165 thoughts on “Open Thread – 11/19/2021 – Brown Pundits”
Those of you who know me will know that I formerly supported Trump. I thought he may become a transformational figure, creating an energized, muscular American conservatism.
By 2018 midterms, it was clear that this was not to be. Trump not only fueled the fires of his woke enemies, but he hemorrhaged the suburban support that had been instrumental to American conservatism since the Goldwater years. I thus withdrew my support of him-a prescient decision in light of what happened next.
With the farm law repeal, I believe we face an analogous situation vis-a-vis Modi. The BJP redoubles its efforts to win elections while forgetting the purpose of winning them. Modi has become a figure that galvanizes his enemies while confusing and demoralizing his friends.
He and the BJP are no longer worthy of our support.
You win some, you lose some
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Personally, I’m surprised he held on to it for a year
Moving people out of agriculture is a much more sensible move and also a prerequisite
Agreed.
A PM of India has apologized to radical Sikh yahoos for the great crime of the Indian parliament doing its job and enacting reformist laws. Laws which would have made India a better place economically, socially and environmentally. Laws which apart from one state and one community had widespread support. This really is one of the most shameful events in the history of independent India. No other Prime Minister of India has ever been so cowardly or craven.
The reason why he may have done so do not matter. Knowing Modi and Shah they would most probably have been short-term political calculations.
BJP under PM Modi deserves to lose UP elections followed by General elections in 2024. These fellows are incompetent nincompoops who do not deserve to lead India. Their party members get beaten up, killed by political opponents all over the country without the senior leadership getting bothered. We need better leadership with stronger courage of their convictions. I cannot remember any other central govt. which has ever taken back major reforms not once but twice. Utterly shameful.
Fucking coward. He should resign now. He just emboldened radical elements. Shameful day.
Very disappointing that India couldn’t pass this basic reform, leading to economic modernization.
Valour? Modi has no valour. He starts something, drags ass, and then backtracks, making dupes of all his supporters and friends, appeasing people who won’t vote for him. He’s an IRL troll.
Even the much berated Manmohan Singh risked his govt. on the Indo-US nuclear deal, a decision he felt was the correct one for India at that time.
Modi is cowardly, unprincipled rat who would do just about anything to stay in power. And for what? BJP isn’t that different from other parties at the ground level. True, they did get the Ram Janmbhumi for Hindus and removed Article 370 but they have now gotten themselves and their supporters badly humiliated by both Muslims and Sikhs.
Ending political protests in India was never difficult. Just ask the opposition in Bengal or Kerala as to how its done. But if the party in power has harebrained schemes about winning power in Punjab with Sikh support what can they do except appear weak and powerless.
Can’t even give Modi much credit for RJB, Advani did all the heavy lifting before I was born.
And 370 is frankly more brainchild of Amit Shah. Modi has 5 major things he has failed at:
1. Farm reforms (support)
2. Labor reforms (support)
3. NRC/CAA (not really a supporter of this in and of itself)
4. UCC (big supporter of this)
5. Whatever the fuck demonetization was supposed to accomplish (fine I will give you that it sped up digitization)
Things I am iffy about
1. COVID-19 (maybe could be handled better but everyone would botch this)
2. China incursions (very hard, they are stronger than India so hard to do, at least Modi has some infrastructure push)
3. Relations with neighbors (again hard to do because China is buying influence all over with string of pearls)
4. Bakalot- they botched this shit badly but they actually showed the resolve to enter enemy territory and bomb something. This sends some sort of message that India is willing to defend itself with aggressive moves, when it concerns cross border radical Islamic terrorism.
5. Delhi air pollution (hard for any party to take this on)
Good things
1. GST
2. Ram Mandir
3. Article 370
4. Selling off some state owned companies (eg. Air India)
5. Building toilets (open defecation has gone down, not as much as we wanted but it is better)
6. Clean India initiative. some cities noticeably cleaner. Air pollution still worsening as above though
If this is the way Sikhs and Kashmiris behave, I don’t think Hindus are doing themselves a favor by insisting on keeping everyone in the Indian union.
I would say just carve out Hindu areas from Punjab and Kashmir and give the rest of it freedom. Kick out all Sikhs from other parts of India to their Khalistan and kick out all Kashmiri Muslims (and Rana Ayyub types) to independent Kashmir. Lets do a full population exchange. No half hearted measures this time like in 1947.
I dare say an independent Khalistan would not produce rice and do stubble burning since there would be no one in the international markets who wants to buy their pesticide laden produce.
That will save us from spending so much of our energy on these stupid fights and allow us to spend it on what really matters. Economic upliftment of rest of India cannot happen if we keep fighting medieval minded lunatics.
The other way is the China way. Keep the minority trouble makers under the heel instead of mollycoddling them. There should be an immense cost to being anti-India and anti-Hindu in India. I don’t think Hindus and India are strong enough for this though. This is beyond our ability.
While we are at it lets also give away whichever parts of the North-east which want independence from us. Seriously what benefit does a Hindu from UP or from Andhra get from Nagaland being a part of the Indian Union. We can’t settle there, do business or buy land even. The costs of keeping it are huge. Permanent army installations, low level insurgency killing our people etc.
Empire building and superpower status is for strong self-confidant communities with great asabiya, not a people whose elite regularly shit on their own co-religionists for $300 dollar assignments in the western media.
Hindus look weak and underfed even when compared with the most strive torn parts of Africa. UP, Bihar and other large parts of the country literally have no industries to speak of. No culture of entrepreneurship, neither of education or of sporting excellence. Lets concentrate on these things.
Poora be-ijjat kar diya sare ne.
The post and comments show how bereft people in general have become of common sense. Either they don’t know reality of India or they know but don’t want to accept it. India is in fact a multicultural, multi religious, multi ethnic, multi linguistic and multi multi and —- country. In this multi world based on your own perspective you want to impose your one sided views. Shame on you nincompoops.
Vajpayee put Nation over politics. In the next election, the Nation chose Sonia over Vajpayee.
The most commonly worshipped divinity in the Kutch regions around Dwaraka is Ranchod, a form of Krishna based on an episode. The name literally means “one who flees the battlefield” – Ran+Chod. Krishna flees the battle from Kalyavan and hides in a cave.
The portmanteau “RamaKrishna” is given to many people in the subcontinent. The philosophical underpinnings of this name is lost to most. So why a mix of Rama and Krishna? Krishna, as the Godhead, possesses qualities that are quite radically different from those of Rama. Rama is morally perfect while Krishna is not. Krishna adopts stratagems that are murky and actually quite underhand – the killing of Karna, for example. Bimal Matilal called Krishna as the “devious divine”. Sometimes it takes more than moral outrage and purity to achieve goals.
Modi is a politician – and he is acting like a politician. I miss the point of the outragers.
Oh please, there’s no 4D chess here. If BJP wins assembly elections and then 2024, they’ll just go back to dicking around and Muslim-baiting for 5 more years, or however long it is until they’re gone. They don’t have the inclination, and they possibly don’t have the wherewithal, to do any more than that.
Oh please…….All the pontificating sheep sitting on their asses and blogging & tweeting “Modi Bad”. This is all you can do.
Where is the street power of the side that wanted reforms? Where is the muscle that countered the other side? Where are the ground enforcers of the Reforms side?
The Indian Right are a lot of islands – and do not have any pan-India heft. For some states, there are. It is not just important to win – but to win assertively. Unfortunately the farm laws really seemed like a lame duck win unlike Art 370 or RJB.
And add to this the Jat synergy among Hindus and Sikhs. That really stood out. Really really stood out. No farmers in Haryana, UP or Rajasthan really made a counter move.
Almost every other state is wanting for a sub-optimal farm reform at the least. I hope this setback will crystallise a ground level movement for the reform. At least at the State level.
Who remembers the Land Reforms that was also rolled back by Modi after “suit-boot ki sarkar jibe” by RaGa?? Which state nullified it by a State Amendment? Tamilnadu. Supported by the Governor and the President (BJP appointed)……..They then fought all the way to the Supreme Court which also backed them. Now Maharashtra and Gujarat are following Tamilnadu in nullifying the UPA Act for Land Acquisition.
Time for you to start understanding Centre-State devolution. It is 4D chess. You don’t read the newspaper beyond Page 3.
See, if that’s all true, then Modi shouldn’t waste time with putting forth economic reforms. He should just be the Hindu nationalist, and I’d support that if he was good at it.
It’s possible that India is constitutionally incapable of reforms. I certainly do think India isn’t really capable of development beyond a per capita GDP of $7000 (nominal) or so, given its dismal human capital. So for me, economic issues are a sideshow with a very limited rate of return. Better to focus on the cultural agenda.
But nothing looks worse than flailing around and backtracking like this.
I actually disagree quite strongly about the $7,000 nominal GDP thing. I think if India doesn’t get past this point in 20-25 years I will be quite shocked.
India has self-imposed chains weighing it down. A lot of the problems are interlinked (for eg. education levels, malnutrition, governance). It is a bit like trying to sort out a tangled bowl of spaghetti, it seems really hard a intractable in the short run, but given multiple angles of attack the problem can be solved and due to the interlinkages becomes easier over time if you can get a virtuous cycle going ( I believe India already has this cycle going for it).
Also if economic complexity is high then you are better off using PPP as a metric rather than nominal. This is why for eg. I think China’s military spending is underestimated since they are getting to the point where they can make everything themselves, PPP has become a better metric.
lots of small farmers are already out of agriculture. this is seen in karnataka as a number of manual labourers, guards and others i have spoken to have left farming. the farm sector will change itself as per its needs.
modi will continue selling public factories, building roads etc. he will fade out the way advani has done.
One theory I’ve seen is that Modi & Shah feared the possibilities of Sikh radicalisation that could be exploited by Pakistan to create turmoil at New Delhi’s doorstep. There has been a notable ramping up of attacks in Kashmir in recent months and if Punjab was in turmoil/militancy, the security situation would worsen considerably.
But even that theory is moot. We forget that the SC had already stayed the laws. I am not a fan of judicial overreach of the kind that we see in the US, and it seems Indian democracy has copied the worst aspects of the American one.
will not the punjabi sikhs feel slighted with the spin that modi withdrew these bills because of khalistanis.
I didn’t think I would ever say it. But I agree a lot with Ugra.
Modi/bjp/rss have entered the consolidation phase after expansion phase has ended. I feel the CAA will also be given a silent death. Now no more expending political capital on less/non hindu ethnicities on the votes/power of more Hindu regions.
It started with the fall of AIDMK, and then Bengal, good money is no longer being thrown after bad money, to keep the ship afloat. Same with CAA, there is no need to help less Hindu ethnicities who can’t help themselves. I think there would be sort of pullback from article 370 as well.
Now it’s time of consolidation the Hindu regions, to try to minimize damage. The farm laws was creating a unnecessary focal point for opposition forces. Once it goes away farmers will fall back to their older caste and communities cleavages, which hindutva can unite. It’s not about Punjab, and neither about UP ( Jatland was never a BJP strong hold anyways). It’s to nip in the bud , anything which gives the opposition succor, while consolidating ur strength.
> Same with CAA, there is no need to help less Hindu ethnicities who can’t help themselves.
I am at loss for words for Bengali Hindus. There was more protest in Tripura against what happened in Bangladesh as compared to West Bengal.
How can one be this Nirmohi/निर्मोही? If something happens to a Bhaiyya in Punjab I get just as pissed as it would have happened in Maharashtra.
West Bengal and Punjab. Both state which had to do with CAA, have passed resolutions against CAA.
For how long does more hindu regions have to carry the cross for less Hindu regions?
Sometimes I think that Bangladesh should just take over West Bengal and turn it into an Islamic republic. Will at least stop the decay. Bhadroloks are already going extinct. By some surveys they have a TFR of ~1.
Kolkata had the first metro in the entire subcontinent in 1980s. By 2030, Dhaka will have a better and larger metro system than Kolkata.
And Kolkata is the only city in West Bengal whereas Bangladesh has 2-3 – Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet. The Dhaka-Chittagong belt is going to be the industrial center in the entire sub-continent.
Finally someone who gets when I say lesser asabiya = stronger asabiya. Cannot forge a stronger unity with heretics in the fold.
Short answer: Bengalis being the over-smart people they are, do not take any loans (not even the almost free Japanese ones) for Metro construction. All Bengalis not just the Bhadraloks are pig-headed and will put ideology over their own interests. Let them do their thing.
Dhaka metro is being built at an exorbitant cost compared to anything in India. But they take loans.
@Bhimrav
> Bengalis being the over-smart people they are, do not take any loans (not even the almost free Japanese ones) for Metro construction.
Not over-smart, cheap. They didn’t want to foot the 50% (even as a cheap Japanese loan).
Dayan/Pishachini wanted railways (i.e. central government) to pay for the entire network.
Whereas, in every city of the country, it is 50-50 with state and center.
But every Bengali will talk as if Kolkata is a tier above Tokyo or London.
You can’t win an argument with these folks dude. Let them enjoy the fruits of their Bengali-ness.
So many of you want to break India apart into little pieces. Just sad.
It is an interesting counterpoint to demands for Sikh, Muslim, Tribal, Christian, Dravidian etc. homelands.
Concede to their demands but demand a Hindu homeland with a more or less complete population transfer for partition 2.0. (make liminal Hindu groups decide how they want to identify).
This is more respectful of Human Rights than a domineering Chinese style approach (not realistically within India’s capacity) and less economically dysfunctional than an appeasement approach.
At the very least it shifts the overton window in discourse. So now preventing Balkanization can become a talking point for moderate Indians from all religions rather than coming off as a Hindu imposition.
Sounds like the “shifting” is to a position of weakness. It is sad that we have come to moderates entertaining separatism as something viable.
My expectations for India have declined tremendously. I hope for the best and still support policies that push forward the notion of free people, markets, and unity under one flag. But prospects look worse than ever in the last couple of decades. I used to think of India as a forever country of the future, one that could at least achieve decent middle income status. Now I am becoming doubtful of even that.
Nonetheless, the fight cannot end. I refuse to change paradigms.
Eight centuries of Gangetic Hindu incompetence shown graphically.
Also note that the regions that have the least density of Persian toponyms are the highest economic performing regions in India today. Some maps have the instant power to vanquish secular narratives. Poof!!
Those are just places that happened to be under a longer Turco-Influence because of their geography (Plains). I don’t think there would be a huge difference between UP and MP Hindu “incompetence”. And I am pretty sure that Southern and Eastern Hindus weren’t too independent during that period, were they?
No, there is no visible pattern. Punjab, Haryana and West UP are well above much of the less dense Persian toponym regions, on economic grounds.
Awards for Hindu ‘incompetence/cuckery’ in the present political landscape would hands down go to Southern and Eastern Hindus btw. This is what matters, not 700 year-old Kingdoms.
“ Awards for Hindu ‘incompetence/cuckery’ in the present political landscape would hands down go to Southern and Eastern Hindus btw. “
Folks from Less Hindu regions don’t get it. It’s futile to argue with them. With 700 odd years of Muslim rule, the Hindu heartland still remained Hindu.
While the less Hindu regions converted to commie-land and Dravidian-land even without foreign rule. Tells a lot about different regions.
Lol of course they want more. Blackmail won’t end. Modi should take federalist approach. Once different states see where disproportionate benefits are going and the inefficiency of the current system and the boogey man is no longer “Hindu Fascist Mudi,” the rent seeking blackmail will be exposed even more so. But more importantly, the incentive structure to challenge it will change simultaneously while taking away the current unifying narrative propaganda, one that won’t be easy to recreate on a state vs. state level.
To a question if the farm laws were beneficial for the farmers or not, more than 50 per cent said they were indeed beneficial. Interestingly, close to 47 per cent of opposition supporters and voters agreed that the farm laws were beneficial for the farmers. In earlier CVoter Tracker polls also it was clear that huge number of farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP were against the farm bills, but an equally overwhelming number of farmers outside these two-and-a-half domains across all other states were in support of these farm laws.
This was rent seeking caste revolt. Makes money on the backs of UP, Bihari migrants + chamar labor using unsustainable farming practices in an unsustainable supply demand market, where leeching off of the tax payer money is endorsed, given the government is forced to buy crop way above global market value, despite more than 2.5x surplus with grains rotting away. All the while depleting the water table because of inefficient techniques. But it’s ok. Some can run to Canada after desertification takes place. Then the BJP can be blamed again for not doing enough and supporting the evil Adana Advani robber barons….
Don’t get started on stubble burning. The combo of pure rent seeking selfishness and toothless government that could not take on this tribal behavior because of open foreign and leftist media support.
That UP/Bihar labour is getting educated (at least their kids are) at a rapid pace. Punjab will be left behind.
Punjabi’s don’t want to live in India (similar case for Haryanvi’s but to a lesser extent).
UP East is already being connected to Delhi. Bihar would be too, soon. I believe a high-speed rail between Delhi-Varanasi-Patna-Kolkata will happen before the one from Delhi-Panipat-Chandigarh-Amritsar.
Even the Delhi RRTS’s. West UP+ Haryana + Rajasthan will be much more developed than Punjab.
No reforms for people who do not deserve reforms. No need for federalist approach etc whatsoever. Break FCI for different states and let states procure food for themselves.
Also half expect BJP to oppose anything with the name reform and agriculture in the same sentence in the future, once they are in opposition. Once their land becomes deserts only then these people will have some sense knocked into them. Then i will check how many of these NRI-sikhs do their ‘brown mundes’.
Similar to my solution to less-Hindu problem, impose cost on the heretics. But then i have a feeling the BJP/RSS is too soft for this way out.
Asabiya wins! and defeats the biggest elected majority parliament in over 30 yrs making a total mockery of parliament, Pm, elections, democracy, fairness and truth. Asabiya defeats them all and stands arrogant and triumphant.
To those saying, we should let separatists have own states etc, disappointment can lead to bad judgement, one should guard one self against that. Hindus are stupid to believe in magic words of “democracy”, “justice”, “truth”, “fairness”. These things are cultural products that are outcome of tradeoffs, balance of power between different parties, individuals, entities, groups etc. Victory is in building asabiya and then doing fair trade offs. propagate and incentivize icm, they are open to all, so no discrimination, use, temples, education, hospitals to propagate own asabiya.
present bjp victory is build on back of rss created asabiya, so , do more, give urban areas, more seats, do gerrymandering etc.
people are hurt, but stop bitching and wailing. see the martian movie, thats where we are, just pick things up and start again. Your responsibility to civilization does not begin or end with voting once every 5 yrs. On Rss saying they should not focus on India being superpower but vishwa guru, sure, then branch outside India, and go ahead and do that, get other people to join you and work in rest of the world as well. If that is your mission, go forth and multiply. But H’s should by now learn theory of mind. Learn what others are thinking and doing. so those are 2 things one needs to focus on.
1 Build Asabiya,
2 do anthropology/ theory of mind,
even science, industry, economics comes under understanding others.
We even many people in r/india are realizing the truth. Lmfao of course after the fact. This so pathetic. The country gets the government it deserves. Fucking spineless.
One of the biggest gainers would have been onion farmers of Maharashtra.
But the likes of Pawar kept quite because they aren’t from Baramati and don’t vote for NCP.
Like I have said. This is a caste revolt. Corrupt people are now openly bragging about possible treason. Fuck Modi. He let these bastards win. He has no resolve. Shutting down roads like this for so long isn’t protest. It is economic terrorism. Stubble burning, the plurality contributor to the smog, is ecoterrosim. He refuses to stand up to the evil leaders of these protests. Tikait should be jailed.
South Indians (especially Tamils) are absolutely losing their minds over it.
**For e.g.:** there are 39 seats for Tamil Nadu in Parliament and 80 seats for UP. If the delimitation is done proportionate to the population percentage, the numbers of MPs in TN will rise to 49(from 39), in UP will rise to 143(from 80), in Bihar will rise to 79(from 40) and in West Bengal will rise to 60(from 42).
I don’t think Modi has the balls to do it but even if half of it happens, South will become completely irrelevant in electing the Prime Minister of the country.
For first time, India’s fertility rate below replacement level
India reaching sub-replacement rate fertility is hugely consequential. India’s per capita GDP is just $2000. Unless India has an enormous reform push, it is likely to grow old before growing rich. The recent withdrawal of the farm bills is not a good sign in this regard.
India already has a small productive class that bankrolls the rest of the country so maybe it won’t be affected as much by this as other countries in similar situations ( it will definitely effect our potential but it’s not like we have a good record at realising that potential)
India is pretty much guaranteed to grow old before it gets rich. Especially because the impact of global warming will be felt in South Asia much more severely than in North America, Northern Europe, China, or Japan.
I actually want the Congress to come back so that we accelerate the whole ‘grow old before it gets rich.’ So that lolbertarians and Trad jokers (‘Congress+cow’, ‘Modi is a cuck’) can get the taste of some commie medicine. Seems they have had some memory loss.
Bengaluru best city for jobs & economic growth, Kolkata worst — Niti Aayog’s SDG Urban index
Overall, Shimla, Coimbatore & Thiruvananthapuram have topped the Niti Aayog’s SDG Urban Index, while Dhanbad & Meerut are the worst performers.
Astonishing how many Hindtards infest this site. Modi passed the bills as an economic reform measure. It was no reform at all but a sell-out of farm interests to his corporate cronies. When farmers organized themselves to protest they were showered with filthy communal abuse – typical of the Hindu right wing. The BJP communalized the protest. When the PM was forced to backtrack by circumstances his Hindutva fans, overcome with the vicious communal poison that infests their veins resorted to demands for another partition of the country. Such was the way of the Hindu Mahasabha in the 1930s that led to partition.
I have appended below a common sense view of the so called farm reform bills for those who want to learn the truth of the so called reform laws.
The Farm Laws and Farmer Protest.
All you need to know; what the journalists do not know and cannot tell.
Farming is a tedious business, and for urban folk an incomprehensible bucolic occupation they only know from their airconditioned cars, as they whiz along on the National Highways, or through the darkened windows of an airconditioned train. Many people understand vaguely that what appears on the dinner table has something to do with the toiling farmer, but they have as much knowledge of the process that leads to food on their plates as they do of the workings of the microchip in their smart phone – and as much interest. This is true of journalists as well, especially those who cannot stop telling us why the farm laws are such a good thing.
Are the farm laws good for the farmer? Emphatically, no! Are they good for the economy? No! So, why are there these continuing justifications that defy reality, history and economic theory, all at the same time? Sadly, if they do not spring from ignorance, misunderstanding or plain prejudice, it is (as in the case of the financial media) simply a vested or myopic self-interest that obscures the truth of the farmer’s case.
This piece is not about the constitutional issue. The constitutional illegality is self-evident, even though the Supreme Court has delayed pronouncing on it. Rather, the arguments below are about the badness of the laws – their innate inequity at best, and, at worst, their damnable malintent.
We need only a smattering of history and economics to understand why the laws are bad – the history first, and we won’t go back to feudal times or the British exploitation of plantation labour to grow Indigo in Bihar, or R C Dutt’s first protest on that inequity. We begin with modern times, and with the State of undivided pre-partition Punjab, which includes Haryana. It is this area that is leading the current unrest. We shall try to outline the problem first, and then see if the so called reform laws are a solution, or even a reform.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Punjab government realized that farmers, (and from whose ranks the bulk of the Indian army was drawn, were severely distressed because grain traders who were also moneylenders, were gradually taking possession of land in repayment of debt. The government realized that serious reform to protect the farmer was needed and in a series of orders spearheaded by Malcolm Darling of the ICS took steps to ensure that farmers did not lose their land to urban traders and money lenders. This gave birth to the Unionist Party which ran a secular movement for the protection of rural interests cutting across religious boundaries. The Alienation of Land Act stopped further transfer of their lands from indebted farmers to money lending traders.
While the agriculturist’s lands were saved from the money lender his exploitation on prices continued. Indebtedness continued to mount because collusive purchase by traders ensured that prices remained low or at bare subsistence level. In 1938 Sir Chhotu Ram the eminent Jat leader from Rohtak was Agriculture Minister in Punjab’s Unionist government. To him lies the credit for creating regulated agricultural mandis or markets which ensured that the trader was not able to exploit the farmer. All grain had to be sold in the mandi, with strict conditions governing the sale.. Earlier grain was purchased cheaply on various specious grounds, direct from the farmer. Now with the mandi system legally enforced, collusive purchase as well as underpricing on account of quality was much reduced. The mandi system made it difficult, even without mandatory minimum support prices for the trader to exploit the grain producer
Let us remember that these were times of grain scarcity. Demand was not lacking at a time when the country barely managed to feed a population of less than 400 million. Chronic malnourishment in rural areas was the norm and starvation deaths frequent. Yet farmers did not grow rich, nor rural society become prosperous. In fact, as we know, the situation deteriorated after independence when grain production could not cope with demand and Public Law 480 enacted by the US government kept India fed, ship to mouth. Those who lived through the famine stricken 60s, especially the great Bihar famine of 1964 will know what I am talking about. The private sector, by which is meant then, private traders, hoarded grain and profited hugely. The Hoarding and Profiteering Act was brought in specifically to unearth stocks of grain hoarded by traders for scalping the poor at a time of great scarcity. This is natural, need I say it, how markets always behave, even now for any commodity.
India was saved by the green revolution which came with the high yielding Mexican wheat varieties of Dr. Norman Borlaug and the high yielding rice from the International Rice Research Institute. Production began to rise because farmers, especially in Punjab and Haryana and west UP began to invest in tubewells, tractors, fertilizer and pesticides. A system of procurement prices was introduced. The regulated mandis ensured that all the grain was purchased at the support price. Traders could not exploit the grain producer because government was a ready buyer, even when production was surplus to need, initially to build up buffer stocks, and for price support. This led to higher farm incomes and eventually to over production of grain in Haryana and Punjab.
Over production of wheat however is not so much of an issue if the Government refrains from periodic bans on wheat export. The problem facing Union Government and the country is over production when it has to be bought and stocked. Current inventories of grain are in the region of 70 million tonnes. That is massive indeed with a humungous holding cost. 70 million tonnes is roughly what India produced annually in the mid-sixties. How do the farm laws solve the problem of over production? They do not, and cannot.
The next question is whether the farm laws reform anything. Reform implies improvement. The regulated mandi is a market. How is abolishing the kind of market that has helped farmers be good for them? This requires us to look closely at the economic arguments which are purported to support the Union government.
The economic reform argument rests on the old liberal principle that free markets must be allowed to operate without government interference. Added to this is the neo classical economic argument that perfect competition between infinite numbers of buyers and sellers establishes a correct market price. It was the liberal principle of free markets that forced Prime Minister Robert Peele in mid-nineteenth century Britain to repeal the corn laws which banned grain imports when a famine was raging in Ireland because of potato blight. Though it was a Conservative government Peele had to resort to Whig liberal support to ram through the repeal. So, can we suppose that this socially conservative BJP government has had some sort of liberal epiphany – to help the farmer in India’s case? No, not at all!
The Government has never been in favour of free international trade in agricultural commodities. It regularly bans export of cotton to favour mill owners, and wheat to favour urban consumers.
Markets are hardly ever completely free, and they are never perfect. The neo classical argument collapsed after the 1930s onwards when some brilliant economists at Cambridge University led by Joan Robinson demonstrated that markets were never free and competition usually imperfect. This meant that prices were not arrived through the market mechanism of supply and demand but through price fixation by underhand collaboration of buyers. We all know about monopolies, but thanks to Joan Robinson terms like monopsony and oligopsony entered economic parlance. These describe situations where markets fail to perform because buyers collude, or there are too few of them, oligopsony, or even only one, monopsony.
If there are just a few buyers, or only one, sellers must accept whatever price is offered. This is precisely the situation that the farm laws seek to bring about. They will leave the farmer at the mercy of the buyer. Government as monopsonist is acceptable to farmers. But when government stops buying, private oligosonic cartels will dictate the price – take it or leave it. This is the nub of the farmers argument and the reason why farmers are so agitated. It is just nonsense to say that the new laws will benefit farmers. Nothing could be worse for them.
Economists who support the farm laws have either forgotten the elementary principles of their discipline or are being wilfully obtuse. In a situation of scarcity private buyers would have been expected to pay high prices, but they do not, as we know from the experience of undivided Punjab before Sir Chhotu Ram’s reforms in 1938. If the lessons of history are not enough, we have the experience of our own times. If farmers were not safe from underhand deals of traders even during times of scarcity how safe are they when production is massively surplus.
Potatoes were going for 75 paise per kilo at the farm gate when consumers paid twenty times the amount to the sabziwala. Onions and tomatoes are regularly left to rot because the private trade would rather pursue high profits than fair practice. Sugar cane growers go unpaid for years for up to two years as the sugar barons grow fat on the interest of sums due to the farmer. Kinnow growers in Punjab get ten rupees for a kilo. The fruit rarely retails at under fifty rupees a kilo. Under Imran Khan his supporting fat cats have gotten even fatter profiting off sugar and wheat while farmers and consumers both cry themselves hoarse. Why does Government think that traders will act any differently now?
In the time of scarcity, the fifties and sixties, traders and dealers of food grains were regularly raided and prosecuted under the Defence of India rules for hoarding and price scalping. This time around it is the farmer who is the villain, the anti-national, the Khalistani, not because he exploits the consumer but because he wants to protect himself and his family. The maledictions of a well-honed machine spit out obloquy as a weapon of first resort to damn honest toilers who now happen to produce more than the nation can consume because they have been historically asked to produce large surpluses.
The farm laws will lead the farmer to produce less, because he will not be able to produce more. His income will drop drastically. Farm suicides will increase because the farmer does not have the option to escape to London or one the Caribbean Islands. In any case farmers are honourable folk who feel dishonoured by debts they cannot pay off unlike the businessmen who scam their country of thousands of crores and fly away when asked to repay. One rarely hears of a businessman taking his life because of business debts.
India’s economy will suffer too. Demand for tractors, fertilizer and pesticide, and farm equipment will collapse. There will be a general lessening of demand for other consumer items and white goods which a prosperous rural sector engenders, with a corresponding decrease of jobs in the rural economy. The urban consumer cannot expect to benefit. There is no link between prices paid to farmers and those paid by consumers at retail. A kilo of branded maize flour sold by one prominent business house retails for Rs. 150/ per kilo. Farmers complain that they get no more than ten rupees for it. This is what consumers can expect from these revolutionary farm laws.
And there will be large scale rural unrest. The government may concede nothing to this agitation, but it cannot prevent mass unhappiness. Even a government as quick as this one is to set its watchdogs on those who cross it will find it hard to suppress expressions of country wide rural distress; for, make no mistake, if farm prices fall in Punjab and Haryana, they will pull them down everywhere in the country.
There are solutions to the problem of agriculture surpluses, but the one government has chosen is not one of them. It will cause them to disappear of course, that much is clear, for reasons outlined, but it won’t do anyone any good, least of all the government. Even those investing in the farm business will not profit for long.
The problem of agriculture pricing is not unique to India. Everywhere Governments subsidize farming. It is the nature of the product that requires it. China, Japan, the US and Europe are al into heavy agricultural subsidies. That is why we had PL 480, wine lakes and butter mountains in Europe and such expensive rice in Japan.
BJP is a bania party at heart, and it operates with a bania mentality of its support group – buy cheap sell dear. The corporate form of baniahood is what the current Union government caters to in the form of Adani and Ambani.
Post-colonial India under the BJP has forgotten the solutions that the colonial state found for the problems of agriculturists. It now blames farmers for the problems that successive Indian governments fostered and nurtured. It has even forgotten the experience of post independence Congress governments. The farm reform laws, like the GST is an ill-considered measure, and like the demonetization, not sufficiently thought through. No good can come of them.
Lmfao the bania hate blaming from some grows. Very good. Please read what most serious economists are saying. Your rant is devoid of actual expert consensus.
And I have said no repeatedly to partitions on this thread. Only Saurav with his “more Hindu” stuff is pushing it hard and looks like others have bandwagoned.
Anyway, rent seekers don’t tend to care about economics. And the left only cares about maligning the right. India is a tribal disaster right now. Anyway, Punjab will keep sliding down economically and Haryana will still be supported by places like Gurgaon but now stuff like their job reservation rules will also bite them.
“Economists who support the farm laws have either forgotten the elementary principles of their discipline or are being wilfully obtuse. ”
Ok Mao
For those advocating a fresh partition a better suggestion would be for the Hindtards to move to a consolidated territory of like minded communal bigots. They cannot be more than 20 percent or so of India’s population. An enclave in Rajasthan close to the border with Pakistan is best. Thus sequestrated they can freely indulge in their aggressive maneuvres against Pakistan, which they like doing, and vent against other Indians. The rest of the country including Bengalis, Tamils, Malayalis, Nagas, Kashmiris and Punjabis can go about their business peacefully.
LOL, the way its going the ethnicities u mentioned might be the ones demanding separation…
I am perfectly happy to see a united Islamic Bengal if that’s what the people of West Bengal or even Assam want.
Ditto for the Kashmiri Valley people’s right to self determination and their freedom to join al Bakistan.
Same for the good People of Nagaland if they wish to leave the Indian Union. I would see them off as friends and brothers.
If Indian Punjabis want a independent Sikh homeland in a area where they are a majority I will support it.
If Canadian Khalistani supporters want to create a Sikh homeland in Brampton or something, I would support that too.
But if a majority of people in a Hindu majority area of India want a united Hindu state they must also have their right to self determination respected.
It is only fair.
“Friends and brothers”
Lol. Separatists don’t see you as such at all.
> The rest of the country including Bengalis, Tamils, Malayalis, Nagas, Kashmiris and Punjabis can go about their business peacefully.
Don’t you worry, Hindi belt will soon subsume you all.
Lol. These folks are on borrowed time already. Let them have their sub-nationalism for couple of decades.
Just like hindutva subsumed Hinduism. Bharat will subsume India.
All i can say is that extreme haters of Modi are hating him more than extreme supporters are supporting him and those who were in between now mostly have fed up attitude.Nationally he is still strong because other are weak and he still have powerful image and In states you know they are dependent .I m guessing In U.P SP gonna perform good but can they make govt?Up has no record of consecutive incumbency.
Till now there is no evidence to show that the majority of Hindus want an independent Hindu country nor that a majority of Bengalis want an independent Bengal. Nor have the Hindutva enthusiasts shown us evidence that Sikhs want an independent Khalistan. Crank Hindus, Sikhs and Bengalis may.
“nor that a majority of Bengalis want an independent Bengal”
You mean apart from 47 and 71? Yeah , true they have never wanted it…
$300 million is chump change in the world of semiconductors (TSMC invests $15 billion in new fabs), but it’s a start and it’s better than nothing. Hopefully we will have a proper Indian chip ecosystem from the design of chips to production. The software part is already taken care of.
Farming is a tedious business, and for urban folk an incomprehensible bucolic occupation they only know from their airconditioned cars, as they whiz along on the National Highways, or through the darkened windows of an airconditioned train. Many people understand vaguely that what appears on the dinner table has something to do with the toiling farmer, but they have as much knowledge of the process that leads to food on their plates as they do of the workings of the microchip in their smart phone – and as much interest.
Just 3 questions-
1. In which state is your farm located?
2. How many acres?
3. How long have you worked on it?
Counter the argument. Give up this ad hominem business. That is all Hindtards know.
“You mean apart from 47 and 71? Yeah , true they have never wanted it”
Who voted for independent Bengal in ’47’ and ’71’ ? Hindtard distortions again. You guys live off them.
Indian farmers are unproductive, unskilled rent seekers surviving on what loot they can force the government to hand over from the taxes it collects from the small productive urban population. Without market protectionism the actually productive people in urban India would be able to buy cheaper and healthier food from places like Canada and Australia instead of the being forced to pay above market prices for the trash that Indian farmers produce. Farmers should understand that urban India is doing them a favour by subsidizing their livelihood with our taxes and buying thier overpriced poor quality food.
Both Canada and Australia (and the US) heavily subsidize their farming sector at the cost of the taxpayer. It’s part of national security. A country that does not produce its own food is always at the risk of starvation should others turn off the taps.
There is balance. India overdoes it for some stuff and rent seekers are imposing greater and greater costs, both economic and environmental. They use their geographic and disproportionate army percentage as leverage. They also have a good amount of NRI money and foreign media support. This results in the ability to keep pushing that balance the wrong way via blackmailing the rest of the nation.
India has the most arable land but among the worst farming efficiency, both in terms of cost of production and environmental damage. And benefits are disproportionately going to groups with greater leverage, as is generally true but the government lacks the cajones to confront them.
Federalist approach is best with big money pot. Allocate set amount to agriculture. States have to negotiate MSPs among themselves for crops and how to keep farmers employed. The you will see how things turn when the right wing “mudi facist” boogeyman goes away. It will be clear where unsustainable, disproportionate, and unfair advantages lie.
Every government has proposed similar reforms for decades. This same group also blackmailed Rajiv Gandhi into free electricity.
I have no horse in the race, nor am I following this news, so couldn’t care either way. Only pointing out the obvious: that food security is paramount for any country, especially India lest they wish to repeat famines of the past. So from that point of view, subsidizing farming is not ”socialism” because all countries do it including the mighty capitalist USA.
The farm subsidy implementation in India is comically bad.
The current system results in economic incentives for farmers to grow rice in a dry state like Punjab.
I am sympathize with the farmers as well as it is not economically sustainable to have 45% or so of India’s population engaged in small scale agriculture. But there is no real alternative for semi-skilled jobs due to a lack of industrialization.
Btw unintelligently subsidizing stuff in the US is also leading to a disaster. Certain crop subsidization is insanely disproportionately responsible for water issues in places like California.
No one is saying pure free market. But India is inefficiently way too far in one direction to the detriment of everyone except the rent seeking protestor class. Leftists have just latched on because it hurts BJP. BJP did the same thing when the Left tried agricultural reforms.
I hope the BJP uses this as an opportunity to do just that. Agriculture is technically on the State List in the constitution. The govenrment should get rid of all ferderal agriculture programs/subsidies and give the money to the states based on the amount of farmland or farmers with environmental incentives to reduce stubble burning and ground water depletion. Procurement for FCI should be only what is required for the program or the government should get rid of it also and let each state run their own ration program.
With agriculture devolved to the state level BJP states can implement the farms laws. If farmers in Punjab or Haryana have a problem then they can blockade their own state capitals instead of laying siege to Delhi.
I don’t mind subsidies for agriculture but even China realizes that you need some market forces to ensure that you produce what people actually need. MSP results in a horrible waste of resources to produce poor quality wheat and rice that end up rotting in some FCI warehouse.
What I find most annoying though is the self righteous NRIs and liberals who portray the farmers as some kind of noble workers toiling selflessly in the fields to provide food to the country. These are the same kind of people who would have us believe that there is some kind of nobility in being poor. People are poor because they are not able to be rich. In the same way the farmers toil in the fields because they are by and large a group of semiliterate peasants that don’t have any other marketable skills. Those same NRIs and liberals also think that these farmers are somehow devinely entitled to enjoy a standard of living above what their subsistence levels of productivity warrants and that the government of India is “Facist” if it does not provide them the money to do this even if it bankrups itself in doing so.
High-tech (inevitably low-volume) + Low value = failure
Most likely they will end up working on figuring out how to do guidance-navigation on balloons for imaging applications. I know at least two companies like this in the Bay Area who persevere even after Google Loon went defunct. The payloads possible(usually <<<10 kg) with balloons are too less a car emits 4-500 gm of CO2 per mile. Math doesn't work out.
Girls get Leaving Cert results boost from ‘unconscious bias’
Gender gap under estimated marks wider than with traditional exams, SEC finds
another argument for standardised tests
Counter the argument. Give up this ad hominem business.
You spoke as if you knew a lot more about farming than the rest of us, so I just wondered if you’re from a peasant-class family. Surely you must have more experience than my uncles who have been farming for 60+ years, yes?
You get to call us unaware/ignorant, but it’s ad hominem if we question your credentials?
“counter the argument”
What argument? All you did was romanticize mandis and tell us that every single corporation out there wants farmers to commit suicide. Going by your hatred for greedy corporates, I’m sure you’ve never even set foot on American soil : )
Loans could be only alternative to run Mamata’s social schemes
So how are farmers just rent-seekers? No doubt urban fellows would like to go back to subsidized foreign food at the cost of their own farmers. Ignoramuses such as some above have no idea how heavily Europe, Japan, the US and China subsidize their farmers. Read the article I posted and stop exposing your ignorance.
Through the 50s, 60s and 70s GoI was desperate for higher food grain production. Now that the farmers have delivered, and earlier government stopped the exploitation of the consumer and the farmer by trader interests, who are also BJP supporters, want to go back to the days of exploitation.
Over 50% of Indian populace are working in agriculture sector, producing only 15% of economic out put.
In how many developed countries do you have this. If their contribution was 50% of Indian gdp, that would be great, but the only scenario in which i can see it coming true would take us back to pre Industrial age. And no sane person should fancy that. so why not take time to try to figure out a way to solve this by making them more productive. One way is to turn them into health food and also increase govt spending on good nutrition for all Indians. Make it a mission. There is poor nutrition among Indians, young and old. Can some one calculate and tell the economic value to this transition?
Trying to answer my own question,
For example, eggs cost about 6 rs each, every male requires avg of 56 gm of protein per day. 1 egg has about 7 gm of protein. for females , the requirement is about 44 gm protein per day, it is about 8 eggs each, and 6 eggs each, on average it is about 7 eggs, adult populace is about 700 million adults, so, it comes down to about 400 million dollars per day, roughly. Multiplied 365 days, is about 143 billion dollars. And assuming egg is the cheapest form of protein. Throw in the fact many Indians are prone to diabetes, we need health food to deal with that, add in gyms etc.Assuming 500 rs a month for gym, lets say only 200 million , that is two out of 7 can be persuaded to go for that, it is 16 billion dollars, now add in a about 100 billion for health industry for diabetes and other stuff, it would be a maximum of 260 billion dollars at most, at a minimum of 143 billion if we force everyone to eat 7 eggs per day(good luck convincing people on that). That would mean, for 500 million in farming sector, it would give them a value of 520 dollars per year, or about 39k rupees per year extra, or at low figure of 143 billion dollars, it would be about 286 dollars or about 21k rupees per year extra. So, yeah, helath care on good food alone is not enough.Though in usa, the market for health food is about 700 billion and potentially upto one trillion by 2026 according to this report. https://www.statista.com/statistics/502267/global-health-and-wellness-food-market-value/
, It seems, India can atleast afford to increase pocket change to lower income groups through poultry and other health foods by assuming, we have enough people to buy into this stuff, so one trillion of exchange from haves to have nots? Like amul, some kind of poultry cooperative could be worked out?. Assuming even 1 trillion dollars for health and wellness food market, it would amount to 2000 $ increase , which could increase Indian gdp from present 2000$ to twice the value, if w can increase export. This is one area, where perhaps we can do something?. Firstly at domestic level, to increase money to about 520 $ per year would mean about a quart of total gdp per capita value. And if one can export outside country more, and hopefully, get enough Indians to buy it here, we could make a significant difference to some small degree. 25% immediate goal, and twice the amount over few years. So, since this is pure speculation, can anyone point to better critique or better thought process to this?.
Parag Agarwal new CEO of Twitter!! Replaces Jack Dorsey….
The Desi colonisation of the technoverse is inching forward.
On a managerial note, this is a sign from the Board to Twitter to jettison its woke ways and return to its techno roots.
Parag joined as an ads engineer in 2011….so dizzying climb to the top!!
Agarwal, baniya from more Hindu region has less chance of being woke. But again, America changes you.
On the other hand, had it been banerjee or iyer ….
“But again, America changes you.”
Most likely case. You don’t get the captaincy without converting to the religion of your masters.
Just ask Yusuf Yohana.
On the other hand, this might provide fodder to the ‘dismantling global hindutva’ folks.
Good entertainment either way.
Hahaha….the local silure ran straight and hot to take the bait!
Twitter right-wing already analysing the new CEO, they found this from 2010.
“If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.”
He could have easily made the case without any reference to Ms….but Gangetic Hindu Syndrome at it’s finest….what to do?? Intergenerational simping for harem daddy.
That’s fine. For the more Hindu region , woke is an outlier. For the less Hindu ones , the default.
Given that India remains the single most important non-US market for all the tech companies out there, it makes sense to have an Indian CEO. I’m not surprised by people uncovering his woke tweets.
You don’t climb to those positions without accepting the political orthodoxies. If he had been loudly pro-Modi he wouldn’t have been promoted.
The US wants to ensure access to India but simultaneously change its culture to move it in a more liberal, pro-US direction. Employing sepoys is the best method for that.
” If he had been loudly pro-Modi he wouldn’t have been promoted.”
I agree to a large extent, but the FB and MSFT experience has shown that we cant be sure. No one knew that Zuckerberg will have such a hard on for Modi. FB has stead fastly been sympathetic to right wing, even going to extent of covering for Modi (Ankhi Das and all) , even when they didn’t have to.
Gates have regularly awarding Modi, even when they are calls to boycott him. Agarwal might be woke, but considering twitter’s antipathy towards Indian right wing (the whole Koo incident and all) , the only way is Up. Unless he wants to be more loyal than the king.
Pilgrimages, conflicts and naked women: A Russian merchant’s impressions of 15th-century India
Over three years, Afanasy Nikitin travelled from India’s west coast to the Deccan Plateau. His notes gave Russia its first glimpse of life in the country.
“The Korean steel company, POSCO, invented a new way of creating steel out of lousy iron ore and lousy coal. And there’s some province in India that has lots of lousy iron ore and lot of lousy coal. Which is there’s not much use for. And this one process would take their lousy iron ore and the coal and make a lot of steel. And they got a lot of cheap labor. So POSCO and India were made for each other. And they made a deal with the province to get together and use the POSCO know how and the India lousy iron ore and lousy coal. And 8 or 9 or 10 years later with everybody screaming and objecting and farmers lying down in the road, or whatever’s going on, they canceled the whole thing. In China they would have just done it.”
Sad but true. Lol
“India is grossly defective because they took the worst aspects of our culture, allowing a bunch of idiots to scream and stop everything. And they copied it … They’ve taken the worst aspects of democracy,”
Lmafo.
India’s economy has expanded 20x since 1980, almost continuously. From starving in 1947, we now feed the world.
The farm bills made economic sense. But a population is much more than its material interests. In contrary to almost every nation in history, agriculturists are the political constituents in India. Not to mention the brazen way in which the BJP attempted this reform.
There are plenty of sub optimal economics decisions made in the US in the interests of the white middle class.
I agree the change is tremendous and I remain optimistic on India’s prospects.
Modi is weak. We need a strong leader. We need a Deng.
Renounce your American citizenship with no possibility of getting it back. Become an Indian. Then you can be included in ‘We’ and tell us what kind of leadership we need. Otherwise, mind your own business.
What a churlish answer, Vikram. How do you know that he doesn’t have family and friends in India? If he does, then he has a very direct and personal stake in its future, regardless where he is currently located.
Many NRIs also support India via remittances etc. They are not just emotionally invested in India’s success but often also financially too. They absolutely have a right to talk of a we.
Nobody is ‘supporting’ India via remittances. People provide remittances to their families as per personal attachment and familial responsibility. There is no national angle here. If their families could move abroad, the remittances would stop. You cant compare remittances to tax revenue or investments, exports.
You found my reply churlish, but are indifferent to thewarlock’s infantilizing of Indians. I dont think you people have our best interests at heart. We are proud of our political system and have every right to be. It is based on the highest ideals, and weakening self rule in India is a red line.
Remittances are basically free exports.. (i.e. it has the same effect as exports without even using local capital) .. So it’s free money. Basically funds your imports without having a detrimental value to the currency or forex reserves.
A lot of instruments can fund imports, including debt. Remittances disproportionately finance consumption, and are in no way comparable to even the most basic exports. The economic linkages and skill ladders that underlie exports have vastly different implications than workers sending wages home. Its like getting a degree and going to work, versus living off a rich relative.
In addition a lot of Indian origin non-citizens of India also have permanent residency in India via Overseas Citizenship of India.
The Indian government should revoke this program if they truly believe we have no stake in the country’s success vis-a-vis any other non-Citizen.
You are merely one person with strange prejudice stemming from political orientation @Vikram.
Interesting to read @principia, @Vikram and @Querishi –
This kind of long-distance emotional attachments provided a two way flow of people, money and ideas historically and is the source of internal strife in many countries. Israel and the Jewish diaspora, Erstwhile colonies of Britain in America, France and Algeria etc.
In India, the Left agonizes over such distortion of an imagined paradise that NRI’s construct in their heads. The economists are quite happy with the remittances that NRIs do…..Querishi is correct – it provides a huge cushioning to other import activities we have to do with the dollar (petroleum etc). No question of it’s effects being confined to the micro-economy alone. Has huge tailwind effect.
Morally I feel that NRIs are entitled to their cultural projections. But keep in mind this is the same dynamic that drives Khalistan as well!!
Would love to see a Chinese poster come in and talk about the effect Chinese immigrants have on mainland China.
@Vikram – As a silent spectator all I know is that @warlock provides quality comments. Can’t say I can say the same about you.
And yes, people do support the country via remittances. Not to say, simply being outside the country gives you an additional perspective, something like when the astronauts see the earth from moon, they fall in love with their planet in a way they never did before.
Thirdly, you do not dictate who can have a constructive opinion about India or not. Feel free to chime what you have to say but stfu about others.
@Ugra, every economy dependent on remittances to purchase imports is a basket case (also produces a disproportionate amount of political noise).
Kerala, Sikh Punjab, Pakistan, Sri Lanka all have one thing in common: a dependence on remittances. Outside the subcontinent, we have the Philippines and Egypt.
The remittance curse might be worse than the resource curse.
Basket case might be too harsh a term. Kerala seems to have done well, its tier 2 and 3 towns seem developed more than what you see in even Maharashtra/Karnataka.
While outside the social media bubble Punjab too has done well. Outside of Delhi-NCR region and hilly states, its the best state in N-India.
Read a book on Israel’s early years and recall reading that something like 1/3rd of their first budgets came from remittances from American Jews. Even today, Israel is given a “special relationship” status with the US in large part thanks to the lobbying efforts of various Jewish organisations (the Christian Evangelical influence has collapsed since Bush was president, and this lobby effort is now mostly driven by Jewish orgs).
Clearly, Israel does not view its diaspora as a liability. Nor should it. So why should India? I’m frankly surprised how weak Indian-American political influence is. If I were in India, I’d work overtime to create brown versions of AIPAC. Whatever Indian orgs are doing, they are not being very effective. The money, the talent and the numbers (Indians are >4 million and rising fast) is already in America, it’s just waiting to be tapped.
Indian American influence is weaker and there wont be a brown AIPAC because Indian diaspora is already divided. Even before it can even muster some strength. Between Hindu/Indian nats VS commies/Dravidian/liberals (etc).
During the formative years of Israeli/jewish diaspora, there was no active movement to undue or push sanctions on Israel (unlike India’s case). Its only now we see a small split within. Without Asabiya, nothing is possible.
Gujarat displaces Maharashtra to become largest manufacturing hub in country
Maharashtra is the next West Bengal. Any society/city that goes high on culture will decline soon enough.
A grimy Surat is much better for humans than Aamchi Mumbai – Surat will give you livelihood, Mumbai will feed you vadapavs.
Indian states are anyways heavily dependent on that one city which pulls the revenue, which the politicians then redistribute. So i wouldn’t put too much into these variations. MH will again regain its spot. Unless actual commies come to rule these states, it does not really matter who rules these states.
Indian states are anyways heavily dependent on that one city which pulls the revenue, which the politicians then redistribute.
Except Gujarat. Its economic base is much more robust.
The attack on diaspora Hindus, by academics and support for such people from those in India reveals that the argument of minority/majority( that attack on minority is racism/bigotry) is not being held. Also, the fear that it will lead to racist/bigoted attacks on them was also a lie. It was and is a lie, a total lie. People should notice this for what this is. They do not follow their own said principles, it is making up as they feel.
How Christianity is growing among Mazhabi Sikhs & Valmiki Hindus in Punjab’s villages
“ Christianity is growing in Punjab, mirroring what states like Tamil Nadu experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Small churches are springing up on the rooftops of many villages”
What ! Christianity on the rise in my beloved Hindu-heartland , the bestestttt state of all, tamizh nadu.
Oh my periyar !!
Bhai, itna khush hone ki jarurat nahi hai. There were/are proselytizing in Azamgarh/Jaunpur in East UP. Called “changai-sabha”.
Worker remittances have been a life saver for Sri Lanka. Most importantly kind of solved unemployment. Almost all remittance are from the Mid East and of that 70% from women working as maids.
The Govt benefits from getting foreign exchange (30%). The Policies of govt will influence on how that money is spent. Wasteful importation of consumer goods or used in useful investment.
For the worker they get to improve their life. Build a house, all the rage a tiled living room and an attached modern toilet. Then on education for children, in communities are inclined toward education. Plus they get exposed to “better” things in life and self respect. Thats why you rarely see huts in rural Sri Lanka. On the other hand this kind of foreign jobs are bad for those in SL who want an underpaid, subservient servant class with very limited opportunity.
Hopefully, the Govt will use the FX to develop economy so that the job wages can compete with mid east wages. Also develop skilled and semi skilled citizens. Already happening with males and some females and end up working in Korea, China.
These type of people are much better than those who get education then end up in the US. The mid east workers work hard and build up themselves and at the same time build up SL. Better investment and return for SL than those who leave permanently for the west.
Anecdote
There is a woman of Estate Tamil origin, cant read or write. She comes as a helper in a small construction I am doing. She has apparently worked for 10+ years in Kuwait. She said built a house with wall around property and husband sold it and went off with another woman. She has been trying to go to mid east again and was restricted by Covid. Now all geared up, has bought an acre of land and has a tin hut in place. Piped chlorinated water available about 25 m away and needs to pay for the connection. She will leave and be back in 2-4 years and have her house built.
Does anyone have sharper explanations beyond corruption, commies etc ?
in no particular order…
1. B’luru has better Climate.
2. B’luru has been melting fpr South + MH elites especially Brahmins.
3. High concentration of Central research institutes + IISc + ISRO + HAL + ADA.
4. Refuge of TamBrahms after DMK* pushed them out of TN govt jobs.
5. Peasant castes ( Lingayat, Vokkaligas, Kurubas) are content enjoying spoils of growth in B’luru RE aka don’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs.
6. The IT boom has enabled engineers from peasants + depressed classes to gain entry and mid levels jobs as well. Win Win.
I have felt Karnataka in general ( not only Bangalore ) more welcoming overall for outsiders.
Something which I realized quite late in life that, out of the 4 southern states, my closest friends happened to be kannadigas, even though I have more friends from the other 3 states.
“Refuge of TamBrahms after DMK* pushed them out of TN govt jobs.”
Thanks Bhumiputra. I think your point about the migration of Tamil Brahmins is a very pertinent one, and ties in with Saurav’s point about Kannadiga openness. It is interesting how much of new wealth over the past few decades has been created by immigrants of some kind.
We see the same dynamic in the US. Regions like the Bay Area and NYC are far richer (almost 2x salaries on average) than less welcoming regions in the interior.
I think N. Indian cities, with the exception of Delhi, are in general not as welcoming. There is a strong racial element to identity which can be very off putting. Think about the failure of Punjab to generate a metropolis despite its agrarian base and armed forces recruitment.
” I think N. Indian cities, with the exception of Delhi, are in general not as welcoming. ”
You can find Bengalis, and Punjabis in significant numbers in even smaller towns of UP. Tamils, Marathis, Telugus don’t have many reasons to come but whenever they do due to government service or marriage (I have seen many Telugu/Kannada guy – UP girl marriages recently) they are well received.
There are large Bengali and Punjabi communities in Kanpur from pre-independence times, re-enforced during partition. The city has lately lost a lot of its cosmopolitan character.
There’s been chronic under-investment in the city even by UP standards in favour of Lucknow.
I think Bangalore being the capital city might have helped in this regard. I also think a better comparison to Kanpur is Baroda as opposed to Ahmedabad.
Both were important industrial and transportation hubs that got left behind compared to their peers within the state.
For the longest time it was difficult to find direct trains to Ahmedabad or Lucknow. Baroda and Kanpur were prioritised on the Delhi to Bombay/Calcutta routes respectively. That has also changed of late.
My hope is that with better sense finally prevaling economically in UP and the opening up of the Ganga waterway, there’s a chance for Kanpur to kick start again. It will probably never reach the relative status it had back in the day.
We are also going to see a trend wherein Kanpur and Lucknow move closer to each other and will probably merge together into a single metropolitan area at some point in the future.
@Prats, I have big hopes for UP’s economy due to the waterway (should try to extend it to Noida IMO), dedicated freight corridor overcoming connectivity issues. So far, havent heard of any big ticket industrial investments along the Ganges though. They continue to be focused in the West and South.
@Vikram
Bangalore’s adjacency to Mysore – the stronghold of the Wodeyars who inculcated a strong scientific outlook in to the region without resorting to radicalism or instant modernity recipes. They couched it within the folds of Hindu thought and philosophies. Visveswarayya is the best example of this movement.
And a unique contributor to engineering prowess was that the region depended on lift-irrigation. So for a very long time Bangalore and Pune remained centres of diesel-pump-expertise in pre-independent India. This had knock-on effects on aviation – who also depended on piston engines. A lot of today’s central PSUs actually predate Indian independence. HAL was snatched and privatised. Aviation were among the earliest to use electronic components for automation – this lead to knock-on centres of excellence. Then into software…..so on and so forth.
Thanks Ugra. I had come across the pump to software chain in Damodaran’s book. While I agree that Bengaluru had specific advantages which led to software being centred there, Kanpur had no shortage of factors going for it.
Perhaps Ahmedabad is a better comparison. Even its textile businesses like Arvind Mills have continued to thrive venturing into new areas like automotive seating. Pharma is of course Ahmedabad’s software.
There is no reason Kanpur could not have continued to evolve with better technology, more diversified textiles, specialized metallurgy. Even in IT, IIT Kanpur was the hotbed of early CS in India.
North Indians have a tendency to get into set routines, Gujaratis and TamBrahms (in their own way) seem much more curious.
It seems we are on our way to become country of older people before becoming rich. The fantasy of gandhi/nehru/left idealism is coming true. In a way, we are becoming what their aspiration has been. Being poor, contented, still living morally(left view, without effective sovereignty, pride, a good doormat and a completely compromised state). What a tragedy. when will ai’s come and take over?. Because clearly the right did not get the memo, do reforms now, or stay poor for foreseeable future and allow others to meddle endlessly, conversions etc. Macaulay’s putra/putris have done their job. Bow down to this strategy of successful cultural imperialism of brits, 70 yrs after they left, their plan is still coming to fruition. And many Indians who led Indian Independence did it themselves. In the future, where all these will be analyzed, this will be seen as one of the most successful forms of modern cultural neo imperial project.
IK has promised to go after those responsible, which is the least you’d expect. But given his appeasement of the worst religious nutjobs in Pakistan, he is indirectly helping giving rise to an extremist environment which will make these atrocities more likely.
As for Pakistan, I always read them complaining about why nobody is investing in their country. Here’s a very good reason.
Interesting. The guy seemed very underprepared… still… the fact that someone earning 30K/mo back in India thought it was a good idea to go to Canada tells you that we’re in the midst of a bubble. How do you pop it without people getting hurt?
Canadian universities have been starved of federal funds, so they are turning ever more desperately to foreign students to plug the gap. In India, these edu/visa agencies just paint rosy pictures and laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, individuals have personal responsibility but the system is rigged to entice people and that’s the issue. Canada needs immigrants, but it also needs those immigrants to know what they are getting into.
This is the funniest post I have read this month. It seems like this guy was sold a bridge in a far away land and he was stupid enough to buy it with real money. Complaining about everything from bus not stopping (he didn’t pull the lever) to bank timings, Indians not helping him or the ‘high’ cost of food (it’s quite cheap if you earn in $$), or ”Canadians are polite but not real” and ends with ”this is a country set up as a late stage capitalist utopia.” He clearly thought he would be handed everything once he lands in Canada, only to be bitterly disappointed.
Frankly speaking immigration is not for everyone because it requires a lot of hustle on arrival, and his ”struggles” are something that every immigrant goes through without complaints. Most eventually make it to the other side and are rewarded handsomely.
One comment all the ‘Hinduphobia’ and ‘Casteism’ discussion online recently…
My experience as an occasionally bearded religious Hindu guy is the I have faced more ‘Islamophobia’ in the course of my life in the West than any other form of bias.
Those of you who know me will know that I formerly supported Trump. I thought he may become a transformational figure, creating an energized, muscular American conservatism.
By 2018 midterms, it was clear that this was not to be. Trump not only fueled the fires of his woke enemies, but he hemorrhaged the suburban support that had been instrumental to American conservatism since the Goldwater years. I thus withdrew my support of him-a prescient decision in light of what happened next.
With the farm law repeal, I believe we face an analogous situation vis-a-vis Modi. The BJP redoubles its efforts to win elections while forgetting the purpose of winning them. Modi has become a figure that galvanizes his enemies while confusing and demoralizing his friends.
He and the BJP are no longer worthy of our support.
You win some, you lose some
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Personally, I’m surprised he held on to it for a year
Moving people out of agriculture is a much more sensible move and also a prerequisite
Agreed.
A PM of India has apologized to radical Sikh yahoos for the great crime of the Indian parliament doing its job and enacting reformist laws. Laws which would have made India a better place economically, socially and environmentally. Laws which apart from one state and one community had widespread support. This really is one of the most shameful events in the history of independent India. No other Prime Minister of India has ever been so cowardly or craven.
The reason why he may have done so do not matter. Knowing Modi and Shah they would most probably have been short-term political calculations.
BJP under PM Modi deserves to lose UP elections followed by General elections in 2024. These fellows are incompetent nincompoops who do not deserve to lead India. Their party members get beaten up, killed by political opponents all over the country without the senior leadership getting bothered. We need better leadership with stronger courage of their convictions. I cannot remember any other central govt. which has ever taken back major reforms not once but twice. Utterly shameful.
Fucking coward. He should resign now. He just emboldened radical elements. Shameful day.
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/farm-laws-repeal-shows-modi-has-made-discretion-the-better-part-of-valour
Very disappointing that India couldn’t pass this basic reform, leading to economic modernization.
Valour? Modi has no valour. He starts something, drags ass, and then backtracks, making dupes of all his supporters and friends, appeasing people who won’t vote for him. He’s an IRL troll.
Even the much berated Manmohan Singh risked his govt. on the Indo-US nuclear deal, a decision he felt was the correct one for India at that time.
Modi is cowardly, unprincipled rat who would do just about anything to stay in power. And for what? BJP isn’t that different from other parties at the ground level. True, they did get the Ram Janmbhumi for Hindus and removed Article 370 but they have now gotten themselves and their supporters badly humiliated by both Muslims and Sikhs.
Ending political protests in India was never difficult. Just ask the opposition in Bengal or Kerala as to how its done. But if the party in power has harebrained schemes about winning power in Punjab with Sikh support what can they do except appear weak and powerless.
Can’t even give Modi much credit for RJB, Advani did all the heavy lifting before I was born.
And 370 is frankly more brainchild of Amit Shah. Modi has 5 major things he has failed at:
1. Farm reforms (support)
2. Labor reforms (support)
3. NRC/CAA (not really a supporter of this in and of itself)
4. UCC (big supporter of this)
5. Whatever the fuck demonetization was supposed to accomplish (fine I will give you that it sped up digitization)
Things I am iffy about
1. COVID-19 (maybe could be handled better but everyone would botch this)
2. China incursions (very hard, they are stronger than India so hard to do, at least Modi has some infrastructure push)
3. Relations with neighbors (again hard to do because China is buying influence all over with string of pearls)
4. Bakalot- they botched this shit badly but they actually showed the resolve to enter enemy territory and bomb something. This sends some sort of message that India is willing to defend itself with aggressive moves, when it concerns cross border radical Islamic terrorism.
5. Delhi air pollution (hard for any party to take this on)
Good things
1. GST
2. Ram Mandir
3. Article 370
4. Selling off some state owned companies (eg. Air India)
5. Building toilets (open defecation has gone down, not as much as we wanted but it is better)
6. Clean India initiative. some cities noticeably cleaner. Air pollution still worsening as above though
If this is the way Sikhs and Kashmiris behave, I don’t think Hindus are doing themselves a favor by insisting on keeping everyone in the Indian union.
I would say just carve out Hindu areas from Punjab and Kashmir and give the rest of it freedom. Kick out all Sikhs from other parts of India to their Khalistan and kick out all Kashmiri Muslims (and Rana Ayyub types) to independent Kashmir. Lets do a full population exchange. No half hearted measures this time like in 1947.
I dare say an independent Khalistan would not produce rice and do stubble burning since there would be no one in the international markets who wants to buy their pesticide laden produce.
That will save us from spending so much of our energy on these stupid fights and allow us to spend it on what really matters. Economic upliftment of rest of India cannot happen if we keep fighting medieval minded lunatics.
The other way is the China way. Keep the minority trouble makers under the heel instead of mollycoddling them. There should be an immense cost to being anti-India and anti-Hindu in India. I don’t think Hindus and India are strong enough for this though. This is beyond our ability.
While we are at it lets also give away whichever parts of the North-east which want independence from us. Seriously what benefit does a Hindu from UP or from Andhra get from Nagaland being a part of the Indian Union. We can’t settle there, do business or buy land even. The costs of keeping it are huge. Permanent army installations, low level insurgency killing our people etc.
Empire building and superpower status is for strong self-confidant communities with great asabiya, not a people whose elite regularly shit on their own co-religionists for $300 dollar assignments in the western media.
Hindus look weak and underfed even when compared with the most strive torn parts of Africa. UP, Bihar and other large parts of the country literally have no industries to speak of. No culture of entrepreneurship, neither of education or of sporting excellence. Lets concentrate on these things.
Poora be-ijjat kar diya sare ne.
The post and comments show how bereft people in general have become of common sense. Either they don’t know reality of India or they know but don’t want to accept it. India is in fact a multicultural, multi religious, multi ethnic, multi linguistic and multi multi and —- country. In this multi world based on your own perspective you want to impose your one sided views. Shame on you nincompoops.
Vajpayee put Nation over politics. In the next election, the Nation chose Sonia over Vajpayee.
The most commonly worshipped divinity in the Kutch regions around Dwaraka is Ranchod, a form of Krishna based on an episode. The name literally means “one who flees the battlefield” – Ran+Chod. Krishna flees the battle from Kalyavan and hides in a cave.
The portmanteau “RamaKrishna” is given to many people in the subcontinent. The philosophical underpinnings of this name is lost to most. So why a mix of Rama and Krishna? Krishna, as the Godhead, possesses qualities that are quite radically different from those of Rama. Rama is morally perfect while Krishna is not. Krishna adopts stratagems that are murky and actually quite underhand – the killing of Karna, for example. Bimal Matilal called Krishna as the “devious divine”. Sometimes it takes more than moral outrage and purity to achieve goals.
Modi is a politician – and he is acting like a politician. I miss the point of the outragers.
Oh please, there’s no 4D chess here. If BJP wins assembly elections and then 2024, they’ll just go back to dicking around and Muslim-baiting for 5 more years, or however long it is until they’re gone. They don’t have the inclination, and they possibly don’t have the wherewithal, to do any more than that.
Oh please…….All the pontificating sheep sitting on their asses and blogging & tweeting “Modi Bad”. This is all you can do.
Where is the street power of the side that wanted reforms? Where is the muscle that countered the other side? Where are the ground enforcers of the Reforms side?
The Indian Right are a lot of islands – and do not have any pan-India heft. For some states, there are. It is not just important to win – but to win assertively. Unfortunately the farm laws really seemed like a lame duck win unlike Art 370 or RJB.
And add to this the Jat synergy among Hindus and Sikhs. That really stood out. Really really stood out. No farmers in Haryana, UP or Rajasthan really made a counter move.
Almost every other state is wanting for a sub-optimal farm reform at the least. I hope this setback will crystallise a ground level movement for the reform. At least at the State level.
Who remembers the Land Reforms that was also rolled back by Modi after “suit-boot ki sarkar jibe” by RaGa?? Which state nullified it by a State Amendment? Tamilnadu. Supported by the Governor and the President (BJP appointed)……..They then fought all the way to the Supreme Court which also backed them. Now Maharashtra and Gujarat are following Tamilnadu in nullifying the UPA Act for Land Acquisition.
Time for you to start understanding Centre-State devolution. It is 4D chess. You don’t read the newspaper beyond Page 3.
See, if that’s all true, then Modi shouldn’t waste time with putting forth economic reforms. He should just be the Hindu nationalist, and I’d support that if he was good at it.
It’s possible that India is constitutionally incapable of reforms. I certainly do think India isn’t really capable of development beyond a per capita GDP of $7000 (nominal) or so, given its dismal human capital. So for me, economic issues are a sideshow with a very limited rate of return. Better to focus on the cultural agenda.
But nothing looks worse than flailing around and backtracking like this.
I actually disagree quite strongly about the $7,000 nominal GDP thing. I think if India doesn’t get past this point in 20-25 years I will be quite shocked.
India has self-imposed chains weighing it down. A lot of the problems are interlinked (for eg. education levels, malnutrition, governance). It is a bit like trying to sort out a tangled bowl of spaghetti, it seems really hard a intractable in the short run, but given multiple angles of attack the problem can be solved and due to the interlinkages becomes easier over time if you can get a virtuous cycle going ( I believe India already has this cycle going for it).
Also if economic complexity is high then you are better off using PPP as a metric rather than nominal. This is why for eg. I think China’s military spending is underestimated since they are getting to the point where they can make everything themselves, PPP has become a better metric.
lots of small farmers are already out of agriculture. this is seen in karnataka as a number of manual labourers, guards and others i have spoken to have left farming. the farm sector will change itself as per its needs.
modi will continue selling public factories, building roads etc. he will fade out the way advani has done.
One theory I’ve seen is that Modi & Shah feared the possibilities of Sikh radicalisation that could be exploited by Pakistan to create turmoil at New Delhi’s doorstep. There has been a notable ramping up of attacks in Kashmir in recent months and if Punjab was in turmoil/militancy, the security situation would worsen considerably.
But even that theory is moot. We forget that the SC had already stayed the laws. I am not a fan of judicial overreach of the kind that we see in the US, and it seems Indian democracy has copied the worst aspects of the American one.
will not the punjabi sikhs feel slighted with the spin that modi withdrew these bills because of khalistanis.
I didn’t think I would ever say it. But I agree a lot with Ugra.
Modi/bjp/rss have entered the consolidation phase after expansion phase has ended. I feel the CAA will also be given a silent death. Now no more expending political capital on less/non hindu ethnicities on the votes/power of more Hindu regions.
It started with the fall of AIDMK, and then Bengal, good money is no longer being thrown after bad money, to keep the ship afloat. Same with CAA, there is no need to help less Hindu ethnicities who can’t help themselves. I think there would be sort of pullback from article 370 as well.
Now it’s time of consolidation the Hindu regions, to try to minimize damage. The farm laws was creating a unnecessary focal point for opposition forces. Once it goes away farmers will fall back to their older caste and communities cleavages, which hindutva can unite. It’s not about Punjab, and neither about UP ( Jatland was never a BJP strong hold anyways). It’s to nip in the bud , anything which gives the opposition succor, while consolidating ur strength.
> Same with CAA, there is no need to help less Hindu ethnicities who can’t help themselves.
I am at loss for words for Bengali Hindus. There was more protest in Tripura against what happened in Bangladesh as compared to West Bengal.
How can one be this Nirmohi/निर्मोही? If something happens to a Bhaiyya in Punjab I get just as pissed as it would have happened in Maharashtra.
West Bengal and Punjab. Both state which had to do with CAA, have passed resolutions against CAA.
For how long does more hindu regions have to carry the cross for less Hindu regions?
Sometimes I think that Bangladesh should just take over West Bengal and turn it into an Islamic republic. Will at least stop the decay. Bhadroloks are already going extinct. By some surveys they have a TFR of ~1.
Kolkata had the first metro in the entire subcontinent in 1980s. By 2030, Dhaka will have a better and larger metro system than Kolkata.
And Kolkata is the only city in West Bengal whereas Bangladesh has 2-3 – Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet. The Dhaka-Chittagong belt is going to be the industrial center in the entire sub-continent.
Finally someone who gets when I say lesser asabiya = stronger asabiya. Cannot forge a stronger unity with heretics in the fold.
Why construction of Kolkata Metro is so slow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-EEkVOyMnw
Short answer: Bengalis being the over-smart people they are, do not take any loans (not even the almost free Japanese ones) for Metro construction. All Bengalis not just the Bhadraloks are pig-headed and will put ideology over their own interests. Let them do their thing.
Dhaka metro is being built at an exorbitant cost compared to anything in India. But they take loans.
@Bhimrav
> Bengalis being the over-smart people they are, do not take any loans (not even the almost free Japanese ones) for Metro construction.
Not over-smart, cheap. They didn’t want to foot the 50% (even as a cheap Japanese loan).
Dayan/Pishachini wanted railways (i.e. central government) to pay for the entire network.
Whereas, in every city of the country, it is 50-50 with state and center.
But every Bengali will talk as if Kolkata is a tier above Tokyo or London.
You can’t win an argument with these folks dude. Let them enjoy the fruits of their Bengali-ness.
https://theprint.in/opinion/the-india-that-vir-das-and-liberals-want-and-the-one-they-wont-talk-about/767674/
So many of you want to break India apart into little pieces. Just sad.
It is an interesting counterpoint to demands for Sikh, Muslim, Tribal, Christian, Dravidian etc. homelands.
Concede to their demands but demand a Hindu homeland with a more or less complete population transfer for partition 2.0. (make liminal Hindu groups decide how they want to identify).
This is more respectful of Human Rights than a domineering Chinese style approach (not realistically within India’s capacity) and less economically dysfunctional than an appeasement approach.
At the very least it shifts the overton window in discourse. So now preventing Balkanization can become a talking point for moderate Indians from all religions rather than coming off as a Hindu imposition.
Sounds like the “shifting” is to a position of weakness. It is sad that we have come to moderates entertaining separatism as something viable.
My expectations for India have declined tremendously. I hope for the best and still support policies that push forward the notion of free people, markets, and unity under one flag. But prospects look worse than ever in the last couple of decades. I used to think of India as a forever country of the future, one that could at least achieve decent middle income status. Now I am becoming doubtful of even that.
Nonetheless, the fight cannot end. I refuse to change paradigms.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/21/india-farm-laws-repeal-protests-democracy/
Just lmfao
Density map showing towns with Persian toponyms in India, specifically names that end with “abad”.
https://twitter.com/arya_amsha/status/1462637992649003009
Eight centuries of Gangetic Hindu incompetence shown graphically.
Also note that the regions that have the least density of Persian toponyms are the highest economic performing regions in India today. Some maps have the instant power to vanquish secular narratives. Poof!!
Those are just places that happened to be under a longer Turco-Influence because of their geography (Plains). I don’t think there would be a huge difference between UP and MP Hindu “incompetence”. And I am pretty sure that Southern and Eastern Hindus weren’t too independent during that period, were they?
No, there is no visible pattern. Punjab, Haryana and West UP are well above much of the less dense Persian toponym regions, on economic grounds.
Awards for Hindu ‘incompetence/cuckery’ in the present political landscape would hands down go to Southern and Eastern Hindus btw. This is what matters, not 700 year-old Kingdoms.
“ Awards for Hindu ‘incompetence/cuckery’ in the present political landscape would hands down go to Southern and Eastern Hindus btw. “
Folks from Less Hindu regions don’t get it. It’s futile to argue with them. With 700 odd years of Muslim rule, the Hindu heartland still remained Hindu.
While the less Hindu regions converted to commie-land and Dravidian-land even without foreign rule. Tells a lot about different regions.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/truth-lies-and-politics/has-modi-lost-have-farmers-won/
https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/another-day-in-the-woke-era-university-of-california-to-no-longer-use-standardised-tests-for-admission
Lmfao even Indian media sees America going to shit
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/india/farm-laws-repeal-skm-demand-msp-farmers-narendra-modi-7634543/lite/
Lol of course they want more. Blackmail won’t end. Modi should take federalist approach. Once different states see where disproportionate benefits are going and the inefficiency of the current system and the boogey man is no longer “Hindu Fascist Mudi,” the rent seeking blackmail will be exposed even more so. But more importantly, the incentive structure to challenge it will change simultaneously while taking away the current unifying narrative propaganda, one that won’t be easy to recreate on a state vs. state level.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/indias-modi-backs-down-on-farm-reforms-in-surprise-victory-for-protesters.728642/
Lol funny how there is even mixed opinion on Pakdefense.
https://theprint.in/opinion/our-survey-shows-farm-laws-are-popular-modi-was-correct-in-assessment/769848/?amp
To a question if the farm laws were beneficial for the farmers or not, more than 50 per cent said they were indeed beneficial. Interestingly, close to 47 per cent of opposition supporters and voters agreed that the farm laws were beneficial for the farmers. In earlier CVoter Tracker polls also it was clear that huge number of farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP were against the farm bills, but an equally overwhelming number of farmers outside these two-and-a-half domains across all other states were in support of these farm laws.
This was rent seeking caste revolt. Makes money on the backs of UP, Bihari migrants + chamar labor using unsustainable farming practices in an unsustainable supply demand market, where leeching off of the tax payer money is endorsed, given the government is forced to buy crop way above global market value, despite more than 2.5x surplus with grains rotting away. All the while depleting the water table because of inefficient techniques. But it’s ok. Some can run to Canada after desertification takes place. Then the BJP can be blamed again for not doing enough and supporting the evil Adana Advani robber barons….
Don’t get started on stubble burning. The combo of pure rent seeking selfishness and toothless government that could not take on this tribal behavior because of open foreign and leftist media support.
That UP/Bihar labour is getting educated (at least their kids are) at a rapid pace. Punjab will be left behind.
Punjabi’s don’t want to live in India (similar case for Haryanvi’s but to a lesser extent).
UP East is already being connected to Delhi. Bihar would be too, soon. I believe a high-speed rail between Delhi-Varanasi-Patna-Kolkata will happen before the one from Delhi-Panipat-Chandigarh-Amritsar.
Even the Delhi RRTS’s. West UP+ Haryana + Rajasthan will be much more developed than Punjab.
No reforms for people who do not deserve reforms. No need for federalist approach etc whatsoever. Break FCI for different states and let states procure food for themselves.
Also half expect BJP to oppose anything with the name reform and agriculture in the same sentence in the future, once they are in opposition. Once their land becomes deserts only then these people will have some sense knocked into them. Then i will check how many of these NRI-sikhs do their ‘brown mundes’.
Similar to my solution to less-Hindu problem, impose cost on the heretics. But then i have a feeling the BJP/RSS is too soft for this way out.
Asabiya wins! and defeats the biggest elected majority parliament in over 30 yrs making a total mockery of parliament, Pm, elections, democracy, fairness and truth. Asabiya defeats them all and stands arrogant and triumphant.
To those saying, we should let separatists have own states etc, disappointment can lead to bad judgement, one should guard one self against that. Hindus are stupid to believe in magic words of “democracy”, “justice”, “truth”, “fairness”. These things are cultural products that are outcome of tradeoffs, balance of power between different parties, individuals, entities, groups etc. Victory is in building asabiya and then doing fair trade offs. propagate and incentivize icm, they are open to all, so no discrimination, use, temples, education, hospitals to propagate own asabiya.
present bjp victory is build on back of rss created asabiya, so , do more, give urban areas, more seats, do gerrymandering etc.
people are hurt, but stop bitching and wailing. see the martian movie, thats where we are, just pick things up and start again. Your responsibility to civilization does not begin or end with voting once every 5 yrs. On Rss saying they should not focus on India being superpower but vishwa guru, sure, then branch outside India, and go ahead and do that, get other people to join you and work in rest of the world as well. If that is your mission, go forth and multiply. But H’s should by now learn theory of mind. Learn what others are thinking and doing. so those are 2 things one needs to focus on.
1 Build Asabiya,
2 do anthropology/ theory of mind,
even science, industry, economics comes under understanding others.
https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/qzcdri/farm_laws_repeal_farmers_harden_stand_put_forth_6/
We even many people in r/india are realizing the truth. Lmfao of course after the fact. This so pathetic. The country gets the government it deserves. Fucking spineless.
One of the biggest gainers would have been onion farmers of Maharashtra.
But the likes of Pawar kept quite because they aren’t from Baramati and don’t vote for NCP.
Don’t look at /r/india. Den of chutiyas. One such chutiyas is advocating for MSP for avocados https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/qzcdri/comment/hlnu1p5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
“MSP as a legal right”.
What’s wrong with avocados? I also demand MSP for strawberries 🍓 😊
Lira keeps falling. Erdogan has two more years to go.
###
Kanpur Metro to be operational by next month. If dumps like Agra and Kanpur can pull it off, I am sure every Indian city can.
~35 maybe even 40 Indian cities will have metro by the end of the decade. 35 systems in <15 years, that's progress.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/karnataka-mahasabha-set-to-launch-ghar-wapsi-drive/articleshow/87840800.cms
this will be interesting. others will also begin this kind of activities.
will be intersting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/r05uik/jat_governor_satya_pal_malik_boasts_that_if_modi/
Like I have said. This is a caste revolt. Corrupt people are now openly bragging about possible treason. Fuck Modi. He let these bastards win. He has no resolve. Shutting down roads like this for so long isn’t protest. It is economic terrorism. Stubble burning, the plurality contributor to the smog, is ecoterrosim. He refuses to stand up to the evil leaders of these protests. Tikait should be jailed.
Sad!
https://theprint.in/go-to-pakistan/fear-or-interfaith-harmony-hindus-in-pakistan-pay-fine-for-temple-attackers/770614/
https://theprint.in/india/assam-groups-ready-to-resume-anti-caa-protests-next-month-after-modi-govt-u-turn-on-farm-laws/770675/
Assam groups ready to resume anti-CAA protests next month, after Modi govt U-turn on farm laws
Steppe Eneolithic needs Indo-Iranian Neolithic genetic source for better qpGraph model!
https://a-genetics.blogspot.com/2021/11/steppe-eneolithic.html
India has a huge divergence between the number of people represented by an MP in North vs South.
There is going to be a delimitation in 2026 (Modi is building a new parliament for it too).
https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1463109373148819466
https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1463109385182318594
South Indians (especially Tamils) are absolutely losing their minds over it.
**For e.g.:** there are 39 seats for Tamil Nadu in Parliament and 80 seats for UP. If the delimitation is done proportionate to the population percentage, the numbers of MPs in TN will rise to 49(from 39), in UP will rise to 143(from 80), in Bihar will rise to 79(from 40) and in West Bengal will rise to 60(from 42).
I don’t think Modi has the balls to do it but even if half of it happens, South will become completely irrelevant in electing the Prime Minister of the country.
JDU-BJP government in Bihar to declare 29.500 acres of temple and matha land as national property.
BJP = Congress + Cow.
NPR accuses Mamta Banerjee of soft Hindutva. Lol
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1049523021/mamata-banerjee-modi-india-politics
Leftist Hinduphobia and radical islamoapologism grows.
Dawn seems friendlier to Hinduism now than WaPo or NYT does
Soft Hindutva with Islamist characteristics 🙂
It alright. I have met Bongs who feel Mamta isn’t left enough. Since she defeated the commies, she somehow anti-left, so right wing. LOL
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/for-first-time-indias-fertility-rate-below-replacement-level/amp_articleshow/87899133.cms
For first time, India’s fertility rate below replacement level
India reaching sub-replacement rate fertility is hugely consequential. India’s per capita GDP is just $2000. Unless India has an enormous reform push, it is likely to grow old before growing rich. The recent withdrawal of the farm bills is not a good sign in this regard.
India already has a small productive class that bankrolls the rest of the country so maybe it won’t be affected as much by this as other countries in similar situations ( it will definitely effect our potential but it’s not like we have a good record at realising that potential)
India is pretty much guaranteed to grow old before it gets rich. Especially because the impact of global warming will be felt in South Asia much more severely than in North America, Northern Europe, China, or Japan.
I actually want the Congress to come back so that we accelerate the whole ‘grow old before it gets rich.’ So that lolbertarians and Trad jokers (‘Congress+cow’, ‘Modi is a cuck’) can get the taste of some commie medicine. Seems they have had some memory loss.
https://theprint.in/economy/bengaluru-best-city-for-jobs-economic-growth-kolkata-worst-niti-aayogs-sdg-urban-index/771134/
Bengaluru best city for jobs & economic growth, Kolkata worst — Niti Aayog’s SDG Urban index
Overall, Shimla, Coimbatore & Thiruvananthapuram have topped the Niti Aayog’s SDG Urban Index, while Dhanbad & Meerut are the worst performers.
Astonishing how many Hindtards infest this site. Modi passed the bills as an economic reform measure. It was no reform at all but a sell-out of farm interests to his corporate cronies. When farmers organized themselves to protest they were showered with filthy communal abuse – typical of the Hindu right wing. The BJP communalized the protest. When the PM was forced to backtrack by circumstances his Hindutva fans, overcome with the vicious communal poison that infests their veins resorted to demands for another partition of the country. Such was the way of the Hindu Mahasabha in the 1930s that led to partition.
I have appended below a common sense view of the so called farm reform bills for those who want to learn the truth of the so called reform laws.
The Farm Laws and Farmer Protest.
All you need to know; what the journalists do not know and cannot tell.
Farming is a tedious business, and for urban folk an incomprehensible bucolic occupation they only know from their airconditioned cars, as they whiz along on the National Highways, or through the darkened windows of an airconditioned train. Many people understand vaguely that what appears on the dinner table has something to do with the toiling farmer, but they have as much knowledge of the process that leads to food on their plates as they do of the workings of the microchip in their smart phone – and as much interest. This is true of journalists as well, especially those who cannot stop telling us why the farm laws are such a good thing.
Are the farm laws good for the farmer? Emphatically, no! Are they good for the economy? No! So, why are there these continuing justifications that defy reality, history and economic theory, all at the same time? Sadly, if they do not spring from ignorance, misunderstanding or plain prejudice, it is (as in the case of the financial media) simply a vested or myopic self-interest that obscures the truth of the farmer’s case.
This piece is not about the constitutional issue. The constitutional illegality is self-evident, even though the Supreme Court has delayed pronouncing on it. Rather, the arguments below are about the badness of the laws – their innate inequity at best, and, at worst, their damnable malintent.
We need only a smattering of history and economics to understand why the laws are bad – the history first, and we won’t go back to feudal times or the British exploitation of plantation labour to grow Indigo in Bihar, or R C Dutt’s first protest on that inequity. We begin with modern times, and with the State of undivided pre-partition Punjab, which includes Haryana. It is this area that is leading the current unrest. We shall try to outline the problem first, and then see if the so called reform laws are a solution, or even a reform.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Punjab government realized that farmers, (and from whose ranks the bulk of the Indian army was drawn, were severely distressed because grain traders who were also moneylenders, were gradually taking possession of land in repayment of debt. The government realized that serious reform to protect the farmer was needed and in a series of orders spearheaded by Malcolm Darling of the ICS took steps to ensure that farmers did not lose their land to urban traders and money lenders. This gave birth to the Unionist Party which ran a secular movement for the protection of rural interests cutting across religious boundaries. The Alienation of Land Act stopped further transfer of their lands from indebted farmers to money lending traders.
While the agriculturist’s lands were saved from the money lender his exploitation on prices continued. Indebtedness continued to mount because collusive purchase by traders ensured that prices remained low or at bare subsistence level. In 1938 Sir Chhotu Ram the eminent Jat leader from Rohtak was Agriculture Minister in Punjab’s Unionist government. To him lies the credit for creating regulated agricultural mandis or markets which ensured that the trader was not able to exploit the farmer. All grain had to be sold in the mandi, with strict conditions governing the sale.. Earlier grain was purchased cheaply on various specious grounds, direct from the farmer. Now with the mandi system legally enforced, collusive purchase as well as underpricing on account of quality was much reduced. The mandi system made it difficult, even without mandatory minimum support prices for the trader to exploit the grain producer
Let us remember that these were times of grain scarcity. Demand was not lacking at a time when the country barely managed to feed a population of less than 400 million. Chronic malnourishment in rural areas was the norm and starvation deaths frequent. Yet farmers did not grow rich, nor rural society become prosperous. In fact, as we know, the situation deteriorated after independence when grain production could not cope with demand and Public Law 480 enacted by the US government kept India fed, ship to mouth. Those who lived through the famine stricken 60s, especially the great Bihar famine of 1964 will know what I am talking about. The private sector, by which is meant then, private traders, hoarded grain and profited hugely. The Hoarding and Profiteering Act was brought in specifically to unearth stocks of grain hoarded by traders for scalping the poor at a time of great scarcity. This is natural, need I say it, how markets always behave, even now for any commodity.
India was saved by the green revolution which came with the high yielding Mexican wheat varieties of Dr. Norman Borlaug and the high yielding rice from the International Rice Research Institute. Production began to rise because farmers, especially in Punjab and Haryana and west UP began to invest in tubewells, tractors, fertilizer and pesticides. A system of procurement prices was introduced. The regulated mandis ensured that all the grain was purchased at the support price. Traders could not exploit the grain producer because government was a ready buyer, even when production was surplus to need, initially to build up buffer stocks, and for price support. This led to higher farm incomes and eventually to over production of grain in Haryana and Punjab.
Over production of wheat however is not so much of an issue if the Government refrains from periodic bans on wheat export. The problem facing Union Government and the country is over production when it has to be bought and stocked. Current inventories of grain are in the region of 70 million tonnes. That is massive indeed with a humungous holding cost. 70 million tonnes is roughly what India produced annually in the mid-sixties. How do the farm laws solve the problem of over production? They do not, and cannot.
The next question is whether the farm laws reform anything. Reform implies improvement. The regulated mandi is a market. How is abolishing the kind of market that has helped farmers be good for them? This requires us to look closely at the economic arguments which are purported to support the Union government.
The economic reform argument rests on the old liberal principle that free markets must be allowed to operate without government interference. Added to this is the neo classical economic argument that perfect competition between infinite numbers of buyers and sellers establishes a correct market price. It was the liberal principle of free markets that forced Prime Minister Robert Peele in mid-nineteenth century Britain to repeal the corn laws which banned grain imports when a famine was raging in Ireland because of potato blight. Though it was a Conservative government Peele had to resort to Whig liberal support to ram through the repeal. So, can we suppose that this socially conservative BJP government has had some sort of liberal epiphany – to help the farmer in India’s case? No, not at all!
The Government has never been in favour of free international trade in agricultural commodities. It regularly bans export of cotton to favour mill owners, and wheat to favour urban consumers.
Markets are hardly ever completely free, and they are never perfect. The neo classical argument collapsed after the 1930s onwards when some brilliant economists at Cambridge University led by Joan Robinson demonstrated that markets were never free and competition usually imperfect. This meant that prices were not arrived through the market mechanism of supply and demand but through price fixation by underhand collaboration of buyers. We all know about monopolies, but thanks to Joan Robinson terms like monopsony and oligopsony entered economic parlance. These describe situations where markets fail to perform because buyers collude, or there are too few of them, oligopsony, or even only one, monopsony.
If there are just a few buyers, or only one, sellers must accept whatever price is offered. This is precisely the situation that the farm laws seek to bring about. They will leave the farmer at the mercy of the buyer. Government as monopsonist is acceptable to farmers. But when government stops buying, private oligosonic cartels will dictate the price – take it or leave it. This is the nub of the farmers argument and the reason why farmers are so agitated. It is just nonsense to say that the new laws will benefit farmers. Nothing could be worse for them.
Economists who support the farm laws have either forgotten the elementary principles of their discipline or are being wilfully obtuse. In a situation of scarcity private buyers would have been expected to pay high prices, but they do not, as we know from the experience of undivided Punjab before Sir Chhotu Ram’s reforms in 1938. If the lessons of history are not enough, we have the experience of our own times. If farmers were not safe from underhand deals of traders even during times of scarcity how safe are they when production is massively surplus.
Potatoes were going for 75 paise per kilo at the farm gate when consumers paid twenty times the amount to the sabziwala. Onions and tomatoes are regularly left to rot because the private trade would rather pursue high profits than fair practice. Sugar cane growers go unpaid for years for up to two years as the sugar barons grow fat on the interest of sums due to the farmer. Kinnow growers in Punjab get ten rupees for a kilo. The fruit rarely retails at under fifty rupees a kilo. Under Imran Khan his supporting fat cats have gotten even fatter profiting off sugar and wheat while farmers and consumers both cry themselves hoarse. Why does Government think that traders will act any differently now?
In the time of scarcity, the fifties and sixties, traders and dealers of food grains were regularly raided and prosecuted under the Defence of India rules for hoarding and price scalping. This time around it is the farmer who is the villain, the anti-national, the Khalistani, not because he exploits the consumer but because he wants to protect himself and his family. The maledictions of a well-honed machine spit out obloquy as a weapon of first resort to damn honest toilers who now happen to produce more than the nation can consume because they have been historically asked to produce large surpluses.
The farm laws will lead the farmer to produce less, because he will not be able to produce more. His income will drop drastically. Farm suicides will increase because the farmer does not have the option to escape to London or one the Caribbean Islands. In any case farmers are honourable folk who feel dishonoured by debts they cannot pay off unlike the businessmen who scam their country of thousands of crores and fly away when asked to repay. One rarely hears of a businessman taking his life because of business debts.
India’s economy will suffer too. Demand for tractors, fertilizer and pesticide, and farm equipment will collapse. There will be a general lessening of demand for other consumer items and white goods which a prosperous rural sector engenders, with a corresponding decrease of jobs in the rural economy. The urban consumer cannot expect to benefit. There is no link between prices paid to farmers and those paid by consumers at retail. A kilo of branded maize flour sold by one prominent business house retails for Rs. 150/ per kilo. Farmers complain that they get no more than ten rupees for it. This is what consumers can expect from these revolutionary farm laws.
And there will be large scale rural unrest. The government may concede nothing to this agitation, but it cannot prevent mass unhappiness. Even a government as quick as this one is to set its watchdogs on those who cross it will find it hard to suppress expressions of country wide rural distress; for, make no mistake, if farm prices fall in Punjab and Haryana, they will pull them down everywhere in the country.
There are solutions to the problem of agriculture surpluses, but the one government has chosen is not one of them. It will cause them to disappear of course, that much is clear, for reasons outlined, but it won’t do anyone any good, least of all the government. Even those investing in the farm business will not profit for long.
The problem of agriculture pricing is not unique to India. Everywhere Governments subsidize farming. It is the nature of the product that requires it. China, Japan, the US and Europe are al into heavy agricultural subsidies. That is why we had PL 480, wine lakes and butter mountains in Europe and such expensive rice in Japan.
BJP is a bania party at heart, and it operates with a bania mentality of its support group – buy cheap sell dear. The corporate form of baniahood is what the current Union government caters to in the form of Adani and Ambani.
Post-colonial India under the BJP has forgotten the solutions that the colonial state found for the problems of agriculturists. It now blames farmers for the problems that successive Indian governments fostered and nurtured. It has even forgotten the experience of post independence Congress governments. The farm reform laws, like the GST is an ill-considered measure, and like the demonetization, not sufficiently thought through. No good can come of them.
Lmfao the bania hate blaming from some grows. Very good. Please read what most serious economists are saying. Your rant is devoid of actual expert consensus.
And I have said no repeatedly to partitions on this thread. Only Saurav with his “more Hindu” stuff is pushing it hard and looks like others have bandwagoned.
Anyway, rent seekers don’t tend to care about economics. And the left only cares about maligning the right. India is a tribal disaster right now. Anyway, Punjab will keep sliding down economically and Haryana will still be supported by places like Gurgaon but now stuff like their job reservation rules will also bite them.
“Economists who support the farm laws have either forgotten the elementary principles of their discipline or are being wilfully obtuse. ”
Ok Mao
For those advocating a fresh partition a better suggestion would be for the Hindtards to move to a consolidated territory of like minded communal bigots. They cannot be more than 20 percent or so of India’s population. An enclave in Rajasthan close to the border with Pakistan is best. Thus sequestrated they can freely indulge in their aggressive maneuvres against Pakistan, which they like doing, and vent against other Indians. The rest of the country including Bengalis, Tamils, Malayalis, Nagas, Kashmiris and Punjabis can go about their business peacefully.
LOL, the way its going the ethnicities u mentioned might be the ones demanding separation…
I am perfectly happy to see a united Islamic Bengal if that’s what the people of West Bengal or even Assam want.
Ditto for the Kashmiri Valley people’s right to self determination and their freedom to join al Bakistan.
Same for the good People of Nagaland if they wish to leave the Indian Union. I would see them off as friends and brothers.
If Indian Punjabis want a independent Sikh homeland in a area where they are a majority I will support it.
If Canadian Khalistani supporters want to create a Sikh homeland in Brampton or something, I would support that too.
But if a majority of people in a Hindu majority area of India want a united Hindu state they must also have their right to self determination respected.
It is only fair.
“Friends and brothers”
Lol. Separatists don’t see you as such at all.
> The rest of the country including Bengalis, Tamils, Malayalis, Nagas, Kashmiris and Punjabis can go about their business peacefully.
Don’t you worry, Hindi belt will soon subsume you all.
https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1463109373148819466
https://twitter.com/indiainpixels/status/1463109385182318594
Lol. These folks are on borrowed time already. Let them have their sub-nationalism for couple of decades.
Just like hindutva subsumed Hinduism. Bharat will subsume India.
India’s Total Fertility Rate Drops Below Replacement Level of 2.1, Reveals NFHS Data – https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/general-news/indias-total-fertility-rate-drops-below-replacement-level-of-2-dot-1-percent-reveals-nfhs-data.html
All i can say is that extreme haters of Modi are hating him more than extreme supporters are supporting him and those who were in between now mostly have fed up attitude.Nationally he is still strong because other are weak and he still have powerful image and In states you know they are dependent .I m guessing In U.P SP gonna perform good but can they make govt?Up has no record of consecutive incumbency.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/11/27/for-indias-opposition-to-recover-the-gandhis-should-quit
Absolutely. This was true a decade ago.
After Modi did a U-turn on farm laws, people here be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFxASK_azYU
Till now there is no evidence to show that the majority of Hindus want an independent Hindu country nor that a majority of Bengalis want an independent Bengal. Nor have the Hindutva enthusiasts shown us evidence that Sikhs want an independent Khalistan. Crank Hindus, Sikhs and Bengalis may.
“nor that a majority of Bengalis want an independent Bengal”
You mean apart from 47 and 71? Yeah , true they have never wanted it…
https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/tata-in-talks-to-set-up-300-million-semiconductor-assembly-unit-say-sources/2376744/
$300 million is chump change in the world of semiconductors (TSMC invests $15 billion in new fabs), but it’s a start and it’s better than nothing. Hopefully we will have a proper Indian chip ecosystem from the design of chips to production. The software part is already taken care of.
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/i-am-a-victim-of-love-jihad-says-dalit-woman-who-accused-a-muslim-man-of-faking-identity-and-raping-her
No such thing as “love jihad.”
This is Rape Jihad.
Farming is a tedious business, and for urban folk an incomprehensible bucolic occupation they only know from their airconditioned cars, as they whiz along on the National Highways, or through the darkened windows of an airconditioned train. Many people understand vaguely that what appears on the dinner table has something to do with the toiling farmer, but they have as much knowledge of the process that leads to food on their plates as they do of the workings of the microchip in their smart phone – and as much interest.
Just 3 questions-
1. In which state is your farm located?
2. How many acres?
3. How long have you worked on it?
Counter the argument. Give up this ad hominem business. That is all Hindtards know.
“You mean apart from 47 and 71? Yeah , true they have never wanted it”
Who voted for independent Bengal in ’47’ and ’71’ ? Hindtard distortions again. You guys live off them.
Indian farmers are unproductive, unskilled rent seekers surviving on what loot they can force the government to hand over from the taxes it collects from the small productive urban population. Without market protectionism the actually productive people in urban India would be able to buy cheaper and healthier food from places like Canada and Australia instead of the being forced to pay above market prices for the trash that Indian farmers produce. Farmers should understand that urban India is doing them a favour by subsidizing their livelihood with our taxes and buying thier overpriced poor quality food.
Both Canada and Australia (and the US) heavily subsidize their farming sector at the cost of the taxpayer. It’s part of national security. A country that does not produce its own food is always at the risk of starvation should others turn off the taps.
There is balance. India overdoes it for some stuff and rent seekers are imposing greater and greater costs, both economic and environmental. They use their geographic and disproportionate army percentage as leverage. They also have a good amount of NRI money and foreign media support. This results in the ability to keep pushing that balance the wrong way via blackmailing the rest of the nation.
India has the most arable land but among the worst farming efficiency, both in terms of cost of production and environmental damage. And benefits are disproportionately going to groups with greater leverage, as is generally true but the government lacks the cajones to confront them.
Federalist approach is best with big money pot. Allocate set amount to agriculture. States have to negotiate MSPs among themselves for crops and how to keep farmers employed. The you will see how things turn when the right wing “mudi facist” boogeyman goes away. It will be clear where unsustainable, disproportionate, and unfair advantages lie.
Every government has proposed similar reforms for decades. This same group also blackmailed Rajiv Gandhi into free electricity.
I have no horse in the race, nor am I following this news, so couldn’t care either way. Only pointing out the obvious: that food security is paramount for any country, especially India lest they wish to repeat famines of the past. So from that point of view, subsidizing farming is not ”socialism” because all countries do it including the mighty capitalist USA.
The farm subsidy implementation in India is comically bad.
The current system results in economic incentives for farmers to grow rice in a dry state like Punjab.
I am sympathize with the farmers as well as it is not economically sustainable to have 45% or so of India’s population engaged in small scale agriculture. But there is no real alternative for semi-skilled jobs due to a lack of industrialization.
Btw unintelligently subsidizing stuff in the US is also leading to a disaster. Certain crop subsidization is insanely disproportionately responsible for water issues in places like California.
No one is saying pure free market. But India is inefficiently way too far in one direction to the detriment of everyone except the rent seeking protestor class. Leftists have just latched on because it hurts BJP. BJP did the same thing when the Left tried agricultural reforms.
I hope the BJP uses this as an opportunity to do just that. Agriculture is technically on the State List in the constitution. The govenrment should get rid of all ferderal agriculture programs/subsidies and give the money to the states based on the amount of farmland or farmers with environmental incentives to reduce stubble burning and ground water depletion. Procurement for FCI should be only what is required for the program or the government should get rid of it also and let each state run their own ration program.
With agriculture devolved to the state level BJP states can implement the farms laws. If farmers in Punjab or Haryana have a problem then they can blockade their own state capitals instead of laying siege to Delhi.
I don’t mind subsidies for agriculture but even China realizes that you need some market forces to ensure that you produce what people actually need. MSP results in a horrible waste of resources to produce poor quality wheat and rice that end up rotting in some FCI warehouse.
What I find most annoying though is the self righteous NRIs and liberals who portray the farmers as some kind of noble workers toiling selflessly in the fields to provide food to the country. These are the same kind of people who would have us believe that there is some kind of nobility in being poor. People are poor because they are not able to be rich. In the same way the farmers toil in the fields because they are by and large a group of semiliterate peasants that don’t have any other marketable skills. Those same NRIs and liberals also think that these farmers are somehow devinely entitled to enjoy a standard of living above what their subsistence levels of productivity warrants and that the government of India is “Facist” if it does not provide them the money to do this even if it bankrups itself in doing so.
@Bhimrao
What are your thoughts on this
https://carbonherald.com/israeli-start-up-makes-carbon-capture-balloons/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=israeli-start-up-makes-carbon-capture-balloons
Bhai prachand Bakchodi hai yeh, don’t buy it.
High-tech (inevitably low-volume) + Low value = failure
Most likely they will end up working on figuring out how to do guidance-navigation on balloons for imaging applications. I know at least two companies like this in the Bay Area who persevere even after Google Loon went defunct. The payloads possible(usually <<<10 kg) with balloons are too less a car emits 4-500 gm of CO2 per mile. Math doesn't work out.
https://www.stratoflights.com/en/shop/weather-balloon-3000/#:~:text=The%20Weather%20Balloon%203000%20is,the%20most%20out%20of%20it.
This is one of the biggest ones available. Measly payload of 3 kg.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/yourstory.com/2021/11/global-semiconductor-shortage-fabless-hub-saas/amp
Can fabless be the next SaaS for India?
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/girls-get-leaving-cert-results-boost-from-unconscious-bias-1.4665596
Girls get Leaving Cert results boost from ‘unconscious bias’
Gender gap under estimated marks wider than with traditional exams, SEC finds
another argument for standardised tests
Counter the argument. Give up this ad hominem business.
You spoke as if you knew a lot more about farming than the rest of us, so I just wondered if you’re from a peasant-class family. Surely you must have more experience than my uncles who have been farming for 60+ years, yes?
You get to call us unaware/ignorant, but it’s ad hominem if we question your credentials?
“counter the argument”
What argument? All you did was romanticize mandis and tell us that every single corporation out there wants farmers to commit suicide. Going by your hatred for greedy corporates, I’m sure you’ve never even set foot on American soil : )
https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/national/east-and-northeast/loans-could-be-only-alternative-to-run-mamatas-social-schemes-1055342.html
Loans could be only alternative to run Mamata’s social schemes
So how are farmers just rent-seekers? No doubt urban fellows would like to go back to subsidized foreign food at the cost of their own farmers. Ignoramuses such as some above have no idea how heavily Europe, Japan, the US and China subsidize their farmers. Read the article I posted and stop exposing your ignorance.
Through the 50s, 60s and 70s GoI was desperate for higher food grain production. Now that the farmers have delivered, and earlier government stopped the exploitation of the consumer and the farmer by trader interests, who are also BJP supporters, want to go back to the days of exploitation.
Over 50% of Indian populace are working in agriculture sector, producing only 15% of economic out put.
In how many developed countries do you have this. If their contribution was 50% of Indian gdp, that would be great, but the only scenario in which i can see it coming true would take us back to pre Industrial age. And no sane person should fancy that. so why not take time to try to figure out a way to solve this by making them more productive. One way is to turn them into health food and also increase govt spending on good nutrition for all Indians. Make it a mission. There is poor nutrition among Indians, young and old. Can some one calculate and tell the economic value to this transition?
Trying to answer my own question,
For example, eggs cost about 6 rs each, every male requires avg of 56 gm of protein per day. 1 egg has about 7 gm of protein. for females , the requirement is about 44 gm protein per day, it is about 8 eggs each, and 6 eggs each, on average it is about 7 eggs, adult populace is about 700 million adults, so, it comes down to about 400 million dollars per day, roughly. Multiplied 365 days, is about 143 billion dollars. And assuming egg is the cheapest form of protein. Throw in the fact many Indians are prone to diabetes, we need health food to deal with that, add in gyms etc.Assuming 500 rs a month for gym, lets say only 200 million , that is two out of 7 can be persuaded to go for that, it is 16 billion dollars, now add in a about 100 billion for health industry for diabetes and other stuff, it would be a maximum of 260 billion dollars at most, at a minimum of 143 billion if we force everyone to eat 7 eggs per day(good luck convincing people on that). That would mean, for 500 million in farming sector, it would give them a value of 520 dollars per year, or about 39k rupees per year extra, or at low figure of 143 billion dollars, it would be about 286 dollars or about 21k rupees per year extra. So, yeah, helath care on good food alone is not enough.Though in usa, the market for health food is about 700 billion and potentially upto one trillion by 2026 according to this report.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/502267/global-health-and-wellness-food-market-value/
, It seems, India can atleast afford to increase pocket change to lower income groups through poultry and other health foods by assuming, we have enough people to buy into this stuff, so one trillion of exchange from haves to have nots? Like amul, some kind of poultry cooperative could be worked out?. Assuming even 1 trillion dollars for health and wellness food market, it would amount to 2000 $ increase , which could increase Indian gdp from present 2000$ to twice the value, if w can increase export. This is one area, where perhaps we can do something?. Firstly at domestic level, to increase money to about 520 $ per year would mean about a quart of total gdp per capita value. And if one can export outside country more, and hopefully, get enough Indians to buy it here, we could make a significant difference to some small degree. 25% immediate goal, and twice the amount over few years. So, since this is pure speculation, can anyone point to better critique or better thought process to this?.
Parag Agarwal new CEO of Twitter!! Replaces Jack Dorsey….
The Desi colonisation of the technoverse is inching forward.
On a managerial note, this is a sign from the Board to Twitter to jettison its woke ways and return to its techno roots.
Parag joined as an ads engineer in 2011….so dizzying climb to the top!!
Agarwal, baniya from more Hindu region has less chance of being woke. But again, America changes you.
On the other hand, had it been banerjee or iyer ….
“But again, America changes you.”
Most likely case. You don’t get the captaincy without converting to the religion of your masters.
Just ask Yusuf Yohana.
On the other hand, this might provide fodder to the ‘dismantling global hindutva’ folks.
Good entertainment either way.
Hahaha….the local silure ran straight and hot to take the bait!
Twitter right-wing already analysing the new CEO, they found this from 2010.
https://twitter.com/paraga/status/28773976508
“If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.”
He could have easily made the case without any reference to Ms….but Gangetic Hindu Syndrome at it’s finest….what to do?? Intergenerational simping for harem daddy.
That’s fine. For the more Hindu region , woke is an outlier. For the less Hindu ones , the default.
https://www.quora.com/Initial-3-farm-laws-have-been-repealed-by-the-central-government-of-India-How-will-this-impact-the-future-of-Indian-farmers-and-the-Indian-economy/answer/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%9C%E0%AE%BF-%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B8%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%A8%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D-Balaji-Viswanathan?ch=10&oid=321128342&share=4e4139cb&srid=u6vS8&target_type=answer
Good answer
Given that India remains the single most important non-US market for all the tech companies out there, it makes sense to have an Indian CEO. I’m not surprised by people uncovering his woke tweets.
You don’t climb to those positions without accepting the political orthodoxies. If he had been loudly pro-Modi he wouldn’t have been promoted.
The US wants to ensure access to India but simultaneously change its culture to move it in a more liberal, pro-US direction. Employing sepoys is the best method for that.
” If he had been loudly pro-Modi he wouldn’t have been promoted.”
I agree to a large extent, but the FB and MSFT experience has shown that we cant be sure. No one knew that Zuckerberg will have such a hard on for Modi. FB has stead fastly been sympathetic to right wing, even going to extent of covering for Modi (Ankhi Das and all) , even when they didn’t have to.
Gates have regularly awarding Modi, even when they are calls to boycott him. Agarwal might be woke, but considering twitter’s antipathy towards Indian right wing (the whole Koo incident and all) , the only way is Up. Unless he wants to be more loyal than the king.
Pilgrimages, conflicts and naked women: A Russian merchant’s impressions of 15th-century India
Over three years, Afanasy Nikitin travelled from India’s west coast to the Deccan Plateau. His notes gave Russia its first glimpse of life in the country.
https://scroll.in/magazine/1011414/pilgrimages-conflicts-and-naked-women-a-russian-merchants-impressions-of-15th-century-india
Old charlie mungerquote on India…
https://tfipost.com/2017/02/charlie-munger-remarks-india/
“The Korean steel company, POSCO, invented a new way of creating steel out of lousy iron ore and lousy coal. And there’s some province in India that has lots of lousy iron ore and lot of lousy coal. Which is there’s not much use for. And this one process would take their lousy iron ore and the coal and make a lot of steel. And they got a lot of cheap labor. So POSCO and India were made for each other. And they made a deal with the province to get together and use the POSCO know how and the India lousy iron ore and lousy coal. And 8 or 9 or 10 years later with everybody screaming and objecting and farmers lying down in the road, or whatever’s going on, they canceled the whole thing. In China they would have just done it.”
Sad but true. Lol
“India is grossly defective because they took the worst aspects of our culture, allowing a bunch of idiots to scream and stop everything. And they copied it … They’ve taken the worst aspects of democracy,”
Lmafo.
India’s economy has expanded 20x since 1980, almost continuously. From starving in 1947, we now feed the world.
The farm bills made economic sense. But a population is much more than its material interests. In contrary to almost every nation in history, agriculturists are the political constituents in India. Not to mention the brazen way in which the BJP attempted this reform.
There are plenty of sub optimal economics decisions made in the US in the interests of the white middle class.
I agree the change is tremendous and I remain optimistic on India’s prospects.
But there is still plenty of low hanging fruit.
https://theprint.in/india/vindicated-say-uttarakhand-priests-as-state-govt-decides-to-repeal-char-dham-board-act/774441/
Vindicated, say Uttarakhand priests as state govt decides to repeal Char Dham Board Act
Long time, everyone. How are folks doing here?
What’s the latest on Omicron?
https://www.firstpost.com/politics/narendra-modi-showed-good-intent-with-farm-law-repeal-now-he-should-showcase-strong-decisive-leadership-10172241.html/amp
Modi is weak. We need a strong leader. We need a Deng.
Renounce your American citizenship with no possibility of getting it back. Become an Indian. Then you can be included in ‘We’ and tell us what kind of leadership we need. Otherwise, mind your own business.
What a churlish answer, Vikram. How do you know that he doesn’t have family and friends in India? If he does, then he has a very direct and personal stake in its future, regardless where he is currently located.
Many NRIs also support India via remittances etc. They are not just emotionally invested in India’s success but often also financially too. They absolutely have a right to talk of a we.
Nobody is ‘supporting’ India via remittances. People provide remittances to their families as per personal attachment and familial responsibility. There is no national angle here. If their families could move abroad, the remittances would stop. You cant compare remittances to tax revenue or investments, exports.
You found my reply churlish, but are indifferent to thewarlock’s infantilizing of Indians. I dont think you people have our best interests at heart. We are proud of our political system and have every right to be. It is based on the highest ideals, and weakening self rule in India is a red line.
Remittances are basically free exports.. (i.e. it has the same effect as exports without even using local capital) .. So it’s free money. Basically funds your imports without having a detrimental value to the currency or forex reserves.
A lot of instruments can fund imports, including debt. Remittances disproportionately finance consumption, and are in no way comparable to even the most basic exports. The economic linkages and skill ladders that underlie exports have vastly different implications than workers sending wages home. Its like getting a degree and going to work, versus living off a rich relative.
In addition a lot of Indian origin non-citizens of India also have permanent residency in India via Overseas Citizenship of India.
The Indian government should revoke this program if they truly believe we have no stake in the country’s success vis-a-vis any other non-Citizen.
You are merely one person with strange prejudice stemming from political orientation @Vikram.
Interesting to read @principia, @Vikram and @Querishi –
This kind of long-distance emotional attachments provided a two way flow of people, money and ideas historically and is the source of internal strife in many countries. Israel and the Jewish diaspora, Erstwhile colonies of Britain in America, France and Algeria etc.
In India, the Left agonizes over such distortion of an imagined paradise that NRI’s construct in their heads. The economists are quite happy with the remittances that NRIs do…..Querishi is correct – it provides a huge cushioning to other import activities we have to do with the dollar (petroleum etc). No question of it’s effects being confined to the micro-economy alone. Has huge tailwind effect.
Morally I feel that NRIs are entitled to their cultural projections. But keep in mind this is the same dynamic that drives Khalistan as well!!
Would love to see a Chinese poster come in and talk about the effect Chinese immigrants have on mainland China.
@Vikram – As a silent spectator all I know is that @warlock provides quality comments. Can’t say I can say the same about you.
And yes, people do support the country via remittances. Not to say, simply being outside the country gives you an additional perspective, something like when the astronauts see the earth from moon, they fall in love with their planet in a way they never did before.
Thirdly, you do not dictate who can have a constructive opinion about India or not. Feel free to chime what you have to say but stfu about others.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scroll.in/article/1011598/why-indias-offshore-wind-energy-potential-remains-untapped-despite-its-7600-km-long-coastline
Why India’s offshore wind energy potential remains untapped despite its 7,600 km-long coastline
https://theprint.in/india/potato-mango-guava-gram-mustard-can-transform-ups-farm-economics-adb-report-says/774632/
Potato, mango, guava, gram, mustard can transform UP’s farm economics, ADB report says
@Ugra, every economy dependent on remittances to purchase imports is a basket case (also produces a disproportionate amount of political noise).
Kerala, Sikh Punjab, Pakistan, Sri Lanka all have one thing in common: a dependence on remittances. Outside the subcontinent, we have the Philippines and Egypt.
The remittance curse might be worse than the resource curse.
Basket case might be too harsh a term. Kerala seems to have done well, its tier 2 and 3 towns seem developed more than what you see in even Maharashtra/Karnataka.
While outside the social media bubble Punjab too has done well. Outside of Delhi-NCR region and hilly states, its the best state in N-India.
Read a book on Israel’s early years and recall reading that something like 1/3rd of their first budgets came from remittances from American Jews. Even today, Israel is given a “special relationship” status with the US in large part thanks to the lobbying efforts of various Jewish organisations (the Christian Evangelical influence has collapsed since Bush was president, and this lobby effort is now mostly driven by Jewish orgs).
Clearly, Israel does not view its diaspora as a liability. Nor should it. So why should India? I’m frankly surprised how weak Indian-American political influence is. If I were in India, I’d work overtime to create brown versions of AIPAC. Whatever Indian orgs are doing, they are not being very effective. The money, the talent and the numbers (Indians are >4 million and rising fast) is already in America, it’s just waiting to be tapped.
Indian American influence is weaker and there wont be a brown AIPAC because Indian diaspora is already divided. Even before it can even muster some strength. Between Hindu/Indian nats VS commies/Dravidian/liberals (etc).
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/desis-divided
During the formative years of Israeli/jewish diaspora, there was no active movement to undue or push sanctions on Israel (unlike India’s case). Its only now we see a small split within. Without Asabiya, nothing is possible.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/india/gujarat-displaces-maharashtra-to-become-largest-manufacturing-hub-in-country-7650544/lite/
Gujarat displaces Maharashtra to become largest manufacturing hub in country
Maharashtra is the next West Bengal. Any society/city that goes high on culture will decline soon enough.
A grimy Surat is much better for humans than Aamchi Mumbai – Surat will give you livelihood, Mumbai will feed you vadapavs.
Indian states are anyways heavily dependent on that one city which pulls the revenue, which the politicians then redistribute. So i wouldn’t put too much into these variations. MH will again regain its spot. Unless actual commies come to rule these states, it does not really matter who rules these states.
Indian states are anyways heavily dependent on that one city which pulls the revenue, which the politicians then redistribute.
Except Gujarat. Its economic base is much more robust.
The attack on diaspora Hindus, by academics and support for such people from those in India reveals that the argument of minority/majority( that attack on minority is racism/bigotry) is not being held. Also, the fear that it will lead to racist/bigoted attacks on them was also a lie. It was and is a lie, a total lie. People should notice this for what this is. They do not follow their own said principles, it is making up as they feel.
https://theprint.in/india/how-christianity-is-growing-among-mazhabi-sikhs-valmiki-hindus-in-punjabs-villages/775047/
How Christianity is growing among Mazhabi Sikhs & Valmiki Hindus in Punjab’s villages
“ Christianity is growing in Punjab, mirroring what states like Tamil Nadu experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Small churches are springing up on the rooftops of many villages”
What ! Christianity on the rise in my beloved Hindu-heartland , the bestestttt state of all, tamizh nadu.
Oh my periyar !!
Bhai, itna khush hone ki jarurat nahi hai. There were/are proselytizing in Azamgarh/Jaunpur in East UP. Called “changai-sabha”.
Worker remittances have been a life saver for Sri Lanka. Most importantly kind of solved unemployment. Almost all remittance are from the Mid East and of that 70% from women working as maids.
The Govt benefits from getting foreign exchange (30%). The Policies of govt will influence on how that money is spent. Wasteful importation of consumer goods or used in useful investment.
For the worker they get to improve their life. Build a house, all the rage a tiled living room and an attached modern toilet. Then on education for children, in communities are inclined toward education. Plus they get exposed to “better” things in life and self respect. Thats why you rarely see huts in rural Sri Lanka. On the other hand this kind of foreign jobs are bad for those in SL who want an underpaid, subservient servant class with very limited opportunity.
Hopefully, the Govt will use the FX to develop economy so that the job wages can compete with mid east wages. Also develop skilled and semi skilled citizens. Already happening with males and some females and end up working in Korea, China.
These type of people are much better than those who get education then end up in the US. The mid east workers work hard and build up themselves and at the same time build up SL. Better investment and return for SL than those who leave permanently for the west.
Anecdote
There is a woman of Estate Tamil origin, cant read or write. She comes as a helper in a small construction I am doing. She has apparently worked for 10+ years in Kuwait. She said built a house with wall around property and husband sold it and went off with another woman. She has been trying to go to mid east again and was restricted by Covid. Now all geared up, has bought an acre of land and has a tin hut in place. Piped chlorinated water available about 25 m away and needs to pay for the connection. She will leave and be back in 2-4 years and have her house built.
Lanka FX by sector
https://imgur.com/gallery/x5fyhMR
Kanpur had a great industrial base in 1950, but failed to grow as much as then similar Bengaluru.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/r4rd6d/bangalore_and_kanpur_the_contrast_since/
Does anyone have sharper explanations beyond corruption, commies etc ?
in no particular order…
1. B’luru has better Climate.
2. B’luru has been melting fpr South + MH elites especially Brahmins.
3. High concentration of Central research institutes + IISc + ISRO + HAL + ADA.
4. Refuge of TamBrahms after DMK* pushed them out of TN govt jobs.
5. Peasant castes ( Lingayat, Vokkaligas, Kurubas) are content enjoying spoils of growth in B’luru RE aka don’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs.
6. The IT boom has enabled engineers from peasants + depressed classes to gain entry and mid levels jobs as well. Win Win.
I have felt Karnataka in general ( not only Bangalore ) more welcoming overall for outsiders.
Something which I realized quite late in life that, out of the 4 southern states, my closest friends happened to be kannadigas, even though I have more friends from the other 3 states.
“Refuge of TamBrahms after DMK* pushed them out of TN govt jobs.”
Thanks Bhumiputra. I think your point about the migration of Tamil Brahmins is a very pertinent one, and ties in with Saurav’s point about Kannadiga openness. It is interesting how much of new wealth over the past few decades has been created by immigrants of some kind.
We see the same dynamic in the US. Regions like the Bay Area and NYC are far richer (almost 2x salaries on average) than less welcoming regions in the interior.
I think N. Indian cities, with the exception of Delhi, are in general not as welcoming. There is a strong racial element to identity which can be very off putting. Think about the failure of Punjab to generate a metropolis despite its agrarian base and armed forces recruitment.
” I think N. Indian cities, with the exception of Delhi, are in general not as welcoming. ”
You can find Bengalis, and Punjabis in significant numbers in even smaller towns of UP. Tamils, Marathis, Telugus don’t have many reasons to come but whenever they do due to government service or marriage (I have seen many Telugu/Kannada guy – UP girl marriages recently) they are well received.
There are large Bengali and Punjabi communities in Kanpur from pre-independence times, re-enforced during partition. The city has lately lost a lot of its cosmopolitan character.
There’s been chronic under-investment in the city even by UP standards in favour of Lucknow.
I think Bangalore being the capital city might have helped in this regard. I also think a better comparison to Kanpur is Baroda as opposed to Ahmedabad.
Both were important industrial and transportation hubs that got left behind compared to their peers within the state.
For the longest time it was difficult to find direct trains to Ahmedabad or Lucknow. Baroda and Kanpur were prioritised on the Delhi to Bombay/Calcutta routes respectively. That has also changed of late.
My hope is that with better sense finally prevaling economically in UP and the opening up of the Ganga waterway, there’s a chance for Kanpur to kick start again. It will probably never reach the relative status it had back in the day.
We are also going to see a trend wherein Kanpur and Lucknow move closer to each other and will probably merge together into a single metropolitan area at some point in the future.
@Prats, I have big hopes for UP’s economy due to the waterway (should try to extend it to Noida IMO), dedicated freight corridor overcoming connectivity issues. So far, havent heard of any big ticket industrial investments along the Ganges though. They continue to be focused in the West and South.
@Vikram
Bangalore’s adjacency to Mysore – the stronghold of the Wodeyars who inculcated a strong scientific outlook in to the region without resorting to radicalism or instant modernity recipes. They couched it within the folds of Hindu thought and philosophies. Visveswarayya is the best example of this movement.
And a unique contributor to engineering prowess was that the region depended on lift-irrigation. So for a very long time Bangalore and Pune remained centres of diesel-pump-expertise in pre-independent India. This had knock-on effects on aviation – who also depended on piston engines. A lot of today’s central PSUs actually predate Indian independence. HAL was snatched and privatised. Aviation were among the earliest to use electronic components for automation – this lead to knock-on centres of excellence. Then into software…..so on and so forth.
Thanks Ugra. I had come across the pump to software chain in Damodaran’s book. While I agree that Bengaluru had specific advantages which led to software being centred there, Kanpur had no shortage of factors going for it.
Perhaps Ahmedabad is a better comparison. Even its textile businesses like Arvind Mills have continued to thrive venturing into new areas like automotive seating. Pharma is of course Ahmedabad’s software.
There is no reason Kanpur could not have continued to evolve with better technology, more diversified textiles, specialized metallurgy. Even in IT, IIT Kanpur was the hotbed of early CS in India.
North Indians have a tendency to get into set routines, Gujaratis and TamBrahms (in their own way) seem much more curious.
It seems we are on our way to become country of older people before becoming rich. The fantasy of gandhi/nehru/left idealism is coming true. In a way, we are becoming what their aspiration has been. Being poor, contented, still living morally(left view, without effective sovereignty, pride, a good doormat and a completely compromised state). What a tragedy. when will ai’s come and take over?. Because clearly the right did not get the memo, do reforms now, or stay poor for foreseeable future and allow others to meddle endlessly, conversions etc. Macaulay’s putra/putris have done their job. Bow down to this strategy of successful cultural imperialism of brits, 70 yrs after they left, their plan is still coming to fruition. And many Indians who led Indian Independence did it themselves. In the future, where all these will be analyzed, this will be seen as one of the most successful forms of modern cultural neo imperial project.
https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/1466570655516663809
but “they meant well” applies to Indian situation as well.
https://eurasiantimes.com/indian-hal-dhruv-helicopter-victorious-in-philippines-defense-deal/?amp
Indian HAL Dhruv Helicopters Likely To Emerge Victorious Over Airbus Choppers In Philippines Defense Deal – Reports
In Pakistan, a Sialkot Mob Lynches Sri Lankan Factory Worker to Death, Burns Corpse Over Blasphemy Allegations – https://www.dawn.com/news/1661728/sialkot-mob-lynches-sri-lankan-factory-worker-to-death-burns-corpse-over-blasphemy-allegations
IK has promised to go after those responsible, which is the least you’d expect. But given his appeasement of the worst religious nutjobs in Pakistan, he is indirectly helping giving rise to an extremist environment which will make these atrocities more likely.
As for Pakistan, I always read them complaining about why nobody is investing in their country. Here’s a very good reason.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-india-canada-international-student-recruitment/
Came across this today
https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/r7rej5/i_regret_coming_to_go_to_canada_and_its_only_been/
Interesting. The guy seemed very underprepared… still… the fact that someone earning 30K/mo back in India thought it was a good idea to go to Canada tells you that we’re in the midst of a bubble. How do you pop it without people getting hurt?
Canadian universities have been starved of federal funds, so they are turning ever more desperately to foreign students to plug the gap. In India, these edu/visa agencies just paint rosy pictures and laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, individuals have personal responsibility but the system is rigged to entice people and that’s the issue. Canada needs immigrants, but it also needs those immigrants to know what they are getting into.
This is the funniest post I have read this month. It seems like this guy was sold a bridge in a far away land and he was stupid enough to buy it with real money. Complaining about everything from bus not stopping (he didn’t pull the lever) to bank timings, Indians not helping him or the ‘high’ cost of food (it’s quite cheap if you earn in $$), or ”Canadians are polite but not real” and ends with ”this is a country set up as a late stage capitalist utopia.” He clearly thought he would be handed everything once he lands in Canada, only to be bitterly disappointed.
Frankly speaking immigration is not for everyone because it requires a lot of hustle on arrival, and his ”struggles” are something that every immigrant goes through without complaints. Most eventually make it to the other side and are rewarded handsomely.
One comment all the ‘Hinduphobia’ and ‘Casteism’ discussion online recently…
My experience as an occasionally bearded religious Hindu guy is the I have faced more ‘Islamophobia’ in the course of my life in the West than any other form of bias.