ICICI Videocon sweet deal,CBI to probe whistleblower's laundering charges against Kochhar's husband (NewsX)

In this season of bank fraud and amids News X’ ongoing 100 day NPA campaign now comes allegation of yet another potential banking scam And the name of one of India’s best known bankers has been dragged in A whistleblower claims there is "evidence" to suggest that ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar and her family were "a huge beneficiary" of a loan sanctioned to the Videocon Group by ICICI bank itself The whistleblower Arvind Gupta says the govt must order an investigation and audit to check why a massive loan was given to a sinking company ICICI Bank sanctioned a loan worth 3,250 crore to the Videocon Group In its defence the bank says its loan to Videocon was as part of a consortium of more than 20 banks and financial institutions The trouble is a big part of this loan over 2,800 crore was declared a Non Performing Asset in 2017 And ICICI Bank MD chanda Kochar’s husband Deepak Kochar has been a business partner of Videocon Group Chairman…Venugopal Dhoot And so the allegation is that Deepak Kochhar is an indirect beneficiary of the loan granted to Videocon Among other things this episode raises serious questions about a conflict of interests as Chanda Kochar was on the panel that sanctioned this loan. The CBI has filed a preliminary enquiry against her husband. Deepak Kochhar and will decide at a later stage there are grounds to file an FIR.Whether. Chanda Kochhar will be summoned will be decided after the relevant documents are examined. The question is simply this Is the Videocon bad loanmore evidence of India’s growing banking crisis?Does this mean that it is not the public sector banks alone but even private banks that have major exposure to many of these frauds?Just how deep is this banking sector rot? How is the govt going to restore public confidence in the banking system which has been completely shattered ? Also while it is yet to be determined if there was indeed a quid pro quo involved in this particular instance is ICICI MD Chanda Kochhar at the very least guilty of a conflict of interests?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CejQzjAioJ4 

Catalans join Roma among Europe’s persecuted (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat

WORDS are cheaper than dirt, and meaningless in the absence of practical steps to ensure that they be put into practice. Forgetting the adage that “charity begins at home”, all – repeat all – the countries still willing to remain in the European Union treat those fellow citizens who are Roma atrociously. An outlay of as little as $ 6 billion in the form of scholarships and Roma-specific educational facilities would ensure that this historically ill-treated community be enabled to reach the levels of more fortunate sections of the citizenry, yet the European Union (which has spent over $ 600 billion on wars in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria) refuses to set aside this sum. In every country within continental Europe, the Roma are a particular focus of hostile attention by the police, much as African-Americans still are in some parts of United States.
Adults within the community find it much more difficult to get jobs than other sections, with the consequence that some are forced into a life of crime. As a consequence, the Roma are openly derided in may parts of Europe as “criminals”, despite the fact that such elements exist everywhere in society. There are, for example, criminals that have perpetrated the most heinous of acts among the Protestant or Catholic communities, yet these groups are not defamed with the “criminal” tag the way the Roma have been for centuries. And now, another segment of European society is on course towards joining the Roma in being persecuted and denied justice by a European Union that spends much of every day preaching morality and ethics to countries across the world. How this fits with the fact that the EU contains some of the biggest arms merchants in the world remains unexplained. The children being bombed to death in Yemen are losing their lives as a consequence of the weaponry supplied by Europe and its North American partners, yet there does not seem to be even a second of remorse for such deeds, much less an effort to halt such trade in death machines. Indeed, the more significant the contribution to global arms sales, the louder the protestations of morality. Listening to these, the overwhelming majority of the Catalan people in Spain had faith that the European Union would as a bureaucracy stand by its declared principles and support them in their desire to be freed from the yoke of Madrid and from a monarch who is closely related to the family of Francisco Franco, the military dictator whose ascent to power was assisted by Adolf Hitler, a 100% monster who also happened to be 100% Austrian ie European. All that they sought was principled self-determination, and expressed such a desire not through force of arms but via the ballot box
Were Catalonia to become an independent state that would get admitted into the European Union, every citizen of (the rest of) Spain would have the right to live and work there, just as Catalans would have the right to live and work in (the rest of) Spain. The European Union has meaning and resonance only if it truly believes in a European identity, and does not consider itself a mere federation of Metternichean nation states. This, the Walloons and the Flemish people can separate from each other juridicially, as can the Basques of France or the north of Italy from the south. It would not matter, except for Ministries of Finance that would need to re-adjust their tax collection figures. However, such obvious logic seems beyond the comprehension of the leaders of the countries which make up the European Union. The central government of Spain has reacted to the Catalan movement for independence with a vicious show of force, arresting several and denying them the right to elect their own government. Now, in a shameless show of contempt for the rights of individuals and peoples, the most popular Catalan politician, Carles Puidgemont, has been arrested in Germany for the crime of having been elected to the regional legislature in Catalonia by his own people. It is apparent that to Angela Merkel at least, what s much more important than a common European identity is the right of majoritarian parliamentary majorities to impose their views on the minority, if needed by force of arms and by police methods. Severral of Puidgmont’s colleagues have been arrested in Spain itself. An entire people are under the lash of state power, exercised without any regard for natural justice.
Angela Merkel had posed as a saint in politics, but it would appear that such saintliness does not extend to the Catalan people, who have been denied the right of self determination within the European Union. The reality is that a kix of smaller states would add to the cultural diversity of Europe and contribute to its versatility. It should be remembered that it was the biggest states in Europe that were the instigators of conflicts : Germany, France, the UK and Italy. Such territorial entities feed the egos of some politicians, but when they collide against the popular will, it is the wishes of the people that should hsve primacy. Unfortunately, the central government in Spain has been transparent in its determination to block and harass the Catalan people for the “crime” of wanting ther own state rather than remain dominated by (rest of) Spain
Where are the voices of protest in Germany? Where are the Greens or the Free Democrats? Angela Merkel’s East German roots have meant that she has spent the bulk of her life under a regimented system in which the state is supreme over the citizen. It is therefore no surprise that she would order the arrest and incarceration of Carles Puidgmont when the State of Spain represented by the non-Catalan majority asks her to do so. Given the statist (ie sub-European) bias within the European Union, it is likely that Puidgmont would have been arrested in states such as France and perhaps the UK as well, had he stepped foot there (as he is entitled to do as a citizen of the EU). Given the entirely peaceful nature of the Catalan movement thus far and the undoubted popular support for the right to self-determination, it will be with obvious hypocrisy that the European Union as a collective or any of its members delivers homilies to others about “respecting the rights of a people”. Carles Puidgmont believed in the sanctity of that EU promise, and lost his liberty as a consequence.

 

https://pakobserver.net/catalans-join-roma-among-europes-persecuted/ 

Trump readies to tell Kim: Surrender nuclear assets or die (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat 

The idea behind a Trump-Kim meeting is to make the North Korean leader understand that the US President is ‘deadly serious’ about a military option.

Expert in evading hard choices and in obfuscating issues, the Washington Beltway (an ideological cousin of Delhi’s Lutyens Zone) remains on overdrive in an effort at reversing the 8 November 2016 verdict of the US electorate and removing the 45th President of the United States from office. However, now that he is entering his fifteenth month in the Oval Office, the US President is finally coming out of the defensive crouch that he was made to adopt by advisors chosen for their Beltway connections, and who are rapidly being dismissed from office, the latest to go being National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, who is being replaced with John Bolton, who in temperament and tenacity, although not in appearance, resembles Trump. As Exxon CEO, Rex Tillerson was known for his emollient approach to prospective global partners of the oil giant.

However, PR skills were not what President Trump sought in a Secretary of State, and Tillerson has now made way for Mike Pompeo, who shares several geopolitical concepts with the present occupant of the White House. Together with Defense Secretary James Mattis, this is the team that will accompany President Trump to talks in May with the Supreme Leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un. The Beltway is opposed to such a meeting, perhaps out of fear that Trump may gain in popularity and global respect as a consequence of the unprecedented sit-down between a serving US Head of State and a North Korean leader. However, the US President is known to wish to go ahead with the summit, and has asked his aides to busy themselves with the formalities needing to be addressed before the meeting takes place in a third country.

Those privy to the White House rationale for such a meeting say that it is intended to meet four specific purposes:

(a) Show the international community that President Trump is ready to walk the extra mile for peace, provided that the basic objective of ensuring the security of the US is not compromised.

(b) Size up Kim Jong Un and ascertain the “extent of sincerity” of the North Korean supremo in handing over his nuclear assets once assured of security for his regime from external forces.

(c) Convey directly and bluntly a warning to Kim that this is his last chance for obeying the wishes of the international community and “handing over his nuclear assets for disposal in a time-bound and verifiable manner”.

(d) Allow Kim to meet Trump face to face to understand that the US President is “deadly serious” about the military option, and that he will not hesitate to launch a war in case it becomes obvious that the DPRK has no intention of surrendering its nuclear weapons program. While Presidents W.J. Clinton, G.W. Bush and B.H. Obama could not bring themselves to cross the line and initiate a military solution to the North Korean issue, Trump would like to show the North Korean side that he represents a break from such a pacifist path, and that he will have no hesitation in giving the order to “strike and destroy North Korea’s military assets and leadership”.

It is understood that Defense Secretary Mattis has been “on overdrive” for the past nine months working on options designed to decapitate the North Korean regime in such a manner that “significant damage does not get caused” to US allies such as South Korea or Japan. As part of such planning, high value military platforms (on sea and air) have been rotated in the vicinity of North Korea so as to familiarise themselves with the geographic locations that would be the target of the air, land and sea strikes, and that such “preparations for conflict” will get completed within four months, or soon after the Trump-Kim meeting. “This time, a US President will not hand over US security to any other country (read China) the way his predecessors have”, a source warned, adding that President “Trump will take all actions that are needed to protect the Homeland without worrying about the reaction across the Pacific”.

Those in contact with the Trump White House say that the US President “does not want to go down in history as the man under whose watch North Korea was enabled to become a lethal threat to the Homeland”, and that he is “ready to approve the military option rather than (in effect) stow it away” in the manner of his three predecessors. The Trump White House understands that the policies of the past have led to a trust deficit in US reliability. However, the President intends to assure the North Korean supremo personally that his regime will be safe from external intervention if he abandons the nuclear weapons program. Those in contact with the White House pointed out that the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis could have led to a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR. However, the secret guarantee that Washington would not intervene against the Castro regime in Cuba in the future, and would not seek to facilitate regime change on the island, ensured that peace was maintained.

The sources say that President Trump has a “practical mind” and “can be relied upon to keep his word, the way he has in countless operations he has conducted” across the globe. The expectation is that, in a “let bygones be bygones” spirit, both North and South Korea could enter into a “Bright Sunshine” policy once nuclear weapons get removed from the DPRK, and that such a process may “within a generation” result in a unification of the Korean peninsula. However, the “onus for this vests with Kim Jong Un”.

During the May 2018 meeting of the two sides, President Trump will give the North Korean supreme leader the option of “either salvation or oblivion”. He “owes it to history to make a final effort for peace before the furies of war get unleashed”, which is the US President is disregarding Beltway opinion in his determination to hold a summit meeting with Kim Jong Un “this May, or well before the deadline for military action comes up”. Given the views and the propensities for action of the by now far more “Trumpian” US national security team, it seems clear that Kim Jong Un will face a choice that his predecessors could duck because of the unwillingness of Clinton, Bush and Obama to implement the military option at a time (during the Clinton period) “when casualties on our side would have been zero” to “a few hundreds” during the eight years of Bush II and “some thousands” during Obama.

Those close to White House thinking warn that casualties “could reach the hundreds of thousands” in case Kim Jong Un refuses to disarm and a military strike on him and his regime is delayed. “This is Kim’s last chance for an honourable peace”, a source said, adding that “President Trump will go to any extent to ensure the safety of the American people, as will be seen should North Korea refuse to abandon its nuclear program”.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/trump-readies-tell-kim-surrender-nuclear-assets-die 

Prof Nalapat lists 3 essential things that NaMo must do (PGurus)

Prof Nalapat lists 3 essential things that NaMo must do in order to get the country back on track after a drift of four years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx5Tc_-IFMw&feature=youtu.be 

Siddaramaiah’s Lingayat ploy opens Pandora’s Box (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat 

Existing minority communities may not look kindly to another addition to their ranks.

Whether out of compulsion or by conviction, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has dispensed with the high command model favoured by his predecessor Sonia Gandhi. In the earlier system, it was 10 Janpath (acting and speaking through a handful of chosen favourites) that dictated policy in any state run by the Congress Party. In order to keep the ego (read “powers”) of the Chief Minister in check, the Pradesh Congress Committee chief was usually his bitter rival within the party, and whose primary activity was to sabotage the functioning of the government, so that in time the high command would replace the CM with (hopefully) the PCC president. Aircraft charter companies were kept busy in visits of the CM and his ministers to the All India Congress Committee headquarters at Delhi. Many of the ministers would have dreams of replacing their boss, and would retail unpleasant stories about the CM to those regarded as the “eyes and ears” of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The lady would, on occasion, grant an audience to some of these frequent flyers, generating newspaper headlines friendly or negative towards the CM, depending on whether she met his foes or allies. Much of the time of those in ministerial office was spent not on battling the opposition or solving the problems of the state, but on durbar politics. In every election, tickets were distributed on the basis of regularity of attendance at the durbars of senior Congress leaders, with favourites getting precedence over those unfortunates who were unable to attend such durbars (and serenade and flatter the leader in question) bec ause they were busy at the grassroots. Of course, it needs to be added that it was not only the Congress Party that ran a durbar system.

Other parties did as well, and the durbars of prominent leaders of these parties are well known not only to party cadres but to the wider public as well. The large number of “durbaris” accommodated in top jobs within each of these non-Congress parties is testimony to the reality of the feudal spirit continuing in force despite Indira Gandhi having torn up in 1969 the supposedly sacrosanct covenants entered into between the Princes and the Government of India in 1947. In contrast, Rahul Gandhi (entirely correctly) did not make efforts at micro-managing the administration of states such as Punjab and Karnataka, whose Chief Ministers function the way Biju Patnaik and B.C. Roy did during the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. Facing an election that could fatally damage not only his political career but the future of his party, the Karnataka CM has deployed a sackful of tactics in order to reduce the BJP vote and increase that of the Congress Party. Among them is his government’s acceptance of the demand of a section of the Lingayat community for minority status, which earlier had been granted to Sikhs and Jains.

In Karnataka, the Congress is aiming at the most reliable BJP vote bank, the Lingayat community, within which state BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa belongs. The CM’s backing for separate status has led to fears that the Hindu community will be at grave risk of getting splintered, were the separation to take effect. Such fears are misplaced, for the origins of the demand are not anchored in theology, but in more practical issues. The most important is the fact that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru continued with the British-era policy of giving preferential treatment to non-Hindus, a strand of policy which was implemented with added vigour during the ten years of UPA rule. Enactments with a frank bias against the Hindus such as the Right to Education Act were passed into law. The consequence of this law has been to substantially handicap the majority community from setting up and administering schools, thereby ceding the advantage to institutions started by members of the minority communities.

Despite the NDA entering upon its fifth year in office, this far no effort has been made to either scrap the RTE to ensure that every citizen of India be treated equally in the matter of setting up of private schools. Prime Minister Narendra Modi apparently wants to wait till a second or a third term before doing away with British-era measures that target the Hindu community, such as the continuation of state control over temples in India. But some Hindus are not prepared to wait that long and doubt that such British-era discriminatory steps will ever get rolled back. They would, therefore, like to join the ranks of the minority communities, thereby winning for themselves the privileges such a tag brings with it in India. The Lingayat community has within its fold several who set up educational, medical and other institutions, but who are finding themselves handicapped while competing with those set up by members of minority communities. Just as the Patidars led by Hardik Patel want to be treated the same as other sections are as a consequence of laws applicable to reservations, so do many of the Lingayats of Karnataka. Imprecations of anti-national conduct by television anchors are unlikely to deflect them from such a course.

While the existing minority communities may not look kindly to another addition to their ranks, the Karnataka CM has calculated that they have nowhere else to go, as few wish to cast their ballots in favour of the BJP, at least in Karnataka. Also, the chances that the Central government will concede the demand of a section of the Lingayats for separate status is zero so far as the Modi government is concerned, a fact that must be known to almost all minority community voters.

Given the tilt of certain official policies in favour of minority communities and the reluctance even of the Central government to remove this, more and more groups within the majority community are likely to demand minority status, not out of distaste for the ancient religion they belong to, but solely to be enabled to compete on an equal footing with competitors from the minority communities. The Congress Party may garner several hundred thousand more votes as a consequence of Siddaramaiah’s dexterity. However, he will have opened a Pandora’s Box of similar demands, until the Modi government finds the will to ensure that equal treatment to all finally becomes state policy.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/siddaramaiahs-lingayat-ploy-opens-pandoras-box 

President Trump shows a Churchillian pugnacity (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat

Say this for Hillary Clinton, she built (along with her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea) a superb campaign machinery working for her. Their reach was not just domestic but global, with key figures in the “Hillary for President” movement being in regular contact with diplomats, officials and experts from different countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. Of course, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s real task is to remove Donald Trump from office through concocting a case of entrapment, sexual and financial misconduct or collusion or whatsoever against the 45th President of the world’s most consequential country, he has not shown any interest in Hillarygate, nor indeed has the Trump administration, except for fiery words about the lady and her doings by a handful of aides who are genuine supporters of Trump.
The majority of key members of the Trump administration are “supporters by happenstance”, that being the need to profess loyalty to the billionaire in order to retain the high offices to which he has appointed them. And from the comfort of their suites of rooms and retainers, many (especially in the foreign policy field) have worked at sabotaging Trump’s vision of a 21st century Indo-Pacific world that no longer enshrines Russia as a hate object, the way the world’s largest country has been since Moscow under Marshal Stalin played a decisive role in the 1945 defeat of Adolf Hitler and the German Empire he led to such destructive effect, including the elimination of millions of the most productive human beings on the planet. Whether it be Defence Secretary Mattis or US Ambassador to the Middle East Nikki Haley, they continue to follow a doctrine that since at least the past two decades has benefitted only the European Union at the cost of core US interests, more and more of which are getting aligned to Asia and to the Indo-Pacific, which was first defined by this columnist as being the totality of the Indian and Pacific oceans and not simply slices of the two water bodies.
The EU as a construct was backed by three powers that in effect subsidized the entity, two of which were Germany and the UK, whose taxpayers met the bill for most of the other members of the European Union. The other is the US, which has hugely benefitted the EU through its military muscle as well as its negotiating strengths in fora in which Washington goes by what the EU seeks rather than ( as with Trump) just those outcomes which benefit the US rather than any other country or group of countries. Small wonder that the stately chancelleries of the EU dislike Donald Trump intensely, and in private (and sometimes in public) belittle and disparage the 70-year old who seems to have got the 21st century right in a manner that far younger politicians in the US have not
After a comfortable flight from Delhi to Washington via Abu Dhabi on Etihad Airlines, it became clear from talks with friends that even more heavily than the snow, what is raining down on what will still be for a few years more the capital of the world’s biggest economy is a torrent of abuse of President Trump, mainly focussing on Russia. The US President is accused of congratulating Putin on what Senartor John McCain (who has from start of his political career hewed closely to the EU line on strategic policy, as have Clintons and most of the Congressional leadership of Republican Party) calls a “rigged” mandate. This ignores the reality of Putin being far and away the most popular politician in Russia, in large part because he is seen as an individual who has not buckled down to dictation by NATO.
Refusing to join hands with the US and the EU in geopolitical errors that have had the effect of boosting the strength of terrorist groups in the Middle East, instead backing those who may be authoritarian, Putin has made Moscow as important a player in the Arab region as it was during the 1960s, before the 1967 war enshrined Israel as being far and away the most powerful military power in the Middle East. Since then,Moscow has been in retreat in the region, only regaining lost ground from 2011 onwards, when it refused to follow the Sarkozy-Hollande-Clinton-Blair – Cameron consensus and support groups that were in effect were paving the way for radical groups to take over, as indeed Daesh did during that period, only retreating under attack from Moscow and its allies in Teheran and Damascus, although the Pentagon and the State Department have claimed credit for the victory.
This is similar to the way in which Hollywood (and official histories in the NATO zone) grabs for the US, the UK and even France (whose contribution to the war against Hitler’s armies was non-existent) the credit for defeating the German armies, when in fact the responsibility for that vested in the Russian forces. Despite casualties in the tens of millions, that force and the people behind the troops managed to overpower the German war machine and finally bring it to surrender. Soon afterwards, former followers of Hitler were not simply pardoned but placed in authority in Germany in order to challenge the Soviet Union and bring it to collapse, a feat that was achieved by the cowardice of Khruschev, the over-bureaucratisation of the Brezhnev years and the final surrender of Moscow’s interests to NATO by Mikhail Gorbachev
The attack on Donald Trump is unprecedented in its decibel level and coverage. News channel after news channel spends the bulk of its airtime regurgitating criticism of the President by an army of “experts”, each eager to ensure that the policies of the past return in their old virulence to the abodes of government in Washington. A standard issue politician may have wilted under the strain of such fire, but Trump seems to be ignoring the barrahe. Indeed, with every month the President seems to be gaining confidence in the wisdom of his own intuitive and businesslike approach to US policy, standing firm against advice to surrender his positions and adopt those of his foes. On the way from Abu Dhabi to Washington, this columnist watched “The Darkest Day”, a movie about Winston Churchill and how the British Prime Minister resisted those who wanted him to surrender to Hitler. His foes may be furious at comparison, but these days, President Trump is showing a Churchillian pugnacity and defiance of multiplying advice and threats from Washington Beltway to back away from his policies and adopt those of his 2016 opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

 

https://pakobserver.net/president-trump-shows-a-churchillian-pugnacity/ 

After Kannada pride & flag push, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah launches scathing attack at the centre (NewsX)

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has launched scathing attack at centre. In a Facebook post, CM Siddaramaiah has stated that the southern states pay more taxes to the centre without getting enough returns. He further stated that a developed South India has been subsidising the North. Meanwhile, MK Stalin in a statement has urged CM EPS to support no confidence motion against BJP, says this is the most opportune time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPjd4WRePnM&feature=youtu.be 

Congress slams BJP's One Nation One Poll, says simultaneous elections are impractical (NewsX)

Congress has slammed BJP’s move for simultaneous elections, calling it a misplaced move. In a document accessed by NewsX it further said that the idea of having simultaneous polls. Is incompatible with the constitution and is also impractical? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujlbu0Hd9DA&feature=youtu.be 

Rahul torn between Gen Past and Gen Next (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat

That dynasty is not a killer for a political career became apparent in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav scripted bypoll victories for the SP and the RJD. Mulayam Singh’s low profile in the UP campaign left the spotlight firmly on his telegenic son. Since the SP’s Assembly elections defeat, rather than surrender to the “Old” Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav instead widened the distance between himself and the SP’s “Gen Past” and steadily raised the percentage of new entrants in leadership positions. This has strengthened the public perception of a reset SP. Likewise, the absence of a jailed Lalu Yadav and the stepping back into home life by Rabri Devi have by default handed over the leadership of the RJD to son Tejashwi. Should he avoid the more egregious of both Lalu and Mulayam’s misjudgements (such as giving prominence to majority community goons and to Wahhabi fanatics in preference to decent and moderate individuals from both communities), the RJD will be on course to win the largest number of seats from Bihar in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Among Candidate Modi’s strong electoral cards was his being from the “backward” castes, but in the fifth year of his rule, birth identity matters much less than the overall performance of his government. Despite becoming Prime Minister of a country eager for change, Narendra Modi retained almost the entire ministerial core team of Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had lost the 2004 polls with this very team. In his suite of civil servants, the new Prime Minister left pride of place to the very civil servants who had enjoyed a privileged status during the decade when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister, some of whom were accomplices to UPA-era corruption. Not unexpectedly, Modi has found it difficult to implement any except incremental changes in governance, while his most consequential initiative, demonetisation, was rolled out in a manner less than favourable to the economy. The UPA faced headwinds caused by the 2008 global financial meltdown and high oil prices, and yet achieved a higher average annual growth the next six years than Modi has managed in four years of faster global growth and low oil prices.

70% of the BJP’s 2014 victory was due to voter disenchantment with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Hence she being perceived as the leader of a new anti-Modi alliance is likely to harm rather than help the anti-BJP opposition at the hustings. Many in India, especially among the middle classes, are disenchanted with Team Modi, but few amongst them wish to see a return of the Sonia-led 2004-2014 UPA. Unless Rahul Gandhi rebrands the Congress Party in the way Akhilesh Yadav is doing with the SP, its electoral results will remain well below potential. Rahul has to transition from going by the guidance of “Gen Past” the way he unfortunately did during 2004-2014, to promoting “Gen Next” policies. Such a shift is essential to take advantage of the palpable inability of the BJP to convince the bulk of the electorate that a “Naya Soch” and not just a Naya Pradhan Mantri arrived in 2014. In UP and Bihar last week, many of those who voted for Modi in 2014 stayed at home rather than vote. A year later, unless the direction and chemistry of governance changes substantially from what it has been for the previous four years, many BJP supporters of 2014 are likely to vote for whatever opposition party or combination they believe can defeat Modi. There has not been enough perceptional change in substance since 2014 from the Vajpayee (or the UPA) years to convince tens of millions of voters in 2019 to wait till 2022 for Modi’s promised “Achhe Din” to arrive. In both villages and cities, the effects of (a) demonetisation (b) a harsh GST and (c) “tax and persecute” policies are turning away voters. If the present situation continues, the best hope for Prime Minister Modi would be for Sonia Gandhi to remain the source of Congress policy, and the pivot around which opposition unity forms. The continuation of Sonia as the primary face of the anti-BJP campaign may cause enough anti-Modi voters to stay at home, thereby ensuring just enough LS seats for the BJP in 2019 to enable the party to put together a coalition government.

As much as for Amit Shah, the results in UP are a wake-up call for Rahul Gandhi. It was an act of grotesquerie for Sonia Gandhi to say, as she did recently, that her effort during the UPA decade was to ensure “equal treatment of all”. This when she ensured through abominations such as the RTE that frankly discriminatory policies got deepened rather than jettisoned. Certainly the passing of the RTI Act was a welcome move by the UPA, but the subsequent filling up by Team Manmohan of RTI posts by former or current civil servants (including policepersons) made a mockery of the purposes of the measure. By now, the official machinery has managed to defang the RTI into an irrelevance, with added speedbreakers and exemptions to ensure that the lack of transparency of the pre-RTI past is fast returning. If he is to succeed in positioning his party as the speartip of the anti-BJP opposition for the 2019 polls, Rahul Gandhi will need to demand the strengthening of the RTI. He must call for the elimination of contra-democratic laws such as criminal defamation or laws against freedom of diet and lifestyle. He will need to call for lower taxes and regulations, and for giving the citizen of India the freedoms a democracy of 70-year vintage should assure. Rahul will need to support the consensus among the moderate majority to build a Ram Temple at Ayodhya, and celebrate the past of India, rather than deny it. To succeed, Rahul Gandhi needs to repudiate the failed policy mix of the Congress Party’s Gen Past, and instead call for fulfilling the needs of Gen Next.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/13113-rahul-torn-between-gen-past-and-gen-next 

Warning signals from Hindi states for Modi (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

PRIME Minister Modi has given pride of place to MPs from the Hindi-speaking states in the Union Council of Ministers. This was because of the fact that the bulk of the MPs elected from the BJP were from the Hindi-speaking states. In 1977, these states overwhelmingly voted against the Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi. The second PM from the Nehru family (and India’s only woman Prime Minister) was the role model for Sonia Gandhi, who recently handed over the Presidentship of the Congress Party to her only son, Rahul Gandhi. In 2014, she followed in the footsteps of Indira Gandhi in a manner that was hardly welcome, which was to witness the Hindi-speaking states vote overwhelmingly against her party, exactly as they had in 1977.
Morarji Desai, who was chosen as Prime Minister by the ideologue of the anti-Indira movement, Jayaprakash Narayan, could not last three years in the job, although his overall performance on the job was superb. Economic growth got boosted and inflation reduced, but such successes had little effect on leaders such as Charan Singh, who every day was scheming to take over Desai’s job. Finally, a palace coup fuelled by MPs from the Hindi belt forced Desai to quit, thereby resulting in political instability until Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao managed to win over enough MPs to ensure a majority for his 1992-96 government. Although Rao came to office because of the support extended by Sonia Gandhi, she very soon turned against him, encouraged by those within the Congress Party who hated Rao, such as Arjun Singh and N D Tiwari, both from the Hindi belt. They formed a breakaway party with Sonia Gandhi’s not very hidden blessings, a development that caused the Congress Party to be defeated in 1996. These anti-Rao politicians were completely opposed to Narasimha Rao’s economic reforms, and it must be assumed that their hostility to economic reform was shared by Sonia Gandhi, else why would she have supported them in their revolt against Rao, albeit behind the scenes?
Modi chose Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh as his constituency, letting go of Vadodara in Gujarat. And from May 26, 2014 onwards, he and BJP President Amit Shah have sought to champion Hindi over English. More than in any previous government, the use of English in government has diminished while that of Hindi has grown. As a consequence, most of the top posts in the administrative structure have gone to Hindi-speaking bureaucrats. Modi uses Hindi (and Gujarati) as the medium through which he conducts the administration, and this places a handicap on officers from East and South India, few of whom are proficient in Hindi, the favourite language of such giants of Indian politics as Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia. Standards have been tweaked in examinations and selection boards so as to make it easier for Hindi-speaking candidates to do even better than they have in the past.
And although there is a rising demand among the poor to be taught English, the language has been discouraged in an effort to speed up the use of Hindi. Several schemes have been announced for Hindi-speaking states,given the fact that it is crucial for the BJP to secure a good performance in these states in the 2019 Parliamentary polls. Interestingly, from being portrayed as “pro-business” while he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi is now being seen as a “friend of the poor”. His rhetoric has ceased to be business friendly, and has instead been filled with warnings that businesspersons will come under the scrutiny of the investigative authorities. The Income-tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED),the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other police organisations are these days as powerful as they were during the period when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister.
Modi secured for his party a majority in the 2014 polls because of the overwhelming support he received from the middle class, which in India comprises over 200 million. They voted for Modi in the expectation that he would lower taxes and regulations. Instead, donning his “friend of the poor” avatar, Prime Minister Modi has increased taxes in each of the budgets that have been presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who along with BJP President Amit Shah forms the inner ring of Team Modi. Far from taking action against members of the Union Council of Ministers under Manmohan Singh, Modi has spared them. A couple of days ago, a CBI court found Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran not guilty in a case that had been brought against them of misusing state telecom network for personal gain. Some months previously, entire set of those accused of corruption in 2G telecom scandal were similarly found to be free of guilty by another CBI court.
The Modi government has in effect given its predecessors a clean chit, even though it had won the elections on the plank of making them pay for the corruption of the Manmohan Singh decade. The BJP leadership seems to have convinced itself that it is an inevitability that it will win the next elections. However, voters in the biggest Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have delivered a shock defeat to the BJP, choosing instead regional parties which had previously been shunned by them. The UP, Rajasthan (where too the BJP lost) and Bihar by-elections verdicts show that the mood in the Hindi belt is now more sullen than is safe for the BJP.

 

https://pakobserver.net/warning-signals-from-hindi-states-for-modi/ 

Politics of NPAs — Cover Story (NewsX)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_dhtyV4uOc

Eastern Indo-Pacific awaits Trump (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

While President Donald J Trump has visited Europe, East Asia and the Middle East several times, thus far he has not come to any of the countries that form the eastern side of the Indo-Pacific, the giant body of seawater that is the hub of global commerce and geopolitics. Unlike Europe, where the Atlanticist establishment reigns and as a consequence, Trump is unpopular with several local leaders, his image within most of Asia’s ruling elites is good. Candidate Trump gave a promise while on the 2016 Presidential elections campaign that he would – in effect – actualise what his predecessor promised to do, which was to reset US policy from its post-1945 Atlanticist anchor towards mooring onto the Indo-Pacific.
This has so far prevented him from proceeding at speed towards the objective of resetting US policy from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. However, those close to the strong-willed billionaire say that it is only a matter of months before such a shift gets carried out, including through the removal of those in the top layers of his team who are committed Atlanticists, as indeed are many of the members of the Republican establishment. Interestingly, those close to Senator Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party say that (unlike Hillary Clinton) he is not committed to preserving the Atlanticist focus of US foreign, economic and security policy, and that he has been devoting increasing interest to the situation in Asia, especially that in China, the Middle East and India. Among the backers of Senator Sanders in his own party is Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has become an expert on Asia as a consequence of her numerous visits to the continent, although as yet she seems to have been unable to persuade Senator to visit India and Indonesia, two countries that are the most strategically placed so far as geography of eastern reaches of Indo-Pacific is concerned.
Thus far,neither President Trump nor his Democratic critic Bernie Sanders has visited these two most populous democracies in Asia. A Presidential visit to India and Indonesia would have substantial global resonance. Not only are they two of the three most populous countries on the face of the planet, they are also two of the three countries in the world with the highest number of Muslim citizens. Although the Atlanticist establishment focuses near exclusively on the Middle East in connection with matters connected with the worldwide Muslim ummah, the fact is that all three of these countries (Indonesia, Pakistan and India) are located to the east of that region. Donald Trump has given the backing of his administration to Crown Prince Mohammad Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who for the first time since the establishment of his very important country is working on rolling back the Wahabbi tide, first in Saudi Arabia and subsequently globally. As this is being written, King Abdullah of Jordan is on a visit to India, where the entire population of the country is in a welcoming mode for an individual who represents the finest traditions of Islam, as indeed would be natural from an individual who is a 41st generation descendant of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) himself.
India has a large Sufi community, and they have come together to welcome Abdullah to Delhi. Unlike in the case of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where a junior minister was despatched to the airport to welcome him and his family to India, in the case of the King Of Jordan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went to the airport to receive the royal guest, in a show of empathy for Jordan and its role as an exemplar of moderation in the Middle East. In much the same way, although on a slightly bigger scale, both Indonesia as well as India have proven to the world that the Muslim community is as peace loving and respectful of other faiths as are those who believe in other numerically large religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. Whether it be in the UAE (especially Dubai) or in Kuwait, visitors to such countries understand how deep rooted the tradition of tolerance is among the almost wholly Muslim citizenry of such states. Hence the need for President Trump to move away from the Middle East-centric perspective of an Atlanticist establishment that is visceral in its dislike of him and the ideas he represents and visit India and Indonesia as well, having already been (as President of the United States) to the most populated country on the globe, China. Both First Daughter Ivanka Trump as well as eldest son Donald Trump Junior have visited India, thereby paving the way for the US President.
The US has long cherished the objective of serving as a beacon of democracy, and a visit to two of the three largest democracies would showcase such concern in a unique way. A “2 plus 2” summit is already planned for Washington next month, where President Trump and Prime Minister Modi will hold talks, as also Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. There is also talk of Prime Minister Modi meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping the same month, now that the leader of second most important economy has demonstrated to the world his control over the levers of governance in Peoples Republic of China. Indeed, should the US President use the visit to hold a meeting of the Quadrilateral Alliance countries (Japan, Australia,the US and India) while in Delhi, that would be a signal that the alliance is as firm in its structure and resolve as any elsewhere. In Jakarta, he could meet with the leaders of Vietnam and the Philippines together with the President of Indonesia, as the three countries merit inclusion in the Indo-Pacific’s first formal alliance. Hopefully by that time, the situation in the Maldives would have evolved in a manner satisfactory to the democracies.

 

https://pakobserver.net/eastern-indo-pacific-awaits-trump/ 

Xi Jinping: President for Life (Rajya Sabha TV)

The Big Picture: Xi Jinping: President for Life

Guest: Prof. B.R. Deepak, Centre for Chinese Studies, JNU ; Prof. M.D. Nalapat, Editorial Director, ITV MEDIA ; Suresh K Goel, Former Ambassador ; Jabin Jacob, Senoir Researcher, Institute of Chinese Studies

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VypsYrMRGHo&app=desktop 

India’s financial A.Q. Khan network (Sunday Guardian)

 By M D Nalapat

 

Our ‘A.Q. Khan of Indian Finance’ has moles everywhere.

 

General Pervez Musharraf—whose record in conning his masters (whether these be in Islamabad or Washington) is unparalleled—made out that all Pakistan-related proliferation was caused by A.Q. Khan, who was retired and therefore “no longer a government official”. Living up (or down) to its reputation of being irrationally credulous where its own favourites were concerned, the CIA apparently bought Musharraf’s story, as did the US administration. So whatever took place was the consequence of the independent activities of a single scientist gone rogue, and not part of a GHQ program to make some extra money through nuclear commerce, adding to its profits from staples such as the South Asian narcotics and hawala networks. A.Q. Khan was complicit in the nuclear proliferation emanating from Pakistan, but as part of a network that comprised hundreds of retired and serving scientists, military personnel and civil servants. In India, an “A.Q. Khan network” has been operating since 2004, again with multiple players, but this time in the financial markets and not the nuclear technology field. As yet, however, the Government of India has shown no indication that it is aware of this network and the systemic risk it poses. 

The CBI, ED, DRI and RBI claim to have finally realised that the deliberate defaulting of bank loans through collusion between businesspersons, politicians and officials has reached levels that threaten to sharply slow down the Indian growth story. Such malpractices have coexisted with RBI policies that ensure a lucrative and risk-free margin to multiple foreign financial institutions, even while the central bank has been draining large tranches of manufacturing and service industries of affordable finance. Arbitrage is the name of the game in India, and North Block has long specialised in incentivising such activities by those holding foreign currency, while adopting measures limiting the spread of the bond market. There is indeed a trillion dollar need for infrastructure, but to rely on middle class savers to fund such expenses is unrealistic. What is needed is to replicate what the US did over a century ago while developing its railroad system, which was to attract large flows of funds from wealthy overseas investors through the bond market. The clerk or junior manager in India, who parks his or her meagre savings in LIC, should not be expected to shoulder the financial burden of ensuring that infrastructure in India reaches minimally acceptable global standards. Rather, wealthy pension funds in the EU or in North America should be incentivised to invest in bonds created for the purpose, rather than continue to pour money into the equities market and make huge returns through rigging of prices, in the process cheating the small investor of his savings. Gitanjali Jewellery is not the only private company in which the LIC bought shares at peak value, only to suffer losses once prices inevitably came down to levels better matching fundamentals. India’s financial “A.Q. Khan network” first drove equity prices higher and higher through using its influence in the FII community and over government policy (sometimes simply by official statements of intent of policy) and thereafter “persuaded” public institutions to purchase such shares, much of which were held by India’s “Khan” and his cronies. Profits were assured through insider knowledge, and such moneys were raised through looting of middle class investors. Given price fixing and rigging in several of the stock prices in India, a citizen may ask as to why so much discretion has gone the way of SEBI, an institution where our own “A.Q. Khan” is said to have got appointed those who did his bidding. Our “A.Q. Khan of Indian Finance” has moles everywhere, including in the present dispensation, who give his syndicate real time information collected by the banking system, by exchanges and by other agencies, not to mention prior knowledge of impending monetary and fiscal measures. And yet, it seems that no investigative agency has connected the dots to unmask India’s own counterpart to A.Q. Khan and his network, such as by checking on his continuing contacts and past history with officials manning sensitive agencies. Real time information still being made available to him by accomplices include data which can be used to so manipulate equity markets enough to generate close to Rs 75 crore a day of pure profit for him alone, parked abroad through payment highways created by monetary authorities “so as to meet the needs of global commerce”. The same authorities who sent the informal economy into the ICU by choking them of liquidity from 8 November 2016 onwards. 

Just as Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan operated through a network of serving and retired officers, so does his financial sector counterpart in India. Otherwise it would not have been possible for him to, inter alia (a) get selected helpful CMDs and EDs of banks, (b) make government banks sell loans at low rates to private banks, which almost immediately resold them at a profit, (c) engineer Corporate Debt Restructuring deals where the money saved by the borrower would be split with “Khan”, (d) get so-called “watchdogs” to ignore or compound cases of favourites, while going after those deemed as a threat to the network’s underground business empire, (e) creating dossiers, including manufactured data, on target individuals and ensuring that agencies go after them on the basis of dodgy evidence, and even (f) postpone the introduction of enhanced security features in India’s currency by many years, while ensuring that companies blacklisted by the Home Ministry continued to supply vital items involving currency printing in the country. Depressingly, this list goes on and on and on. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to be informed about the activities of the financial “A.Q. Khan network” operating in India at speed since 2004, and which seems not at all to have been inconvenienced by the 2014 Lok Sabha election results. India’s “A.Q. Khan” has damaged the economy severely since 2004, by subverting critical financial infrastructure so as to ensure that his global and local moneybag associates increase the zeroes in their offshore holdings of undeclared money at the expense of a country where 300 million people go to bed hungry every night. Just as the Pakistan state had “no knowledge” of the A.Q. Khan network, neither it seems is the Government of India aware of the domestic financial A.Q. Khan network, comprised of high roller operators busily sabotaging the future of India.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/12873-india-s-financial-aq-khan-network 

Maldives vital to Indo-Pacific strategy (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

PRESIDENT Donald J Trump has been the first President since the Atlantic era ended towards the close of the 1990s to acknowledge that it is no longer the Atlantic ocean but the confluence of the Pacific and Indian oceans (the Indo-Pacific) that is at the core of global geopolitics. This has resulted in a fightback from the well-funded Atlanticist establishment in the US, which interestingly includes several think-tanks and universities based on the West Coast of the US as well. They have in unison sought to ensure a speedy exit for Trump through encouraging Special Counsel Robert Mueller to concoct a case against his target that would convince enough lawmakers to ensure the impeachment of the 45th President of the US.
The problem for them is that Trump is a businessperson and therefore a realist, which means that he would like to reframe foreign and security policies in a manner that is congruent with the needs of the Indo-Pacific century that the world is now witnessing. Such a change in policy would lead to new alliances as well as the downgrading of some of the current partnerships the US has, such as with NATO, a military alliance that is “all dressed up but without a serious conventional enemy to fight”. Given altered realities, what the Pentagon needs is an Asian NATO ( or North America Asia Treaty Organisation) that would link the US in a defensive alliance with Asian powers such as Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam. Already, a Quadrilateral Alliance has taken shape whose area of operation will be the waters of the Indo-Pacific.
The four countries in the Quad (the US, Australia, Japan and India) need to include Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, thereby forming a Heptagonal Alliance. Such an expansion should take place once the navies and other armed units of the Quad familiarize themselves with each other and protocols and processes get formulated and tested that would ensure cohesive and effective functioning, especially in crisis or in conflict situations. There is no everyday place for NATO in such a grouping, although should a conflict take place, that alliance may get called upon to assist, in view of the treaty relationship that the other NATO powers have with Washington. Surveilling and patrolling the Indo-Pacific is a stupendous task, and this would be rendered difficult if regional powers such as the Maldives, Sri Lanka or Indonesia were to become hostile to the Quad.
Of the three, the Maldives is the smallest in size, but in the western waters of the Indo-Pacific, it has a strategic significance that is equal to that of the Republic of China (otherwise known as Taiwan) in the east Asian waters of the Indo-Pacific. The loss of the RoC (Taiwan) as friendly territory would be a severe blow to the ability of the Quadrilateral Alliance to operate off the east coast of Asia, and consequently, this would be a development that would be so unwelcome to Quad members as to ensure that strenuous action will get taken to keep the RoC (Taiwan) as friendly to Washington, Tokyo, Canberra and Delhi as it now is. Looking at India in particular, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government headed by Dr Tsai Ing-wen has initiated a Southbound Policy that has made India a primary focus, and the relationship between Taipei and Delhi is warming up substantially as a result.
The DPP has from the start been close to Tokyo, and this relationship endures, while in the US, several scholars appointed to high positions by Trump are well known and liked in Taipei, as indeed are several scholars (though not as many policymakers) in Australia, the well-known professor, Bruce Jacob, being an example. In the western waters, the location and geography of the Maldives makes that small but significant country a must to remain a friend in the calculus of the Quadrilateral Alliance. Which is why there has been much attention paid in these four capitals to recent developments in the island nation, where the Chief Justice and others have been incarcerated. There is no doubt that ousted Head of State Mohammad Nasheed has far more supporters in Delhi than the present incumbent, Abdulla Yameen. However, in a self-goal, the Ministry of Defence has hurt the relationship between the Indian establishment and Nasheed by unnecessarily controverting a tweet of the latter about a meeting that he had with Nirmala Sitaraman, the sedate but steely Minister of Defense who is trusted by Prime Minister Modi and the second most important minister in the present Union Cabinet, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Unnamed officials in the ministry went to the press to say that the interaction between Sitaraman and Nasheed “lasted less than a minute”, and that it was “not a scheduled meeting” but a “chance encounter. The ousted Head of State of the Maldives had tweeted that he had discussed the situation in the Maldives with the Union Minister of Defence at Bangalore, and he was well within the bounds of fact in doing so, as Nasheed had mentioned (albeit briefly) the Maldives situation to the minister. The intentional rubbing of salt into the psychic wounds of a consistent friend of India has been taken as a gesture of appeasement towards Yameen, and an effort to please him at his rival’s expense. The episode may create a perception among India’s many friends in the region the Government of India is but a fair weather friend who will delink itself from any individual (no matter how strong the previous record of friendship) and seek to ingratiate itself with any other individual at his expense, if the other person were in a position of authority.
Hopefully Defence Minister Sitharaman will pull up the official who gave such unworthy and unhelpful anti-Nasheed quotes to publications in India. It is unlikely that Yameen will change his country preferences as a consequence of the snub in Bangalore to Nasheed, even while the latter must be unhappy at such unexpected and wholly uncalled for rudeness from a friend. After such a transparent effort at pleasing Yameen, officials in Delhi who are opposed to doing anything more than talk so far as the Maldives is concerned may be believing that the government in Male will become closer to India than to any other country, as Yameen’s predecessors were. In the case of another country of great strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific, Sri Lanka, similar bureaucratic missteps seem to have been made, such that the relationship between Delhi and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been the subject of controversy. Of course, in this case, while there may some questions about the degree of warmth between the Modi government and the Rajapaksas.
The two while in power were instrumental in resisting pressure from a host of countries led by Norway to ease up the campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Rajapaksa brothers refused, and unlike their predecessors, continued the battle until the LTTE was wiped out. Sri Lanka is today a tourist haven as a consequence, and in recent civic elections, former President Rajapaksa has re-established his popularity. Should he return to power in Colombo, the Quadrilateral Alliance will need to ensure his friendship, as Sri Lanka has a very critical geographic position within the Indo-Pacific, and needs to be an ally, as does the Maldives. Given the importance of the Indo-Pacific, it is easy to see why President Trump called Prime Minister Modi to discuss the situation in that very consequential country. The weeks ahead will show how far the Quadrilateral Alliance will go to protect its interests in a fluid political situation.

https://pakobserver.net/maldives-vital-indo-pacific-strategy/ 

PM Modi, make defaulters pay, not innocent taxpayers (Sunday Guardian)

By M D Nalapat

What is needed is to check forensically each such loan to ascertain all facts.

 

As Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has made consequential alterations to traditional policies, the most important of which has been demonetisation, followed by a long overdue rollout of GST. The problem facing the Prime Minister is that, while he is the prime mover of these innovative policies, operational details in their implementation get drawn up by the bureaucracy. We have seen the manner in which the Modi brainwave of demonetisation were fleshed out and implemented within the bureaucracy in a manner that was hugely disruptive. This was evident in the case of GST, which has had to be modified multiple times because of the impractical features of the measure as initially implemented, including its multiple and excessively high rates, as also the bringing in of businesses for reporting and taxation purposes that are so small as to have merited exclusion from the complex reporting methods. These have been made mandatory in a context where access to the internet is still miserably inadequate in several places, and where small businesspersons (realistically those with an annual turnover below Rs 5 crore) do not have the time or the expertise to double up as accountants and lawyers, two professions that have seen a huge bulge in clients as a consequence of the GST as drawn up by unfettered bureaucrats. Such impractical detail springs from the colonial-era propensity of the financial bureaucracy to frame each policy in terms of the immediate revenue that it will bring into government coffers, rather than its impact on growth, especially in the medium and long terms. There are, of course, blind spots in this obsessive search for additional revenue, and the most glaring of these is the state-controlled banking system, into which much treasure is being poured from taxpayer rupees annually. Indira Gandhi nationalised private banks with a deposit base above Rs 50 crore in 1969 “in order to ensure funding for the poor”. Instead, these banks have, since their takeover, been serving as piggybanks for the cronies of politicians. In much the same way, LIC and other government institutions buy and hold on to large chunks of equity in private companies, so that those in power and their favourites can be given profitable sinecures such as directorships and other privileges, some in secret because they are illegal.

What took place between Nirav Modi and the Punjab National Bank is only what has taken place hundreds of times in public sector banks in the past two decades. Government of India has been writing off each year a large number of loans that it believes will not get repaid. What is needed is to check forensically each such loan to ascertain whether (a) fresh loans were given despite existing ones being overdue for 18 months or more, (b) whether the collateral for such loans was sufficient to recompense the bank in case of default, and (c) who the individuals were who recommended the loans that were at severe risk of going bad. Bank officers need to familiarise themselves with handling micro recording equipment, so that verbal orders on the part of senior managers and directors, or from VIPs outside the bank, go on voice record. Each direct or other conversation should be affirmed by the manager concerned in an email or a letter to the individual making the loan recommendation, with copies to seniors in the bank’s hierarchy.

Should such a record not exist, the entire responsibility for a loan gone sour will fall on the manager who gave sanction to the moneys being paid out to those who subsequently defaulted. Some such non-repayments may be because of market conditions or other factors (such as policy changes) over which the individual or company availing of the loan has no control. However, there needs to be accountability for loans given to obvious looters of the public banking system, including where necessary summary dismissal, or stoppage of promotions and recovery of at least part of the losses suffered by the bank from the individual who sanctioned the loan. In cases where the money lost by the bank is in excess of Rs 50 crore, jail time for the officers responsible should be mandatory, unless it can be shown that the loans were made in good faith to those who merited them through their proficiency in business or the professions.

What is unconscionable is to make the innocent taxpayer pay for crimes committed by bank managers and their clients. In an example of the distance Prime Minister Modi is willing to traverse from the conventional, his government has ordered the forcible merger of a Mumbai-based company with a now defunct stock exchange begun by the major shareholder of the former. Oddly, the stockbrokers who actually owed the moneys in default seem to have escaped penal action thus far, while a separate company has been marked for destruction through forcible payment by it of the dues of the other entity. There have been whispers that the move against this company was taken on the instance of a former Finance Minister, who wanted to both destroy an exchange competing with a favourite of his, as well as to protect the parties guilty of default (i.e. brokers) by loading the entire liability onto a separate company. He is said to have made trusted officials in the concerned ministries go ahead with this unprecedented measure of forced merger of two private companies. The best way to prove such conspiracy theorists wrong would be for the Central government to administer in 2018 itself the same medicine (of forced merger) to several dozen other pairs of private companies, so that the losses of one get set off against the profits of another run by the same individuals as controlled the first. In the Nirav Modi case, it seems that an honest bank official refused to “roll over” fraudulent paper in the same manner as his predecessors had done. This made it impossible to conceal the scam, and now—although six years late—the public have been made aware of the way in which a nationalised bank was cheated in connivance with a section of its own staff. The assets of those responsible should be located and used to repay the loans taken, rather than rely on taxpayer rupees for the purpose. The people of this country must not be made to pay the price for losses to banks incurred by dishonest businessmen and ethically challenged bank managers. Through asset sale and through other means, Prime Minister Modi should ensure that the guilty few, rather than the innocent many, pay for the commission of frauds such as those committed in the ongoing PNB-Nirav Modi disaster.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/12814-pm-modi-make-defaulters-pay-not-innocent-taxpayers 

Kim stuns globe with Sister power (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India | M D Nalapat

BECAUSE of his youth and therefore absence of long years experience in government posts, Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK),was dismissed as a lightweight in both media commentary as well as expert analysis in NATO member states. Experts forecast that he would soon get ousted, and reports from the leadership core of the DPRK indicate that there were at least six serious efforts at replacing him, four of which were given up before being operationalised, but two of which were carried out, only to fail in the beginning stages itself. Those within NATO warning that Kim would have a short reign in power clearly seemed to be aware of such moves, which was perhaps why they made confident predictions of his imminent downfall.
In contrast, from the start of the term of Kim III as Supreme Leader of the DPRK, succeeding his grandfather Kim I and his father Kim II, this columnist was clear that the new leader, though very young, had a modern mind and boldness of spirit, and that he would seek to ensure that the DPRK become both a nuclear as well as an economic power. A further prediction was made (in both written as well as spoken commentary, some of the latter of which is available on Youtube) that Kim Jong Un would seek to unify the Korean peninsula through a process of negotiation with those in charge of the Republic of Korea (RoK). This would not be through war with South Korea but through conciliation such that the North Korean leadership core would be given positions of eminence in the united country, with Kim Jong Un perhaps settling for the title of Chairman for Life of the Unity Government, which would have as the next in line (and effective CEO) a President elected by all the Korean people. Key officials in the DPRK government would be given top jobs in the Unity Government, while the military would be unified, with both North Korean as well as South Korean officers merging into a single entity.
The US and its allies (including Japan) would like a repeat of the East German absorption into West Germany in the case of the DPRK with the RoC. They for long had the belief that Beijing would walk away from Pyongyang the way Moscow began to distance itself from East Berlin by 1987 in the hope that NATO member states would make concessions to the USSR. Instead, each concession by Gorbachev was followed by demands for more from Washington and its partners. The DPRK leadership made a detailed study of the implosion of the former USSR, and so did the Chinese Communist Party. Neither is therefore in any rush to repeat the steps towards surrender undertaken by Gorbachev during his six years in power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Kim Jong Un has made a study of not only the fate of the USSR, but also that of Iraq and Libya (as predicted by this columnist in 2011, when Sarkozy, Cameron and Hillary Clinton began their campaign of destabilization in Libya).
Indeed, it was just weeks before taking over as Supreme Leader in North Korea that Kim heard of the gruesome death of Muammar Kaddafy, a leader who had believed his son Saif and had surrendered all his WMD stockpile to NATO. Clearly, the influence of his son was greater than the lesson which had unfolded before his eyes in Iraq, where in 2003 Saddam Hussein was toppled (and later hanged) even after he had given up the WMD that may have prevented an attack on him by US forces. That US President George W Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew that Saddam had no WMD was obvious from the fact that some of the military convoys moving through roads in Iraq during the 2003 conflict were over twenty kilometres long. Such long lines of vehicles would never have been risked by a risk-averse Pentagon were there even the smallest probability that Saddam Hussein had WMD that his forces could lob in direction of such convoys. Rather, it was the knowledge that their leader had earlier surrendered WMD stocks that lowered morale of Saddam’s commanders, most of whom surrendered without giving battle to US and UK forces.
Earlier, during 1990-91, Saddam Hussein watched in almost a paralysed state when US forces began to get deployed to Kuwait and other nearby areas in preparation for an attack on Iraq. During the war itself, fear of massive retaliation kept Saddam from using WMD against US forces. During Operation Desert Storm as well, Iraqi generals gave up with only a token fight, aware that Saddam Hussein had banned the use of WMD. Some of them had been of the view that if Saddam had deployed WMD during the beginning of the US build-up, it may have dissuaded the US from using land forces in subsequent phases of the conflict. And if missile supplies got used in much greater profusion than was the case during the 1990-91 Gulf War, there is at least some grounds for believing that Washington may have abandoned plans for attack out of worry that there would be too many casualties in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as a consequence of the use of WMD by Iraqi forces in the pre-attack phase of Operation Desert Storm.
The wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria have been exhaustively studied by Kim Jong Un, who has clearly reached the conclusion that (a) to surrender WMD would be suicide and (b) not using WMD in a future conflict would doom North Korea to defeat and the elimination through executions of the DPRK’s leadership core. Hence the determination of Supreme Leader Kim to continue with his nuclear missile and bomb program, no matter what the countermeasures of the US-Japan alliance ranged against him. Despite preparing for war, Kim Jong Un seeks both peace as well as unification, and in this context, the decision to send his sister Kim Yo Jong to Pyongchang to witness the Winter Olympics was a stroke worthy of a diplomatic maestro. Kim Yo Jong handled herself with tact and charming manners during her stay, where she was wisely treated with honour by President Moon Jae-In of South Korea.
The visit was intended to convince the people of South Korea that North Korea wanted not war but peace. However, this needed to be an honourable rather an imposed peace. In other words, no repeat of the German merger of the DDR with the FRG in 1989 but a formula based on equality of treatment and mutual accommodation and respect. Through his taking the risk of sending his own sister to a location filled with US forces, the North Korean leader has revived hopes for a peaceful unification of the two Koreas among the Korean people. However, such an outcome hinges on Tokyo and Washington as well, and both were dismayed by the success of Kim Yo Jong in charming her hosts.

 

https://pakobserver.net/kim-stuns-globe-sister-power/