Comment by Riaz Haq on December 13, 2022 at 11:00am

Rotation of #G20 presidency from #Indonesia to #India may have met with indifference in the rest of the world.But in #Modi's India, it has been emblazoned on billboards & front-page advertisements in newspapers & breathlessly discussed on TV channels. #BJP https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/india-is-in-danger-of-missi...

The euphoria over India's G20 presidency shows that Hindu nationalists still need and often crave outside validation. This creates an insoluble problem for them

This month’s rotation of the G-20 presidency from Indonesia to India may have met with indifference in much of the world. In India, however, the news has been emblazoned on billboards and front-page advertisements in newspapers, and is breathlessly discussed on television channels.

The common theme of these celebrations is that the “mother of democracy” — in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phrase — is about to become a vishwa-guru, or teacher to the world. As the winter session of India’s parliament opened earlier this month, Modi asked its members to project a responsible face to the world in the months leading up to the next G-20 leaders’ summit in September 2023.

There is no question that for a few days that month, the eyes of the world’s media will be on India. But what will they see? And what international image does India want to project?

The common theme of these celebrations is that the “mother of democracy” — in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phrase — is about to become a vishwa-guru, or teacher to the world. As the winter session of India’s parliament opened earlier this month, Modi asked its members to project a responsible face to the world in the months leading up to the next G-20 leaders’ summit in September 2023.

There is no question that for a few days that month, the eyes of the world’s media will be on India. But what will they see? And what international image does India want to project?

Certainly, the emergence of a multipolar world opens up fresh opportunities for India to deploy its unused moral and intellectual capital. Preoccupied with internal troubles, the United States and Europe have left vast tracts of the Global South open to Chinese and Russian influence.

In particular, China dominates Asia, Africa and Latin America with its economic power. Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a “new era” in his country’s relationship with Gulf nations as he met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Riyadh. According to Xi, China and the Gulf countries “respect each other’s history and cultural traditions.”

Modi would have a hard time making a similar claim: He was forced to apologize earlier this year to Gulf rulers for the Islamophobic rants of one of his spokespersons. And even in countries with which India shares a Hindu-Buddhist heritage and trading links — Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia — India now plays second fiddle to China.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 13, 2022 at 11:01am

Rotation of #G20 presidency from #Indonesia to #India may have met with indifference in the rest of the world.But in #Modi's India, it has been emblazoned on billboards & front-page advertisements in newspapers & breathlessly discussed on TV channels. #BJP https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/india-is-in-danger-of-missi...

Nor has Modi seized the intellectual leadership of the Global South — a vacancy that is rapidly being filled by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Emerging from years in prison, Lula has moved fast to reposition Brazil in the avant garde of the global fight against climate change. He is on his way to affirming Barack Obama’s 2009 characterization of him as “the most popular politician on earth.”

In power for nearly a decade, Modi is still struggling to make a similar impact internationally, despite his bear-hugging of world leaders. And that is because the gap between what he says abroad and what he does at home is too wide and too obvious.

Modi is not wrong to claim that India’s core philosophy is vasudev kutamban — the idea that the world is one family. India is arguably the world’s most enduring experiment in cultural pluralism. Those culture-warriors who today belligerently police boundaries of race, religion and gender could learn a great deal from the long Indian experience of multiple, overlapping identities.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been relentlessly hostile to this older idea of India, however, as it tries to recast India as a Hindu nation. In a recent study by the Pew Research Center, India fared worse than Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in an index measuring social hostilities involving religion. On other recent rankings — ranging from press freedom to hunger — the mother of democracy has fared equally poorly.

Not surprisingly, the international media has become more critical of India in recent months. Modi now routinely features together with Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsonaro in a gallery of elected demagogues (though perhaps a recent snub of Vladimir Putin may soften the Indian leader’s image somewhat).

Within India, such Western reports are attacked in unison by politicians, bureaucrats, media personalities, film actors and sports stars. These remarkably well-organized and successful campaigns suggest that the silo of fake news and sectarian opinion in India is more impenetrable than anything created by Trump and Fox News.

Nevertheless, the current euphoria over India’s G-20 presidency shows that Hindu nationalists still need — and often crave — outside validation. This creates an insoluble problem for them, as their heavily Hinduized idea of India hasn’t been endorsed by many people outside the country. Evidence came only last month, when Israeli director Nadav Lapid, invited to judge an international film festival in Goa, publicly ridiculed a controversial anti-Muslim film that had been zealously promoted by Modi’s government.

Under attack from Hindu nationalist trolls, Lapid dug in and amplified his scorn. It was then echoed by his fellow foreign jurors. Israeli diplomats got involved. Thus, some small commotion at a film festival blew up into an entirely unnecessary international incident.

Such embarrassments, likely as the world examines India more closely next year, are easily avoided. In the months ahead, the government could end its pressure on dissenters, abandon its dog-whistle rhetoric against Muslims and restore the independence of democratic institutions from the media to the judiciary.



Certainly, those claiming to have mothered democracy need to narrow the great gap between propaganda and reality. For India’s timeless moral — that the world is one family — is unlikely to resonate when broadcast by people trapped in silos.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 13, 2022 at 4:58pm

During the year 2022 (November), 765,172 Pakistanis proceeded abroad for the purpose of employment.

https://beoe.gov.pk/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=b1b4890b1c9705af3b244646c1...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 14, 2022 at 8:01am

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Wednesday that Pakistan’s economic outlook for the fiscal year ending in June 2023 has “deteriorated under heavy flooding” while the “economy was already struggling to regain macroeconomic and fiscal stability”.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1726307

In the supplement report titled ‘Asian Development Outlook 2022 Supplement’, ADB said flood disruption and damage in the country are “expected to slow real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in combination with a tight monetary stance, high inflation, and an un-conducive global environment”.

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the ADB report highlighted that flood damage in Pakistan threatened the upcoming agricultural season as well, as wheat is usually planted from mid-October.

It said the flooding is expected to have spillover effects on industry — notably textiles and food processing — and on services, in particular wholesale trade and transportation.

The report added that the floods had adversely affected cotton, rice and other important crops that are grown in the country.

The fiscal year 2023 forecast for Pakistan has been revised to reflect a “weaker currency [and] higher domestic energy prices” along with “flood-related crop and livestock losses and supply disruption, which have caused transitory food shortages and price spikes”, ADB elaborated in the report.

It further explained that transportation difficulties had “exacerbated these shortages and disrupted other domestic supply chains, broadening inflationary pressures and imposing production challenges”.

Growth and inflation outlook in South Asia
According to the ADB, South Asia is on track to meet the growth forecast of 6.5pc in 2022 but the forecast for 2023 has been downgraded slightly from 6.5pc to 6.3pc.

It further said sub-regional revision for 2023 largely reflected “lower forecasts for Bangladesh and Pakistan” as recovery in Bangladesh was also “hampered by external imbalances and unexpectedly high inflation”.

It projected inflation for South Asia — comprising of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — to increase from 8.1pc in September to 8.2pc in the recent December update.

However, the estimated inflation figures for the year 2023 had a more substantial increment from 7.4pc to 7.9pc.

The report said that the sub-regional revision for 2023 largely reflects higher inflation forecasts for Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Inflation forecasts for elsewhere in the sub-region in 2023 remained unchanged while inflation in India is expected to rise to 6.7pc before falling back to 5.8pc in the fiscal year 2022.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 14, 2022 at 11:13am

Chinese president’s Saudi visit to boost investment in China-Pakistan corridor project: Experts


https://www.arabnews.com/node/2212576/world


Saudi Arabia and China were expected to sign more than 20 initial agreements worth more than $29.3 billion during Xi’s trip. The two countries were also discussing a plan to harmonize the implementation of Vision 2030 and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

CPEC, a $65 billion economic corridor in Pakistan that connects China to the Arabian Sea and is part of Beijing’s infrastructure initiative, was also expected to feature in Xi’s meetings with the crown prince.

“Saudi Arabia is interested in becoming part of CPEC by investing heavily in it and also interested in BRI and this visit will improve things in this regard as China is the main initiator of both mega projects,” Pakistan’s former ambassador to China, Naghmana Hashmi, told Arab News.

Saudi Arabia, alongside the UAE and Germany, is among countries that have expressed interests in investing in CPEC. In 2019, the Kingdom announced plans to set up a $10 billion oil refinery in Pakistan’s deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

CPEC is a sprawling package that includes everything from road construction and power plants to agriculture. In the South Asian nation, it has been billed as a massive development program that will bring new prosperity, where the average citizen lives on just $125 a month.

“The growing friendship between China and Saudi Arabia will benefit Pakistan as the country has very good relations with both, and both are pillars of strength for us,” Hashmi said.

International relations expert Zafar Jaspal told Arab News that the visit would have a “constructive and positive impact on CPEC” and “open the way for Saudi investment.”

Xi’s trip to Riyadh could serve as a “great convergence point” between Pakistan, China, and Saudi Arabia, according to Dr. Huma Baqai, an international relations expert and rector of the Millennium Institute of Technology and Entrepreneurship in Karachi.

“The visit can give the requisite push and momentum to the intended Saudi investment in the flagship project of the BRI,” she told Arab News.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 14, 2022 at 11:29am

#China is #SaudiArabia’s largest #trading partner, with #Chinese exports to #KSA reaching $30.3 billion in 2021 & Saudi exports at $57 billion in the same year. #Saudi #oil makes up 18% of #Beijing’s total crude #oil imports — worth about $55.5 billion January-October in 2022.

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1603108539383263232?s=20&...


https://www.vox.com/2022/12/10/23502903/china-saudi-arabia-united-s...

“The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told the Journal at the time. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

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Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has great ambitions to diversify its economy, which has for decades relied on crude oil output. But in order to do that, it needs money — oil money. That’s at least part of why Saudi Arabia limited production in the midst of a global oil crisis and prices for crude oil remain high.

Both nations also tout ambitious infrastructure projects. The Belt and Road initiative, China’s effort to create a 21st-century Silk Road international trade route by providing the finances to develop series of ports, pipelines, railroads, bridges, and other trade infrastructure to nations across Asia and Africa, is a milestone effort for Xi. It’s also received major criticism for potentially exploiting poor nations by essentially loaning them money they can’t pay back, in some cases granting China control over these critical hubs.

Xi’s presence in Saudi Arabia, both with MBS and as part of a larger summit with Arab and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, present multiple opportunities to strengthen ties with a host of nations in the region — and to make sure that in the global power competition, those nations are, at least, not aligned with the US, as Shannon Tiezzi wrote in The Diplomat Wednesday.

Critically, Saudi Arabia knows it cannot depend on generous US weapons sales under Biden, so China is an increasingly viable alternative. In fact, Reuters reported, Saudi Arabia is thought to have signed $30 billion in defense contracts at this summit with China.

In forging their alliance, both nations get a strong trading partner who won’t question their policies; Saudi Arabia gets a more predictable relationship in Xi than it has seen in the switch from former President Donald Trump to Biden.

How does this affect the US and its global position as a superpower?
The US-Saudi relationship is longstanding. It officially started toward the end of World War II, and the basic oil-for-security trade has lasted for decades, becoming increasingly important to the kingdom between Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s and the increasing influence of regional rival Iran. Despite Saudi repression and alleged human rights abuses, Riyadh could count on US weapons, and the US could almost always count on cheap Saudi oil.


Of course, there have been tensions in the relationship before. The 1973 oil embargo in retaliation for the US decision to resupply the Israeli military during the Arab-Israeli War, as well as Saudi involvement in the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, tested the alliance, but US leadership maintained that the kingdom was a key regional partner nonetheless.

Under Trump, the relationship between the two nations was somewhere between transactional and downright chummy — Trump even reportedly bragged that he defended MBS against criticism from Congress over Khashoggi’s death.

But the relationship has become the most strained it has been in recent memory due to MBS’s abuses and Biden’s criticism. In March, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a fuel shortage, MBS refused to take Biden’s calls to negotiate increased oil production and help ease prices. When they finally met in July, Biden was extremely uncomfortable — and he left almost empty-handed.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 15, 2022 at 4:10pm

CPEC special economic zones to generate huge job opportunities in Pakistan: official

https://english.news.cn/20221215/e0172b03c8b5487d806730149fd7b5fb/c...

Four special economic zones (SEZs) being set up under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are likely to generate about 575,000 direct and over 1 million indirect jobs in Pakistan, a senior official said on Thursday.

The economic zones being established in the country's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan provinces would bring about immense opportunities for Pakistani people in job and business sectors, Chairman of Special Economic Zones Authority S.M. Naveed said.

"We have conducted a study to assess job opportunities in four out of nine SEZs, including KP's Rashakai, Sindh's Dhabeji, Punjab's Allama Iqbal and Balochistan's Bostan, to find out potential jobs and industries in the SEZs," the official said, adding that the SEZs offer employment in different fields for which the local youth would be trained before the initiation of the industrial phase.

The trained and skilled labor and engineers would not only get good jobs in the economic zones but also enable Chinese and local companies to recruit skilled professionals from local areas, he added.

The potential industries being set up in the CPEC special economic zones include food processing, cooking oil, ceramics, gems and jewelry, marble, minerals, agriculture machinery, iron and steel, motorbike assembling, electrical appliances and automobiles.

Launched in 2013, CPEC is a corridor linking Pakistan's Gwadar Port with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation. ■

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2022 at 6:36pm

Morgan Stanley's Ridham Desai, Chetan Ahya and Upasana Chachra: India is on track to become the world’s third largest economy by 2027, surpassing Japan and Germany, and have the third largest stock market by 2030, thanks to global trends and key investments the country has made in technology and energy.

https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/investment-opportunities-in-india


India is already the fastest-growing economy in the world, having clocked 5.5% average gross domestic product growth over the past decade. Now, three megatrends—global offshoring, digitalization and energy transition—are setting the scene for unprecedented economic growth in the country of more than 1 billion people.

“We believe India is set to surpass Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2027 and will have the third-largest stock market by the end of this decade,” says Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Equity Strategist for India. “Consequently, India is gaining power in the world order, and in our opinion these idiosyncratic changes imply a once-in-a-generation shift and an opportunity for investors and companies.”

All told, India’s GDP could more than double from $3.5 trillion today to surpass $7.5 trillion by 2031. Its share of global exports could also double over that period, while the Bombay Stock Exchange could deliver 11% annual growth, reaching a market capitalization of $10 trillion in the coming decade.

In a new Morgan Stanley Research Bluepaper, analysts working across sectors look at how this new era of economic development could bring about staggering changes: boosting India’s share of global manufacturing, expanding credit availability, creating new businesses, improving quality of life and spurring a boom in consumer spending.

“In a world that is currently starved of growth, the opportunity set in India must be on global investors’ radar,” says Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Asia Economist. “India will be one of only three economies in the world that can generate more than $400 billion annual economic output growth from 2023 onward, and this will rise to more than $500 billion after 2028.”

Global Offshoring Creates a Workforce for the World
Companies around the world have been outsourcing services such as software development, customer service and business process outsourcing to India since the early days of the Internet. Now, however, tighter global labor markets and the emergence of distributed work models are bringing new momentum to the idea of India as the back office to the world.

“In a post-Covid environment, CEOs are more comfortable with both work from home and work from India,” says Desai. In the coming decade, he notes, the number of people employed in India for jobs outside the country is likely to at least double, reaching more than 11 million, as global spending on outsourcing swells from $180 billion per year to around $500 billion by 2030.

India is also poised to become the factory to the world, as corporate tax cuts, investment incentives and infrastructure spending help drive capital investments in manufacturing.

“Multinationals are now buoyant about the prospects of investing in India, and the government is helping their cause by investing in infrastructure as well as supplying land for building factories,” says Upasana Chachra, Chief India Economist. Morgan Stanley data shows that multinational corporations’ sentiment on the investment outlook in India is at an all-time high. Manufacturing’s share of GDP in India could increase from 15.6% currently to 21% by 2031—and, in the process, double India’s export market share.

India's Share of Manufacturing is expected to increase to 21% of GDP by 2031

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 23, 2022 at 7:23pm

In mid-April, India is forecast to surpass China as the world's most populous country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63957562

The Asian giants already have more than 1.4 billion people each, and for over 70 years have accounted for more than a third of the global population.

China's population is likely to begin shrinking next year. Last year, 10.6 million people were born, a little more than the number of deaths, thanks to a rapid drop in fertility rate. India's fertility rate has also fallen substantially in recent decades - from 5.7 births per woman in 1950 to two births per woman today - but the rate of decline has been slower.

So what does India overtaking China as the most populous country in the world mean?

China reduced its population growth rate by about half from 2% in 1973 to 1.1% in 1983.

Demographers say much of this was achieved by riding roughshod over human rights - two separate campaigns promoting just one child and then later marriages, longer gaps between children and fewer of them - in what was a predominantly rural and overwhelmingly uneducated and poor country,

India saw rapid population growth - almost 2% annually - for much of the second half of the last century. Over time, death rates fell, life expectancy rose and incomes went up. More people - especially those living in cities - accessed clean drinking water and modern sewerage. "Yet the birth rate remained high," says Tim Dyson, a demographer at the London School of Economics.

India launched a family planning programme in 1952 and laid out a national population policy for the first time only in 1976, around the time China was busy reducing its birth rate.

But forced sterilisations of millions of poor people in an overzealous family planning programme during the 1975 Emergency - when civil liberties were suspended - led to a social backlash against family planning. "Fertility decline would have been faster for India if the Emergency hadn't happened and if politicians had been more proactive. It also meant that all subsequent governments treaded cautiously when it came to family planning," Prof Dyson says.

East Asian countries such as Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand, which launched population programmes much later than India, achieved lower fertility levels, cut infant and maternal mortality rates, raised incomes and improved human development earlier than India.

India has added more than a billion people since Independence in 1947, and its population is expected to grow for another 40 years. But its population growth rate has been declining for decades now, and the country has defied dire predictions about a "demographic disaster".

So India having more people than China is no longer significant in a "concerning" way, say demographers.

Rising incomes and improved access to health and education have helped Indian women have fewer children than before, effectively flattening the growth curve. Fertility rates have dipped below replacement levels - two births per woman - in 17 out of 22 states and federally administered territories. (A replacement level is one at which new births are sufficient to maintain a steady population.)

The decline in birth rates has been faster in southern India than in the more populous north. "It is a pity that more of India could not have been like south India," says Prof Dyson. "All things being equal, rapid population growth in parts of north India have depressed living standards".

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 23, 2022 at 7:25pm

In mid-April, India is forecast to surpass China as the world's most populous country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63957562

It could, for example, strengthen India's claim of getting a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, which has five permanent members, including China.

India is a founding member of the UN and has always insisted that its claim to a permanent seat is just. "I think you have certain claims on things [by being the country with largest population]," says John Wilmoth, director of the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The way India's demography is changing is also significant, according to KS James of the Mumbai-based International Institute for Population Sciences.

Despite drawbacks, India deserves some credit for managing a "healthy demographic transition" by using family planning in a democracy which was both poor and largely uneducated, says Mr James. "Most countries did this after they had achieved higher literacy and living standards."

More good news. One in five people below 25 years in the world is from India and 47% of Indians are below the age of 25. Two-thirds of Indians were born after India liberalised its economy in the early 1990s. This group of young Indians have some unique characteristics, says Shruti Rajagopalan, an economist, in a new paper. "This generation of young Indians will be the largest consumer and labour source in the knowledge and network goods economy. Indians will be the largest pool of global talent," she says.

India needs to create enough jobs for its young working age population to reap a demographic dividend. But only 40% of of India's working-age population works or wants to work, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

More women would need jobs as they spend less time in their working age giving birth and looking after children. The picture here is bleaker: only 10% of working-age women were participating in the labour force in October, according to CMIE, compared with 69% in China.

Then there's migration. Some 200 million Indians have migrated within the country - between states and districts - and their numbers are bound to grow. Most are workers who leave villages for cities to find work. "Our cities will grow as migration increases because of lack of jobs and low wages in villages. Can they provide migrants a reasonable living standard? Otherwise, we will end up with more slums and disease," says S Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert at Kerala's International Institute of Migration and Development.

Demographers say India also needs to stop child marriages, prevent early marriages and properly register births and deaths. A skewed sex ratio at birth - meaning more boys are born than girls - remains a worry. Political rhetoric about "population control" appears to be targeted at Muslims, the country's largest minority when, in reality, "gaps in childbearing between India's religious groups are generally much smaller than they used to be", according to a study from Pew Research Center.

And then there's the ageing of India
Demographers say the ageing of India receives little attention.

In 1947, India's median age was 21. A paltry 5% of people were above the age of 60. Today, the median age is over 28, and more than 10% of Indians are over 60 years. Southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu achieved replacement levels at least 20 years ago.

"As the working-age population declines, supporting an older population will become a growing burden on the government's resources," says Rukmini S, author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India.

"Family structures will have to be recast and elderly persons living alone will become an increasing source of concern," she says.

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