After Trump Victory, India Needs to Take Proactive Steps to Deal With Economic Impact; The Eerie Silence of Modi’s Prized Gift City; India Gets Banned Chinese Goods Via the Dubai Route
Gautam Adani hosted a meeting of BJP and NCP, says Sharad Pawar, India will seek deportation of Arsh Dalla arrested by Canada, Work six not five days a week, says Narayan Murthy
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sushant Singh, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Siddharth Varadarajan and Seema Chishti | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Snapshot of the day
November 15, 2024
Sidharth Bhatia
There could be some consternation in Indian circles now that a Pakistani vessel travelling from Karachi docked at Chittagong earlier this week, becoming the first instance of direct maritime contact between the two countries. An unnamed Bangladeshi strategic affairs expert tells Devadeep Purohit that one “cannot rule out the possibility of contraband being shipped to Bangladesh and ending up with insurgent groups in India”. Purohit also cites sources as saying that a number of large vessels aboard the ship were removed before the rest of the consignment was offloaded. “This is not a normal practice. You cannot rule out the possibility of contraband items entering Bangladesh,” they claimed.
In a startling revelation in an interview with Sreenivasan Jain, NCP chief Sharad Pawar confirmed that billionaire Gautam Adani in 2019 hosted a clandestine meeting at his residence, attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and top NCP leaders, including Ajit Pawar and himself. It comes after Ajit Pawar of the breakaway NCP had made a similar statement. This explosive disclosure raises serious questions about the brazen nexus of corporate power and political manoeuvring at the highest levels of Maharashtra’s polity. Why was Adani, a corporate magnate mired in controversies, involved in discussions shaping a state’s political future?
(Credit: Sajith Kumar in Deccan Herald)
Speaking of which, over 12 lakh sugarcane cutters from Marathwada, Vidarbha, and north Maharashtra are set to miss the November 20 assembly polls as they migrate to sugar belts for the crushing season beginning November 15. The Maharashtra Sugarcane Cutters and Transport Association has sought High Court intervention, demanding action to prevent disenfranchisement. Despite lofty claims, the West Indian Sugar Mills Association’s vague assurances to facilitate workers’ return to vote ring hollow amid mounting logistical challenges. The Election Commission’s inaction threatens to rob these labourers of their fundamental democratic right. Democracy, for the sugarcane workers, remains an unfulfilled promise.
Meanwhile, chants of “Jai Sri Ram” echoed at Samvidhan Chowk in Nagpur as BJP leader and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis garlanded Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue – ironically at the site where Ambedkar renounced Hinduism. This unprecedented act has outraged Ambedkarites and marginalised communities, who see it as an affront to the Father of the Constitution and an imposition of the BJP-RSS Hindutva agenda, reports Basant Kumar Mohanty. The BJP-led Maharashtra government’s simultaneous “beautification” of Deekshabhoomi, a sacred Buddhist site marking Ambedkar’s conversion, has only deepened suspicions. Rakesh Dhargave, president of the DBSS, accused BJP workers of vandalising the statue’s railings and stoking communal tensions. In poll-bound Maharashtra, the move is widely seen as a cynical attempt to appropriate Ambedkar’s legacy while sidelining his ideals of social justice and equality. The BJP’s actions betray a calculated ploy to impose saffron politics on historically marginalised communities.
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition has achieved a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections, delivering the self-described Marxist leader a powerful mandate to fight poverty and corruption in the crisis-stricken nation. The Election Commission of Sri Lanka said on Friday that Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) coalition secured a two-thirds majority in parliament, winning 159 of 225 seats, a massive lead on opposition alliance Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), which won 40 seats.
Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal and state Congress President K Sudhakaran have condemned the Union government’s refusal to declare the Wayanad landslides on July 30 a national disaster and termed the action discriminatory and politically motivated. Balagopal criticised the Union government’s stance as “gross injustice” toward Kerala, accusing it of a calculated disregard for Malayalis. “PM Narendra Modi visited Wayanad at the time of the tragedy, he witnessed its effects firsthand, yet his government is playing politics and withholding crucial aid. The same was done with the people of Himachal Pradesh at a time of great distress for them. In the past, tragedies of this magnitude were not politicised in this manner,” Congress’ candidate in the recently polled Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said. “The singling out and lack of support to victims of these tragedies due to political reasons is unprecedented and totally unacceptable,” she added. Meanwhile, during a hearing in the Kerala High Court on Friday regarding the landslides, the lawyer representing the Union government said the High Level Committee meeting to categorise the disaster did not happen yet and that a decision would be taken soon.
GIFT City is “Modi’s baby and allows his administration to say they are opening up,” one diplomat tells The Financial Times. But the financial hub is in “the middle of nowhere.” Are top “bankers going to relocate there with limited nightlife and a few mid-range hotels?” Chris Kay on the “eerie quietness of India’s new financial hotspot, Modi’s GIFT city”. He writes that
“the long-term political viability of GIFT City has also come into question after a weakened Modi returned to power following a worse than expected electoral showing earlier in the year. Now beholden to coalition parties during his third term, some observers wonder if the project will survive should India’s opposition eventually come back to power.”
New Delhi will seek the extradition of Arshdeep Singh Gill alias Arsh Dalla after it was reported that he was arrested in Canada last month, the external affairs ministry said yesterday. Accusing him of involvement in murder, extortion, financing terror as well as smuggling drugs and weapons, the home ministry declared Gill a terrorist under the UAPA last year. It also claims he is the “de facto chief” of the Khalistan Tiger Force group and was “very close” to former chief, the late Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Speaking to the Globe and Mail earlier this year, Nijjar’s lawyer and some of his friends denied the alleged link between him and Gill.
Meanwhile, protests by job aspirants compelled the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) to announce changes to its exam schedule. The PCS 2024 exams will now be conducted in a single shift, while the controversial review officer (RO) and assistant review officer (ARO) exams have been postponed pending review by a committee, according to UPPSC secretary Ashok Kumar. Students had been protesting since Monday against the initial plan to hold exams in four shifts over two days, citing concerns over fairness and the use of a normalisation system for marking. Protesters, however, remain sceptical, calling the announcement a “bluff.”
The DIGIPUB News India Foundation, representing 90 media companies, has raised serious concerns over a recent threat of legal action by the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) administration against one of their members, The Chenab Times, a digital news outlet based in Doda district. In the nearly 16-minute-long video, reporter Raja Shakeel mentioned that Rehamatullah was booked under the PSA for the second time. The Chenab Times has defended its report, asserting that it included the district administration’s perspective and followed all the necessary legal norms for digital platforms. The outlet stated that their reporting did not incite any law and order disruptions. The foundation has questioned the legal grounds on the basis of which the DIO summoned the news outlet and demanded documents regarding the outlet’s “authority” to operate.
NR Narayanmurthy cannot seem to zip it. He has advocated a six-day workweek, “reflecting on his regret for the five-day shift.” Really? Enough of billionaire advice.
After reading Salman Rushdie's ‘Knife’, former Punjab DGP Julio Ribeiro recalls two attempts – the first in October 1986 in Jalandhar, Punjab, and the second in August 1991 in Bucharest, Romania – on his life. He writes,
“My own ‘love’, who left me bereft after 62 years of marriage, was present during both the assassination attempts. The one in Jalandhar was totally unexpected. It took place in the heavily guarded Punjab Police’s Armed Reserve Headquarters. I knew that the Khalistani underground had formed half-a-dozen units of trained assassins to get me, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that they would cross two formidable barriers to get me.
The second attempt was in Bucharest, capital of the East European country that had only a year ago revolted against the repressive communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. Some days earlier, I had been warned by our external intelligence agency, R&AW, and also by the Romanian Foreign Office of the presence of a group of Indians plotting to kill me.”
Diljit Dosanjh will perform in Hyderabad today as part of his Dil-Luminati Tour, which covers ten Indian cities. After lighting up Delhi and Jaipur with his electrifying performances, the Punjabi singer is all set to perform his biggest hits in Hyderabad. However, Diljit fans in Hyderabad may miss out on some of his chart-topping songs as the Telangana government has issued a notice directing him not to sing songs promoting alcohol, drugs, and violence, which might put a slight damper on the night’s playlist.
Convoluted Import of Chinese Goods
China has disallowed India certain vital imports of essential minerals like Gallium and Germanium. Certain other important tools for machinery and infrastructure are not allowed to be imported to India. Now, it seems, Dubai ports are being used to bring in these goods without which Indian industry, semiconductors or basic infrastructure would nearly collapse. Indian traders registered in Jebel Ali port in Dubai book the goods restricted for export by China. Then the routing to India follows from there, allowing Indians to bypass Chinese laws.
By the way, India’s top import source remains China, reaching USD 65.89 billion between April and October, says Indian government data that has just been put out. Also, overall imports have climbed steeply. India’s trade deficit has “swollen” to $27.1 billion.
Cannot Exhale
The Commission for Air Quality Management has yesterday imposed a complete ban on construction activities and prohibited the plying of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers in the national capital and adjoining districts falling in the National Capital Region (NCR). These are a set of emergency steps taken to reduce air pollution. Primary schools have been closed, and gone online. Advisories issued for people to stay at home or use public transport. Delhi, the government and the electorate have shown a remarkable ability to ignore the singular serious problem facing not just Delhi-ites but large swathes of north India.
Last year, the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) report for 2023 by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute concluded that air pollution shortens the lives of the residents of Delhi by around 11.9 years.
No Jobs Except for Relatives of UP Officials
One hundred and eighty six vacancies in Uttar Pradesh, have created “a splash and a stink” writes The Indian Express. The High Court has called it a “shocking…scam,” and asked for a CBI probe, and raised questions of integrity and nepotism. One -fifth of jobs there have gone to relatives of officials. This has happened after two rounds of tests conducted in 2020-2021, to fill administrative positions in the UP Assembly and Legislative Council.
The Long Cable
After Trump election, India must take robust and proactive economic policy decisions
M K Venu
On the eve of the Lok Sabha poll results, both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah gave an unprecedented call urging people to buy shares in the market on the assumption that BJP would win a decisive victory and the stock markets would be on a roll. However, after the results, the stock market crashed over 6% and Rs 31 trillion of wealth was eroded in just one day.
The markets somewhat retraced and stabilised subsequently and gained for a few months but again started wobbling after September as data on macro economy and later the quarterly results of NIFTY companies started showing significant weakness. In the midst of all this came statements from top CEOs of Nestle, HUL, Asian Paints and other consumer companies that urban consumption was weakening further as high inflation was eating into the real incomes of the middle class. All such negative news is cumulatively impacting market sentiments.
What is seriously worrying the investors is the massive, indeed precipitous, sell off by the Foreign Institutional Investors(FIIs) in the last month and a half as the Sensex has crashed 10%. A large number of individual stocks are down 20 % to 30%, which is normally defined as a bear market.
The FIIs have pulled out $15 billion in just the last one and a half months. The last time withdrawal on such a scale happened was in 2008 after the global financial meltdown when the Sensex crashed over 40% . Just for comparison, the FIIs had pulled out over $15 billion in all of 2008 but this time such a large withdrawal has happened in just 7 weeks. Fortunately markets have fallen just 10% because domestic mutual funds and possibly institutional investors like LIC have supported the market. This trend has resulted in some loss of confidence as big investors who were most emphatically bullish on India have started saying China is providing more value as stocks are much cheaper there.
Suddenly, China has become the flavour of the season as a lot of FII money is incrementally moving to Chinese stocks over the past two months. This is triggered partly by China's monetary stimulus package delivered sometime ago and another bazooka in the form of a $1.4 trillion stimulus package is expected shortly in anticipation of the Trump tariffs on China. Indeed China is very proactive in anticipating the disruption that a Trump administration may cause across the world.
According to Jehangir Aziz, economist at JP Morgan, New York , the Trump tariffs will disrupt the emerging markets equilibrium as the US dollar is likely to strengthen and this could weaken the emerging market currencies, thus affecting business sentiment and disrupting investment flows.
Aziz says the last time Trump imposed heavy import tariffs in 2018, the Chinese immediately depreciated their currency and pivoted their exports to the Asian and Latin American markets. China may repeat that act this time too, he says. However if China depreciates its currency India and other emerging economies too will have to follow. The Indian rupee is already in decline mode, testing Rs. 85 to a dollar level, even before Trump has formally taken over as President. The Trump sentiment is already gripping the world economies. Though sensible economists across the ideological spectrum in the US are cautioning Trump that higher tariffs against China and other emerging economies combined with drastic deportation of illegal immigrants will be hugely inflationary, it remains to be seen how things play out next year.
India will have to come up with a substantive policy response like China has to counter the possible negative economic impact on its inward foreign portfolio investments, exports, employment and currency after Trumponomics takes effect.
At present we hear only tentative statements from the government that for India, Trump may create new opportunities. Trump has already declared India as a big tariff offender during his poll campaign. He will bargain very hard on everything in spite of his much touted personal chemistry with Modi. Remember how in his earlier tenure he stunned India by removing the long-standing preferential exports to the US worth $4 billion under a special GSP tariff scheme meant to aid the less developed economies. A trade negotiator told me that personal chemistry between heads of state is highly overrated in such situations.
India will have to fend for itself by taking innovative measures like China is already doing. Time is of the essence. The response to Trumponomics has to be swift. In this regard, Uday Kotak, chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has coined the term ROTI (return on time invested). If you lose time you will lose economic value. Hitherto Modi has wasted a lot of time attempting big policy ideas which have not yielded the desired results. Wrong diagnosis may also have been a reason for that.
From hereon, India will have to carefully calculate the return on time invested when it comes to responding to global economic headwinds. The current state of the stock markets is also signalling that very clearly. Modi and Shah must remember they cannot build self-serving narratives especially when dealing with the impact of global economic headwinds.
Reportedly
Does India remember the Pegasus scandal? It implicated the BJP government just before and after the 2019 elections for surveilling and illegally snooping on thousands of political leaders, officials, lawyers, journalists, advocates and activists and the Supreme Court had even set up a committee to look into the explosive charges. Now, it transpires that the manufacturer of the controversial military-grade spyware, NSO and not government clients were operating the spyware. This has been revealed by legal documents now out as the court case proceeds. WhatsApp has sued NSO. Will Indian public opinion or regulator wake up now?
Deep dive
How the (former) Soviet Union thought of its geostrategic position in the Cold War world and crafted its policies in the Third World and decolonisation accordingly. “three drivers shaped Moscow’s engagement of New Delhi: the prospect of spreading communism to India as a domestic political ideology, the Cold War confrontation against the United States, and the Sino-Soviet relationship.”
Prime number: $ 130 billionIndia’s sports market is estimated to more than double to $130 billion by 2030 from $52 billion in 2023, as per a joint report by Deloitte and Google released yesterday.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
A spurt in food prices dashes hopes of an early India rate cut, writes Andy Mukherjee arguing that Trump’s policies could pose a further challenge. “It’s the vast bottom of the pyramid struggling to afford a decent meal that needs urgent attention via a rekindling of broad-based growth in jobs and incomes. Let authorities deal with tomatoes first. Trump and his tariffs can wait.”
There are many parallels between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, writes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, “though the contexts are different; the first is the deification of the Constitution while trampling on its letter and spirit.”
Nepal is on a dangerous path, slowly but progressively moving towards becoming a Hindu Nationalist state, moving away from democratic values. In this analysis, Tarushi Aswani writes about how VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS are fanning fanaticism in Nepal.
American power played a great role in ensuring the famine in Gaza. Once upon a time an American scientist helped hungry strangers grow more food. Basharat Peer has an essay considering American power from India.
Anirudh Kanisetti on combating often farzi WhatsApp ‘History’: “Indian producers, publishers, philanthropists, social media companies and journalists need to rise to the call, not just historians.”
“Regional language pride often masks the linguistic diversity of Indian states. Kerala is a good example, even as a new wave of cultural production has brought to the fore its marginalised languages and dialects”. Rajitha Venugopal and Shivakumar Jolad on the many Malayalams and language heterogeneity in Kerala.
Listen up
India had nearly 30 calendars at the time of Independence. This prompted Jawaharlal Nehru to task a committee chaired by the physicist, Meghnad Saha, to reform India’s calendars and come up with a rational, scientific calendar that accurately charted the festivals while being scientific. How did various clocks in India reconcile and become Indian Standard Time?
Watch out
Sunil Amrith, a historian and author of the new book ‘The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of The Last 500 Years’, sat down with Ash Sarkar of Novara Media to talk about how rice and wheat created different cultures, how Columbus understood Marco Polo and why grass was key to the Mongol expansion.
Over and out
Flying ants disrupted play at the Centurion in South Africa. The game was a one-day cricket match between India and South Africa.
Freedom at Midnight, Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’ legendary tome, is now a TV series.
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