I read the FT article Rajan wrote, and one of his concerns was the climate impact of a large-scale manufacturing push in India. I think such an opinion is basically the norm among intellectuals anywhere except for those who are defiantly right-wing in their outlook.
That said, I’m not sure if the Modi govt’s manufacturing strategy is a prudent one. They seem to be going for high-end big-ticket manufacturing like chips, which require a high amount of skill and logistics and infrastructure but create relatively very few jobs.
We have an abysmally under- or un-educated population, so I think they should be shooting for low-end manufacturing at higher scale and building infrastructure for that. Also, focus on the early parts of supply-chain pipelines, not the end parts (i.e., finished goods and assembly), which require a more sophisticated, skilled, and smarter workforce than the one we possess.
daily wages in rural peninsular India are > INR 400. and that too for a few hours of light manual work. most heavy field work is done tractors + jcb.I don’t expect many takers for low end manufacturing. The revdi culture is ramping up in north as well. North has other drawbacks of higher transportation cost + messy land acquisition. Factories in South with workers from North only gives rise to more fault lines which are already being exploited and not sustainable long term.
BJP and RW are approaching issues on a good faith. you solve one they will bring another 10. The best way is to starve the beast. The last 10 years have seen middle mile infra push. Time now is to last mile infra. Focus on urban sewage and waste management (ban plastics), reduce cost of good quality education (private + public), improve student nutrition. We are at a stage where we need to improve our HDI index across the board not the top 10 or 20%.
On farm incomes, be tactical and have FCI start issuing contracts in key agri areas like eastern UP, BH, MH and MP. Have FCI leverage international shortages and recoup the money.
brown
5 months ago
was seeing modi on rajat sharma live today, modi is relaxed, looks like he will go building the legacy way, as he will not be contesting the next election. modi will certainly get ucc, single poll, anti corruption bill will be passed in first three months.
Sumit
4 months ago
Interesting paper on the genetics of medival swahili, I am a bit confused
“ with a large proportion—and occasionally more than half—of the DNA coming from Asian ancestors. The Asian ancestry includes components associated with Persia and India, with 80–90% of the Asian DNA originating from Persian men…
The same analysis concludes that the other source had both Persian and Indian ancestry. This is consistent with sub-Saharan Africans mixing with a group that already had a mixture of Persian and Indian ancestry components.”
wonder what this group would be and also I wonder how they are differentiating ‘indian’ from ‘persian’ since some groups in India do have Persian like ancestry, but afaik Persians don’t really have siginficant ‘indian’ like ancesty.
https://swarajyamag.com/economy/raghuram-rajan-finds-indias-manufacturing-push-concerning-says-authoritarianism-will-increase-if-bjp-comes-back-to-power
I don’t understand Raghuram rajan’s aversion to manufacturing. Especially when things like LLMs will be ending many simple service sector jobs
I read the FT article Rajan wrote, and one of his concerns was the climate impact of a large-scale manufacturing push in India. I think such an opinion is basically the norm among intellectuals anywhere except for those who are defiantly right-wing in their outlook.
That said, I’m not sure if the Modi govt’s manufacturing strategy is a prudent one. They seem to be going for high-end big-ticket manufacturing like chips, which require a high amount of skill and logistics and infrastructure but create relatively very few jobs.
We have an abysmally under- or un-educated population, so I think they should be shooting for low-end manufacturing at higher scale and building infrastructure for that. Also, focus on the early parts of supply-chain pipelines, not the end parts (i.e., finished goods and assembly), which require a more sophisticated, skilled, and smarter workforce than the one we possess.
daily wages in rural peninsular India are > INR 400. and that too for a few hours of light manual work. most heavy field work is done tractors + jcb.I don’t expect many takers for low end manufacturing. The revdi culture is ramping up in north as well. North has other drawbacks of higher transportation cost + messy land acquisition. Factories in South with workers from North only gives rise to more fault lines which are already being exploited and not sustainable long term.
BJP and RW are approaching issues on a good faith. you solve one they will bring another 10. The best way is to starve the beast. The last 10 years have seen middle mile infra push. Time now is to last mile infra. Focus on urban sewage and waste management (ban plastics), reduce cost of good quality education (private + public), improve student nutrition. We are at a stage where we need to improve our HDI index across the board not the top 10 or 20%.
On farm incomes, be tactical and have FCI start issuing contracts in key agri areas like eastern UP, BH, MH and MP. Have FCI leverage international shortages and recoup the money.
was seeing modi on rajat sharma live today, modi is relaxed, looks like he will go building the legacy way, as he will not be contesting the next election. modi will certainly get ucc, single poll, anti corruption bill will be passed in first three months.
Interesting paper on the genetics of medival swahili, I am a bit confused
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05754-w
“ with a large proportion—and occasionally more than half—of the DNA coming from Asian ancestors. The Asian ancestry includes components associated with Persia and India, with 80–90% of the Asian DNA originating from Persian men…
The same analysis concludes that the other source had both Persian and Indian ancestry. This is consistent with sub-Saharan Africans mixing with a group that already had a mixture of Persian and Indian ancestry components.”
wonder what this group would be and also I wonder how they are differentiating ‘indian’ from ‘persian’ since some groups in India do have Persian like ancestry, but afaik Persians don’t really have siginficant ‘indian’ like ancesty.