a government for the people. Isn't it time to stop imitating the British? Be Indian.

Nuclear summit or a collection of duplicitous scoundrels?

A nuclear summit is taking place in Washington, presided over by two of the most duplicitous scoundrels in the world, namely Barack Obama of the US and Xi Jinping of China. They are discussing how to make North Korea stop its nuclear program. Japan and South Korea have reason to be worried about an unstable neighbor, armed with nuclear missiles, who can only be controlled by an aggressive, uncivilized China. Will China apply pressure on North Korea to stop its proliferation activities? Not a chance. China has to be legitimately worried about a collapse of the regime and an uncontrolled influx of refugees but its main concern is a united Korea, with a democratic government in Seoul, an ally of the US, right on its border. It is already talking about preserving regional strategic balance and not upsetting the security interests of any other country which is its doublespeak on missile defense system that the US is thinking of supplying to South Korea. What that means is that they will continue with their aggression by building artificial islands on disputed marine territory, by damming the Brahmaputra River in Tibet to steal our water and by producing nuclear armed multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRV, but do not try to halt their ambition to conquer the world. The summit is being held in the US, the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons on innocent civilians. Is the US going to give up its nuclear weapons? No chance of that either. Obama has authorized the production of B61-12 bombs, with the force of 50,000 tons of TNT, at a cost of $11 billion. Obama quietly signed a nuclear deal with China in 2014 which would supply advanced coolant pumps to make quieter nuclear powered submarines. The argument given was that if the US did not supply the technology some other country would. Which other country is capable of manufacturing nuclear powered submarines, other than Russia? If Putin had wanted to transfer such technology to China would he not have done it already? Putin has shown his contempt for the summit by staying away. Bill Clinton waived sanctions on China in 1998 when China promised to stop helping Pakistan in producing nuclear weapons and to help in persuading Iran to stop enriching uranium. We know how that went. The US has signed a nuclear deal with Iran which does not stop its proliferation and Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has conveniently used the bombing in Lahore as an excuse to avoid questions about his country's proliferation activities. Despite the files of Osama bin Laden showing how the Pakistan army is in cahoots with terrorists why is Obama rewarding it with F16s? Must have made a deal in return for taking out bin Laden to win the 2012 re-election. Is Mr Modi prepared to counter these villains?

Surely, it is the result that matters?

Is the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty responsible for poverty in India? An article seeks to explore the damage this one family has done to India. Nehru may perhaps be forgiven because he became prime minister just after World War II, before which the world was completely different. India had been under occupation for nigh on 1000 years, first by the Moguls and then by the British. The October Revolution in Russia had established the first communist state in the world, with the lofty vision of economic equality for everyone. The Great Depression of 1929 may have reduced confidence in the capitalist model of the US. Gandhi's glorification of poverty has been used as an example for us, though not for politicians and civil servants, who enjoy luxuries that even Americans might envy. But by the time Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966 it would have been apparent that the Soviet model was not working, especially since we had to borrow $5 billion from the IMF in 1982. Certainly, by the time Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister in 1984 he would have seen the Soviet Union was not prospering, the East Asian economies of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were booming and China was embarking on aggressive capitalism, under the guise of 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics'. On 21 May 1991, the day Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, a chartered plane carried the first tranche of gold to London, which was in lieu of $2.2 billion from the IMF to avoid bankruptcy. The economy spurted when PV Narasimha Rao and then Atal Bihari Vajpayee opened parts of the economy to foreign competition. But the Congress gained power in 2004 and again proceeded on a policy of handouts, prescribed by the National Advisory Council, presided over by Ms Sonia Gandhi, who has no knowledge of economics, and consisting of a collection of activists, who prosper from NGOs, and retired bureaucrats, glad for a sinecure. The article says," In the fever swamps of the far right, many people believe that the Nehru-Gandhis deliberately kept India backward in order to nurture a poor and ignorant vote bank. But you need not buy into crackpot theories to make a more prosaic point. Between them, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, who ruled India for 37 of its first 42 years of Independence, presided over one of Asia's great economic flops." Sonia Gandhi took us back a decade. It is not just policies. The Family rules by patronage, which encourages the most servile sycophancy, which leads to poisonous crony capitalism. Thus Ms Sonia Gandhi appointed an unelected Prime Minister who shamelessly observed a destruction of the economy and massive scams, despite boasting of a D Phil in Economics from Oxford. The claim to power by inheritance of this Family has created other clones who follow their example of entitlements, mostly through criminal means. They may not desire poverty, but create it anyhow.

Are they victims because we don't love them enough?

A few days ago bomb attacks on the airport and on a metro train in Brussels killed 32 and injured over 300 people. Three more have died since. The police still have no clue about the identity of the third man at the airport, wearing a hat and a white jacket, whose bomb failed to explode. In November 130 were killed and over 700 injured in simultaneous attacks on a rock concert, a stadium and a cafe in Paris. The signs were there since 2014 but authorities in Europe did not take them seriously. Even Obama called ISIS a 'JV team', which means 'junior university team', in an interview in 2014, when ISIS had just taken over Fallujah. ISIS is making bombs with triacetone triperoxide, which can be made from acetone and hydrogen peroxide, found in nail polish remover and hair bleach. The bombers at Brussels could not fit a fourth suitcase into the taxi which took them to the airport, or else the carnage could have been much worse. Is all this the fault of European colonialism, when they drew lines dividing peoples into different nations according to their own spheres of influence, the divisions generated during the Cold War between Western countries and the Soviet bloc, or the most recent meddling when, in acts of utmost stupidity, both Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were removed? The problem that Europe has is that it is right next door to the Middle East and North Africa, where the terrorists are being trained, while the US is safe across 8,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean. Some think that we should be shedding tears for terror attacks in Baghdad and Istanbul as well as those in Europe. Should we? The President of Turkey, RT Erdogan is a thug who is bombing Kurds, fighting ISIS in Syria, which helps the ISIS, while at the same time allowing NATO aircraft to use Incirlik Air Base to bomb ISIS, which makes Turkey fair game for both ISIS and Kurds. The previous Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki was solely responsible for the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq because of his hatred for Sunnis. It is like asking Indians to sympathise with Pakistanis, killed in terrorist attacks, when the Pakistani Army is training and arming terrorists to kill Indians. Their hatred is such that even after living for 40 years in the US a Pakistani compares Hindus to monkeys. Liberals in India and the West portray terrorists as victims, young people who have been radicalized because we do not love them enough and are not giving them high paying jobs. The danger is that there is going to be a severe backlash as ordinary people, who are normally peaceful, decide to fight back. After all, people still blame Neville Chamberlain for appeasing Hitler. Liberals are outraged if a woman is raped, as everyone should be, but if terrorists do the same they make excuses. Why? If they continue war will engulf the world. They will be responsible.

The dollar as a weapon.

Is trade deficit bad for the US, as Donald Trump claims? Apparently, the US must run a trade deficit with other countries to keep global trade moving, because most trade between nations is priced in dollars. This is known as the Triffin Dilemma, which predicts that there will be boom-bust cycles in the US economy because of having to run a deficit permanently. There have been 12 boom-bust cycles in the US since the 1940s. The most recent one was in 2008, known as the sub-prime crisis, because banks were lending mortgages to people with low incomes who could not service their loans when interest rate started to rise. Banks thought they had hedged their loans through Credit Default Swaps, but the market had become so big that the US government had to bail out firms like AIG.  Interest rate had been kept low because cheap goods from China kept inflation under check and the Chinese bought US treasuries to weaken the yuan, so that Chinese exports stayed cheap. China built up foreign currency reserves of $4 trillion in the process. The result was a huge asset price bubble, resulting in the Great Recession when it collapsed. All this came about because the Republicans voted for permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000, allowing China to become a member of the WTO, which meant that taxes on Chinese goods fell. US companies shifted manufacturing to China, resulting in massive job losses, which is why Donald Trump is ahead in the race for nomination to be the Republican candidate for the presidential election in November. Surely if the US withdraws the dollar from being the main reserve currency for world trade it would not have to run a trade deficit and can rid itself of the Triffin Dilemma once and for all? The dollar gives the US government the power to levy sanctions on other countries, no matter how strong they are, as it has done on Russia, by forbidding banks to trade in dollars with that country. It makes the dollar a formidable weapon to attack and weaken an opponent, without fear of reprisal. That maybe why the US got rid of the gold standard but still has the largest gold reserve in the world. Apparently, countries which want to become world powers, like China and India, are building up reserves of gold while Canada is selling its stocks. However, sanctions may force countries to retaliate in other ways as Russia has done in Syria. Russia's intervention has strengthened Iran, whose sanctions were lifted just recently, so that it threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal. China's economy is so big that the Federal Reserve agreed to help it to weaken the yuan in a secret meeting at the margins of G20. There have been empires in the past, some of which have lasted centuries. The US empire will also end. Whether with an explosion or a whimper remains to be seen.

Can you legislate for kindness?

Why are laws so ineffective in India? Because they are enacted under pressure from activists, without proper analysis and for show, rather than intent. Activists are motivated by a combination of emotion, an urge to do something, even if it is counterproductive, and to make money by forming NGOs. An article on animal cruelty seeks to make an emotional case for tougher laws by mixing up incidents and motives, which led to them. The incident of a politician breaking the leg of a horse, which required amputation to save his life, was an act of extreme cruelty with no mitigating excuse. Killing puppies of stray dogs, while seemingly cruel, may have justifiable reasons. Packs of stray dogs killing children on the streets of India are a common occurrence. This is bound to produce extreme anger in parents and communities. Some people seem to possess an extreme fear of dogs, which may seem irrational, but so is arachnophobia or agoraphobia. But most of the fear is about rabies, because it is 100% fatal. A bite by a stray will need 5 anti-rabies vaccine injections and any bite on the face will need immunoglobulin injections. The total cost could be in excess of Rs 10,000, which may equal two months' earnings for a laborer. Ignorance of the writer is shown by the statement that "Pressures of city life might be pushing people to become less tolerant...", which is completely untrue. Some 50 years back very few people in India kept dogs as pets but now you can see numerous breeds of dogs being taken for walks everywhere. Pet shops have opened on every street and there are long queues at vet surgeries. A breeder in Bengaluru has imported 2 Korean mastiffs from China at the cost of Rs 10 million each. Clearly, he intends to breed them for profit. But if they are from the same litter inbreeding will result in deformities and suffering of subsequent generations. A recent winner at the Crufts dog show caused huge controversy because of her deformed back. The article demands tougher laws in line with western countries but seems ignorant of the fact that unwanted dogs, even healthy ones, are put down. That is infinitely kinder than sterilizing them and leaving them out on the streets, where they are the mercy of the weather and all sorts of harm, from vehicles to other dogs. Wasting taxpayer money on sterilizing and inoculating them is criminal in a country where 30% of children are malnourished. If a pet dog gets a painful illness it is put down so why not strays. Activists should focus on stopping inbreeding, improving standards of veterinary education and condition of kennels, so that owners can go on vacations. We have laws banning bigamy, dowry, bonded labor, gender selection and many others. Stupid laws do not work. Instead reduce the interaction between strays and humans, that is the solution. After all, dogs are not an endangered species.

Are we people or citizens?

Although our Constitution starts with the words," We the people ", it then goes on to promise that " all citizens " will be guaranteed " Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity ". " We the people " is how the US Constitution starts, and Justice has been added to " Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite " of the French Revolution. India has different areas with different languages, customs and cultures which makes it a collection of peoples. Therefore, the word " citizens " was used in the very first sentence to unite all the people, writes a professor. " 'People' and nations everywhere need a good enemy to bond, not good friends. 'Citizenship', on the other hand, proceeds in the reverse direction; it does not seek out enemies, but friends," he writes. Another professor has a different understanding of the Constitution. " The first part is constitutionalism, liberal democracy and a commitment to redistribution," he writes. Actually the original document wanted India to be a " Sovereign Democratic Republic " but Indira Gandhi changed it to " Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic " which allowed her to nationalise banks and raise the top rate of income tax to 98.75%. The economy tanked and India had to borrow from the IMF to survive. She also changed the words " unity of nations " to " unity and integrity of nations ", which allowed her to justify the state of Emergency by accusing her opponents of trying to divide the country. The Constitution we have today is not what the 'Founding Fathers' wrote, granting equality to everyone, but a document tailored to give extra-constitutional rights to certain communities, to divide the people by giving extra privileges to certain sections and to loot public funds in the name of helping the poor. Because all these rights do not come with any demand for duties as citizens. The killing of a dentist in Delhi by slum dwellers neatly sums up how unrestrained rights are dividing people and resulting in murder. Slums are illegal settlements as politicians protect them in the name of helping the poor. They are a means of blatant grabbing land worth billions of rupees. Millions of Bangladeshis have been allowed to infiltrate the country freely in the name of helping minorities. The Constitution is merely a document, which has no value unless properly implemented. It is being used by politicians to increase their own wealth and powers by dividing the people, to win elections. One professor sees a unity of 'citizens' while another seeks to divide the people. No wonder India remains a weak, poor, divided nation.

A bulging wallet gives a feeling of wealth.

Those who make policy and those who advise them probably never go out on to the streets in India. An economist writes that the Rs 1000 note should be withdrawn because no one needs to use such a high value note for daily activities. Instead, these notes are used by criminals for shifting large sums of money, for not paying income tax by hiding real incomes and to buy votes by crooked politicians. In fact, an Indian housewife should never need a note higher than Rs 250 in value. How has he arrived at such a magical figure? By maths. The $100 note is 0.25% of US per capita income, so on that basis, and adjusting for Purchasing Power Parity, he has arrived Rs 250. This has been described as 'mathiness' by another economist. Instead he should have asked his maid or driver how often they use a Rs 1000 note. Buying fruits and vegetables for a family of four for one week will cost a better part of Rs 500 and buying rice, atta, dals, cooking oil and washing powder will cost Rs 1000. There are only 21.1 million credit cards in India in a population of 1250 million, who spent a total of Rs 1.9 trillion in the last financial year, while there are 553 million debit cards, who spent Rs 1.2 trillion, which is much less per card. These spends are probably driven by online shopping and could drop precipitously if state governments impose taxes on e-commerce, driving up prices. You have to pay annual fees to banks for cards whereas cash is free. The inflation rate in the US was 1% last year, while retail inflation in India was 5.1% in February. This means that the rupee is losing its buying power every month and should fall in value against the dollar. The rupee is being propped up by remittances by Indians living abroad and by foreign investors who have bought $257 billion worth of equities and $51 billion worth of debt, for a total of $308 billion. If even a fraction of this is sold the rupee will drop, which will push up the price of imports, especially fuel, and add to prices. If that happens even Rs 1000 may not be enough for weekly shopping. India's economy is dependent on cash transactions as the Finance Minister has acknowledged. The informal economy provides employment to 400 million people, which is 90% of the workforce, and generates $780 billion, which is 40% of official GDP. Only 3% of people pay income tax and then have to file tax returns to claim refunds. Rs 650 billion has already been refunded this year. Imagine an army of tax officers, earning huge salaries and perks, engaged in refunding taxes. What a waste of public money. If you add another 400 million to this the whole system will collapse. Fortunately, it costs much less to print a Rs 1000 note than to print notes of smaller value and the RBI earns seigneurage from printing notes. We feel rich with bulging wallets, not plastic.

Will depopulation be good or bad for the world?

Ruchir Sharma, Head of Emerging Markets Equity at Morgan Stanley, writes that the next population bomb will be one of depopulation, and not one of ever rising number of people resulting in famine, as predicted by Thomas Malthus. The working-age population was growing at 2% in the post-war years up to 2005 but has fallen to 1% this year. This will cut long term global GDP growth rate from 3.5% to 2.5% and that of emerging economies from 4% to 3%. He admits that rapid population growth can lead to economic growth only if politicians create the right conditions. What about India? Our population is growing at less than 1.5% per year, which seems low, but the fertility rate per woman is 2.5, which is higher than the replacement level of 2.1 per woman. Everyday 68,922 people are turning 25 years of age, that is 2.1 million per month. By 2025, 690 million Indians will be below the age of 25 years, which will be more than the combined populations of the USA, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Australia. But so many young people will demand jobs, without which there is no self respect. The Arab Spring was a spontaneous outburst of young people who saw no future to look forward to. In Egypt protesters were demanding jobs and the opportunity to get married. Young men in Tunisia, where the revolution started, are joining ISIS in great numbers because the future looks bleak without any hope of finding jobs. Tunisia has a population of just 11 million, less than that of Delhi. Nobel Prize winner economist, Joseph Stiglitz writes of the difficulties in finding jobs in the US and Europe and the impossibility of owning a home for most young people, burdened with education loans from banks. Politicians stress on the importance of education, but spending money on an expensive education makes sense if there are enough high paying jobs. Not everyone has the ability to become a rocket scientist or a chartered accountant. Technology is seen as the savior. Optimists predict that energy from renewable sources will become almost free. With free energy we can get any amount of water by desalination of sea water. Vertical farms, run by robots, will produce an abundance of food without the need for pesticides, which will make it cheap. But what will people do if most of physical work is taken over by robots? The UN predicts that 1.8 billion people could face a scarcity of water by 2025 as forests are cut down to provide land for farming. Poor countries with high birth rate are most at risk and they may not be able to afford capital intensive technologies. India already has 500 million people drinking arsenic in water. Japan is tackling its falling population by increasing the number of women at work and re-employing retired people. The Middle East, with high birth rate, is perhaps an example of Malthusian catastrophe. Perhaps, the only answer is technology and tax incentives for old people to work.

Why is the Governor talking about traffic lights?

Governor of the Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan is an angry man. Because he is worried. He feels," Our world is facing an increasingly dangerous situation," because after the Great Recession of 2008 governments are following " beggar thy neighbour " policies to divert growth from other countries, instead of undertaking structural reforms, which will " increase competition, foster innovation, drive institutional change ". Central banks, especially of rich countries, have a problem with very low inflation. " They feel that they cannot claim to be out of tools. If all else fails, there is always the 'helicopter drop', whereby the central bank prints money and sprays it on streets to create inflation (more prosaically, it sends a check to every citizen, perhaps more to the poor, who are likelier to spend it). But they can also employ a range of other unconventional tools more aggressively, from asset purchases (so-called quantitative easing) to negative interest rates," he writes. But these policies are ineffective because they either encourage people to save more, keeping the money in banks, or to borrow excessively to accumulate assets, leading to another bubble. What worries him are the 'spillover effects' because such policies depreciate their currencies which is bad for emerging economies. So what is Mr Rajan's solution? There should be another Bretton Woods type agreement wherein,"....policies with few adverse spillovers should be rated 'green'; those that should be used temporarily should be rated 'orange'; and policies that should be avoided at all times would be 'red'." With the greatest respect to Mr Rajan, surely he is being naive. The Congress threw over Rs 3 trillion on the MGNREGA scheme which pays the rural poor for 100 days a year - for doing nothing. A 23.55% jump in the salaries of civil servants dished out by the Seventh Pay Commission will add another Rs 1 trillion to government expenditure. What is wrong in paying civil servants? The government does not even know how many employees it has so a lot of the money is going to 'ghost employees'. Rs 20 billion to be spent on providing free gas connections to 15 million rural households. Another Rs 1 trillion announced today for free rural housing and on increased salaries for civil servants. Rs 1.15 trillion was spent on the Food Security Act in last year's budget. Where is the money to come from? Apart from politicians and civil servants not enough people earn enough to pay income tax so the government goes on increasing service tax and on adding cess, which is a tax on service tax. It is because our government has been dropping 'helicopter money' for years that the retail inflation is at 5.18%, when wholesale prices have fallen 16 months in a row. Which means that monetary policy, which is Mr Rajan's responsibility, has become moot. He cannot do anything to politicians in India, that is why Mr Rajan is angry with others.

If India could have a Donald Trump.

In 1978 China and India had similar living standards. Deng Xiaoping started economic reforms in 1978 whereas India started in 1991 when the Reserve Bank was forced to pledge 67 tonnes of gold to get a loan of $2.2 billion from the IMF. China's real GDP in 2001 was $1.56 trillion which was the same as India's GDP of $1.55 trillion in 2014. Today China's GDP is $10 trillion, which makes it the second richest country in the world, while India's GDP is $2 trillion. What was it that happened in 2000 that made the Chinese economy zoom so high? First, China became a member of the World Trade Organization. India, which is a member of the WTO since its formation in 1995 and was a member of its predecessor, GATT since 1948, allowed China to become a member with nothing in return, while China has repaid that by blocking our entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and will never allow India to become member of the UN Security Council. Nehru actually declined an offer of permanent membership of the UN Security Council in 1953 and suggested China as an alternative, leading to a humiliating defeat by China in 1962. The second event that helped China was when the Republicans passed a resolution to extend permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000. That resulted in a flood of outsourcing of manufacturing to China, resulting in a loss of 2 million jobs in the US, out of a total of 5 million jobs lost in manufacturing. Wages fell by 15% when adjusted for inflation. US imports from China cost $481.9 billion in 2015, while it exported $116.2 billion worth, giving a trade deficit of $365.7 billion. But what no one seems to talk about is that cheap imports from China kept inflation rates low in the US, which lulled the Federal Reserve into keeping interest rate low, resulting in the sub-prime crisis. The interest rate was 6.6% in 100, fell to 1.75% in 2001 and was just 1.00% in 2003 when the crisis was born, as US consumers borrowed like crazy, thinking that the party would last forever. What now? Both countries are chained by their political systems. China is a dictatorship of the Communist Party which has to maintain a high rate of growth to keep people employed and prevent protests. The weakening global economy means China's exports are falling. The government is trying to shift from manufacturing and investment towards consumption but there are doubts about how successful it will be without widespread job losses. Donald Trump promises to bring jobs back from China and robots will allow the US to manufacture cheaply at home. As for India, our growing population means that the workforce will reach 200 million by 2030, while our economy remains shackled by socialism. If only we could have a Donald Trump in India.