Thursday, September 28, 2017

Modi's 2019: Contested And Won Already

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Monday, September 18, 2017

Skipping Traditional Infrastructure In Rwanda



Indians skipped landline phones. They went straight to mobile phones. Now looks like Rwanda is going straight to drones, skipping roads and bridges.
“Countries like Rwanda can make decisions fast and can implement new technologies in concert with new regulations fast, so we’re now in a position where the US is trying to follow Rwanda,” says Keller Rinaudo, CEO and co-founder of Zipline. “They’re not trying to catch up to US infrastructure. They’re just leapfrogging roads and trucks and motorcycles and going to a new type of infrastructure.”

In early 2018, Zipline will officially kick off the world’s largest delivery drone service in Tanzania, Rwanda’s much larger neighbor. The Tanzanian government aims to use Zipline’s delivery drones to make up to 2,000 deliveries of medical supplies per day. Those deliveries of supplies such as blood products, medicines, and snake antivenom will go to more than 1,000 hospitals and clinics serving 10 million people. An operation at this scale will dwarf anything previously attempted in the drone-delivery universe.
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Monday, September 11, 2017

Priyanka Chopra's Unique Position To Influence

PC, having straddled the two biggest movie industries on the planet (by production volume and dollar volume) - Mumbai and Hollywood - is uniquely placed to influence how men and women see women.

Bruce Lee did not start out wanting to make movies. He was a martial arts innovator. But he got into movies because he figured that was the best way to reach out and teach the largest possible number of people. He was right. 

She acts, but also has her own production house. And she sure cares. 




She knows marketing Indian style, she knows marketing American style, and she knows marketing Chinese style. Her much anticipated Baywatch movie did so so in the US but earned major dollars in China.


I love to cook, time permitting. There is a secret recipe behind this chutney that I am willing to open source. The taste is an absolute delight, if you like it "hot." The top quality is it is super healthy. I also make pizza with whole wheat flour. मैदा स्वास्थ्य के लिए अच्छा नहीं होता। I make exceptionally good chicken curry, goat curry and fish curry. I make decent vegetable curries. दाल भी बहोत अच्छा बना लेते हैं। But enough bragging. चावल बनाने का अपना अलग स्टाइल है। लेकिन मेरा recommendation है रोटी खाओ। (रोटी बनाना नहीं आता) Health is supreme. Body Mass Index (BMI) ठीक रखो। Smoothie एक favorite item है। Grinder जिन्दाबाद। ये चटनी भी मुख्य रूप से Grinder में ही बना।
A post shared by Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) on

A post shared by Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) on

Gender is a social construct. Men can learn to take care of babies. Men can learn to cook. No problem. It is also about this point in time. The global economy is fast becoming a knowledge economy. Women, when given a chance, seem to have a leg up there. Many American colleges now make a point to admit enough men for gender parity even though their test scores suck.

I think there is room for a movie character who will lead the way on gender role transformation. I think there is room for a movie franchise around that character. I am thinking one movie every three to four years. A female James Bond, if you will, only she is not a government spy. She is a corporate leader on the cutting edges of technology and innovation. But movies being movies there are plenty of action scenes, sure.

मैंने एक script पर काम शुरू कर दिया है। Working draft हाथ में आ जाए तो पेश करूंगा।

A Movie Production House Big Enough For PC



I think there is room to build a company around the idea. The Internet could be the central distribution channel for the franchise.

So it is a challenge in gender role transformation, movie making (gotta use the latest in computer animation technology), as well as riding the wave of video as a medium getting mainstream online because soon gigabit will be all the rage in most parts of the world.

This is to be social science fiction. Has to feel like science fiction.




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बिजली, पानी, इंटरनेट और Access To Credit



सबसे जोड़ access to credit पर होना चाहिए। जिसको अमरिका में small business sector कहा जाता है और इंडिया में जिसे informal sector कह के dismiss कर दिया जाता है, भारतके अर्थतन्त्रका सबसे महत्वपुर्ण हिस्सा वही तो है। Job creation होगा तो उसी सेक्टर में होगा नहीं तो नहीं।

आधार revolutionary चीज है। Biometric ID से रास्ते खुलते हैं। विश्वके प्रत्येक व्यक्ति तक इसे पहुँचाना होगा। छोटेमोटे प्रत्येक बिजनेसकी रजिस्ट्रेशन उतना ही आसान कर दो। प्रत्येक चायवाला लोन ले सके ऐसा कर दो। Job creation आप हो जाएगी। Small business सेक्टर को एक पांच साल का टैक्स holiday ही दे दो। नहीं तो taxman के डर से बिना कारण बहुतों रजिस्ट्रेशन ही ना करबायें। और बगैर रजिस्ट्रेशन के वो बैंकिंग सेक्टर से जुड़ सकते नहीं। Demonetization का एक बड़ा फायदा ये हुवा कि जो बहुत पैसा बैंक में न था वो अब सब बैंकों में जमा हो गया है। मोदी FDI के लिए दर दर भटक रहे थे। पुँजी घर के भितर ही पड़ा था काफी। Now the banks can lend more. उतना ही नहीं बैंको पर प्रेशर बढ़ गया है। लोगों को बिजनेस लोन नहीं देंगे तो कैसे होगा? बैंक में जमा किया गया पैसा ब्याज मांगता है।


प्रत्येक गाओं तक गीगाबिट हाई स्पीड इंटरनेट पहुँचाना --- प्रत्येक भारतीय को कॉलेज डिग्री दिलाने का इससे अच्छा इससे सस्ता तरिका क्या हो सकता है? गाओं गाओं में हाई स्पीड इंटरनेट पहुँच गया तो फिर उसके बाद किसी को सरकारी दफ्तर जाना ही क्यों?

प्रत्येक को स्वच्छ पिने का पानी मिल गया तो स्वास्थ्य के हिसाब से एक ट्रिलियन डॉलर का फायदा समझो। वो और सुबह सुबह एक घंटा योग। मैं RSS का कोई बड़ा फैन नहीं हुँ लेकिन अगर उसी बहाने सबके सब सुबह योग करने लगें तो मैं कहुँ सब ज्वाइन कर लो।

प्रत्येक चायवाला को access to credit मिला कि नहीं? उसी प्रश्न के जवाब में मोदी का भविष्य है।



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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Modi's Remarkable Political Maneuvers Are Nobel Peace Prize Size



Of all the heads of state on the world stage right now, Modi is the most remarkable. He promises to be the economic Gandhi of India, the Deng Xiaoping, the Lee Kuan Yew. None of the three - the Mahatma, Deng, or Lee - had to contest elections like Modi has to. And it is not just every five or four years. In India a France size election is just round the corner all the time.In that sense India is not just the largest democracy. It is a perpetual democracy. 

The true test of political leadership is if you can get the people to make short term sacrifice for long term gain, and Modi seems to have managed to do it. His grand moves of demonetization and the GST ("good and simple tax" in his words) might have dragged the growth rate down from a high of 7.9% to a still impressive 5.7% but without demonetization and the GST perhaps India could not have aspired for a growth rate of 10% or more. Now it can. 

But Modi does not have the luxury of time. The growth rate has to now go past at least 8% before he has to go back to the people in 2019 to renew his personal mandate. 

Job creation is a major hurdle. It will happen or not in the so called informal sector. Making available credit to the chaiwalas (tea sellers) of India is what will do the trick. 

On the political front Modi seems to be defying gravity. He repeated his total sweep of Uttar Pradesh. Nitish Kumar, projected by many as his most likely rival in 2019, has instead switched sides and joined him again. This would be like if John McCain were to join the Democratic Party.

Modi's challenge is to remain Prime Minister for at least 15 more years and give India sustained double digit growth rates, and then give the country a successor who will continue on that double digit path. All electoral victories however impressive will not mean much unless that economic objective is met. So far he shows all signs he will deliver. 

In his very first year as PM Modi successfully concluded India's border dispute with Bangladesh. The dispute made the Israel Palestine land dispute look like a piece of cake. Just recently he got China to step back from potential war, or at least a skirmish. These are Nobel Peace Prize size political moves. A prize that he deserves, by the way. But it will be Gandhiesque if he does not get it. There is no telling he will not fall into the white blind spot. This is Time magazine Man Of The Decade if you ask me. 

The thorn in his side continues to be the extreme right wing of his own organization. Hindu pride is fine. But anti-Muslim intolerance is offensive. If ever the BJP ends up in disgrace, that social weakness is going to be the reason why. It is the same God both Hindus and Muslims pray to. Five blind men are touching the same elephant. 


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Monday, August 28, 2017

The World Needs To Move Towards A World Government

The debate if the 21st century will continue to be an American century, or if it will become an Asian century is moot. This is not even going to be an Internet century. The Blockchain will prove bigger than the Internet, and bigger still technological trends are right around the corner. The nation state itself is about to be shown its place. It is high time the world moved towards creating a world government. One person one vote has to be the basic premise.

Third Culture Kid (TCK) Barack Obama is best positioned to be George Washington to the world. He was born to a Kenyan in Hawaii, he grew up in Indonesia as a kid, he was America's first black president, and he did a decent job of steering America after a Great Depression like economic event. His Obamacare was so well placed, the opposition party, despite having all three branches of government at its disposal, has not been able to dislodge it, despite having opposed it non stop right from its enactment.

India leads on the biometric ID front. And Narendra Modi has acquired a Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew like stature. Add to that India's population size and history of democracy, and that puts Modi in a strong place to help architect the world government.

The world government would be a new layer of government at the very top, just like the local level, the state level, the national level. It is the roof all national governments need.

One per cent of GDP should be the tax each national government ought to pay for membership. By the time the world government is put in place, the UN and all similar world bodies ought to be subsumed by the new world government. Take that World Bank, IMF, the International Criminal Court. Three branches make sense. You would not need a separate WTO, or G7, or G20.

New York City would be the legitimate capital, it still is the most diverse city on the planet.

You could have a bicameral legislature. In the lower house, each nation would have a voting weight in direct proportion to its population. In the upper house the voting weight would be in proportion to the size of the economy. At first the two houses would elect the President of the World. But soon enough perhaps the POW could be elected directly by people all over the world voting on their smartphones.

A world with a world government will have to become a borderless world. Maybe not as step one, but soon enough. How about the magic bullet with which to double the global GDP!

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Doka La Standoff: China Proved Its Point On Tibet



If in 1890 the British Empire recognized Tibet to have been Chinese territory and dealt with the Chinese state on all matters Tibet, perhaps it is not true that China invaded Tibet in the 1950s. That is the point China intended to prove through this standoff and it has done so. China did not back down. China proved its point. Done and over with.



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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

$78 Trillion Richer



there are “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk”. One seemingly simple policy could make the world twice as rich as it is: open borders. ....... Workers become far more productive when they move from a poor country to a rich one. Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital, efficient firms and a predictable legal system. ....... “Labour is the world’s most valuable commodity—yet thanks to strict immigration regulation, most of it goes to waste” ....... “Making Nigerians stay in Nigeria is as economically senseless as making farmers plant in Antarctica” ....... And the non-economic benefits are hardly trivial, either. A Nigerian in the United States cannot be enslaved by the Islamists of Boko Haram. ...... The potential gains from open borders dwarf those of, say, completely free trade, let alone foreign aid ......... “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. ....... It is very hard to transfer Canadian institutions to Cambodia, but quite straightforward for a Cambodian family to fly to Canada. ....... The quickest way to eliminate absolute poverty would be to allow people to leave the places where it persists. ...... 630m people—about 13% of the world’s population—would migrate permanently if they could, and even more would move temporarily. Some 138m would settle in the United States, 42m in Britain and 29m in Saudi Arabia. ..... Leaving one’s homeland requires courage and resilience. Migrants must wave goodbye to familiar people, familiar customs and grandma’s cooking. Many people would rather not make that sacrifice, even for the prospect of large material rewards. ....... Wages are twice as high in Germany as in Greece, and under European Union rules Greeks are free to move to Germany, but only 150,000 have done so since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2010, out of a population of 11m. The weather is awful in Frankfurt, and hardly anyone speaks Greek. ......... Even very large disparities combined with open borders do not necessarily lead to a mass exodus. Since 1986 the citizens of Micronesia have been allowed to live and work without a visa in the United States, where income per person is roughly 20 times higher. Yet two-thirds remain in Micronesia. ....... Today there are 1.4bn people in rich countries and 6bn in not-so-rich ones. It is hardly far-fetched to imagine that, over a few decades, a billion or more of those people might emigrate if there were no legal obstacle to doing so. Clearly, this would transform rich countries in unpredictable ways. ....... Mass migration, they worry, would bring more crime and terrorism, lower wages for locals, an impossible strain on welfare states, horrific overcrowding and traumatic cultural disruption. ........ If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? ...... Granted, some immigrants commit crimes, or even headline-grabbing acts of terrorism. But in America the foreign-born are only a fifth as likely to be incarcerated as the native-born. ....... A study of migration flows among 145 countries between 1970 and 2000 by researchers at the University of Warwick found that migration was more likely to reduce terrorism than increase it, largely because migration fosters economic growth. ....... Immigrants are more likely than the native-born to bring new ideas and start their own businesses, many of which hire locals. Overall, migrants are less likely than the native-born to be a drain on public finances, unless local laws make it impossible for them to work, as is the case for asylum-seekers in Britain. ....... Foreign doctors and engineers ease skills shortages. Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work. ....... most Western cities could build much higher than they do, creating more space. ...... Would mass immigration change the culture and politics of rich countries? Undoubtedly. Look at the way America has changed, mostly for the better, as its population soared from 5m mainly white folks in 1800 to 320m many-hued ones today. ....... nearly all these risks could be mitigated, and many of the most common objections overcome, with a bit of creative thinking. ...... one solution would be not to let immigrants vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in. ....... why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? ...... it is better for the migrants than the status quo, in which they are excluded from rich-world labour markets unless they pay tens of thousands of dollars to people-smugglers—and even then they must work in the shadows and are subject to sudden deportation. Today, millions of migrants work in the Gulf, where they have no political rights at all. Despite this, they keep coming. No one is forcing them to. ...... If a world of free movement would be $78trn richer, should not liberals be prepared to make big political compromises to bring it about?
There is a political solution: the creation of a world government. And there is a technical solution: a biometric ID for every person on earth.

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Saturday, May 27, 2017

India-Japan Should Compete With OBOR

OBOR is an ambitious infrastructure initiative. But it makes tremendous sense for India and Japan to compete with it. Numerous small countries across Asia and Africa would benefit.

India is a political rival to China and Japan is an economic rival. Both are giant democracies that counter the police state suggestions of China.

Physical infrastructure can not be the only thing. India can offer a more holistic model of development.

The synergy will benefit India much as Japan is in a position to make massive investments in India.

The India Japan partnership could thrive without American or European participation. It is big enough on its own.

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Monday, May 22, 2017

One Belt One Road: China's Marshall Plan For Asia And Africa?

China's much touted One Belt One Road initiative is easily Xi Jinping's favorite project. It is being projected as a revival of the ancient Silk Route. It also has echoes of the American Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe from scratch after the utter devastation of World War II. It is ambitious. It is fundamental. It is well intentioned. It is a giant billboard that announces, China Is Back.

It can not be all loans to poor countries. There will have to be generous grants. The loans will have to be at near zero rates with the option to forgive in a decade or two or three. Handled well the infrastructure projects will pay for themselves, both for China as well the recipient countries. China will gain much from increased trade, just like a revived Europe bought much from America.

India should participate, although it should maintain an active voice. Many small countries will benefit if India talks along the way.

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Saturday, March 18, 2017

Happy Holi

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