Modi, Millets, Khadi and Yoga!

The other day a Leftist friend of mine poked in my ribs asking “why is your PM (“he is not our Prime Minister”) bent on taking this back thousands of years, bringing back an ancient cereal, the millet?”He is my Prime Minister, and I must defend his every word and dead! My friend raised this issue in a WhatsApp message after reading an article in The Hindu which was, astonishingly. not very critical So I wrote to his as follows:

You may remember it was indeed Narendra Modi government that recommended to the United Nations in 2019 to promote internationally resulting in the declaration of 2023 as the “International Year of Millets” by the world body! Even as as India was getting ready to mark 2023 as the International Year of Millets, the Prime Minister, along with other leaders attended a  sumptuous lunch on 20th December 2022, a whe a variety of millet dishes were served to Parliamentarians  across party lines!

Millets also known as Mota Anaj have been an essential part of the traditional Indian cuisine and with the recent efforts by the Mdi Government to raise awareness and promote the inclusion of millets in the day-to-day diet, it is believed that Indians will gradually move to healthier food choices. The term ‘millet’ is used to describe small-grained cereals like jowar (sorghum), ragi (finger millet), bajra (pearl millet), kodo (kodo millet), kutki (little millet), kakun (foxtail millet), sanwa (barnyard millet), cheena (proso millet), kuttu (buckwheat) and chaulai (amaranth), among others. The consumption of millets in our sub-continent dates back to 3,300 to 1300 BCE during the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation. According to media reports, millets are grown in 130 countries and are part of the traditional diet of more than half a billion people in Asia and Africa. Interestingly, Millets are rich in soluble and insoluble dietary fiber, which makes these grains great for a healthy digestive system and a better gut health. High in protein, gluten-free and low in glycemic index, millets are rich in vitamin A, B and minerals like phosphorus, potassium, niacin, calcium, iron and ample antioxidants, which make these cereals a powerhouse of nutrition and helps in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, strokes, diabetes and high blood pressure. 

PM Modi’s special millet lunch affair with lawmakers mentioned above included everything made with a bevy of millets. As per a news agency report, the millet lunch began with a hearty Bajra soup, Ragi dosa and roti, Foxtail millet Bisibelebath and Joladha roti to name a few. Apart from that the dessert platter had some unique sweet preparations like Ragi halwa, Jowar halwa and Bajra kheer all made with millets. Other than culinary diversity involved, there serious reasons for the Indian government tin promoting millets. The policy highlights the importance of coarse grains or millets as a means of sustainable cultivation with the potential of increasing incomes of small farmers in arid regions, besides providing food and nutritional security at the global level. It also points to the growing awareness of the health (two extremes of malnourishment and obesity plague large portions of the world w) and environmental benefits (low water requirements and contribution to soil restoration) of millets, as well as efforts to revive traditional agricultural practices and supporting them. certain’There appears to have a ‘Midas touch’ in Narendra Modi’s certain policy initiatives. For example look at the sale of Khadi products across the country growing  tremendously since 2014, thanks to the repeated appeals of  Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to promote Khadi! The KVIC went on prodigious growth rate year after year, as a result of the government’s push to promote village industries and use of khadi products, the low-profile segment notching up sales of over Rs 1.5lakh crore  fin 2023-24, besides creating 10lakh additional jobs! Khadi fabric sales alone shot up by 500% in 9 years! Likewise our Prime Minister in his address during the opening of the 69th the the General Assembly, on the 14th of 2014, appealed for the universal recognition of Yoga, an ancient Indian tradition that embodies unity of mind and body, thought and action, more than physical exercise.  United Nations proclaimed June 21 as the International Day of Yoga by resolution 69/131. The draft resolution establishing the International Day of Yoga was proposed by India and endorsed by a record 175 member states. 

Remember, our first Prime Minister was a yoga enthusiast. His daughter,Prime Minister Indira Gandhi too practiced Yoga. But it was Prime Minister Modi who transformed Yoga into a hugely potent tool for public diplomacy. Modi spotted its potential to become a vehicle of India's soft power!

Why do Jihadis have so much influence in the West?

A friend of mine recently sent me a video of a huge anti-Israel crowd in a US city marching with violent anti-Semitic slogans and Allah Akbar at repeated intervals. He said he though the Jews were a powerful minority group in the US, and main supporters of the ruling Democratic Party. Jews, of course have powerful connections with the Republicans as well. But the civil society controlled by many intellectuals, particularly, academicians in prestigious educational institutions like the Harvard, Yale and many others were seen on the side of the Jihadis, supporting programs like the BDS espoused by the pro-Palestine Islamic pressure groups. This was my reply to him!

Islamism in the West has an almost 70-year history, dating back to when the first members of the Muslim Brotherhood, either students pursuing graduate studies in Western universities or senior leaders fleeing persecution in their home countries, arrived in Europe and North America in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Since then, activists linked to various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world and other movements from the Indian sub-continent (Jemaat-e-Islami) and Turkey that belong to the broad family of political Islam have established a stable presence in the West. These movements have since evolved ideologically and organizationally, and, despite their still relatively small size, they have become disproportionally influential forces in the West’s heterogeneous Muslim communities.

Islamization of the entire society and installation of an Islamic government ruling based on sharia cannot realistically be achieved in the West, where Muslims constitute just a small minority. Western Islamists go on disseminating their politico-religious worldview inside Western Muslim communities and in the hope of influencing Western policies and debates on pertinent issues as two more suitable goals.

The new generation of Western Islamists have indeed made inroads in political, media and civil society circles. By largely shedding Islamist tropes and adopting progressive frames and causes, young Western Islamists have forged strong alliances in mainstream society and have come to be widely accepted in Western establishment circles. Many of them have therefore come to run as candidates in political parties, write op-eds in influential newspapers, and appear in debates on mainstream media; forge alliances with a broad array of progressive organizations and thought leaders; receive grants from respected foundations and governmental agencies. Many of today's Islamists use frames, embrace causes and make alliances that puzzle everybody! Observers have begun to refer to this trend as “woke Islamism”. You would have heard about the Arab Americans, all of whom are female, elected to the U.S. House of Representatives: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Ilhan Omar, Donna Shalala and Rashida Tlaib- all Democrats! No Muslim has ever served in the United States Senate so far. These women talk as if they are Arab nationals, not US citizens!

You can see that the the American left has pushed faith to the margins considering that Muslims consider the idea of liberalism to be a version of atheism! The war on terrorism, U.S. government surveillance of Muslims, and the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban”perhaps contributed to this Liberal-Left-Muslim comraderie. issues.

Islamophobia, surveillance, and the securitization of Muslim communities has become an issue of the political left, which draws parallels between the experience of ethnic minorities such as African Americans and imagined Muslim communities elsewhere- well, in India for example! A lot of Arab money has, I assume, come into this! 

There is a strong anti-Israel BDS  movement - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led one promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel like those against South Africa during apartheid. 

Now look at a strange phenomenon: The left has historically been opposed to organized religion, believing its conservatism entrenches and justifies inequality and its communalism is a threat to individual liberty. But you see a puzzling though strong linkage between the political left and Muslim groups whether in the US or in India! These are scary situations!

 The Questionable Global Indices on Freedom, Democracy, etc.

Several international organizations create ‘international/universal standards’, construct composite indicators, and then publish ‘World reports’ composed of numerical ratings. The process to arrive at such ratings is claimed to be “using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources” as Freedom House, which publishes the Freedom in the World Report, which has acceptance as authentic in tracking global trends in political rights and civil liberties. It publishes an annual ‘Freedom on the Net’ report featuring a ranked, country-by-country assessment of “online freedom”!

Those of us who live in India will be shocked by our country’s rank in their Freedom in the World Report- it is 161 Out Of 180 Countries in 2023! Following “initiatives to close the digital divide” in the nation, India's internet freedom score increased by two points to 51 over the last 4 years!

Those who sponsor the above onerous job of judging other people are Google, Inc., The Hurford Foundation, Jyllands-Posten Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., the Merrill Family Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy, and also the US Government! The NED, for example, has been termed as the US government’s “white glove” serving US strategic interests! So generally it could be said that all have been manipulating and directing NGOs around the world to conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage, and incite so-called “democratic movements” in target countries and regions, that is largely, exporting ‘American Values’ as we know them!

The second important organization that has taken upon itself the responsibility to study democratic governments in the world and rank them in accordance with various democracy indices based on data accessed by it, is The V-Dem Institute (Varieties of Democracy) an ‘independent’ research institute founded by Professor Staffan I. Lindberg, a political scientist in the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014.· The ‘Democracy Indices’ by V-Dem is a dataset that describes the qualities of different governments published by V-Dem Institute.   The contributors of funds to the institute range from the US Government, the Canadian International Development Agency,  the World Bank Group, the Open Society Foundation of the self-proclaimed philanthropist George Soros, the University of Gothenburg · Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, European Research Council. and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

V-DEM Institute repeatedly denigrates India, and to know its vitriolic prejudice one must glance at its annual report in 2023 which dreadfully classifies India as an “electoral autocracy” alongside Hungary and Turkey and ranks it 108, only two points above Pakistan, describing it further as “one of the worst democracies in the last 10 years”!. If this is not cant, hypocrisy, and sanctimonious humbug, what is it? A country that has too many elections, and by-elections to Assemblies, Local self-government bodies, and the Parliament serially in its 28 states and 9 Union territories that development projects have to be delayed fearing sanctions from Election Commission, and therefore conducting Parliamentary and State elections simultaneously is being contemplated, and 2500 political parties participate in these elections and the ruling party at the Centre has no representation in assemblies and parliament from some of the states, the country is alleged having “electoral autocracy” because the ruling party has 303 seats, and the Opposition is unable to get together! Congress party had ruled this country for 6 decades all by itself and had even declared an Emergency in 1975, extended the Union Government’s term by more than a year and a half, the Constitutional rights of the people were suspended, the media was censored, and Opposition politicians were jailed. Rajiv Gandhi of the Congress came to power after his mother’s tragic death with 411 seats out of 542, in a “sympathy wave” and ruled as he pleased!

The Chatham House, also known as ‘The Royal Institute of International Affairs’ which claims to be a “world-leading policy institute” and “think-tank” (demonstrated this kind of thinking by inviting recently the most un-thinking person on the planet to address it on Indian democracy!) is headquartered in London. Its stated mission is to help governments and societies “build a sustainably secure, prosperous, and just world”.

Their experts on India warn against getting “fixated” on India’s economic success story, and to lay stress on the emerging “social tensions” between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. Their scholarship shows the example of the ‘Nirbhaya case’, and Narendra Modi’s re-election as Chief Minister of Gujarat show-casing “how urban middle-class opinion is often at odds with the political leadership”. Both incidents taking place in 2012, leads to the far-fetched observation of a morbidly prejudiced mind to connect both to ‘social tensions’ due to wealth creation and expansion of middle class! The Prime Minister of India who led his party to victory in two elections and has emerged as a world leader is described as “clearly illiberal (in politics)by most measures.”

Chatham House scholarship (Dr.Gareth Price) observes that while the Indian constitution is secular it does not specifically separate church and state in the fashion of the United States constitution! One has to thank Dr.Price for realizing however, that neither Indira Gandhi nor her husband were related to Mahatma Gandhi, though in the next breath, he insinuates that Narendra Modi-led BJP was elected to power despite India growing “relatively stronger during the Dr.Manmohan Sing-led UPA rule”, due to “the sense that a more authoritarian form of government might deliver more, particularly among the urban middle class”! Under the circumstances, I was not astonished when in April 2022, Russia designated Chatham House as an "undesirable organization"!

The latest in the series is the ESG report- a report mandated to be published by a company or organization about the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts of their activities. ESG reporting is said to be an invaluable tool for organizations to track sustainability, identify risks, and report on their performance. But like the Democracy Report, Freedom on the Net (India ranked on a scale of 0-100, at 51 Partly Free because during sensitive operations against terrorists, or in times of inflammable communal situations, the government chose to jam the Internet!) the Freedom of Press report, etc, this also is a confounded piece of frame-up giving a Tobacco Company a score of 180 while Tesla is at 48!

Such nasty reports and ratings are not merely worthless political innuendos. In the present scheme of things, they do affect the Sovereign Ratings as the funding agencies of the erring NGOs often being national Governments directly or their agencies, international financial institutions, or organizations like the World Bank Group automatically co-opt these reports and rankings in their data sets and that would have ramifications across the board in various international bodies and eventually affect Foreign Investment, Foreign collaborations, joint ventures, etc. Theoretically, ESG scores allow potential investors to gauge the company's intentions, and actions, from how they treat their employees to how the board decisions are made or if environmental issues are being prioritized. Higher ESG scores are likely to persuade investors to engage, either because the company's values align with their own or because the company is sufficiently protected from future risks associated with issues like pollution or poor governance. Poor ESG scare may turn off the investor’s interest. Imagine the situation when the ESG scores are faulty!

Some of these ratings are used to judge a country’s creditworthiness, and suitability to put money into and operate a business activity from. Sanjeev Sanyal and Aakanksha Arora of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister had in a working paper challenged India's consistent downgrading by top global indices which the duo argued, were based on a subjective, perception-based methodology. The working paper examines 1) the Freedom in the World Index, 2) Economist Intelligence Unit, and 3) Democracy Index (V-DEM) indices - happiness, democracy, and freedom- which are inputs into the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators that, have approximately 18-20 percent weightage in sovereign ratings! The paper notes, "They can’t be completely ignored and will become even more important in the future as Environmental, Social, and Governance indices are introduced into global business/investment decisions." A capital-hungry cannot afford to take these oblique attacks lying down!

It is worth noting that during the Covid years, India used its fiscal and monetary resources very carefully and most of it was directed towards infrastructure building, micro- and macro-managing the pandemic, with vaccines and othe health inputs, and bringing in 80 percent of the huge population under food security. The country went for its own supply chains, technology, and other transformation in opening up new sectors all in preparation for the post-COVID period.

As a result, India has survived the COVID pandemic with the least damage; the Indian Economy is growing at a faster pace than any other in the world. We are now the 5^th largest economy, and surging forward to be the 3^rd. There is a lot to be happy about for Indians. So to hell their global indices! AND THREE CHEERS FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY!

 

 

China No.1 in Covid-19 vaccinations?

Those who praise China as No.! In vaccination should understand that the world has no means of verifying China's own figure for how many doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered within the country. In terms of vaccine doses administered domestically, China had reached 2.2 billion on 6 October - compared with more than 923.5 million in India, 571.4 million administered in the EU, and 398.7 million in the US, according to BBC World in Data.

 Okay! Now remember the virus also was manufactured in China, and by mistake or design spread all over the world. When you make a deadly poison to kill others, generally you make the anti-dote simultaneously in order to protect yourself from unintended poisoning! China therefore could be also credited with manufacturing vaccines early on, on a large scale considering its huge population.

The data analytics company, Airfinity, has tracked global production and estimates that China has exported commercially 1.1 billion doses (as of 8 October) of its vaccines to 123 countries (as either bulk substances or finished doses). Of these, around 110 million have been purchased by the Covax global vaccine-sharing scheme to provide vaccines to lower-income countries.

In addition, according to UN data, China has so far delivered around 37 million doses as donations (as of 1 October) out of a total pledged of around 52 million.

Now those who belittle India’s achievement as they praise China see everything in terms of their political views. India is not Narendra Modi or RSS/BJP! India’s achievements are partly the achievements of the people of India and the system of administration. When team India wins a cricket match we feel India has won and it loses, we generally feel the team failed India. A possible reason for many countries including India lagging behind in vaccination is a lack of proper infrastructure, staffing constraints, and other issues which include vaccine hesitancy even in the First World countries, holding up the rollout of vaccinations.

India has done phenomenally well in vaccine manufacturing capability and the world over Indian vaccines have better acceptability than that of China, for some reason! India had exported about 66.4 million doses of its locally-made vaccines as of the end of May when exports were suspended.

Lastly, the tendency of normal human beings is to support their families, their dear ones, their state or country in all situations in which pride is a factor - “My brass is Gold”. In contemporary India, we do exactly the opposite! It is said that Civilizations die when they cease to believe in themselves! Indian intellectuals and Indian politicians who pretend away their Indian-ness, they pretend away their pride in themselves and wait for that eventual death..... 

 What ails the oil industry?

The oil and gas industry is one of the largest sectors in the world economy in terms of dollar value, generating an estimated US Dollars 3.5 trillion in revenue annually. Oil is crucial to the global economic framework, especially for its largest producers: the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, and China.

According to a report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,) in 2019, 35.23 percent of all oil consumed in the OECD was related to motor vehicle usage in the road transport sector. A little less than 20 percent is used for the generation of electricity. Roughly 14 percent is used in the petrochemical industry.

 

Different countries have different reasons for reducing their dependence on oil. For producers listed above the fear is of the kitty getting smaller year after year due to pumping the available underground deposits. The concerns of oil users, in general, is the pollution issue and the price fluctuations. Some users like India are heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, and the volatile prices and tight supply situations are major worries. Mankind has now realized that the advantages of fossil fuels come with a devastating downside. We now understand that the release of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is warming our planet faster than anything we have seen in the geological record. One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is slowing this warming before it changes our world beyond recognition. The universal consensus, therefore, is to work on alternate, safe, and sustainable energy sources. The trend is clear: according to a report by Ember and Agora Energiewende, 38% of Europe’s energy in 2020 came from renewable sources. Fossil-fuel generation accounted for 37% and the remaining quarter came from Nuclear.

Europe, the world’s largest market, being powered by majority renewable sources, proves that renewable energy can scale and become the dominant source of energy in complex and energy-intensive economies! I think this shift is a signal to American and Asian markets to make the transition faster. The only relevant question, therefore, is whether the transition will keep it's current ‘fast, but not fast enough’ pace!

Let us go to where the shoe pinches: In the US, the transportation sector, (dominated by the use of the nation’s highways, for both freight and passengers) is almost solely dependent on petroleum, and produces about one-third of the country’s share of greenhouse gas emissions arising from energy us. The current trend is plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) that use electricity plus any of the conventional fuels on a large scale to have a significant effect on petroleum consumption. Longer-term, after 2030, major sales of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) and battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are considered possible.

I think India could follow the US example before rushing to Evs straight because otherwise, the country’s huge automobile sector would collapse creating a gaping hole in the employment sector.  Coal and biomass are in abundant supply in India, and they can be converted to liquid fuels for use in existing and future vehicles with internal combustion and hybrid engines. This may have to wait for a more potent carbon-capture technology than what is available today.

Biomass is a renewable resource that, if properly produced and converted, can yield biofuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-based gasoline yields. In the USA it is mandatory to blend 10% Ethanol in Petrol since 2000. Our Govt has decided so in June 2014 through an executive order. Now Ethanol blending in Diesel and Petrol is becoming less and less profitable day by day to our Oil Manufacturing companies including the PSUs, and they are quite unhappy about it!

Clean energy can be manufactured in many technologies including; wind, solar PV, solar thermal, hydro, and biomass. It may be good to know that our solar installed capacity was 44.3 GW as of 31 August 2021. Modi government had an initial target of 20 GW capacity for 2022, which was achieved four years ahead of schedule! Solar power for industries is quintessential for meeting the 100 GW solar mission of Modi Government. Please note, out of the total 1247 MW rooftop solar installations as of December 2016, 34% was for industrial establishments! Industrial Solar Power Systems are gaining popularity in India with major industries resorting to solar power for avoiding grid outage situations. With the provision of open access in most of the states, industrial solar power systems are increasingly used by textile, cement, paper, steel, chemical, dairy, and ceramic industries to cut down their electricity expenses. Heavy peak usage and large available area make solar a perfect energy solution for industries.

Another new technology being discussed for industrial use is with iron as a circular fuel – iron being yet another resource available in plenty form its ores now exported by India! Combusting finely ground iron powder adding oxygen produces heat and rust – the only emissions of the process. Then, using renewable energy the rust can be converted back into iron via electrolysis. Given the availability of renewable energy for electrolysis, the entire process is carbon-free.

Among users, India ranks third after the US and China, though our consumption is roughly a fifth of the US and a third of that of China. The US, imports more than 50 percent of its fuel in spite of the so-called Shale Oil glut! India has around 80% import dependence on crude oil and 45% for natural gas/LNG. India’s crude oil import bill soared nearly threefold in the first quarter of the fiscal (Q1FY22) fuelled by a sharp rise in global oil prices to USD 24 billion, further raising concerns for policymakers. (Volume growth was, a modest 14.7% in the June quarter at 51.4 million tonnes.) Remember India’s total tax revenue is only USD138 billion! The total Excise duty collection from petrol and diesel is just about $40 billion. This is one of the main reasons for the urge to cut petroleum fuel by exploiting alternate energy sources.

India is not going ahead with strategies to cut down consumption of fossil fuels because of its concern with the environment! Damaging our economy is not certainly the way to deal with climate change as a member of the comity of nations. And in terms of oil, what will take its place? The world hasn’t found a good substitute for oil, in terms of its availability and fitness for purpose. Although the supply is finite, oil is plentiful and the technology to extract it continues to improve, making it ever-more economical to produce and use. The same is also largely true for natural gas.

Beyond the use as fuel, petroleum has significant growth potential. The current per capita consumption of petrochemicals products is low, but the demand for the same is growing. A wide range of chemicals like Urea, Caustic Soda, Soda Ash, Sulphuric Acid; Dyes, Dye Intermediates, , basic chemicals like Ethylene, Propylene, Benzene and Xylene; the intermediates like MEG, PAN and LAB etc fibre intermediates, synthetic fibre polymers, and elastomers and fine chemicals, speciality chemical... Per capita plastic consumption in India is still hovering at 7.0 kgs as compared to 46 kgs in China and 65 Kgs in Europe. This signifies huge potential for future growth going by the current global average per capital consumption.

Now about our cars: I have two beautiful cars running on petrol –Honda Accord and a CRV (my dream car) – and I am not ready to go for even a Tesla. But then, I am old and resistant to change! But I realize we are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford's first production line started turning back in 1913! Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars.  The world’s big carmakers are getting ready for the change. Jaguar owned by Tatas plans to sell only electric cars from 2025. They have launched their electric compact car Nexon. Volvo from 2030 and the British sports car company Lotus says it would follow suit, selling only electric models from 2028. EVs the world over are able to travel farther than ever on a single charge, shaping the future and promoting smarter, cleaner transportation. Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Tesla were the top-selling electric car brands in Germany during the first quarter of 2021 while the VW Up was the favorite BEV in Q1. Just over a decade ago, Nissan became the first automaker to offer a mass-produced car – the hatchback Leaf- that ran on batteries alone. Mitsubishi i MiEV, was a pioneer, launched for fleet customers around the same time. But Japan, with its huge investment in gasoline-electric hybrids, has big reasons to proceed slowly. So the world ic changing! 

 In Defense of the US

Gross domestic product per capita is the fundamental measure of a society's material standard of living over time. Right now when people are making a lot of noise about China surging ahead with its economy, please note, the US economy is numero Uno still, and much higher than the next two economies put together! Though Europeans certainly live very well, and though both China and India are rapidly improving their citizens' standards of living, the United States remains indisputably ahead.

The MIT economist Robert Solow had in a paper substantiated that only about 12.5% of all growth in output per work-hour over a 40-year period he studies could be accounted for by increased use of capital; the remaining 87.5% was "attributable to technical change," or innovation. The US approach to achieving innovation has varied with the times, but it has generally demonstrated an almost ruthless pragmatism in implementing the core principles of free markets and strong property rights, overlaid with decisive government investments in infrastructure, human capital, and new technologies. I remember reading some time back that despite relatively small populations and lover scores across inputs like R&D, Switzerland and Sweden have produced many top global companies and at one point Switzerland ranked No.1, Sweden No.2, and the US was still ranked No.3.

For 100 years from 1870, the goals of conquering disease, educating the unschooled, and winning wars provided the strongest impetus for the US government's investments in innovation. This remains central to the American ethos, and in certain respects, the New Deal and later developmental interventions in Japan, and other countries during the post-World War II can be seen as extensions of this program, in which egalitarian ideas played an ever-increasing role.

It is so easy to give a backhanded compliment to the Americans saying “US industrial might and the blood of Russian soldiers that won the war”! Don’t forget the Soviet Union had signed a pact with Hitler ealier in the hope of dividing the world between them. But the Germans had other plans, and USSR had to be literally helped out in the war with Germany, and after the defeat of Germany, they swallowed the most industrialized part of Germany and colonized it for 43 years, while the Americans helped the defeated Germany to develop a decent democracy, quite independent of US influence though part of NATO!

Yes, the USA replaced the British Empire in politico-economic spheres without being an imperial power. It helped democracies and fought Communism which was antithetical to modern democracy.

You may remember it was an American President, a former General, Eisenhower who criticized the Military-Industrial complex. It can be seen that while military-to-commercial 'spin-offs' declined, gradually "commercial-to-military 'spin-ons' boomed. US military incursions and wars have been numbered but on analysis, it could be seen that the US spent huge resources in those wars with no economic benefit at allT Take the Iraq war, though critics said it was about exploiting Iraq’s considerable oil deposits, but the US didn’t touch it. In Syria, it was again a couple of trillion dollars spent with no benefit, except defeating the ISIL. In Afghanistan, they spent 3 trillion dollars trying to promote democracy for 20 years, and left the country abruptly without any benefit on either side!

The Leftists who worry about the huge corporate salaries, bonuses, etc however seem to be happy about billionaires like George Soros, Pierre Omidyar et all, who love taking pro-Left positions for it assuages their conscience for becoming billionaires through pure speculation or the sin of good luck!

The comments about Donald Trump are totally unreasonable. That man had good education, he had a good running business, and he came into politics just to show what a decent gentleman do in a democratic polity. Before the “China Virus” invaded the world, Donald Trump built the world’s most prosperous economy. America gained 7 million new jobs – more than three times experts’ projections. the unemployment rate reaching 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century. Jobless claims hit a nearly 50-year low the number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the population hit its lowest on record. Yes, he could be called names for his slogan MAGA, but he did bring jobs, factories, and industries back to the USA. Trump’s policies provided the average American household an extra $3,100 every year. He negotiated with Japan, arm twisted a recalcitrant China, and so on to establish fairer and reciprocal trade.

Trump’s prospects for re-election were dragged down by a pandemic. He declared a National Emergency on early in March 2020 when there were less than 2000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US, and fewer than deaths when Europe is now the "epicenter" of what was later to be a global pandemic.  The media criticized him; the Democratic called him when he stopped flights from China, ad implemented shutdowns and social distancing across almost every US state which succeeded in stopping the exponential spread of the virus. In hard-hit states like New York, Michigan, and Louisiana, the pandemic's growth curve bent downward soon. What was once a runaway crisis in these hotspots has been controlled. Yet in an election year, the Democrats and the media controlled by them could run a campaign against Trump and fail the country! He was a victim of propaganda and a ganging up the riff-raff flowing as illegal immigrants into the country. They created a nationwide uprising over ‘systemic racism’ which was a big lie. (Black Democrat and Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson had written as early as in the early 1990s: "The sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations and its stubborn refusal to institute a rational, universal welfare system, is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or Black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of Black persons than any other society, including all those of Africa.) Even in defeat, Trump won millions more votes than he did four years ago. It was hardly the abject repudiation of Trump’s ideas and methods!

Joe Biden of whom ex-US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, he “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades” is POTUS46! I believe the decline of America your friend writes has started with Joe Biden Presidency. I saw it as he took a victory lap over a botched, haphazard evacuation calling it a “success” when so many American citizens and those who helped the U.S. war effort were been left behind in Afghanistan! Biden turned a twenty-year victory at the cost of $3trillion over Islamic barbarism in the country that attacked the US on 9/11 into a massive defeat, abandoned massive airbases, and $90 billion in advanced weaponry without a fight! That is the beginning of American decline for you.

Biden’s soft socialism would extend federal entitlements to an additional 21 million – the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ’s Great Society. More than half of working-age households would be on the dole, in one form or another. This includes 80% of single parents and 57% of couples with children. New programs will include free community college tuition for families earning 1.5 times the median income, all day-care expenses above 7% of family income for children under 5, a cap on rents based on income, and let’s not forget Medicaid for All. Is that increasing wealth or increasing dependence?

In education, employment, everywhere the vote bak politics is making grades. The “diversity rationale,” decides the selection of students and faculty in Universities, which in turn has given rise to a vast, lucrative “diversity industry.” This industry is now firmly established, at many mid-level universities like UC Davis, and its machinations reach the level of high art as you approach the very top of the ladder - not only at colleges like Harvard but also at crème-de-la-crème enterprises of all kinds, from the New York Times to Goldman Sachs to Google, where the job of diversity experts is to provide exactly the right amount and the right type of “diversity” to suit those institutions’ essentially - indeed, fiercely - exclusionary subcultures. There are diversity consultants to mix in just enough of a token sprinkling of underqualified blacks and Latinos to keep these places from looking like apartheid-era Sun City, South Africa, as well as to make the privileged white core look open-minded.

But Asians? Among the competing victimhoods of Blacks, Hispanics and other, Asians, who come to the US for higher education, research, etc, and rise are as undesirable as the Whites! Kenny Xu records in his definitive new book ‘An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy’, an Asian student wanting to get into Harvard in 2009 (and the injustice certainly hasn’t disappeared since then) “had to score an astounding 450 points higher on a 1600-point SAT test than a Black student to have the same chance of admission.” I forget it now, they have even a new description for Asians linking them to the White oppressors!

 Vinod Dua get a pass

The Sedition law is clear: The Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code states: “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India shall be punished…” Did the Journalist’s several outbursts on the air and in print attracts the IPC 124A? He did, for sure! But the Supreme Court Bench of Justices UU Lalit and Vineet Saran (who are the final authority, not infallible angels!) rules now that “every journalist is entitled to the protection under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment(which defined the ambit of the offense of sedition under Section 124A IPC, quoting an earlier (1962) judgment of the SC -Kedar Nath Singh vs the State of Bihar) which read down Section 124A IPC and held that the application of the provision should be limited to "acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder or disturbance of law and order; or incitement to violence." How would their Lordships measure the “intension” or “tendency”? I suppose they would wait for the results when the executive will find it difficult, as well as expensive to contain the disorder, rebellion or riots!

I think these days one can notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in the Courtroom; certain judicial arrogance to thwart the executive for the fun of it, encroaching on even the legislative prerogative of people’s representatives without going into the Constitutional provisions of judicial powers and the separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and the judiciary!

Free Speech, works only if nobody gets a waiver. The Courts have often sided with the Left-liberal ecosystem stretching their definition of FoE to sedition have no moral standing in denying others the freedom to express their patriotic feelings!

The Supreme Court’s attitude n Vinod Dua case shows that it would rather jeopardize the safety of and security of India than the liberty of those of the wo/men who continuously spread canards against the legally established Government of India and the sneering disrespect for legal authority and democratic processes. The Judges of the highest Court ignores the fact that newspapers and news tv channels are the most important sources of news for the public. If they resort to freely disbursing fake news and disruptive ideologies to attack the elected government spread disaffection, and destroy the unity and integrity of the government, eventually the peace of the realm is destroyed, and the people suffer; the nation suffers!

The case also exhibits the limitless judicial arrogance in rejecting the plea to direct the State Governments to constitute preliminary inquiry before FIRs are registered against “senior journalists” (hierarchy!) observing that it “would amount to encroachment upon the field reserved for the legislature”. Look who’s talking! Precisely in this context, I would like to introduce that strange phenomenon, a former Supreme Court Judge and former Chairman for the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju! He has announced that he would depose as a witness for absconding diamond merchant Nirav Modi, prime accused along with his uncle Mehul Choksi in the INR 14,000 crores ($2 billion) Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. This paragon of all judicial knowledge and human virtues of head and hear hs emphatically said that he would not be commenting on the merits of the case; but   would only say that his client ‘Nirav’ would not get JUSTICE in India. I dare say if Vinod Dua gets a pass, Nirav Modi also should! He only stole some money. Corrupting the minds of people with pathetically negative, inaccurate, and unreliable, and fake stories in an orgy of schadenfreude and hypocrisy, belying the trust in ‘independent’ media, is far worse than that!