Rahul should support, not oppose, reform (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat

The Congress Party is following the tradition first adopted by Nehru and Patel of placing the (colonial model) Civil Service above India’s Civil Society.

Some days ago, an unnamed worthy called and referred to the Karkardooma courts while informing this columnist that he would soon face prosecution and worse. What was the crime? Being tardy by a few days in clearing a bill of Rs 1,100 of Tata Indicom, a company that has gone out of business. It is sobering to read Arun Shourie’s book, Anita Gets Bail (and that too in the daytime and not late at night, the way it was granted to our fabled business and political leader, Karti Chidambaram). Bail ought certainly to be a routine right of any citizen not yet found guilty of a crime, but often is not. Given that the British-era (and centuries-old) laws of our democracy give a terrifying number of agencies the power to deprive a citizen of his or her liberty even for a sum as trifling as a rupee, the agent’s threat once more revealed the contempt of the post-1947 political class towards the rights of the ordinary citizen in “post-colonial” India. Elected politicians share with officials an attachment to British-era laws, for these give them immense power over citizens not well connected. That a company (or those acting as its agents) is emboldened enough to threaten to deprive a citizen of his or her liberty on a matter that would rank as a petty—and civil—dispute in any other democracy indicates why daily life in India remains a hazardous enterprise. Not leaping to attention when the National Anthem gets sung in the theatre, accidentally brushing against a member of the fair sex while walking, sending off a tweet that offends any of our 1.27 billion citizens. These are a few of the thousands of ways in which a citizen can find himself thrown into the quicksand that the legal system is in a country, where cases drag on for decades. And yet there is an entire army of individuals who thus far have almost totally escaped the clutches of the law, and these are the “unknown” but easily identifiable individuals in the banking system who have cost taxpayers more than Rs 600,000 crore of current value during the past decade and counting, by gifting loans to those who had zero intention of repaying the same.

Not all NPAs are caused by an intention to cheat the financial system. Some have their origin in business conditions gone bad as a consequence of factors beyond the borrower’s control. And there are those individuals who have refused to scurry away to London or Singapore, but who have worked hard at repaying their creditors, and succeeded. Such individuals need to be named, recognised and honoured by government rather than ignored the way they have been. Instead, it is often those who have—in effect—stolen huge sums who adorn VVIP anterooms and the society pages of newspapers. The Indian Express (which, let it be admitted, is the first newspaper this columnist picks up in the morning) has mentioned in its 15 June issue that a record Rs 1.44 lakh crore of “bad loans” were written off by India’s commercial banking system. While private banks wrote off Rs 79,940 crore during the past ten years, the State Bank of India alone accounted for Rs 123,137 crore of bad loans written off during the same period this year alone. Who were the sanctioning authorities during this period? Does anybody know or care? Some within a stock exchange have been reported to have given unfair access to select brokers, resulting in an “insider” windfall to a few HNIs. More than a few of those who were associated with this still enjoy positions of power and patronage, and have been appointed to their posts either by the government or with its blessings. This columnist has long said that an exhaustive inventory of current lifestyles of the top 500 public officials during the past decade may be instructive and easy to accomplish.

An administration needs to be judged by the median income of the inhabitants of the country in which it is operating, and by such a metric, India’s is among the worst in Asia. Despite this, there is a collective howl of protest when even the most minimal of administrative reforms gets carried out. The Congress Party, during its decade in office under Manmohan Singh, ignored the numerous very useful suggestions of the Veerappa Moily committee. Earlier, Arjun Singh and N.D. Tiwari had attacked Prime Minister Narasimha Rao when he carried out a few reforms during 1992-93, affecting his confidence so badly that the reform process visibly slowed in the final three years of his term. Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts at broad-basing—to a very limited extent—the pool of recruitment into the IAS is being met with fierce opposition from a party led by a relatively youthful leader who ought to be leading the charge towards altering the British-era system of the present in a manner that better meets the needs of the 21st century. By demanding a rollback of even a baby step towards reform, the Congress Party is following the tradition first adopted by Nehru and Patel of placing the (colonial model) Civil Service above India’s Civil Society. Rahul Gandhi in his earlier avatar of general secretary of his party correctly demanded the end of laws that criminalise defamation or send gay men to prison. It is not expected of a party under his leadership that it opposes even a wholly inadequate lateral entry of domain experts from Civil Society into the Civil Service.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/rahul-support-not-oppose-reform 

Kim, Moon and Trump as peacemakers (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

MANY in Israel regard themselves as a European country rather than a part of Asia. Although it ought to have been made a member decades ago, the only reason why this small but dynamic country has not been admitted to NATO is perhaps because of a lingering prejudice in the minds of several Europeans who have yet to get over the hangover of 1936-45, the period when Adolf Hitler made it his primary mission to commit genocide against a people whose contributions to Germany were substantial. Bill Clinton and his successors presided over the eastward march of NATO.
Now that Donald Trump has been elected the President of the United States, the chances for Israel to be admitted to NATO are brighter than they ever were. Of course, while both culturally and largely ethnically Israelis are indeed European, the same cannot be said for Japan. which is the only Asian member of that Atlanticist club, the G-7. Although the Japanese justified their victories over the UK, France and the Netherlands in the South-east Asian theatre by painting themselves as liberators of the local inhabitants from European colonisation, their subsequent rule was at least as bad as that of the powers they replaced. In India, the Nicobar islands came under Japanese control during the 1939-45 war, and upon taking over, executions and other acts of cruelty became the norm against the peaceable community there, so much so that the earlier period of servitude (to the British raj) seemed much better than rule by the Japanese, who conjured up a racial theory similar to that peddled by their wartime allies, the Germans.
After their 1945 defeat by the US, Japan became a willing member of the US alliance network, and within the G-7, sought to act more “western” than the actual “westerners” ie the Europeans and the Europeanists elsewhere, for example in the US and Canada. Japanese aristocracy has often wandered the globe in top hat and tails, trying to look as much like their peers in Europe as possible, shedding the elegant dress of traditional Japan, a country with a long history and civilisation. In the 21st century, because Asia is becoming more consequential than Europe, Japan’s effective status as a “European country in Asia” is becoming not an advantage but a handicap, shutting it out of Asia Only solutions. In the Korea talks, for example, Tokyo is only a bystander and not a player. For a time, Russia was made a part of the “G-7” club, at least on the record.
However, the presence of this huge, brooding once superpower disconcerted France and Germany. Once Vladimir Putin threw off the obsequiousness towards the US and western Europe of Boris Yeltsin (and a similar eagerness to please the Atlantic alliance on the part of Dmitry Medvedev), an excuse was found to expel Russia from the club. Not that it mattered, for the centre of gravity of the world economy had moved from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, and the discarding of the welcome mat to Russia by the EU resulted in Moscow becoming deeply involved in other parts of the world, including in the Middle East, where it has now become the second-most important outside power, after the US. When Moscow under Putin is being treated as an enemy, it is no surprise that on several issues, Russia is taking a stand in opposition to NATO, an alliance that was explicitly set up to battle it, a task that still seems its primary goal, despite the 1992 fall of the Soviet Union.
From Saudi Arabia to Turkey, countries in this fissile region are turning to Russia, usually at the expense of the NATO powers, specifically the UK and France (which country is not finding it easy to sell its expensive fighter aircraft to air forces beyond India). Although Trump pledged to voters in the US to work towards cooperation with Russia, he has been forced as President to continue with the Russophobic Atlanticist policies that have held sway within both sides of the North Atlantic. However, it would appear that despite such guided Trump-seeking missiles as Robert Mueller, the 45th President of the US is slowly regaining his confidence. The reaching out to Kim Jong Un is evidence of this. The best chance for a short, low cost (in human lives) war was during the Clinton and early Bush administrations.
A decapitation strike now would result in millions of casualties in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and parts of US territory. Neither Clinton nor Bush nor Obama would have had the self-confidence to reach out to North Korea and seek to convert an enemy into a friend. If the military option is off the table, only a “bright sunshine” policy of comprehensive engagement with North Korea can ensure that the feisty upper half of the Korean peninsula act like a good global citizen. This is clear to RoK President Moon and clearly to President Trump. If a Nobel Prize gets awarded for eliminating the risk of another Korean war, it should be shared by Kim, Moon and Trump.

https://pakobserver.net/kim-moon-and-trump-as-peacemakers/

'Kill PM' plot to break India; EPS played into maoist hands? (NewsX)

This is a story that will leave you shocked and it should, time and again, we read about maoist attacks in India targeting our security forces. But the information we bring to you today will leave you startled. Sources have told NewsX that the tuticorin violence that took 12 lives in Tamil Nadu had a maoist hand. Our sources tell us that maoist agitations are gaining steam from Raipur to Tamil Nadu. An urban maoist organization Makkal Adhikaram organized agitations but it doesn't end there. The maoist threat has spread from Andhra Pradesh to Delhi. These shocking revelations come just days after the maoist threat to the Prime Minister surfaced as well as a red link to the Bhima Koregaon violence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kYbpzOGiEw 

Putin’s visit to China and Medal of Friendship (CGTN)

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a state visit to China in June and attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao. Before this visit, Putin revealed in an interview conducted by China Media Group (CMG) that his relationship with President Xi is one of special closeness among world leaders. Will this have a bearing on furthering cooperation between China and Russia? At the same time, how can China’s Belt and Road Initiative be further integrated with Russia's Eurasian Economic Union? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMOAQEFF-Xc 

Modi Doctrine: Balance in foreign policy (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat

PM Modi seems to have left economic policy to the ‘experts’, rather than his natural instincts. Blow upon blow has been landed by these worthies on the economy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems, from the start of his term in office, to have left economic policy to the “experts”, rather than his natural instincts, and the effects are clear. Blow upon blow has been landed by these worthies on the economy, the latest being the incomprehensible interest rate hike announced by the Reserve Bank of India on 6 June. Several RBI Governors, including the past trio of Reddy, Subba Rao and Rajan, have looked westwards for appreciation and have imposed punitive rates designed to cut growth (i.e. employment and income) in an economy where around 400 million people are hovering around the margin of subsistence, many close to starvation. Of course, the very central bankers of London, Frankfurt and Washington plus fund managers based in North America and Europe themselves have slashed interest rates to near-negative levels, even while they applaud every upward movement in interest rates in India. Their purpose is to reduce the holders of rupees to penury and the holders of dollars, pounds and euros (including the many in the country with illicit accounts in offshore banking centres) to the status of masters, able to pluck equity and other assets from their domestic owners cheaply. The latest RBI rate rise has further lowered the value of the rupee, a fact that will bring smiles to the faces of those with money abroad. This columnist is presently in China, whose currency is ten times the value of the rupee, and may possibly be on track to be 15 times more valuable. Not too long ago, the rupee and the Taiwan dollar were equal in value. Today, the rupee is half the value of the Taiwan dollar, and counting. It was expected that the Prime Ministerial term of Narendra Modi would result in the rupee being at the least Rs 30 to the US dollar, rather than an all-time low that could soon fall to Rs 70 per USD. Of course, basking in the smiles of their peers in London and New York, RBI officials must be delighted at such an outcome. Rather than India’s Main Street, what they are looking to protect is Wall Street, including the rating agencies that were blind to the 2008 market crash. Rather than wallow in servitude to such dodgy institutions, what was expected was India joining hands with a Coalition of the Willing in both East and West Asia that would trade by using their own currencies rather than those of countries that have cost investors in Asia, Africa and South America trillions of USD because of defective governmental policies and greedy moneymen.

In contrast to economic policy, Prime Minister Modi has led from the front in foreign policy, fashioning an innovative approach to relationships that could change long-held perceptions of India. His Singapore speech was among the finest the Shangri-La Dialogue has witnessed. Modi correctly defined the Indo-Pacific in the most expansive terms, as stretching from the eastern and southern coasts of Africa to the western shores of the Americas. In a silent rebuke to those who conflated the concept into a geopolitical weapon against China, Modi warned that the Indo-Pacific should be inclusive, not exclusive, its waters should be free and open, and the concept was emphatically not aimed at any country (i.e. China). At the same time, he made it clear that there should be freedom of navigation in sky and air, and that resort to military power was unwelcome. Earlier, Modi had shown his intention to have a balanced foreign policy by going to Wuhan for intensive confabulations with President Xi Jinping and later to Sochi for informal talks with President Vladimir Putin. It was a signal to both that the steady warming of relations between Delhi and Washington, including in the military sphere, would not impact existing relationships with old friends, a group that includes Iran, with which India has been carrying out several projects in an atmosphere of friendship unaffected by the close relationship that Prime Minister Modi has with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the close ties between India and Israel. Although Modi is being called a hawk by Mani Shankar Aiyar (who, let it be admitted, is among the most brilliant and witty of this columnist’s friends), the fact is that in August, for the first time since 1947 separate from UN missions, both the Indian as well as the Pakistan army will conduct exercises jointly in Russia under the SCO banner. Modi’s meetings not just with US President Donald Trump but Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France demonstrate the importance the Prime Minister attaches to relations with established democracies, another strand in the foreign policy of delicate balance that has been crafted by him. So far as China and the US are concerned, Modi will need to “balance” ties with them, but in entirely different ways. With China, economic and commercial ties need to be given a quantum boost, so that the two countries can together race towards a combined trade volume of USD 300 billion. Investment from China would also help to reduce the net outflow of funds from India as a consequence of Chinese exports to India being much more than those in the other direction, while Chinese banks operating in India would have substantial opportunities. With the US, what is desirable would be to carry forward the defence and security relationship between Washington and Delhi by signing the other two Foundation Agreements consequent on one (that dealing with logistics) being already signed. Transferring the F-16 assembly line to India, combined with the supply of F-18s and later F-36 aircraft, would assist in ensuring that India’s domestic aviation manufacturing facilities reach at least the level of Brazil, if not higher. Following a punishing schedule of visits, Modi has succeeded in once again positioning India as a central force in global geopolitics.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/modi-doctrine-balance-foreign-policy

Manmohan-era holdovers sabotage Modi’s anti-graft campaign (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat 

Several bureaucrats in prominent positions during the Manmohan decade were interested, post the UPA defeat, only in covering up evidence of their own active participation in UPA-era misdeeds.

Recent byelections showed that many pro-Narendra Modi voters stayed home rather than come out to vote for the BJP. While the party is seeking to improve its organisational efforts in a bid to rectify such a trend, the responsibility for the abstentions vests more with the functioning of parts of the Government of India, specifically the slow pace of the agencies involved in the anti-corruption drive launched amidst a volley of promises by Prime Minister Narendra D. Modi on 26 May 2014. Although much was made by the new government of the Special Investigating Team (SIT) speedily set up by the incoming government, while several sittings of the SIT have indeed taken place, its overall success in curbing or uncovering graft has been negligible. Following on from his practice as Chief Minister of Gujarat, once he became Prime Minister, Narendra Modi seems to have placed his faith and confidence fully in the existing rungs of the bureaucratic ladder to carry out both a policy of economic growth and a much-anticipated cleansing of the administrative stables, the tasks for which his party had been given a Lok Sabha majority. Unfortunately for the BJP, several of the bureaucrats in prominent positions during the Manmohan Decade (2004-2014) were interested, post the UPA defeat, only in covering up evidence of their own active and pervasive participation in UPA-era misdeeds. The result has been the conversion of the policy of Zero Tolerance for Corruption announced by Modi to close to Zero Results in his campaign against VVIP corruption. Thus far, the truly big names have remained untouched even while a small number of lesser fry, especially in some state governments, have been booked. At the same time, disclosures under RTI have been heading sharply downwards because of the lack of response to queries made to the bureaucrats manning RTI boards, thereby severely impacting the anti-corruption drive. The lack of tangible action against VVIP corruption by agencies under the Modi government has resulted in the Congress party confidently claiming that BJP allegations of large-scale corruption during the UPA days were just a “chunavi jumla” of the rival party Thus far, even biggies such as P. Chidambaram, Praful Patel and Robert Vadra remain free to globetrot, while the only extant case against the First Family of the Congress is a private proceeding of Subramanian Swamy, who at the time he initiated action was not even a member of the BJP.
MODI’S ACHILLES HEEL
The public perception of lack of success in dealing with high level political and bureaucratic corruption has become the Achilles heel of the Modi government. To this must be added the fact that doubtful officers still in high positions appear to have slowed down progress in reform, so that the rate of economic growth under NDA-II is less than that under the UPA, especially if the changes in accounting introduced in the recent past (and which boost growth estimates) get taken into consideration. Given the Lok Sabha election calendar, Prime Minister Modi has less than seven months to turn matters around, a task that needs to be fulfilled if the BJP is to cross the safe boundary of 240 seats in the next Lok Sabha. It cannot be forgotten that from around 2011 onwards, a growing number of individuals and associations who regarded UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s approach to governance and society to be toxic for the future of India gravitated to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the answer to their quest for a leader who would take on and vanquish Sonia electorally and the “Sonia System” subsequently. Given the pre-election rhetoric of Narendra Modi about the circle around Sonia Gandhi, it was considered a certainty that his government would take immediate action to ensure accountability for the misdeeds committed by those close to the de facto Head of Government during 2004-2014. Forty-nine months after Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister, such early supporters of Modi are still waiting for their expectations to be fulfilled. Thus far, while there have been several—and severe—verbal sallies against the 10 Janpath coterie, actual moves against UPA grandees have been difficult to discern. In the case of both D. Raja and even Dayanidhi Maran, both are globetrotting sans any fear of legal action, with the only steps initiated against them having been made not by the present but by the previous Manmohan Singh government.
There was a flurry of credible pre-Lok Sabha election reports about inter alia (1) the systematic manner in which Air India and other public enterprises were crippled, some clearly terminally; (2) the way purchases of petroproducts and defence equipment got negotiated and payments made; (3) the reckless manner in which agricultural commodities were subject to deep-pocketed speculators who caused immense spikes in prices without benefitting the farmer; (4) stock exchanges got systematically converted into illicit money-making and money-laundering devices; (5) land and resources were handed over to cronies for derisory sums and in an opaque manner; and (6) crony capitalists were assisted in defrauding the banking system and who later transferred such loans to overseas destinations. Thus far, action on such matters has been infrequent, and often of a transient and token nature that allows the depredators to escape justice, as seems to be the recent case of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, and earlier of Lalit Modi. In the case of Vijay Mallya, action seems to have been more vigorous, although it is too early to judge the result of the moves by the ED, CBDT, DRI and CBI to claw back from the fugitive businessman the wealth he took away from the banking system. At great political cost to itself, the Modi government has written off billions of dollars of bad bank debts while channelling a huge amount of the profits made by enhanced taxes during 2014-2018 on petroproducts to banks stressed by acts of negligence on the part of those entrusted with their management, actions that have almost wholly escaped punishment.
UPA BUREAUCRATS CONTINUE
Those who regarded the Modi government as being a reliable enforcer of accountability towards the misdeeds of the previous government have reason to be disappointed but not surprised. From May-June 2014 onwards, when the composition of the Modi government became known, it was obvious that action on previous decisions would be both few and slow to be actualised. Much of the top tier of the UPA official structure got transplanted into the bureaucratic team chosen by Prime Minister Modi, because of the faith that officials who had assisted UPA ministers in questionable actions would atone for their previous conduct by energetically working for the public weal under his leadership. The risk that they would instead work hardest at covering up evidence of their own involvement in UPA-era misdeeds was apparently not taken seriously by the new government. To the surprise of those who had backed Narendra Modi consistently and in difficult circumstances over several years in the belief that he was the only individual certain to enforce accountability for the past, several of the officials close to UPA-era VVIPs were chosen to hold positions of high responsibility in the Modi government. Action against UPA grandees would entail the risk of discovery of the extensive personal and business linkages between such entrants into the Modi government. Fortunately for them, the investigating agencies have lived up to the public expectation that they are better at covering up rather than uncovering graft, and even in major cases, action taken has been at a level far below that which was expected of the new government. It is therefore no surprise that many of those who worked hard for the success of the BJP in 2014 are likely in 2019 to sit at home rather than vote again for a party that seems to have done so little in fulfilling its campaign pledge to bring the guilty to book in cases of VVIP corruption. Ancient cases against Lalu Yadav or such political minnows as Chhagan Bhujbal have not succeeded in compensating for the fact that even in the much-reported case of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, thus far action has been on a microscopic scale, while against his son Karti, known across four continents as a high flyer, the only case being pursued is a matter involving the (for him) derisory sum of $1 million. And although BJP spokespersons talk long and loudly about the National Herald case, they omit to mention that this is being pursued not by the government but by Subramanian Swamy, an individual who at the time of filing the case was not even a member of the BJP. Even Robert Vadra seems to have remained unscathed despite 49 months of the Modi government. The many investigative agencies of the Union Government as well as several BJP-controlled state governments seemingly have yet to discover material against Vadra sufficient for prosecution. The BJP’s talk of VVIP UPA-era corruption, including during the 2010 Commonwealth Games or cricket shenanigans looks to many voters in 2018 to be just that, talk.
CHIDAMBARAM’S NETWORK
It would take a book to examine in any detail the web of contacts that 10 Janpath (in the hugely influential person of Sonia Gandhi) has within the bureaucracy, including with several of those given important responsibilities by Prime Minister Modi. It is a simpler task to examine the situation concerning P. Chidambaram, a UPA grandee who was discussed in Washington and London as a possible Prime Minister in 2011, and who may yet assume either that office or get his previous job back in the Central government were the Congress to secure 150-plus Lok Sabha seats in 2019. This is not an impossibility if a viable alliance system gets worked out by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the team he is assembling around himself and his charismatic sister Priyanka. The star of the UPA, Palaniappan Chidambaram, for four decades, has held frontline positions in successive Central governments. Chidambaram is a brilliant navigator of the Lutyens maze, who uses the media, officers and businesspersons through “shaam, daam, dand and bhed”. The foreign financial entities that are given so much respect and credibility with the Modi government regard Chidambaram very highly, although the allegation that this is because of tens of billions of dollars parked within them is as yet unproven, at least on record by the investigative agencies. It must be admitted, though, that several of those agencies are riddled with officers who are admirers of Chidambaram and beneficiaries of his beneficence in the past. During the period that the UPA was in power (2004-2014), Finance (and later Home) Minister Chidambaram succeeded in getting officers of his choice posted inter alia within ED (DG Investigation), Member Investigation—CBDT, JS TRU and JS TPL, Chairman SEBI and IRDA, while he was an acquaintance of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, a nominee of Manmohan Singh.
The clout that Chidambaram exercised can be gauged from the fact that C. Bhave was made SEBI chief during his tenure as Finance Minister, even when there was a probe going on against his actions. Bhave was in constant touch with K.P. Krishnan, an officer exceptionally close to Chidambaram and also promoted by the present government. That several officers close to Chidambaram are still in sensitive positions may explain the unusual tardiness in investigation of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) colocation matter, in which the names of Chidambaram’s friends Ravi Narayanan, Chitra Ramakrishna, Ajay Shah, Sunitha Thomas and Suprabhat Lalla figure in the discourses about the subject. Brokers whose names are known, yet ignored by the agencies, managed to locate their servers besides NSE servers that were reportedly even linked to BSE servers through dark fibre. Those involved claim that the same dark fibre was used to link the servers of unscrupulous brokers with that of the NSE, thereby allowing huge insider profits to be made, besides gaining an ability to manipulate markets by taking positions based on secret knowledge. They made a multi-billion dollar killing at the expense of retail investors. After more than four years of a Zero Tolerance Prime Minister coming to power, those guilty in the NSE colocation imbroglio are still free and thereby able to ensure that the investigative agencies falter and fumble in probes against such a massive breach of trust of the investing public in the very institutions responsible for ensuring that the share markets run in an honest manner. Given the way in which SEBI has been functioning in such matters, it may need to change its name to SSEBI (for Sleeping SEBI). Insider trading is a poison that was rampant under the UPA, but yet remains unpunished even under the NDA. Stock market effects can devastate the BJP in 2019, the way the UTI scam affected the Vajpayee government in urban areas in 2004. However, this far, action against insider traders and scamsters, especially suspect brokers, has been derisory.
PSBS MADE TO SELL LOANS
Honest officials within North Block (and there are many) speak with disgust of how Public Sector Banks were made to sell their loans at deep discounts to private banks controlled by those close to the Finance Minister of the time. These private banks soon resold the loans at a huge profit. A Joint Secretary (DFS) of the period, Amitabh Varma, is reported to have been instrumental in ensuring that selected bank officers were given charge of public sector banks. Officials claim that many such nominations were made as a consequence of collateral consideration. However, the Modi government has yet to investigate the processes by which appointments to banks and their boards were made, despite massive NPAs accumulating as a consequence of decisions taken by the bank boards and managements of that period. While accusations against UPA—especially Congress party—grandees are freely resorted to by BJP leaders (especially during elections), ensuring accountability for past misdeeds seems to be in short supply even in this fifth year of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s term.
HANDFUL CAREERS INTERRUPTED
Many believed that Modi by November 2014 would do what Mahathir Mohammad did recently in the very first days since his swearing in as Prime Minister of Malaysia, which was to take action against those VVIPs who had been credibly accused of corruption on an industrial scale. Such scams could not have taken place without the connivance of elements of the higher bureaucracy. However, thus far, so far as top officials are concerned, only a handful have had their careers interrupted. A senior official pointed out that Arvind Mayaram, a Chidambaram favourite, was reported to have postponed the inclusion of security features in high denomination currency notes for three years. Mayaram was also held by colleagues in the Home and Finance Ministries of having given permission to De LaRue, a company whose security clearance was revoked by the Home Ministry, to supply possibly compromised security thread unhindered for that period. The only “punishment” he suffered was an abrupt ending of his tenure rather than a comprehensive investigation followed by prosecution, as was expected of the Modi government by its backers. Hassan Ali was raided and thereafter placed in jail, but none of the VVIPs associated with him have thus far been prosecuted. Another case is that of Vodafone, especially the buying of Hutchison shares as part of the deal from 2000 onwards. Neither this nor some peculiar features of the subsequent sale of shares by major holders (at hugely different prices although conducted at the same time) to Vodafone UK seems to have been investigated, including by SEBI and the ED. Whose was the hidden hand that assisted Li Ka Shing to escape paying taxes on the huge profits he made on the sale of Hutchison shares to Vodafone? In particular, did Chidambaram have a Hong Kong connection that was instrumental in getting policies changed from 2004 onwards that facilitated the purchase by Vodafone UK of shares of the Indian company? Or indeed, what was the reason for the Finance Ministry to first impose export tax on iron ore when Sesa Goa was going to be sold, only to withdraw the tax once it was purchased by Vedanta? Who were those who made massive purchases of jewellery immediately after Nirav Modi made windfall profits after Chidambaram introduced the 80:20 scheme? Who were the officials who backed the scheme on paper and who were able to hold back its scrapping for months after “Zero Tolerance to Corruption” PM Modi took over? Or why Spicejet (once of Maran fame) was allowed by SEBI to do away with listing requirements and take in without any regulatory oversight Rs 600 crore from a tax haven? Whose was that cash? Chairman U.K. Sinha and his predecessors were never questioned about actions of SEBI that were contrary to the rules and practices of the institution. Such forbearance by the agencies has been despite PM Modi’s warning to them that all suspicious decisions should be rigorously examined. Several anomalies seem to have been ignored by investigating agencies despite Prime Minister Modi’s frequent exhortations to bring all suspicious transactions to light. Clearly, elements in the official machinery have ignored Modi’s orders, but without suffering the slightest blowback as a result. On the contrary, several officers involved in UPA-era shenanigans, and whose record in uncovering the guilty of that period has been zero, have repeatedly been promoted since 26 May 2014, to the surprise and stock of those who expected action against them. Zero Tolerance against the corrupt was in practice replaced with Zero Action against such depredators as a consequence of the stealthy assistance given by UPA favourites still holding important positions.
CHECK THE HOUSES
This has happened despite Prime Minister Modi being aware that success in fulfilling his vow of bringing to book VVIP depredators will be an important factor in the next Lok Sabha polls. A simple exercise of looking into the residences in Delhi built by retired (and some serving) officials will demonstrate their past, as for example a former Finance Ministry official now in a comfortable private sector job who has built a palatial house in Saket. Others have chosen other super-expensive locations for their own retirement homes, including the Vasant Vihar house built by former Principal Secretary to PM, Brajesh Mishra, whose fortunes rose dramatically after 1998 and remained high even after the UPA came to power in 2004. An official who was known in Chennai (a city where he operated in for years and which knows him well) to have tipped certain Tamil Nadu politicians about the impending demonetisation was recently given yet another promotion in an already highflying career. Chennai contacts say that a leading resident of that metropolis, Om Shakti Ramachandran, could be a fount of information about many matters that may be of interest to a Zero Tolerance regime, but as yet such a discussion has not taken place.
PARRIKAR’S TRAVAILS
An example of how the honest get harassed is the experience of former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar regarding his efforts at actualising the PM’s promise of ensuring One Rank One Pension (OROP) to ex-servicemen. Inspired by Prime Minister Modi, Parrikar sought to ensure that the same types of privileges were made available to a cadre prepared to sacrifice life for the nation, as was enjoyed by the civil service. Despite the importance of the issue, the fact that Parrikar was standing in the way of lucrative defence deals favoured by key arms merchants operating from London, Delhi and Dubai made the officials fed by them erect hurdle upon hurdle to Parrikar’s efforts to roll out of One Rank One Pension in the armed forces. The military and those associated with this noble institution had overwhelmingly voted for Narendra Modi in 2014. The intention of the dodgy officials was to damage the standing and credibility of the Defence Minister, but in the process, an important constituency (the armed forces serving and retired) started to become alienated from the BJP. Some of the officials who connived at creating hurdles to the implementation of OROP on the lines favoured by Defence Minister Parrikar were subsequently promoted on the recommendation of officials favourable to them. A senior official, on being told that a favourite of his should not be placed in a key slot in the Finance Ministry (because of suspicions regarding his role in questionable land deals in Chennai) argued that “just because dodgy activities were carried on in Chennai was no proof that the same would happen in Delhi”. Several cases of over-invoicing of hyper-expensive equipment indulged in by crony capitalists who were close to the UPA were dealt with by since 2014 by the newly promoted official, at immense cost to the exchequer. However, as yet a systematic audit of over-invoicing and subsequent interference (including by the high official in question) in the functioning of DRI investigations into multiple instances of over and under invoicing by crony capitalists very close to UPA VVIPs has yet to take place. Such lack of tangible action is contrary to Prime Minister Modi’s orders exhorting that every person guilty of cheating the exchequer of huge amounts of money get sent to jail. Such lack of punitive action is having political consequences for the BJP, whose primary attraction to voters is the image of incorruptibility and efficiency of Narendra Modi, an image that the Congress party and its allies have thus far failed to dent.
RAMESH ABHISHEK, T.S. VIJAYAN…
Several officials involved in tasks during the UPA days were given the same tasks once the new dispensation took office, an example being Vinod Rai. As Secretary DFS, Rai is regarded as having played a key role in bank appointments during the period when Chidambaram was Finance Minister, a task he was handed over even during the period when the NDA government was functioning. It must be added that Vinod Rai is an exception, in that as CAG, he released reports on 2G and Coal that seriously damaged the image of the UPA, thereby showing his independence of mind so far as political linkages are concerned. Another upwardly mobile official, Ramesh Abhishek, was placed in charge of the Forward Markets Commission while Chidambaram was running the Finance Ministry and was instrumental in ensuring that a competitor to NSE, the NSEL, was choked to death through executive action. He remains powerful in the new dispensation, which seems not to have investigated the contacts Abhishek had in the past with Kanti Singh, who is known to be known to former Union Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Another favourite of Chidambaram was T.S. Vijayan, former Chairman of LIC and Chairman of IRDA, who was mysteriously given a clean chit by the CBI. The LIC made extensive share purchases during his tenure in office, the prices of which subsequently (and predictably to those following the market and the speculative forces operating freely there) nosedived. Insider and illegal speculation in share markets has almost totally remained unexamined even by a government committed to transparency and honesty, even while the ED and other agencies fumble and stumble in efforts at ensuring that Chidambaram and his son Karti (whose record in success of business should be mandatory reading in business schools) face legal consequences for actions carried out during 2004-2014. Because of an apparent absence of serious intent on the part of agencies, courts have over and over again given Chidambaram the benefit of the doubt, thereby keeping alive his ambition of making a comeback in 2019, given the immense trust Sonia Gandhi has in him.
UPHILL TASK
Now that Rahul Gandhi is hitting stride as the effective commander of the anti-Modi forces, the level of attack on the Zero Tolerance to Corruption Prime Minister is getting much fiercer. The effort is to strip the Teflon from Modi, who is the only electoral master card that the BJP has, as has been shown multiple times since 2014. A high success ratio in bringing to book VVIPs guilty of amassing wealth during 2004-2014 would have been of immense benefit to the BJP, just as the allegations of large-scale graft made by Modi during the last Lok Sabha campaign were. Although the Prime Minister has been working 16 hours a day in the enforcing of accountability, results have not been commensurate, because of the continued presence and prominence of several officials whose role during the UPA period bears investigation. In the short period that Prime Minister Modi has left before election season begins in earnest, he will need to make up lost ground at speed. This will be an uphill task in the face of what is likely to be an invigorated and ceaseless attack on his government by a Congress party that has been given a second chance at power by the lack of success of the Modi government in holding UPA VVIPs (rather than minnows) accountable for the multiple actions described in detail by BJP leaders themselves as corrupt during the 2014 election campaign. Retelling those UPA-era charges against the Congress party during the 2019 campaign will have little effect, given that the present government has been unable to take discernible action against perpetrators of such offences as serious as handing over billions of dollars of bank cash to crony capitalists, who promptly transferred such funds overseas, and who cheated the country in other ways as well, such as through over and under invoicing and in rigging share prices. What ought to be clear as sheer glass to the investigating agencies has thus far been largely ignored by them.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/manmohan-era-holdovers-sabotage-modis-anti-graft-campaign 

China has big plans for Hainan (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

THE past few days have been spent on the South Pacific island of Hainan, a tropical province that boasts the highest life expectancy in China. There are towns where it is routine for individuals to live beyond 90 years, because of the abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere. The situation is the opposite of that found in Lhasa, where the level of oxygen in the air is low, leading to increased difficulty in making physical effort for those unused to such conditions. However, inhabitants of this cleanest of cities find it no problem to move around, used as they are to low levels of oxygen. The largest city in Hainan, Sanya, has a climate the opposite not only of Lhasa but cities in northern China, which too get very cold in winter. The consequence is that several individuals from such provinces have migrated to cities in Hainan and are slowly forming the majority population there. There are also large numbers of short-term visitors, especially during winter, though even when this columnist was on the island, hundreds of tourists from all parts of China were present on the island. Several were young couples holding their little children.
Although mainstream Chinese nationals are now allowed to have two children (while the minorities within the country have from the start been allowed to have more children if they wish) , several have only a single child, as the cost of education is very steep in China, and they would like to ensure the best (and therefore expensive) education for their children. Such One Child families ensure that the little ones get treated the way princes and princesses are, with grandparents especially devoting substantial time to their grandchildren. China is facing a demographic problem in the future because of the increasing share of older people in the population when compared to Pakistan and India, which have much younger median populations. Japan is in an even more difficult situation, with millions of very old citizens. Which is probably the reason why that country is paying so much attention to Artificial Intelligence and to robotics, both fields that are also under intensive development in China.
Sanya’s Mangrove Hotel is among the most modern this columnist has stayed in. The shape of the multi-storied building resembles a tropical leaf, and electronic controls are in every room. Lights come on when a guest approaches a particular area and gets switched off when he or she leaves, all automatically. As is the case with other hotels, there are vast and leafy grounds ideal for walks. The Chinese Communist Party seeks to develop Hainan as an international tourist paradise on the lines of Hawaii, and many hotels have multinational staff. In the Intercontinental hotel, several of the staff come from Nepal, a country known for its courtesy and charm. The island hosts the Boat Forum each year, and the facilities built for this once in a year global conference are on a scale that is now becoming commonplace in China. The conference rooms and places of stay have been built on a grand scale, and apart from the conference period (when the premises are sealed off for reasons of security),tourists are welcome to come into the hall and even the podium, where several take photographs of themselves sitting on the chairs used by VVIPs, including some of the world’s top leaders when they come for the Boat Forum, China’s answer to Davos. Unlike Davos, Boao has warm rather than icy weather, not to mention a profusion of trees and beaches. Apart from Chinese, Russians too love the island, perhaps because the weather is so unlike that in Siberia. Visitors from Russia almost always congregate in a particular part of the island,known by every one of its inhabitants as the “Russia Corner”, having a good time in the company of others from Russia. The food, music and atmosphere – everything in fact but for the weather – is Russian, with celebrations reminiscent of those parts of the beaches of Goa in India where too Russians congregate in preference to other zones.
Hainan is being declared a tourist zone, with over 50 coun tries being given visa-free access to the province. The expectation is that in the next few years, hundreds of thousands of international visitors will ensure that the local economy booms. At present, tropical fruits are the main industry. Not surprisingly, there is a high speed railway running across the island that links the main centres,including the capital, Haikou. There is also a road network spanning the province, but railroads have a special charm. It is possible to relax in a carriage enjoying a book or just gazing at the lush vegetation outside in a way not always possible while travelling by car. The island is also home to the South China fleet of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), although it must be said that the extensive military facilities located on Hainan are located in locations that are inconspicuous, and that it is rare indeed to see an individual in military uniform when visiting Hainan as a tourist.
Although Hainan has an airport with modern facilities, another is being built to cater to international visitors. It would seem that in the years to come, it will not only be during the Boat Forum deliberations that large numbers of foreign guests come to the beautiful island of Hainan. Chinese authorities have big plans for the island,and they have accelerated their drive to ensure that these be implemented. Hopefully the many high rise buildings and facilities sprouting on the island will not have the deadly effect on the environment that human habitation has in many other locations, but that Hainan will remain an island paradise for the world to enjoy.

https://pakobserver.net/china-has-big-plans-for-hainan/ 

Talking Foreign Policy: How India Sees the World (Asia Society India)

Since 1947, India's foreign policy has witnessed a judicious and progressive course from the Nehruvian period's social agenda to economic liberalisation, and an increased interest in participating on the world stage as a significant political and economic power. This shift has manifested in several significant foreign policy decisions in the last two decades, such as the move away from non-alignment to the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and participation in the Copenhagen climate change negotiation. A handful of expert policymakers and advisors have been instrumental in driving these changes in foreign policy and diplomacy, with Saran as a key figure among them. In this new book, 'How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century', using the prism of Kautilya's Arthashastra and other ancient treatises on statecraft, Saran show the historical sources of India's worldview. He looks at India's neighbourhood and the changing wider world through this lens and arrives at fascinating conclusions like the claims that the world is hurtling towards Chinese unipolarity are overblown; international borders are becoming irrelevant as climate change and cyber terror bypass them; and India shouldn't hold its breath for a resolution to its border disputes with China and Pakistan in the foreseeable future.

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

Team Modi will decide 2019, not just Modi (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat 

The key strands for voting will be the degree of success in rolling back VVIP corruption, the improvement in the economy and leashing the state machinery.

May 31 could not have been a pleasant day for the BJP leadership, given the slippage in performance demonstrated during the bypolls. While BJP president Amit Shah was his usual efficient, bustling self during both the bypolls as well as in the run up to the Karnataka Assembly polls, the many weapons and tactics deployed by his team failed to ensure victory. The 2014 Lok Sabha victory was attributed to a single factor, the “Modi Wave”, rather than to voter distaste for UPA II. The BJP exulted at its “superior use of social media”, while in the process, several associated with the internet backend of the election campaign made lucrative careers for themselves “advising” and “assisting” political parties and candidates to victory, to predictably mixed results. In India as in many other countries, the surest guarantee to victory of a candidate rests in the unpopularity of his or her principal opponent, and so it proved in 2014. A small group of commentators and activists, including Subramanian Swamy, S. Gurumurthy and Surya Prakash worked without pause over several years to transform the positive image UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had at the start of 2004 into a negative one, with great success. The more negative voter perceptions of Sonia were, the greater the backing for the individual seen as the “Anti-Sonia”, Narendra Modi. Interestingly, the Opposition even collectively has thus far failed to dent the image of Narendra Modi within the public as an honest and well-meaning leader, or create an image of the NDA led by him as being as or more corrupt than the UPA. This lack of success may be compared to the meltdown of the public image of the UPA, which took place by the close of 2012, great gusts of negativity that became worse rather than better in the period before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and for about two years thereafter. More than anything attempted by the large and hard-working BJP organisational machinery created by Amit Shah, it is the lack of success of Modi’s opponents to push him and his government into the same dismal groove of public perception that the UPA fell into during 2012-14 which offers the Prime Minister his best hope for continuing to be the legal occupant of 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, New Delhi even after the 2019 LS polls.

BJP office-bearers and spokespersons uniformly assert that the party’s results of the 2019 polls will be the same or better than was the case in 2014. Such confidence may be misplaced. While there is no doubt that Narendra Modi remains the most popular politician in India, votes will not get cast solely on that account. Not simply Modi, but the top 99 individuals (all presumably personally chosen by him for their tasks) forming Team Modi will be on one end of the weighing scale as voters decide on their choices, much the same way as it is not merely the captain but the entire team that decides the outcome of a cricket match. Once he took over as PM, the scale of the BJP victory ensured a free hand for the incoming Prime Minister in 2014, unencumbered by any consideration other than choosing what in his view was the most suitable candidate for each post, whether these be in his “official” (i.e. bureaucratic) family or his “political” family (i.e. key Chief Ministers, Union Ministers and party functionaries). Modi was free to make whatever choices he wanted, and this is what he did. Team Modi has been comparatively stable in its composition, with practically no dismissal in the top tier. This has given voters the chance to judge for themselves the success of the team in fulfilling the expectations that they had about the Modi government. Although television anchors speak with awe about the “Modi blitzkrieg” just before polling in various elections, more than speeches, what counts during that period are events, including changes in petrol prices. The core of the electoral appeal of Prime Minister Modi is his performance in the job. Speeches can only reinforce such perceptions and not replace them.

Rajiv Gandhi suffered a point of inflexion in his mass appeal with the decision to overturn the Shah Bano judgement of the Supreme Court. Should Modi find the 2019 results a disappointment, his own point of inflexion may be the 8 November 2016 decision to render illegal 86% of the country’s currency at four hours’ notice, added to the clumsy way in which the RBI and other wings of the state implemented the Prime Minister’s exceptionally bold decision. BJP spokespersons continued till recently to see the demonetisation as a popularity-boosting initiative, and have ascribed to it numerous benefits, such as an end to black money, terror funding, tax evasion, counterfeiting and the use of cash rather than plastic in transactions. However, they do not seem to any more ask the electorate to make contests a referendum on DeMo. It speaks for the generosity of spirit of Narendra Modi that long after the drawbacks in the measure have become patent, the civil servants who recommended it and who executed its rollout have been given higher positions, an example being former Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das. The new government’s broad mindedness concerning the past record of civil servants is exemplified in the promotions given to Das as well as others such as K.P. Krishnan and Ramesh Abhishek, despite it being common knowledge that they were exceptionally close to former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. In 2019, voters will give their verdict on the On the Job performance of these and other officials in Team Modi, including their success in taking action against those misdeeds of the government in which they were such an active part from 2004 to 2014. Among the key strands will be the degree of success in rolling back VVIP corruption (the only kind that matters to voters jaded by the moneymaking habits of those they elect), the improvement in the economy (especially on jobs and income) and leashing the state machinery so as to make it less a band of mercenaries than a collection of sevaks led by “Pradhan Sevak” Modi. For an Opposition leader, it is speeches that count at the hustings. For a party in power for five years, it is performance. 

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/team-modi-will-decide-2019-not-just-modi

Lok Sabha seat by-polls: BJP wrests power from Shiv Sena in Palghar, Maharashtra (NewsX)

The result for 4 Lok Sabha seat by-polls is keeping everyone at the edge of their seats as the BJP and the so called 'rest' battle it out. Ahead of the 2019 polls, each elections becomes more and more crucial for both the sides, it's a test of the potential of the opposition unity if the face of the Prime Minister's popularity while the BJP has gained in Maharshtra's Palghar but has lost the crucial Kairana seat to the RLD which was backed by the Congress, SP and BSP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxGAL9Wy-U 

Modi and Jokowi rekindle old ties (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

INDONESIA has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, followed by Pakistan and then India. The archipelago is unlike in those states where the government has worked to ensure a monochrome quality to the societal fabric of the country, discouraging and often outrightly banning any deviation from the imposed norm. Except in a few locations where regional parties subscribing to an exclusivist agenda have been voted to office, overall authorities in Indonesia do not discriminate between Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Such a syncretic culture is especially vibrant in Java, the island that was the home province of the founder of post-colonial Indonesia, Achmed Soekarno, or “Bung (Brother) Karno”, as he was affectionately known among his people. Soekarno was a close friend of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and worked together with him to ensure that European colonialism got banished from Asia and Africa, a task in which they enjoyed considerable success.
Bung Karno evolved a theory of global geopolitics, separating the world not by religion or race but on the basis of whether they were part of the “Old Emergent Forces” or the “New Emerging Forces” (NEFOS and OLDEFOS). He saw the newly independent countries of Asia in the NEFOS category, and the colonial states of Europe as OLDEFOS. According to the first President of the Republic of Indonesia, the countries emerging would soon surpass the former colonial states in development. It has taken a while, but Soekarno’s forecast has come true. China was a country tortured by more powerful states, undergoing suffering on a scale witnessed in the past by those who suffered the depredations of the Mongol hordes. However, now the Peoples Republic of China is on the cusp of becoming the biggest economy on the globe, while India and its long history of subjugation is less than a generation away from growing to be the third biggest economy on the planet, just below China and the US and comfortably overtaking present-day leaders Germany and Japan. The vast archipelago that is Indonesia has itself become among the most consequential countries on the planet, joining those groups that form the top economies of the globe
The overthrow of Soekarno by General Suharto led to a cooling of relations between Jakarta and Delhi. This was unfortunate, as the two countries have close cultural links. The immortal classic “Ramayana” is acted out in Indonesia almost as many times as it is played in India. In contrast to rulers who ordered the destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas along with several other artefacts, this columnist was surprised to see a statue of Lord Ganesh (among the most important members of the Hindu pantheon) at the entrance of the office of the President of Indonesia. An entirely apt choice, for Lord Ganesh is regarded as unblocking obstacles to progress, and removing blocks to fast growth is crucial for countries that still are home to tens of millions of very poor citizens, such as India and Indonesia. Relations between Delhi and Jakarta warmed up once Soekarno’s daughter Megawati took over as the elected Head of State in 2001.
It had been a popular leader of eastern India, Bijoyanand Patnaik, who had bestowed the name “Megawati” to Soekarno’s daughter, he being a close friend of the Indonesian leader who had been a tireless advocate of freeing Indonesia from its colonial master, Holland. Despite itself suffering the loss of independence as a consequence of German occupation (1940-45), Holland at first refused to do the honourable thing and allow the people of Indonesia to run their own lives. However, assisted by a wave of support from across the world, Soekarno led his people to full freedom in 1949, after conducting a military campaign against the Dutch authorities for four years. It must be added that hundreds of thousands of the Dutch people themselves supported freedom for Indonesia and opposed those in their country who sought to hang on to their colonial possessions the way the French authorities sought to keep Vietnam in subjugation, until they were defeated on the field of battle by Ho Chi Minh by 1951. In the case of India as well, several influential politicians in the UK, mainly from the Labour Party, opposed Winston Churchill in the latter’s rejection of the transfer of power from London to New Delhi. The common thread of suffering under the yoke of European powers brought India and Indonesia together in the past, and to this day such a shared history has worked to promote close ties between two countries located in the western half of the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, Jakarta would be a valuable addition to the Quadrilateral Alliance of India, the US, Japan and Australia. Together with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam should also be invited to join, thereby forming a seven-member alliance that has the capacity to battle piracy and protect freedom of navigation within the Indo-Pacific.
In order to revive the Indonesia-India relationship to the level it was during the Soekarno-Nehru period, Prime Minister Modi has travelled to this important country and has held several rounds of discussions with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). Both countries are victims of extremist violence, and oppose the exclusivist viewpoint of religious fanatics. It is expected that President Donald J Trump will visit India this year, and if so, it may be useful for him to visit Indonesia as well or invite President Widodo to Delhi to hold a tripartite meeting. The two countries are key to the western reaches of the Indo-Pacific, and discussions with the US President are crucial in the context of Trump pivoting US foreign policy away from its Atlanticist moorings to anchor in the Indo-Pacific. Modi and Widodo have stressed that India and Indonesia are now full strategic partners, in that both plan to defend each other against third party threats and attacks. Hopefully the Indian bureaucracy will ensure that the breakthrough in relations as a consequence of the Modi-Jokowi meeting get followed up at speed, rather than be left to languish way so many past initiatives have been.

https://pakobserver.net/modi-and-jokowi-rekindle-old-ties/ 

Petrol, diesel prices fall after 16 straight surge days: Faux Pas or Cruel Joke? (NewsX)

Petrol and diesel prices are at an all time high. Prices have been steadily rising for the last 16 days pinching commuters all across the country. This is having a cascading effect as other commodity prices are rising too. What happened today though has come as the biggest shock to the Aam Aadmi. First they were silent, with no concrete solution and now the Government has played the cruelest joke on the common man. After a fortnight of struggle, the relief offered by the government is a mere 1 paisa. Yes thats right finally a price cut but just of 1 paisa. Whether this is a faux pas or not, is certainly not gone down well with the Aam Aadmi who want concrete action on this issue immediately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlHNqnAPcH4 

Robert Mueller's probe is damaging U.S. interests (UPI)

M D Nalapat 

Robert Mueller's investigation has systematically created a toxic atmosphere around and within the structures of governmental command and control in Washington that has clearly been affecting both the direction as well as the quality of policymaking within the administration. 

Months ago, special counsel Robert Mueller identified about a dozen Russian nationals and a few million dollars in cash as (effectively) being responsible for changing the electoral outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Were this "finding" of such detective work to be taken seriously rather than regarded with laughter by anyone other than the Beltway denizens, it would telegraph to the world that U.S. elections are even more fragile than those held in Belize or Guatemala.

There exist countries that would be willing to spend $100 billion and counting to get their "puppet" ( Hillary Clinton's description of Donald Trump) elected to the most consequential office in the United States, and therefore of the world. If Mueller truly believes that a handful of foreign nationals having access to a measly amount of cash can even affect slightly -- much less change -- the election outcome of a contest held in the glare of international media and attention, he must regard his country as being a peanut republic, for even banana republics would need far more expenditure in cash and man hours to have their election outcomes seriously affected. Through a nonstop drumbeat of support for this and other like findings, the Beltway media and their acolytes in the rest of the United States have gone a considerable distance to making the United States of America (and not Trump, as they imagine) an object of global ridicule.

Within the inner circle of the 45th president of the United States are some individuals who have long been in awe of the Beltway, and it was presumably on their advice that several appointments have been made to the new administration of individuals who respond to Beltway cues with the certainty of Pavlov's dogs. Given the decades of experience of such people in how to operate within the D.C. swamp, it is small wonder that most of them have remained out of radar contact of the very few loyal individuals within the Trump administration. This has given them the time and space to continue a dribble of "leaks from administration sources," the cumulative object of which is to ensure that the elected first citizen gets regarded with scorn and contempt, not just within the United States but outside.

Anyone visiting consequential capitals such as Berlin, London and Beijing several times since the 2016 elections will find it easy to find out that several visiting individuals (who are part of the Washington policymaking matrix) have been retailing -- in private, naturally -- stories about their chief of state. Such tales are precisely that -- stories that ought to be regarded correctly as unbelievable, but which have instead gained substantial currency within policymaking circles in many capitals.

This is affecting their responses to even routine moves and requests of the new administration, often to the detriment of U.S. interests. Not that this is bothering the Beltway wrecking crew, whose concentration is on ensuring that the president either quit of be removed from office well before his term is over, a task that Mueller is clearly engaged in with the enthusiasm of the true believer in the dictum that the "Beltway knows best" in its desire to see the premature close of the Trump presidency.

Bill Clinton and his brilliant spouse were quick learners, and by the third year of the first term had become embedded in the Beltway, as an examination of the personnel changes made since then under the 42nd president would reveal. Jimmy Carter never sought to bridge the distance between him and the informal human collective that has dominated policymaking in the United States since the 1940s and paid with his job and his reputation, losing to Ronald Reagan after a single term in office.

Was it that hints were given from within the Beltway to those in power in Iran that it would be helpful if the U.S. Embassy hostages remained in custody during a hard-fought contest? Certainly the South Vietnamese (and possibly the other, through a European power) government got briefed not to give a diplomatic victory to President Lyndon Johnson, lest it would result in Hubert Humphrey prevailing over Richard Nixon. However, hubris after an impressive second-term victory made Nixon humiliate his (largely Beltway) staff, thereby motivating many to follow much the same "drip drip drip" tactics as are now being deployed against Trump.

As for Reagan, the D.C. policy establishment may have marked the sometime actor down as an easy chief executive to play, given his career previous to joining politics. However, the 40th president of the United States showed that he had a mind and will of his own and changed domestic and foreign policy on a scale attempted in the postwar past only by John F Kennedy. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama stuffed their administrations with Beltway brainpower, thereby avoiding the systematic albeit silent campaign of ridicule and abuse faced by Carter and initially by Reagan (till John Hinckley made the U.S. president a hero by his vile act.)

Trump's problem is not that he is fake but that he is genuine. The man makes very little effort to disguise his views, even on social media, which is the modern equivalent of the street billboard. And that unlike the Clintons and others who very quickly decided to play along with the Beltway rather than incur its (in several ways concealed) ire, Trump has remained adamant on not filling up the patronage posts at his command with those who are (policy-wise, though not always geographically) in sync with the Beltway. Such lese-majesty has angered the Washington establishment, which since Nov. 8, 2016, has been seeking the ouster of Trump (and his attractive wife, Melania) from the White House.

Mueller, who has been perfectly chosen for his task, is the most deadly weapon in their arsenal. The Mueller investigation has systematically created a toxic atmosphere around and within the structures of governmental command and control in Washington that has clearly been affecting both the direction as well as the quality of policymaking within the administration, factors that then immediately get ascribed to Trump rather than to the campaign against him. A byproduct of the "Humiliate & Oust Trump" movement has been the president letting go of several of the policy positions that he took during the election, including on Russia, on China and in parts of the Middle East. If Trump and his team were less harried by the toxic fumes of controversy created precisely to paralyze his administration, he may have by now succeeded in getting both Moscow as well as New Delhi into the "U.S. ally" column, something that was last within the reach of Bill Clinton, but which opportunity was rejected with contempt by the Arkansas politician.

Where Trump is scoring is in those few initiatives where he has -- despite the efforts of Mueller and others intent on his removal -- moved away from Beltway preferences. Rather than cozy up to the Wahabbi establishment (which funds several individuals and institutions either part of or close to the Beltway crowd), Trump has been forthright in his condemnation of this extremist creed. But for Trump, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia may not have found the nerve and the opportunity to attempt the essential task of weaning his country away from the strands of a creed that has become intertwined with the roots of governance in Saudi Arabia since its inception. Given the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people, Trump was the first U.S. president to substitute action for words by moving his embassy to that ancient city.

However, he has succumbed to the doctrine that Shiite Islam is ab initio an enemy of U.S. interests, and instead of engaging with Iran, is reverting to the Bush-Cheney policy of making threats tailor made to send oil prices through the roof. Fortunately, in the case of North Korea, Trump stood his ground and will almost certainly be meeting supreme leader Kim Jong Un. The only two options before the United States are either total war against the DPRK or adopting a "Bright Sunshine" policy that would over time ensure that North Korean behavior and policies became an opportunity rather than a threat to the United States.

While getting Kim to give up his only defense against a decapitation strike may be a tough errand, the Trump-Kim meeting may at the least ensure a public freeze in the DPRK's nuclear and missile program, followed by engagement with the rest of the world that would hopefully change its chemistry. If the United States and communist Vietnam could become friends (as they undoubtedly are now), there is no reason why Washington and Pyongyang should not follow suit. Whether it be North Korea, Iran or Cuba, the best non-military instrument of change that the United States has is engagement with the U.S. economy and people.

Should the shadow of the Mueller decapitation sword get removed, hopefully Trump will be more himself and not get forced to accept Beltway solutions that are harmful to U.S. interests in a world very different from that of 1945.

Despite the moves designed to cripple his administration, Trump has moved into the Indo-Pacific groove from the Atlanticist furrow. Mueller and his obsession with somehow discovering a case for impeachment is harming U.S. interests in a manner few outside powers have succeeded in doing to the world's most powerful country. It is time to recognize the Mueller probe as what it is: a wrecking ball aimed at the future of the United States.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Voices/2018/05/29/Robert-Muellers-probe-is-damaging-US-interests/4661527594907/?spt=su 

Opposition seeks to catch up with BJP (Sunday Guardian)

M D Nalapat 

Modi has seven months to revive confidence in his leadership for his party to win.

Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy will need to make difficult concessions to the Congress Party to revive the chances for H.D. Deve Gowda to once again emerge as a viable (with Congress, Left and some regional support) PM  candidate. However, that would be a better course to follow than to test his luck (and the patience of the supporting party) by acting the way the Congress itself did during UPA-II or the BJP is doing now, which is act as though only a single party’s voice counts within the portals of government. Should the JDS-Congress coalition continue smoothly up to the 2019 polls, it would be a powerful argument in favour of the proposition that “khichdi” can be as tasty as the monochrome dish on offer by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. Contrarily, should the coalition collapse before the Lok Sabha polls, either owing to defections or because of irredeemable tensions between the two parties forming it, the BJP will gain substantial oxygen in its warnings to voters that the opposition coalition will be too fragile to give effective governance. Karnataka is an ongoing test that the BJP has not yet lost and the opposition is yet to win, from the perspective of the Lok Sabha polls.

Given the implicit premise that a “stable” government will be better enabled to generate administrative results than a fractious coalition, the very quality of power projection that the opposition most dislikes in Prime Minister Modi may be an important factor pulling in votes into the BJP column. Contrarily, the Congress would find itself better placed were Rahul Gandhi to make it clearer than he did during the Karnataka campaign that his focus is not on replacing Modi in 2019, but simply on removing him through holding the BJP to a seat tally such that it would be difficult for the Prime Minister to persuade enough parties to back his party’s bid for a second term. If the BJP Lok Sabha tally falls below 240, even should Modi manage to secure a majority through the persuasive powers of Amit Shah, that would be as fragile as almost all other coalition governments in the past were. Interestingly, the BJP’s 2014 majority meant that Modi could have formed a Council of Ministers entirely different from the 1998-2004 crew under A.B. Vajpayee. However, once Prime Minister, he fashioned a team that could well have been chosen by Vajpayee himself.

Despite occasional bouts of verbal pyrotechnics, the Vajpayee government was indulgent towards UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, as indeed was she towards him. Results on the ground show that this tradition of fellowship has in effect been continued by the new administration, which appears to have spared the entire top tier of the UPA from any sort of legal accountability for numerous actions claimed to be scandalous by the BJP during 2011-2014. Congress president Rahul Gandhi can claim that this absence of prosecutions indicates that the anti-corruption plank of the BJP during the 2014 LS campaign was akin to the “dodgy dossier” compiled by Bush and Blair to justify their invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rahul himself has lately been following the UPA-era Modi playbook in launching one aggressive sally after the other on the Prime Minister and his team, although as yet he has not managed to build a convincing enough public case of NDA corruption. In the 2019 election campaign, corruption will re-surface as a core issue of concern, and it will be Rahul Gandhi’s task to demonstrate that UPA-era corruption was far less than NDA-era corruption, a task yet to get fulfilled. Even should Rahul act pragmatically and remove himself (at least till the election results get counted) from the Prime Ministerial sweepstakes, by now the Congress president has established himself in the mind of most voters as the new “Anti-Modi”, easily outpacing others such as the now much subdued Arvind Kejriwal. However, the incubus of the Sonia past still clings to him, including his apparent re-affirmation of “secularism” as practised by Manmohan Singh, which essentially discriminated against the Hindu community. Rahul Gandhi seems to be hesitant in taking a leap into the realm of treating Hindus as what they are, the majority community. Such a change would be through backing projects dear to their psyche, such as the Ram Mandir. His not doing so means that Prime Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah retain their strongest card, which is that the era of discrimination against Hindus could well return were the Congress and its allies to take control of the Central government. Given the lack of prosecutorial action against UPA grandees during the past four years, Modi’s anti-corruption plank of 2014 seems less than effective at present, despite hyper high-stakes gambles such as DeMo. Administrative bungling on matters such as GST and demonetisation have taken much of the gloss off the perception that Modi is a Deng Xiaoping, a “Wirtshaftwunderkind” (economic maestro) who can power the economy to a double digit growth stage.

Seven months is a long time in politics, and this is about what Modi has to revive enough confidence in his leadership for his party to return with a tally past 272 seats. Should he be seen to be taking vigorous action against high-level administrative graft, such as by dismissing a substantial number of officials, putting petrol and diesel under the ambit of GST, abolishing tolls across highways in India, and presenting a February 2019 vote on account that would incorporate cuts in tax rates (including indirect levies) to levels that power growth rather than slow the economy down as at present, the coming election may yet see a return of the BJP under Modi. However, his 2014 decision to entrust the running of his administration to much the same bureaucratic team as held high responsibilities under Manmohan Singh makes such dynamic moves unlikely. Instead, there is likely to be more of the incrementalism and caution in economic and financial policy that has characterised this government. It may be that a silent administrative revolution is taking place, the way those working with the Prime Minister claim. However, such a transformation is clearly too silent to be heard by many voters, given the relative lack of meaningful access that the media in general have to the workings of the inner recesses of the government. Unless the Modi of 2013 displaces the Modi of May 2014 onwards in both perception and performance, Rahul Gandhi and his allies will be within striking distance of ensuring in 2019 that the Government of India be made “BJP-mukt” for the term of the next government.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/opposition-seeks-catch-bjp