News relating to the countries in the Indian Subcontinent:
Geopolitically, the Indian subcontinent generally includes all or part of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as the Maldives
(TechCrunch) India’s central bank has identified Big Tech’s push into financial services as a challenge for banks in the South Asian market, saying the growing presence of these firms have prompted concerns about creation of an uneven playing field.
In a report published on Thursday, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said Big Tech offers a wide range of digital services that hold the promise of supporting financial inclusion, generating lasting efficiency gains, and making banks become more competitive, but their expansion in the financial services sector has given rise to “important policy issues.”
“Specifically, concerns have intensified around a level playing field with banks, operational risk, too-big-to-fail issues, challenges for antitrust rules, cybersecurity and data privacy,” the Indian central bank wrote.
Big Tech firms “straddle many different (nonfinancial) lines of business with sometimes opaque overarching governance structures” and have the potential to become “the dominant players” in financial services, wrote the central bank, which also regulates the finance market in India. “Third, Big Tech [companies] are generally able to overcome limits to scale in financial services provision by exploiting network effects.”
“For central banks and financial regulators, financial stability objectives may be best pursued by blending activity and entity-based prudential regulation of Big Tech [companies] (an activity-based approach is already applied in areas such as anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism; an activity-based approach is the provision of cloud services, where minimising operational and in particular, cyber risk is paramount).”
(Hindustan Times) The Union home ministry hasn’t put out a statement on Bhalla’s meeting on Tuesday, which one official said, was part of the continuing effort by the security establishment to minimise the risk posed by the use of commercially available drones.
Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Tuesday held a high-level security meeting to review the security situation in the wake of the first-ever drone attack at an Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Jammu and Kashmir last month, people familiar with the development said. Tuesday’s meeting, aimed at firming up the counter-measures needed to neutralise the threat posed by small drones, or quadcopters, comes a day after the Union government sent a multi-agency team to Bengaluru for a special demonstration of the available anti-drone technology in the public and private sector, a government official said on condition of anonymity.
The Union home ministry hasn’t put out a statement on Bhalla’s meeting on Tuesday, which one official said, was part of the continuing effort by the security establishment to minimise the risk posed by the use of commercially available drones
US, India agree to expand multilateral security partnership
Source: AP
By SHEIKH SAALIQ
NEW DELHI (AP) — The top diplomats of India and the United States pledged Wednesday to expand their multilateral security partnership, underscoring the deepening of ties between two countries concerned over China’s growing influence in the region.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met in New Delhi and sought to strengthen a regional front against Beijing’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific and their cooperation in Afghanistan.
They also lauded each country’s help in fighting the coronavirus and said their vaccine partnership is an effort to end the pandemic.
“There are few relationships in the world that are more vital than one between the U.S. and India. We are the world’s two leading democracies and our diversity fuels our national strength,” Blinken said at a joint news conference.
(Hindustan Times) The Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Indian parliament) was supposed to see a debate on agriculture, the problems that ailed it, and solutions -- the closest the government has come to giving in to the Opposition’s demand for a discussion on the three contentious farm reform laws passed last year and the ensuing and still ongoing farmers’ protest -- but what it ended up seeing for four hours on Tuesday was tumult and chaos.
At least two Opposition MPs, including Aam Admi Party’s (AAP) Sanjay Singh, sat on the table usually occupied by the staff of the Rajya Sabha secretariat (though they prefer chairs) and shouted slogans. The Congress’s Pratap Singh Bajwa, stood atop the table and tossed the House rulebook to the Chair . And Opposition MPs swarmed the Well of the House.
Two Opposition leaders later conceded that the “protests” were part of their plan; they were miffed that the debate was held on the generic topic of problems of agriculture, and not on the farm laws. Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien, however, claimed that all opposition parties will “fully support” the upcoming Constitution amendment bill that restores the rights of states to identify and define socially and economically backward classes.
A senior government functionary suggested that the government might not seek disciplinary action against opposition MPs .
“It’s like a new normal! The government bills are passed even as the Opposition disrupts the House. Immediate action against some MPs may be avoided as the government needs the Opposition’s support to pass the Constitution amendment bill.”
When is the Hindu Festival of Janmashtami 2021 and What is its Significance?
by David Tusing
August 30, 2021
(The National) Hindus around the world on Monday celebrated the festival of Janmasthami or Krishna Janmasthami, which marks the birth of Krishna, believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu, one of the principal deities of Hinduism.
The occasion is observed on the eighth day of Krishna Paksha or the waning Moon according to the Hindu calendar. This year, it falls on August 30.
According to Hindu mythology, Krishna was born at midnight in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. Owing to a threat to his life from his uncle, the tyrant King Kamsa, Krishna’s father took him across the Yamuna river to his foster parents Nanda and Yashoda for safekeeping.
Celebrations include the staging of plays, such as the Ras lila, and pujas or prayers being held. Devotees traditionally fast throughout the day and observe symbolic vigils at night by singing devotional songs in temples and homes. They then share food at midnight, which is when Krishna is believed to have been born.
Children are often dressed as little Krishna on the day.
(Hindustan Times) An analysis of the report of the latest Situation Assessment Survey (SAS), the findings of which were first reported on September 11, offers an insight into the reasons for the problems in the agriculture sector not finding a resonance in politics.
A large majority of the population at the bottom of the social hierarchy in India does not have significant stakes in agriculture. The social groups, who are still invested in farming, are also the ones who are more successful in getting out of villages. This creates a political vacuum for a social-economic class that can build pressure for an effective policy framework to rescue Indian agriculture from its current crisis. Even those who are left in villages are sidetracked by other issues and unlikely to make efforts to develop a genuine farmers’ solidarity.
ST = Scheduled Tribes
SC = Scheduled Castes
OBC = Other Backward Classes
Last edited by caltrek on Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
(The Indian Express) Bharat bandh on September 27: The Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s (SKM) call for a Bharat Bandh on Monday, to mark the first anniversary of the three controversial farm laws getting Presidential assent, has garnered support from all sections of the society, including political parties.
Many Opposition parties have expressed their support to the bandh — while Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi has supported the bandh, Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav has announced that he will participate in the nationwide strike. The Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments, too, have declared complete support to the nationwide strike. Congress has also said that it will be joining the protests on Monday.
Bharat bandh timings
The bandh will be held from 6 in the morning to 4 in the evening during which all government and private offices, educational and other institutions, shops, industries and commercial establishments as well as public events and functions will be closed throughout the country. However, all emergency establishments and essential services, including hospitals, medical stores, relief and rescue work and people attending to personal emergencies will be exempted. The bandh will be enforced in a voluntary and peaceful manner, the SKM has assured.
The Andhra Pradesh government has declared full support to the Bharat Bandh on September 27, and also to workers of Visakhapatnam steel plant, state Information and Transport Minister Perni Venkataramaiah (Nani) said on Saturday.
Nani told reporters that the state government has decided to stop APSRTC buses across the state from September 26 midnight to September 27 afternoon.
(TechCrunch) Ola Electric announced this morning that it closed a $200 million round at a $3 billion valuation. The EV company’s parent, Ola, is best known as an Indian ride-hailing platform. Ola itself has raised more than $4.5 billion to date, per Crunchbase data, while Ola Electric is now over the $500 million fundraising mark, if we’re doing our morning sums correctly.
That none of those numbers really surprised you is indicative of how active the Indian startup ecosystem has become. It seems that every day TechCrunch covers yet another new unicorn from the country, or at least a tidy nine-figure round as a consolation prize.
I was curious about what early third-quarter data could tell us about India’s recent venture capital results. I’m also interested in whether all the noise coming from the country’s startup market was adding up to anything. So we’re doing a little bit of a data dive.
We’ll examine historical data from India, and then do some quick and dirty data pulls to get a handle on where the country is heading as Q3 comes to a close. And for comparison’s sake, we’ll loop in both historical and present data from the Chinese startup market to see how India stacks up. (See article linked above this quote box for this follow-up).
(Hindustan Times) US company First Solar has formally announced an investment of $684 million in Tamil Nadu for a solar photovoltaic (PV) thin film module manufacturing facility that will support 1,000 jobs, with 60% of them women.
The announcement came at the fourth annual meeting of the Indo-Pacific Business Forum (IPBF), a US initiative which was co-hosted for the first time in South Asia. Held virtually this time, the forum advances US vision for an open, interconnected, resilient, and secure Indo-Pacific region.
It is the premier annual US government-sponsored commercial diplomacy event for the region, which was attended by more than 2,300 business and government leaders, the state department said.
Indian companies and entities that participated included Bharti Airtel, the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tata Steel, the State Bank of India, Wipro and the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum.
The First Solar announcement formalised an investment that the company had teased months ago. It will create a new, vertically integrated solar module manufacturing facility for photovoltaic films, the state department said. The company had earlier stated it plans to go operational from 2023.
NEW DELHI (AP via Courthouse News) — In a major reversal, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Friday that he would repeal the controversial agriculture laws that sparked yearlong protests from tens of thousands of farmers and posed a significant challenge to his administration.
Farmers, who form one of India's most influential voting blocs, have camped out on the outskirts of the capital since November of last year to demand the withdrawal of the laws, which they feared would dramatically reduce their incomes.
Modi's surprise decision, in a televised national address, came ahead of elections early next year in key states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab that are significant agricultural producers and where his Bharatiya Janata Party is eager to shore up its support. Experts said it was too early to say if it would work.
The prime minister urged the protesters to return home, but the farmers have said they will stay put until the laws are gone — a process that will begin in December when Parliament sits for its winter session.
“While apologizing to the nation, I want to say with a sincere and pure heart that maybe something was lacking in our efforts that we could not explain the truth to some of our farmer brothers," Modi said during the address. He added: “Let us make a fresh start."
India's national Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen below 2.0 for the first time, as per the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS). The findings covered 11 states and three union territories that were not included in the first set of data released in December 2020.
The latest set of findings of the NFHS 2019-21 survey released by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday revealed that the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime has dropped below the replacement level for the first time.
The national Total Fertility Rate was found to be 2.2 in the NFHS 2015-16 survey, down from 2.7 in the NFHS 2005-06 survey. The same has now declined to 2.1 in rural areas and 1.6 in urban areas, as per the latest NFHS survey.
So it seems even India won't escape the demographic bomb forever. I want to talk more about this, actually, about how the global population decline that's coming is completely unprecedented, but I'll save that for another time.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
(Janata Weekly) The Indian constitution is best seen as the social contract for a new India. It is the only document that was arrived at by intense debate, arguments and negotiations among all the political currents within the Constituent Assembly – from members like K.M. Munshi, who clearly occupied the Hindu nationalist end of the spectrum, to the Muslim League, which occupied the other. Indeed, the position represented by Munshi was quite powerful in the Assembly. Therefore the final document that came to be adopted was something almost all political strands had committed to upholding.
It needs to be underlined that the mainstream nationalist struggle was only one of the many currents within the freedom struggle, where many other sections were fighting their own battles for liberation – often from their native/local oppressors. There was the Dalit struggle for liberation from the yoke of caste oppression, the Adivasi struggles for self-assertion and innumerable struggles of the peasants and workers for a better deal – and they often ran parallel to each other, occasionally intersecting, often colliding with the mainstream nationalist movement.
They came together for the first time in the Constituent Assembly, which in that sense, represented a break in the logic of the freedom struggle. The only political formation (as distinct from ideology) that was not represented in the Assembly was the one that had studiously stayed away from all these currents within the freedom struggle, the one that is associated with the current political dispensation and which has mounted continuous attacks on the constitution from the very moment of its adoption.
One line of attack against the constitution by this formation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which runs right up to the present, is that it is based on Western and foreign ideas and has no relation to ‘our’ traditions. Leaders and pracharaks of the RSS have therefore always upheld the Manusmriti as ‘our own’ indigenous code of law.
(TechCrunch) OfBusiness, a New Delhi-headquartered startup that sells industrial goods and provides small businesses with credit, has secured its fourth financing round this year and is now valued at about $5 billion.
Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the startup’s $325 million Series G financing round. Alpha Wave Global, formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital, invested in OfBusiness through its new $10B+ fund called Alpha Wave Ventures II.
TechCrunch, which first reported about Falcon Edge Capital’s new fund and rebranding, reported in October that OfBusiness was in talks with Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global to raise a new round at over $4.6 billion valuation.
This is the fourth financing round for OfBusiness this year. The startup was valued at about $800 million in a round it closed in April this year.
OfBusiness operates as a raw material aggregator and procurement finance provider. The startup works with banks to offer credit lines to small and medium enterprises that have an annual turnover of over $3 million. The six-year-old startup, co-founded by Asish Mohapatra, a former VC, says it operates in nine business-to-business raw material supply chains.
(Janata Weekly) The World Inequality Report (WIR) is widely regarded as a highly credible and comprehensive report on the extent of inequalities in world. The latest WIR for year 2022 has been released very recently. It has been authored by Lucas Chancel, co-director of the World Inequality Lab, with other coordinators, including France’s Thomas Piketty, and presents a damning indictment of the very high level of inequalities in India. As presented in WIR, the levels of wealth and income inequalities in India are among the worst that prevail in the leading countries of the world.
These statistics for wealth inequality tell us that the share of the bottom 50% of the households in wealth is just 6% in India. At the same time the share of the top 10% in wealth is 65% in India, a very high figure indeed. What is perhaps even more shocking is that the share of the top 1 per cent in wealth is a whopping 33%.
The average household wealth in India is equal to 35,000 Euro or Rs 983,010, as per the data shared by the World Inequality Lab. The bottom 50% own almost nothing, with an average wealth of 4,200 Euro or Rs 66,280. The middle class is relatively poor, with an average wealth of only 26,400 Euro or Rs 723,930, the report said. This constitutes 29.5% of the total wealth. The top 10% of the population have an average wealth at 231,300 Euros or Rs 6,354,070.
Coming now to income inequality the share of the bottom 50% in income is just 13% in India. On the other hand the share of the top 10% in income is 57% and the share of just the top 1% is as high as 22%.
(Janata Weekly) With Rahul Gandhi’s boldly informed enunciation of the difference between being Hindu or Hindutvadi in his address to a massive gathering at Jaipur on December 12, the Congress party may have ceased to walk over egg shells.
Although such discrimination has been made by book writers and hacks like the present one, such an enunciation made by a leader of the Indian National Congress at a public gathering just months before important state assembly elections is tantamount to a significant political initiative.
Many will hope that it will be a long-lasting one.
It is just as well that the coercive and hegemonic appropriation of Hinduism over the past three decades or so should have yielded from the Congress, finally, a crucial distinction, one that must be emphasised with conviction if the secular republic is to be retrieved for India’s overwhelmingly secular polity.
Taking the bull by the horns, Rahul underscored the distinction that whereas the Hindu seeks after the truth (satya), the Hindutvadi pursues state power (satta) by hook or by crook
(TechCrunch) Scores of startups (in India), many operating in edtech and fintech categories, began to report fast growth. “We started to see three years and five years of growth in one year,” said Ashish Dave, chief executive of Mirae Asset Venture’s India business.
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While several investors, including many tier 1 funds that are generally very active in India, were still cautious, a group of investors including Tiger Global, Falcon Edge Capital, and SoftBank shifted into a higher gear.
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Several factors worked in India’s favor, many investors said. There’s an abundance of dry powder in the market and investors are increasingly looking at growth avenues such as emerging regions as their next big bets. It also helped that Beijing enforced a series of crackdowns on its own startups and made it difficult for foreign money to flow into China.
Another thing swinging in favor of India was the record number of IPOs that we saw this year. Food delivery firm Zomato made a stellar debut. Fashion commerce Nykaa, online insurer PolicyBazaar also made strong debuts on the stock exchanges. Paytm filed for the nation’s largest IPO, though the public market is still giving it less valuation than it sought.
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In total, capital flowing to private Indian startups surged over four times to about $39 billion this year and nearly three times from the previous best of $14.6 billion in 2019, according to data from insight platform Tracxn, which has also filed for an IPO.
(Janata Weekly) A simple line ‘kisan-mazdoor ekta zindabad’ (‘Long Live Farmer-Labourer Unity’) reverberated at the Delhi borders as one of the most popular slogans of the year-long farmers’ protest, which led Prime Minister Narendra Modi to repeal the three contentious farm laws.
The slogan contains a sense of unity and solidarity which was needed to win the fight against crony capitalism and feudal divisions. It exuded a sense of ‘social solidarity’ which was necessary to produce egalitarian social relations between farmers and agricultural labourers. It was not just a slogan which emerged in the meetings of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) with top-down approach; rather it was envisioned by the protesters themselves in a holistic manner and that is why this slogan has no ‘feeling of imposition’, which also strengthens the organic solidarity of the toiling masses, farmers and labourers.
The slogan did not evolve in one day and from one particular social group; it was the result of a continuous process which was achieved over days. As someone who has been associated with the protest since its inception as part of the Trolley Times team, I have seen a positive change in the politicisation of farmers’ unions by being a part of organising this movement.
Conclusion:
If moral hegemony won by farmers and attributed to them seems to be a novel line of thought, then we must consider it a consequence of organised efforts by both Jats (caste members residing in the Punjab and other areas of northern India and Pakistan, comprising Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh groups) and Dalits (lowest stratum castes in India), to permeate across feudal barriers. He (Gopal Guru in his latest editorial of the Economic and Political Weekly) further talks about framework for “solidarity in itself” which also needs to be extended to “solidarity for itself” standing with the long-term aspirations of social groups from the margins.
This movement has revealed some crucial insights to see what would work out on the ground and taught us how to create the working conditions for a victorious movement. Everyone part of the protest should know that a dent in this unity will sharpen the already existing fault lines among farmers and marginalised groups, giving the actually existing capitalism a push which the ruling class will certainly take advantage of.
