India Last Week #2
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment –
“India is giving nearly a billion (950 million) citizens the chance to exercise their right to vote a government of their choice into power. But candidates have been met with an unexpected adversary—extreme weather. The two-and-a-half-month electoral process—voting takes place in seven phases between April 19 and June 1—coincides with a season of extreme heat waves this year, far worse than 2023, which was the warmest year on record till date.” Read more: Hridayesh Joshi & Kartiki Negi, Carbon Copy
“India expects power generation to grow 9.3% to 1,900 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) during the fiscal year through March 2025, internal projections by the federal power ministry reviewed by Reuters show, the fastest pace of growth since at least 2011/12. Searing heatwaves and an uptick in economic activity have resulted in India's electricity generation growing at an average of about 8% annually following the pandemic year of 2020/21, outpacing power demand growth in every major global economy.” Read more: Sudarshan Varadhan, Reuters
“Shukla has led a decade-long grassroots campaign against some of India’s conglomerates -- including one operated by Adani Group, helmed by Asia’s second-richest man -- seeking to tap one of the country’s richest subterranean stores of fossil fuels. The movement had a major triumph in 2021 when, bowing to its demands, the government established an elephant reserve in a 445,000-acre (around 180,000-hectare) swath of the threatened Hasdeo Aranya forest, an area bigger than the size of London.” Read more: The Hindu
“Because of the Indian government’s scheme, many thousands of people rely on these genetically modified crops as their main source of nutrients. The result is a mounting anemia crisis attributed primarily to iron deficiency. Nearly 30% of women worldwide between 15 and 49 years old — or more than half a billion women in total — are now anemic, according to the World Health Organization. Climate change is also driving up malaria cases, which is another key cause of anemia.” Read more: Andrew Green, Devex
Economy –
“Research shows that the incomes of te top 1% and 10% income groups [in India] have grown at a higher-than-average rate of growth in the post-liberalisation era. Not only that, the growth rates of income of the bottom 50% and the middle 40% were both below the average growth rate. If the process of growth was inclusive, we should expect a higher rate of growth for those with lower incomes since by the laws of arithmetic, the lower the base, the easier it is to increase something by a certain percentage.” Read more: Maitreesh Ghatak, LSE Blog
“The big push to help poor people open basic bank accounts—520m have been opened since 2014, and they now hold $28bn—has been crucial, helping to transform India’s masses into savers, providers of capital and, possibly, entrepreneurs. Since the accounts are linked to India’s new digital payment and identification system, they are records that can be used to evaluate and grant credit. This may explain a recent increase in lending to small businesses.” Read more: The Economist
“Good health and education determine the capabilities of a population. The gap in the capabilities of Indian workers and their counterparts in the rest of Asia has meant that India has not been able to take advantage of the global market, despite the removal of all trade barriers since 1991. In general, low capabilities result in low productivity, and therefore income poverty, for a substantial section of the Indian population. On the other hand, the high inequality within India reflects the gap in the capabilities of those who are able to surmount the indifferent quality of health and education provided by the Indian state through private means and those who cannot. Till such time as this gap is plugged, India will remain a highly unequal country.” Read more: Pulapre Balakrishnan, Indian Express
South Asia Development Update: Jobs for Resilience (Chapter 2: Jobless Development)
“Overall during 2000–23, average employment growth (1.7 percent a year) in South Asia was below that of the working-age population (1.9 percent a year). As a result, South Asia saw a 2-percentage-point decline in its employment ratio during 2000–23 while the average employment ratio in other EMDEs remained broadly stable. The decline in South Asia was limited to Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Nepal, but employment ratios are below the average for other EMDEs in all South Asian countries except Nepal.” Read more: Office of the Chief Economist of the South Asian Region, The World Bank
Foreign Policy & Security –
“In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.” Read more: Greg Miller, Gerry Shih, and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post
“During the last Cold War, South Asia was only tangentially and occasionally important to the two global powers and the region was largely left to Indian devices. But now, South Asia matters to Beijing much more than it did to either the US or the Soviet Union.” Read more: Rajesh Rajagopalan, The Print
“ India, since independence, has been wary about regional and extra-regional great power involvement in what it considers its ‘backyard’. China’s base in Djibouti coupled with its growing presence in South Asia’s port infrastructure landscape weakens India’s influence in the region. Recent elections in Maldives might portend greater alignment between Malé and Beijing, intensifying New Delhi’s concern. Thus, given the geopolitical backdrop, India and the US have been visibly concerned about Beijing’s ability and desire to deploy research vessels.” Read more: Shakthi De Silva, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
“Since the 2022 deal with the Philippines, however, India has not finalised sales of BrahMos (or any other defence equipment) to any Southeast Asian countries. India has tried to sell the missile to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam but no agreements have been finalised. The lack of sales highlights the challenge India faces in trying to break into the regional arms market. Unless it starts using its indigenous equipment more frequently and demonstrating its effectiveness, it is likely to struggle to convince potential buyers.” Read more: Viraj Solanki, International Institute for Strategic Studies
“By 2018, the Indo-Pacific had progressed from a recognised region to an official policy framework as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated India's vision for the region in a keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue. The following year, the Ministry of External Affairs established an Indo-Pacific division with responsibility for key regional associations such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), ASEAN and the Quad.” Read more: Walter Ladwig, Royal United Servies Institute
People & Politics –
“The Hindu nationalist approach has become more preeminent at the national level over the last decade, alongside a more authoritarian attitude towards politics. What began as an election pitch in 2014 focused on offering economic opportunities and jobs to those Modi described as the aspirational “neo-middle class” soon gave way to the embrace of similar kinds of populist strategies associated with the radical right in Europe, although designed in the Indian context.” Read more: Louise Tillin, Promarket
“In part, there is nothing new about the BJP register. Rather than relying on its performance, the BJP has avoided the register of governance and acche din.
Of course, the BJP could not have been oblivious to the intellectual moves of the Congress ever since the first Bharat Jodo Yatra. It has armed itself with a large menu of welfare deliveries that it can claim credit for. But its meta narrative in the campaign continues to be oppositional: searching for excuses, blaming ‘others’, creating negative anxieties and complaining rather than claiming, extending dreams rather than showing results.” Read more: Suhas Palshikar, The India Forum
“Months before India began the gargantuan, 44-day exercise of conducting national general elections from April 19, armies of tech-savvy IITians, MBAs, lawyers and researchers have been busy collating, studying and analysing voter data to decide on campaign strategy, issues to highlight, where to deliver gifts and polarising speeches while pushing a glut of fake news on social media and WhatsApp aiming to convince voters for their clients.These backroom boys of Indian democracy, who have no skin in the game apart from the pay package and the thrill of a win, call themselves “politically neutral problem solvers”. In conversations with Al Jazeera, they acknowledged that some of their, and their parties’, solutions to rake in votes may not be the best thing for a democracy, but they said they had no biases and were simply focused on cracking the problem.” Read more: Suparna Sharma, Al Jazeera
“The Somaiya School in Mumbai has asked its principal Parveen Shaikh to resign after OpIndia - a Hindutva website accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech - published an article targeting her for her purported political views.” Read more: Prayag Arora-Desai, Scroll
“The dip in voter turnout in the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls has sounded an alarm in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has instructed its cadre to redouble the party’s outreach and ensure its vote share does not decline in the wake of voter apathy… While party leaders blame the intense heat and the propensity of urban voters to take off during for a break if the voting day is scheduled on the weekend, concerns have been raised over the sluggish response from the state units to the outreach activities that were planned.” Read more: Smriti Kak Ramachandran, Hindustan Times
Tech –
“Since 2017, when Apple first started assembling its older version of iPhones in India, there have been many significant developments. The majority of the progress happened last year, following Apple CEO Tim Cook’s India visit in April 2023. Apple’s efforts to branch out its supply chain from China are finally bearing fruit in India. Through its contract manufacturers Foxconn, Pegatron, and Tata-owned Wistron, iPhone exports from the country have multiplied. Exports have reportedly surged from $6.27 billion in the fiscal year 2022–23 to $12.1 billion in 2023–24.” Read more: Naandika Tripathi, Forbes
“Foxconn is closing factories in China as iPhone production moves elsewhere, and impacts beyond industry have been made crystal clear in a new video. Apple has long operated its production in China, but in recent years it has been shifting away. Production in India and Vietnam is growing, with fewer products being shipped out of China. In a China Observer report released on Monday, footage of a Foxconn industrial park in Nanning is shown to be deserted. Once employing 50,000 people, it’s now practically an empty shell.” Read more: Malcolm Owen, Apple Insider
“The urgent need to operationalise the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (“DPDPA”), 2023 is underscored by the increasingly pervasive threats to individuals’ digital privacy and security… The inadequacies of the DPDPA, 2023 in safeguarding data privacy and empowering data principals in the event of a breach as well as the current grim state of cybersecurity in the country reveal concerning gaps and vulnerabilities. Despite efforts to bolster cybersecurity measures, including establishing dedicated agencies and initiatives, challenges such as insufficient resources, outdated infrastructure, and a shortage of skilled professionals persist.” Read more: Tejasi Panjiar, Internet Freedom Foundation
“The first India-made semiconductor chips will roll out from Micron Technology's packaging unit in Gujarat’s Sanand in the first half of 2025, Micron India Managing Director Anand Ramamoorthy told Mint in an interview… Micron is also eyeing new opportunities in emerging sectors such as two-wheeler electric vehicles and government contracts unique to the Indian market. Ramamoorthy hinted at potential partnerships with Tata Electronics' semiconductor fabrication units in Assam and Gujarat, citing existing collaborations with Tata Group companies and the possibility of expanding product lines into their factories, while speaking with Mint.” Read more: Vasudha Mukherjee, Business Standard
Bonus -
“It’s 16 years since Bindra won 10m air rifle gold in Beijing and since it’s Olympic year, he’s a fair subject for another interrogation. After all, he’s not the athlete I knew. He has a taste for occasional Vesper martinis—shaken, of course—but, to put it politely, there’s nothing much else about him which says James Bond. Except the weapon. The last gun he has left from 22 years of shooting is a gold rifle presented to him by Walther, the gun-maker to 007. The other guns have gone, some pellets remain and a few jackets. His athletic skin has been shed. Now he’s someone who used to be talented.” Read more: Rohit Brijnath, Mint Lounge