India is Relying on Hope to Deal With Trump’s High Tariff Plans; Sri Lanka Revokes Power Purchase Agreement With Adani; Unchecked Persecution of Christians Will Threaten Christian Identity
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Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
January 24, 2025
Sidharth Bhatia
In yet another setback to the Adani conglomerate, Sri Lanka has revoked the power purchase agreement with the Indian conglomerate Adani Group due to corruption allegations, reported the AFP citing sources from the country’s energy ministry on Friday. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, began investigations into Adani’s local projects after Adani Group founder Gautam Adani faced bribery charges in the US last year. “The government has revoked the power purchase agreement, but the project is not cancelled. A committee has been appointed to review the entire project,” the source said, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Adani Group, however, said that the news is ‘false and misleading’. Adani’s proposed $442 million, 484-megawatt wind power plant in Sri Lanka’s Mannar and Pooneryn coastal areas was approved for construction in February 2023, but the project has since been stalled by court challenges. Recently, a panel had been set up to “re-evaluate” the construction.
Elgar Parishad defendants Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale left the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai today, two weeks after the Bombay high court granted them bail while noting they had been in custody since 2018 and that there were no prospects of their trial beginning anytime soon. Of all the defendants in the case, rights activist Mahesh Raut still remains in jail.
The unchecked persecution of Christians in India and the silence of the government in such cases will threaten the Christian identity, the civil society group United Christian Forum has said. In a statement, the group said that attacks against the community had become more frequent, brutal and systematic. The group said that if the trend was not stopped immediately by “political will and concerted government action, it will threaten the identity and existence of the Indian Christian community in their motherland much before 2050”. Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh recorded the highest number of attacks on Christians and had become “the hotspots of viral hate, brutal mob violence, rampant social ostracisation in which elements of the law and justice apparatus is complicit”, the group said citing its 2024 report. While Uttar Pradesh recorded 209 attacks against Christians in 2024, Chhattisgarh reported 165. The United Christian Forum on Wednesday said that the number of cases reported in the two states merely scratched the surface. “Across the country, the crimes that come to our notice may be from thrice to ten times at the grassroots,” the group said.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has stayed the five-year ban imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on data-sharing practices between WhatsApp and Meta for advertising purposes, offering a breather to the tech giant. Meta welcomed the decision and said it would evaluate next steps. “While we will evaluate next steps, our focus remains on finding a path forward that supports millions of businesses that depend on our platform for growth and innovation as well as providing high-quality experiences that people expect from WhatsApp,” said a Meta spokesperson, reported PTI. Back in November, the CCI had imposed a penalty of ₹213.14 crore on Meta “for unfair business ways” pertaining to the WhatsApp privacy policy update done in 2021. The CCI had on November 18, 2024, directed Meta to cease and desist from anti-competitive practices. In its 156-page order, CCI had said that Meta and WhatsApp have also been asked to implement certain behavioural remedies within a defined timeline to address the anti-competition issues.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri will be in Beijing for two days starting Sunday, the external affairs ministry said. His visit – announced a day after the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington and succeeding a string of Sino-Indian engagements – will mark the resumption of the foreign secretary-vice minister bilateral mechanism between India and China. Suhasini Haidar reports that among the issues on the table for discussion during Misri’s visit are restarting direct flights between India and China, the issuing of visas, trade, and the resumption of the Kailash-Manasarovar yatra.
Bloomberg reports that billionaire Mukesh Ambani plans to build the world’s largest data centre in India and is buying NVIDIA’s powerful AI semiconductors to build it in Jamnagar, Gujarat. It reports that the proposed facility would boast a capacity of 3GW, with Reliance set to splash between $20 billion to $30 billion on building the data centre. Limited details have been published on the Jamnagar project, though Reliance plans to power the site entirely with green energy through nearby solar, wind, and hydrogen projects currently under development.
The Omar Abdullah government had ordered the Poonch education department to send 40 or 50 students along with two teachers to attend a rally of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad on January 23, the student wing of the BJP. The opposition PDP criticised the ruling National Conference for the order to attend an ‘ideological event.’
If someone is denied permission to use loudspeakers for prayer or other religious reasons, their rights to the freedom of speech and religion are “not at all infringed” upon, a Bombay high court bench said yesterday. Narsi Benwal quotes it as saying: “Noise is a major health hazard [in] various aspects … Use of loudspeakers is not an essential part of any religion.”
(Credit: Sandeep Adhwaryu in The Times of India)
Pakistan’s parliament introduced and passed amendments to the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act yesterday, which will create a new social media regulatory authority that is to have its own probe agency and tribunals. Reuters reports that while the government says the move will help combat fake news, journalists have decried it as an attempt to muzzle the freedom of the press.
Donald Trump’s decision to pause visa processing for refugees has left in limbo many Afghans in Pakistan who were being vetted and preparing for resettlement in the US, Charlotte Greenfield reports from an Islamabad school where Afghan refugees waiting for American visas go to study; they are not allowed to formally work or study in Pakistan.
And back in their home country, top Taliban leaders including Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani are subjects of International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan’s latest request for arrest warrants. Khan has said there are reasonable grounds to believe that the officials are criminally responsible for “the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.
There are now 99.1 crore voters in India, the Election Commission has said. PTI notes this is higher than the 96.88 crore figure when the general elections were held last year.
Authorities in Sambhal began excavating a well near the disputed Shahi Jama Masjid after locals claimed it was covered illegally, PTI reports. Earlier this month the Supreme Court had ordered that the status quo at a well close to the Masjid’s entrance be maintained after it became the subject of a dispute between mosque officials and the Hindu plaintiffs that say the mosque was originally a temple dedicated to Kalki.
Private sector activity fell to 14-month low in January
Private sector activity in India fell to a 14-month low in January, showed the HSBC Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index published on Friday by United States-based financial analytics firm S&P Global. The index, which measures month-on-month changes in the combined output of the country’s manufacturing and service sectors, fell to a flash value of 57.9 in January from the final reading of 59.2 in December.
Techie created software to siphon toll fees from plazas across India: cops
Ever wonder who exactly your money goes to when you drive through a toll plaza? Well, if you’ve passed any of 42 toll complexes across the country where developer Alok Kumar Singh is said to have installed a certain software, part of the answer is that it goes to him and his accomplices. Uttar Pradesh cops accuse Singh of using illegal software in connivance with plaza operators and IT operators that diverted payments to themselves, with each of the parties involved getting a share, reports Pathikrit Chakraborty. He cites the cops as saying that for a toll plaza in Mirzapur alone the losses to NHAI have been estimated at Rs 45,000 a day.
Dead sea turtles wash onto Chennai shores: what’s going wrong?
Hundreds of dead sea turtles have run aground onto Chennai’s shores: the toll was 400 in the first couple weeks of this year and now stands at around 600. Experts say the deaths are likely due to overfishing off the coast, where turtles are accidentally becoming trapped in nets. But Chennai’s fishers say the seas are too rough for them to travel too far off the coast and that a decrease in the number of fish due to climate change is causing even large trawlers to go to areas where they shouldn’t. There is also the fact that fishers do not use a contraption that helps turtles go free because doing so would reduce their catch of fish. Sibi Arasu reports.
The Long Cable
India is relying on hope to tackle Trump’s aggressive tariff policies
MK Venu
There were news reports a few weeks ago that Indian policy makers had started the exercise of building various scenarios to counter Donald Trump's threat of imposing substantial tariffs against the rest of the world. Tariffs aside, Trump's promise of 15% corporate tax and substantial economic deregulation is making the US a very attractive investment destination and is threatening to pull global capital out of emerging markets. The effects are already visible as EM stock markets and currencies are in decline.
To counter the Trump effect China recently announced a $400 plus fiscal stimulus plan as a guardrail against US's disruptive policies.
India has not made any pre-emptive announcement like China but hopes that Trump's policies will be less harsh on the Indian economy. Hope is not a sustainable strategy considering what might be unleashed by the new "America first" administration. The world economy is so interconnected and interdependent that even if the US targets China severely it will end up affecting many other large economies.
For instance China has decided to depreciate its currency by 7-8% to counter higher US tariffs. After taking over as President Trump has said he would initially put a 10% higher import tariff on China. China can possibly neutralise this by depreciating its currency so that the value of its exports to the US does not change much in dollar terms.
India is also letting its currency depreciate of late in anticipation of the Trump tariffs. Modi's earlier approach of linking a muscular currency policy to nationalism will have to be abandoned now for reasons of economic survival. It was never a sensible policy to begin with, for that matter.
India has many other issues to worry about as Donald Trump has publicly called India one of the worst tariff offenders. Average Indian import tariffs have only gone up significantly during Modi's tenure so far in the name of promoting domestic manufacturing and employment. It is another matter that manufacturing as a ratio of GDP remained stagnant for a whole decade and youth unemployment has also grown apace.
The forthcoming budget will possibly reflect the overall response of policy makers to a host of issues , both domestic and global, including the big uncertainty brought by Trump.
India's problem is the global uncertainty comes at a time when the economy itself has gone into a funk due to the unexpected decline in the GDP growth estimate at 5.4% in the latest quarter. This has spooked the policy makers as well as the stock markets because both the finance ministry and RBI had become sanguine about a 7% plus growth and proclaimed that India was finally on a steady and sustainable recovery path.
It is immensely worrisome that during Modi's tenure so far, growth, private investment and employment have not picked up in a steady and sustainable manner at all. It seems like a series of dead cat bounce episodes over ten years. On several occasions what seemed like a recovery has been followed by a sudden sputtering of growth.
A latest study by Swiss investment bank UBS, released last fortnight, says the Indian economy is in a structural slowdown phase.
The bank’s research group said "India’s $4 trillion economy has entered a structural slowdown that can’t be explained by cyclical factors like oil-price hikes or declining government spending..."
The deceleration is underpinned by a long-term moderation in credit growth, foreign direct investment, export competitiveness and earnings potential, UBS research has said.
In this backdrop UBS is also skeptical about India's claim that it is risk free from Trump's "America First" policies. If anything, the initial public pronouncements by Trump seem to suggest he might be less harsh on China relative to his earlier sabre-rattling against the second largest economy.
In his first media interaction after taking charge as President he spoke in conciliatory terms about China and expressed his desire to have a 50% partnership with the Tik Tok platform in the US. Tik Tok has been a bone of contention in the US as well as in India where it was banned after China's border transgression in Ladakh in 2020.
Now Trump is proposing a partnership with the Chinese company while India seems to have no strategy in sight!
Trump has also spoken of an initial additional tariff of 10% on China whereas he had threatened 60% import duty in his manifesto. China must be pleasantly surprised. In sharp contrast, the US president spoke of imposing a 25% import tariff on his long standing trading partners Canada and Mexico from February 1.
Indeed, if Trump's bite is far less severe than his bark against China then India needs to reshape its own strategy and start thinking of doing serious business with both America and China. At present India is just hoping that Trump will not hurt the Indian economy much and it is yet to formulate a comprehensive strategy for a deeper economic relations with China after the much publicized thaw along the Ladakh border.
The economic ministries are in favour of a comprehensive policy to deepen trade and investment relations with China. It is no secret that Indian manufacturing is heavily dependent on imports from China in critical areas like pharma, electronics, solar parts and electric vehicles. A liberal foreign investment policy vis a vis China in these sectors makes eminent sense. The forthcoming budget statement and policy refinement thereafter will have to take into account these ground realities in our relations with the largest and second largest economies in the world.
Some of the structural and long standing weaknesses in India's economy will have to be boldly addressed sooner than later. For starters Modi and his spin doctors must stop talking about Viksit Bharat of 2047 and instead focus on the immediate need to steer the economy away from the gathering storm.
Reportedly
Photographs showing a smiling, ‘suited-booted’ chief minister of Devendra Fadnavis walking down a street in Davos and also taking a train to Zurich – both of which he has posted – have gone viral on social media. Some Xers commented that in India he travels with a long motorcade while in Switzerland he enjoys strolling on the streets. His own account shows him talking to the media and to businessmen and announcing MoUs of incredibly impressive amounts, including one for “3 lakh crore” with JSW, which could have been signed in Mantralaya in Mumbai and another with the Kalyani group which is headquartered in Pune. Then why go to Davos for this? That’s a silly question, isn’t it as much as asking how many of these MoUs will actually be implemented.
Deep dive
Kerala is the bastion of left movements and organisations in India. But within them, women have had to wage fierce battles to be heard and represented. Johanna Deeksha reports on the plight of women workers in Kerala who tackled the problem head-on.
Prime number: Rs 70.7k crore
The statutory welfare boards for building and other construction workers across the country are yet to use for worker welfare Rs 70,744.16 crore in cess they levied on employers, an RTI response from the Union labour ministry to construction worker union leader Arka Rajpandit has said, reports AM Jigeesh.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
There is a debt crisis among Indians and it is only growing, writes Patralekha Chatterjee. More and more Indians are borrowing money and defaults are only increasing. People with small means are hit the hardest.
Julio Rebeiro writes a heartfelt tribute to his friend, the lawyer Iqbal Chagla who passed away on January 12. While he couldn’t attend the funeral, because, “my 95 year old knees will not allow me to stand for more than a minute”, he remembers him as a man full of courage who was ready to stick his neck out for a principle, especially against corruption.
If Donald Trump wants to work with foreign governments such as India’s to curb illegal immigration, what is key to success is that it is done without “[making] too much of a fuss about it”, argues Mihir Sharma.
The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Modi “certainly … cannot be the guardian of our history. But it could and must protect and preserve whatever has remained from the past, a duty it seems to have forgotten,” writes Kishalay Bhattacharjee in an op-ed about the state of our museums.
Dipa Sinha writes that India’s education system needs an ‘overhaul’ rather than blaming the policy of no detention, when no child is held back in any class. Accountability for ensuring that every child gets educated must be enforced.
Listen up
Many questions have been raised about the Constitution – some members of the BJP want to remove the words secular and socialist because they were not in the original document. “It would have been superfluous to add the words at that time,” says veteran Constitutional lawyer Raju Ramchandran in this podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia. “It was obvious from the document that it would be a welfare state and a secular state,” he says.
Watch out
The film Gandhi Thatha Chettu (‘Gandhi’s grandfather’s tree’) is something new and refreshing from the Telugu stable. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo writes that it “is a partly innocent, partly dramatic tribute to Gandhian principles, imbued with hope”. Watch the trailer here:
Over and out
Anuja, a film set in New Delhi, is one of the nominees for the Best Live Action Short at the Oscars 2024. The film, directed by Adam J Graves and Suchitra Mattai, follows a nine year old girl, along with her sister Palak, faces a life-changing opportunity that tests their bond.
Born in Kerala during the British Raj, Thayyoor K Radha went on to win a gold medal in physics at the University of Madras, write papers on particle physics and travel to the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, where she was one of its first women scholars of colour and met J Robert Oppenheimer among other eminent scientists. She narrates her life story to the Institute’s Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.