Tracking India's development policies

[Double Edge]

Must make a move on Taiwan

Modi’s Taiwan opportunity | IE (op-ed) | May 28 2019

Few issues have animated Modi than the promotion of global access to India’s professional talent. As it turns out, Taiwan has embarked on a big mission to attract skilled workers. With a declining birth rate and growing emigration, Taiwan’s industry, education, and technology development could do with Indian engineers and scientists. At present, there are barely 2,000 Indians working in Taiwan.

There is no shortage of ideas for the transformation of India’s relations with Taiwan. An agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation is one of those. The synergy in human resources provides the basis for massive collaborations between the universities, research institutions and technology enclaves in the two countries.

Hello!

[Oracle]

19.8 tonnes mid-day meal rice seized from ISKCON premises

Unbelievable. Put them in jail for a lifetime.

[Oracle]

US tells India it is mulling caps on H-1B visas to deter data rules

India shouldn't force global companies to store their data in India. This is an absurd policy. Why not ask for access to data instead, make a policy for that, both sides win. Creating unnecessary bottlenecks in the relationship, these South Block bureaucrats never learn.

[Oracle]

US Senator Slams Donald Trump For "Damaging" Trade Ties With "Ally" India

We eat more than USD $650 million worth of Californian almonds every year? And now we're taxing them @ 75%.

[Double Edge]

US Senator Slams Donald Trump For "Damaging" Trade Ties With "Ally" India

We eat more than USD $650 million worth of Californian almonds every year? And now we're taxing them @ 75%.

The truth of the matter is Modi for all his talk about business isn't exactly pro trade. Like Trump he likes exports but not imports.

When India puts sanctions on American products, its a reaction to their reaction to us delaying action on WTO agreements

Trump isn't penalising us for the sake of it, he's doing it because we won't agree in other areas.

Listen to Rick

[Oracle]

The truth of the matter is Modi for all his talk about business isn't exactly pro trade. Like Trump he likes exports but not imports.

When India puts sanctions on American products, its a reaction to their reaction to us delaying action on WTO agreements

Trump isn't penalising us for the sake of it, he's doing it because we won't agree in other areas.

Listen to Rick

Absolutely correct.

I think it's the fear of opening up the economy and China flooding India with Chinese goods. Even without opening up, the Chinese are in an advantageous position. Recently GoI closed a loophole, where-in people from abroad could send a gift item back to India, if it's price is within INR 5000. Alibaba, other Chinese companies took huge advantage of that. Lol. The other thing is when India puts up duty on say Chinese steel, Chinese companies re-routes it through ASEAN countries. India has FTA with ASEAN. So, you see how clever the Chinese is. This is why in RCEP, India wants country of origin labels on products. Again a foolhardy approach, stickers can be changed IN the cargo ship bound for India.

Also, US wants to export chicken legs and animal feed to India among other products. The GoI has said that US feed companies uses animal products (crushed bones for calcium etc) in making animal feed, which would hurt our religious sentiments. I don't understand how religious sentiments are hurt. India has lost a case in WTO against the US on US chicken legs. Millions of Indians own small poultry farms for their livelihood, the government fears that if cheap chicken legs appear in Indian markets, their livelihood would be at risk.

[Oracle]

Trade war takes US apples off shelves, Italy eyes slot

[Double Edge]

Rick's got a nice tracker going here

http://indiareforms.csis.org/

[Oracle]

Rick's got a nice tracker going here

http://indiareforms.csis.org/

Nice.

NIA raids LJP leader’s houses in 4 cities in Bihar

The bill that is about to change your driving habits forever

Very good.

Can a ‘Singapore-like enclave’ bring luxury to India’s most famous slum? Dharavi’s locals don’t want to find out

This will ensure Mumbai gets a much needed facelift.

[Oracle]

Several senior NE militant outfit leaders in Myanmar custody

After Mamata's direction, people across Bengal demand return of 'cut money' from TMC

This has long been going on in Bengal, since the time of the communists. After the communist government fell, ultra-communists (TMC) kept on following the same policy. As if Mamata didn't knew. Winds are changing across Bengal. She's gonna lose big in the next assembly elections.

How Patanjali 'broke' laws to acquire land in Aravalli hills

Patanjali's maze of firms that do shady land dealing in Haryana

For long I held onto a suspicion that there is something fishy with Patanjali. Things are coming out slowly now.

[Double Edge]

Tanvi's being quite blunt here

As Pompeo heads to Delhi, the US-India relationship is at a critical juncture | Brookings | Jun 21 2019

This series of differences—coming as they do together—threatens to overshadow the very real progress in U.S.-India relations in the first couple of years of the Trump administration. They have already reinforced traditional concerns that the two countries have about each other. In the U.S., in some quarters, this includes asking whether the relationship with India is worth it; in India, whether the U.S. is reliable.

Advocates of the relationship and of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept should not be sanguine that structural and strategic factors—particularly convergence resulting from concern about a rising China’s behavior—will naturally keep the divergences from dominating over the convergences. They will have to work hard to ensure that they will not do so.

This will mean the two countries needing to get off their respective high horses and show a willingness to make concessions, find compromises, and strike deals across sectors.

^this

Highly unhelpful, if not, counterproductive is the fact that both sides have forgotten a lesson learned over the last decade and a half—that differences between the two countries are better managed or resolved if they are sorted out behind closed doors. Washington has been particularly guilty of forgetting this over the last few months. Publicly demanding that countries make a certain choice makes it harder for them to make it. In India’s case this means that even though the U.S. has now reportedly offered India options if it doesn’t go through with the S-400 acquisition, the way this has played out publicly makes it harder for Delhi to walk away from this deal, as it has done with others.

The public statements on S-400 or leaks from sources threatening retaliatory caps on H1-B visas (which is a congressional prerogative) reinforce the image that many still hold in India of an America that makes demands of India in terms of policies or purchases, constrains its choices, and does not take its interests into account. It strengthens the hands—and arguments—of those in the establishment who remain skeptical, if not suspicious, of an Indian partnership with the U.S. This sentiment is not just prevalent on India’s left, as a recent speech by the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh made clear. Finally, public pressure muddies independent cost-benefit debates that Indians should be having about the S-400 or telecom policy that have now been framed as making a choice between the U.S. and Russia or the U.S. and China.

India, for its part, cannot complain about American transactionalism, even as Delhi makes plenty of asks too. Moreover, it needs to acknowledge that agreements like LEMOA are not India doing the U.S. a favor—they are in Indian interests, helping it enhance military capability and reach. And, particularly given the slowdown in economic growth, Delhi needs to ask itself whether its current approach to trade and foreign investment is the right one, or whether it can do more to benefit from global engagement (as it has done in the past), and particularly the U.S.-China trade war.

Meanwhile, Indian observers need to resist framing everything as a choice imposed by the U.S. Furthermore, critics cannot first complain about the U.S. not offering India high-end defense equipment and then, when it does offer equipment (often on the Indian government’s request), complain the U.S. is demanding that India buy it. This line has become so engrained that critics dismiss or ignore India’s own concerns about Russian defense companies or Chinese telecommunications companies. They allege, instead, that the U.S. is forcing a choice to benefit its companies, sometimes forgetting that, in many cases, it is European and not American companies that offer the alternatives.

Overall, if the strategic relationship—and the U.S. and India’s Asia strategies—is to endure, the two countries will have to remember that the relationship has been strategically and economically mutually beneficial. They will have to step back from the brinkmanship visible in recent weeks. To some extent, both sides are perhaps behaving this way because there’s a sense that convergence on China—and mutual need for the other in their respective balancing strategies—will make the other side blink.

But history tells us that is not a given. In the years after the 1962 war, there was a similar shared American and Indian view of a China challenge. But their cooperation to tackle that challenge first slowed and then stalled because of American asks (India-Pakistan talks, limiting defense deals with the Soviet Union, economic reform), and India’s inability to deliver on its economic potential. What that led to is limited U.S.-India relations, greater space for China, and increased India dependence—and then overdependence—on the Soviet Union. We should not assume that a similar scenario is impossible today.

[Oracle]

^ I agree. The Trump administration has been quite hard on India, and even NATO countries. They can't ask us openly not to buy the S-400. It makes them look like an entitled child. What I think is we should cooperate with countries where our interests converge, and manage our differences so that they don't spill over. In the end, this too shall pass.

[Oracle]

'Open secret in Kolkata that Muslims can get away with anything

Just Kolkata? As long as appeasement continues, this will not end.

In the wake of the attack on doctors and harassment of model Ushoshi Sengupta by some members of their community, a group of prominent Muslims from West Bengal wrote a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asking for stringent action against the culprits, to dispel the 'perception' that they are being "shielded or appeased".

They also requested the state government to 'engage or encourage engagements with Muslim youth and their families across Kolkata in gender-sensitisation, civic consciousness and law-compliance, etc'.

Mudar Patherya -- once one of India's best known cricket writers before he turned to commenting on the stockmarket -- drafted the letter to Banerjee. Mudar believes the Trinamool Congress government in bengal should shun vote-bank politics and address the issue considering the betterment of the next generation.

"I don't think the state administration has the guts to go into these Muslim neighbourhoods and arrest these people," Mudar Patherya tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

For all of us who read your articles on cricket and personal finance, it came as a surprise to learn that you drafted a letter to Mamata Banerjee, asking her to take strict action against the culprits in the doctors assault case as well as the model's harassment case. Why did you write to the West Bengal CM?

You carry your Muslim identity with you as one of the many identities that you carry.

This Muslim identity is getting perpetually embarrassed.

I won't say I am feeling cornered, but definitely embarrassed.

(I am) feeling sheepish in public company where people realise you are a Muslim and then say 'Oh! You are not those kind of Muslims'.

That felt bad.

When I saw the seven assaulters were all Muslims, then I felt another nail in the coffin in our pride.

When eventually these Muslim guys got away, (it's) because of the police having been told by the state administration to go soft on them.

It is an open secret in Kolkata that Muslims can get away with anything.

It doesn't sound good when you hear this.

The irony is this that we also happen to be victims of the same reality.

It is not that the bikers who tease women in Kolkata are not going to look upon my daughter or my sister and not tease them by saying they are Muslims.

They will go for anyone.

The reality is the character of the city has been evolved, but not for the better.

A part of that rule has been played out by the Muslim community.

Within the Muslim community there is a very clear lower income strata of suspects and vulnerable neighbourhoods.

You can identify them and to use a bad word, you can profile exactly from where the problem is coming from.

I don't think the state administration has the guts to go into these Muslim neighbourhoods and arrest these people.

Don't you think this could be a class problem and not a religion problem, as one can argue they are poor and happen to be Muslims by birth?

You can argue in whichever way you want to.

It is actually a Muslim problem where they also happen to be from a lower income (group).

It depends on which way you want to argue.

I can argue whichever way I want.

The reality is that just as we feel embarrassed as a nation if any one of our sportsmen or public performer or prominent people do something extremely humiliating in public.

This is my way of telling the world that somebody from my community does something, I feel a little embarrassed.

I also see that person's identity as extension of my own personality.

There is a linkage somewhere.

Just as there is a linkage if some Indian does something completely ridiculous, you feel a little ashamed and sheepish as an Indian.

You can say I have not done it and, of course, you have not done anything wrong, but we all carry multiple identities.

This Muslim identity is one of the multiple identities that I carry.

When people say that this kind of person has done something wrong, then it affects my sense of pride.

The irony is he is being let off because of his identity -- which I also carry.

That is what is hurting me.

When gau-rakshaks lynch Muslims, do common Hindus feel the same way about their community?
If not, then why should you as a Muslim feel embarrassed for the wrongdoing of some miscreants who are Muslims?

Your counter-question is an interesting question to the people who feel a sense of uneasiness.

I feel a certain sense of uneasiness because it happens on my turf.

Also, it affects me because there is a very non-Muslim bias which is building against Muslims because of these elements.

'You guys' can get away with everything.

Here I (as a Muslim) cannot get away, when I over-speed my car and jump the signal.

The police will not let me go by knowing that I am a Muslim.

But those guys (lower income strata Muslims) can get away.

So there is a class difference.

You were saying about an economic divide.

Ironically, (Muslim) guys who are well educated, well-bred, law abiding, they are the guys who are getting screwed.

We are not able to get away the way other guys (lower income Muslims) can.

Secondly, there is also another backflow in terms of respect that you are enjoying in the external community as you hear 'you guys' can get away with anything.

'You guys' keep quiet.

I understand that there is something called racial profiling.

But when 200 people from your community go into a hospital, beat up the doctors on the site and only five get arrested -- two per cent were arrested and 98 per cent went scot-free.

Whatever they did affected the medical fraternity in the country as it was not a local problem, but it became a state problem and then a national problem.

Who did it?

I would say 200 hooligans did it.

But it also comes down to the fact that somewhere, the community sense of upbringing, community sense of social values, community sense of family value, community sense of engagement, community sense of etiquette have all contributed to this.

I must say there is a very poor sense of etiquette and a poor sense of social upbringing.

That upbringing I am talking about.

My values system has been brought up in a different manner and their value system has taken a very different turn.

If somebody does not treat my grandfather well in hospital, I will not go and tell the lady doctor that I will rape you.

That is not acceptable.

The Mamata government arrested only five people when 200 people attacked the hospital.

This means obviously she is soft-pedalling and does not have guts to arrest those people from that neighbourhood.

This means Mamata wants to appease Muslims and is gutless.

Mamata Banerjee did mention that the doctors are not treating those poor patients well because they were Muslims. That was a very surprising statement.

I don't think that way.

I feel doctors are religion agnostic and very decent human beings.

Doctors work under phenomenal pressure.

They look after a huge number of patients, and it is remarkable.

It is very commendable.

Obviously something can go wrong because you have not provided them with the operating environment to succeed.

So when something goes wrong you get beaten up and surprisingly the police withdraws its protection.

Being a doctor is a noble profession.

These doctors feel defenceless today because one community -- I am not necessarily referring to a religious community but a social community -- feels absolutely legit to go and beat the hell out of anybody.

Could this not be an incident of sudden anger as your loved one has died?

Sudden anger can come to five people.

You must have time to go, get 200 people out and beat up the doctors on duty.

That is not anger, but a planned (move).

West Bengal was looking whether the assailants were arrested or not, but only five were arrested.

It did not even make it to the front page news.

Was this the case during Left Front rule in West Bengal or has it only started in Mamata's tenure?

I don't think that it was the case during the Left Front government.

Mamata Banerjee is so blase she told the media that she will appease Muslims.

She also made a stupid statement on Muslims like, 'If a cow gives milk, then one has to be prepared for its kicks also'.

We should have objected to that statement, but I missed it.

The reality is that Mamata is calling Muslims cows and clearly talking of appeasement.

What are Muslims getting out of this appeasement?

You go and see the Muslim ghettos in Kolkata.

It is getting worse.

Education is wanting and certain lawlessness is there.

The drabness of the environment is horrible.

Urdu medium schools do not have adequate teachers.

I know for a fact that in one class there are 900 students, and you call this appeasement?

The irony is that Mamata comes during Eid namaaz and puts a dupatta on her head and prays, whereas the fact is she can't even say two lines of (Islamic) prayers.

She is making an idiot of herself, and bhai log (Muslim brothers) are also becoming fools.

But now the mood is changing.

More and more Muslims are realising that what is happening is complete nonsense.

Is this the reason the Bharatiya Janata Party did so well in the Lok Sabha election?

There are various reasons.

The BJP is also a professional, multi-layered, well-funded organisation.

It is a solid machine.

It is just that they have extended into West Bengal at this moment and they have focused on the state.

Besides, Mamata's cadres have shifted to the BJP and effectively the same old goons are doing the same old work under a different label.

(The issue of instant) triple talaq, I am told, is playing an interesting role in Muslim women and men whose sisters have suffered because of it.

They are shifting towards the BJP.

There is a shift taking place.

The BJP only needs to get one act in order, and that is governance.

The moment they convince Bengal that they have an excellent capability of governance in Bengal, the game is over for Mamata.

Once upon a time it was felt that Bengal was immune to the Hindu-Muslim binary, but it doesn't seem so anymore. What has changed?

It is disturbing, but Bengal has an environment of syncretism.

Bengal is an interesting and unusual environment.

I think more people of this state consider themselves to be Bengali first and then Hindu/Muslim thereafter.

It is very unlike in most parts of the country.

I just hope the transition that happens in the next couple of years is political and not communal.

The BJP talks about the National Register of Citizens, threatening to throw out Muslims etc. So what are the options for Muslims other than Mamata?

The reality of the state is that there are Muslims who actually hopped in from the other side of the fence.

It is not a bad idea to identify the surplus and ask them to leave.

I don't think that is unfair.

My children cannot get into the USA with a normal visa and work.

They have to have an H1B visa.

So when I can accept that thing from the USA, why can't we implement that rule in West Bengal?

The BJP's target is only Bangladeshi Muslims, not Bangladeshi Hindus. Don't you think that is a problem? That it is a communal card the BJP is playing.

We will figure out the fine print as we go ahead.

As I told you, we have to come down to governance.

If they (BJP) are completely clean about the rules, governance, equality, fairness and integrity, it will work.

But if they start distinguishing between Hindus and Muslims, then the state will erupt.

Refreshing, that this came from a Muslim dude. India needs more like him.

[Oracle]

Appeasement politics boomeranged on Mamata

While the saffron surge in West Bengal has stunned the country, anger against the ruling Trinamool Congress had been simmering for a while in the state.

The bitterness that had been building up translated into a phenomenal 18 Lok Sabha seats for the BJP in a state where it won a mere 2 seats five years ago.

This stupendous success has taken the BJP's vote share from 18% to 40%, with the TMC at 43%, the Congress at 5% and the Left Front, now a spent force in the state, down to 7%.

The BJP's current vote share will give the party about 130 seats in the assembly polls two years away.

With the Left completely decimated, the BJP is marching towards its next bastion.

Having wrested power from the Left Front eight years ago and scripted her own brand of politics, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee now faces the frightening prospect of a saffron tsunami in her state as well.

What changed the plot?

Mamata Banerjee's politics of appeasement has boomeranged on her.

A hugely dangerous game which she thought she had mastered has now found a stronger opponent.

A chief minister who had no qualms about featuring in giant hoardings with her head covered and hands raised offering namaaz is today stridently opposing the new battle cry, Jai Shri Ram.

In a state where different communities have co-existed peacefully for decades, Banerjee's brazen wooing of the minority community was slowly but surely creating resentment amongst the masses: Monthly grants to imams, allowing Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to stay illegally in the state, permitting large scale infiltration from Bangladesh into West Bengal.

Last year when the Muharram procession and Durga Puja immersion clashed on the same day, she shifted the immersion date.

The BJP used this as ammunition to further fuel the fires that were already raging within.

Moreover, in the panchayat elections last year, the TMC won one-third of the seats unopposed.

Non-TMC candidates were not allowed to stand.

These bullying tactics were bound to trigger a backlash.

The TMC is following the Left Front's policy of driving out all opposition.

This undemocratic style would eventually meet its nemesis.

A BJP insider says, "The terror of the TMC in rural areas created a fear psychosis. There was high-handedness, there was arm-twisting and people were not allowed to vote."

"The presence of the central forces in the last one-and-a-half months and the massive attendance at the countless rallies in Bengal by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah gradually chipped away at the fear and they turned up in large numbers to vote."

Mamata Banerjee's might to take on the Left Front who had ruled for 34 years had been hugely admired.

But today she faces her biggest challenge.

Her failure to punish those involved in the Sarada chit fund scam has also alienated her from the masses, her vitriolic outbursts too have now begun to jar.

Today, her administrative style, her complete disregard for a contrarian view and poor man-management skills are now contributing to her downfall.

She has marginalised talented bureaucrats and allowed a couple of handpicked IPS officers to run the state.

She has also snubbed senior party members openly and vested huge power in her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

The BJP's victory in the state could now open up new avenues for disgruntled veterans.

Abhishek Banerjee is believed to have played a role in Mukul Roy's exit from the TMC.

Once Mamata Banerjee's trusted aide, Roy left the TMC two years ago and joined the BJP.

Firmly ensconced in the state, the TMC rode roughshod, creating enemies both within and outside.

Mukul Roy, despite being tainted in the Sarada chit fund scam, was embraced by the BJP for his deep understanding of grassroot level politics in Bengal and organisational capability.

Roy was also one of the team members who had originally built the TMC's election machinery in the state and has now certainly proved to be an asset to the BJP.

Roy gave the BJP's state unit a much-needed boost and was supported by RSS cadres too.

While Mamata Banerjee, who tried desperately to form a Third Front and probably nurtured serious prime ministerial ambitions, sees her dreams lying in fragments, there are murmurs of a split in the party.

Can Mamata salvage her party's sinking fortunes? Serious introspection and a complete overhaul of her team of advisors could save the day.

Can Mamata rewrite her script? Some feel it is too late for a course correction by the TMC, which faces a siege within too.

Unlike most other states in India, the saffronisation in West Bengal is surging forward from the rural areas.

Kolkata is still to be conquered.

Will the BJP breach this last bastion?

Can the BJP's success continue as an unstoppable juggernaut and will Amit Shah's prophecy come true? 'Is baar half, aglay baar saaf (Half the votes this time, a complete sweep next time?)'

[Double Edge]

'Open secret in Kolkata that Muslims can get away with anything

Just Kolkata? As long as appeasement continues, this will not end.



Refreshing, that this came from a Muslim dude. India needs more like him.

Yeah, i thought so as well, frank & honest