Is America A Good Fit To Host The Next FIFA World Cup And The Olympics

In the midst of a polarised and disrupted America under Trump 2.0 when it is unclear if the president’s many initiatives are going to bear good fruit, the next FIFA World Cup soccer tournament is scheduled for June 2026 onwards till July 19^th.. The FIFA Would Cup in 2026, its 23^rd edition, will feature 48 teams for the first time expanded from the previous 32, and be held in 16 different places. In Mexico with 2 locations, Canada with 3, both auxiliary hosts, and all over the United States in 11 locations. This is the first time that the FIFA World Cup will be hosted by three nations. The last time it was hosted by more than one country was in 1992.

The final will be played in the New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. In fact, all the matches from the quarter finals onwards, will be played in the US. There are some who say that if the current turbulence with immigrants, political differences between the centre and some states, and visas persist, then some more of the 60 odd matches to be played in the US, out of the 104 fixtures, could be shifted to Mexico and Canada.

Soccer has grown in popularity enormously over the last decade in America and the FIFA World Cup is expected to be both a money spinner and fill stadiums in all the venues selected. But will fans from over 40 countries on the American banned list, mainly Islamic countries, be able to attend? The Trump administration said yes to FIFA  at selection time, but some doubts persist on visa issues.

Then the Los Angeles Olympics will come in the summer of 2028. The 34^th Olympiad will take place in recent illegal immigration related riot, arson and looting hot-spot Los Angeles, between July 14^th and July 30^th 2028. The Paralympic 2028 will be held thereafter between August 15^th to August 27^th 2028, also in Los Angeles.

America is of course the biggest economy and dominant military power in the world. It has hosted four winter and four summer Olympics already over the years. This, no doubt gives it considerable experience on the smooth handling of such top-level sporting events without any mishaps. The US enjoys considerable global goodwill and confidence, and has all the wherewithal to meet Olympic standards, facilities and fool-proof security for the sports competing teams and individuals, and has the infrastructure to host the enormous numbers who will come as visitors to Los Angeles.

The concern with law and order however, is a legitimate factor deserving of caution. The battle with millions of illegal immigrants and visa overstayers currently rages on under the Trump 2.0 administration. The federal government sees many of them as undesirables, criminals, gang members, drug dealers, particularly of the dangerous China supplied drug Fentanyl, that is claiming many young addicts and resulting in quite a few deaths.

But apart from the immigrants, there are also a number of disgruntled American citizens, unhappy with the conduct of the Israel- Gaza-Iran-Lebanon-Syria War, The other one in Ukraine versus Russia, and also radicalised visitors, prone to gun violence and mounting terrorist attacks.

However, this situation also prevails in Western Europe and other advanced countries, and has to be routinely tackled there too. The reality is that almost no country today is totally devoid of dissidents, fifth columnists, alien spies, resident moles, subversives, and security threats. It is just more acute in democracies with constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

Many of the illegal immigrants in America, numbering in their millions, quite a few from South America, Islamic countries troubled by war and extremism, even India, are now being expelled. They were, in many cases, sought to be regularised in the previous Biden administration. The Democrats see them as a labour resource and a growing vote bank not unlike those state governments in India that encourage illegal immigration from Bangladesh, Myanmar and even Pakistan. President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans base sees them as usurpers of their scarce jobs and worse.

There is a sharp difference of opinion and perspective between the liberal-left Democrats and those who support Donald Trump, on the matter. The judiciary weighs in, sometimes on the side of the immigrants citing lack of due process before their attempted expulsion, and sometimes on the side of the Trump administration.

Meanwhile the Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to secure the borders and has warned both Mexico and Canada to do likewise, both for drugs and illegals, or face punitive sanctions and tariffs for this reason, in addition to economic balance of trade considerations.

This background atmosphere is unlikely to be completely brought to heel by the summer of 2026, and perhaps not even by 2028, a presidential election year for America. Both sporting events are therefore likely to be held under the watchful eye of a strong security presence and keen intelligence operatives.

So, is the United States presently safe enough to host these major tournaments? The answer is, on balance, yes. Not only does the central government not hesitate to use fully armed federal troopers and marines to supplement the various state police departments, but an attitude of zero tolerance against rioting, arson, looting, and terrorist violence is evident in the handling of this threat.

Besides many thousands, if not quite millions of the immigrants will have been deported within the year or so left before the FIFA World Cup, and more still by the time of the summer Olympics of 2028.

Uncertainty persists, but many in the MAGA base see the vetting of who can come to the United States as well as who must leave as a form of  ‘draining of the swamp’ that stretches beyond Washington DC, to the heart of the nation.

America’s pugnacious political attitudes towards trade wars with China and many other countries, the funding of NATO, the various multilateral banking institutions, the United Nations, have also created fissures with persistent security implications. Countries under the American lash such as Iran do not easily forget and forgive.

Is America in 2025 still the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’? The jury is out on this one, even as the Trump administration strives to make it a safer country through its crack-down on aliens, enemies, and dissidents alike.

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June 24^th, 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India Overtakes Japan In GDP To Become 4^th Largest Major Economy In The World

India’s steady growth of over 6% in GDP per annum year-on-year over most of the past decade, is powering it into the top of the table as it overtakes advanced economies with low growth or even shrinkage. Since 2014, when the Modi first administration was formed, till now, in its third consecutive run, India has climbed from No.10 to No.4, and counting. Before this NDA term ends in 2029, India is expected to secure the No.3 slot.

And the best thing about it is that India, that is Bharat, will keep growing at over 6% if it maintains itself aloof from major geopolitical disruptions, pandemics, trade conflicts, pressures of cartels, sanctions, artificial scarcities, the ravages of addictive and illegal drugs, and is blessed by ample food security.

This is based primarily on the consumption demands of its formidable domestic economy.  With 1.4 billion plus people, of which nearly 65% are under 35 years of age presently, there is a massive and useful demographic dividend compared to ageing China with the effects of its one child policy, though now reversed.  The Indian age advantage is likely to last for another 15 years at least.

India is vulnerable as a major petroleum importer for over 80% of its needs from diversified sources. But it is taking strong steps to increase its green energy component, from nuclear power including its own manufacture of small reactors, solar, hydroelectric, wind, lithium-based battery electric, hydrogen, ethanol blending, and so on.

Japan is the latest to be surpassed with India’s economy at $ 4.19 trillion according to IMF data quoted by India’s own Niti Aayog. Germany is the next economy to overtake, to place India in the number 3 slot. This will happen when it reaches near the $ 5 trillion mark, expected in the next 2 to 3 years.

And at the No. 3 slot, India is expected to stay for the coming decades, but gathering more and more heft all the while as the time passes. This has major implications for the development of India’s infrastructure, modernisation and defence manufacturing and the resultant import substitution/exports. It could even accelerate the pace of growth to over 7% or more.

Defence preparedness is of the utmost importance with two hostile neighbours working in tandem. This is ironic in some ways, because India does a massive amount of trading with China in multiple areas where its manufacturing value chain has not yet sufficiently developed.

Pakistan fights India for religious and ideological reasons, but China, whilst appreciating the trade, wants to halt India’s fast-track progress. It also covets its land. In addition, the Western powers and America are also unhappy that India is slipping out of their biddability, if not control.

Japan, even though it is a G 7 power, is Asian, and less threatened by India’s growth.  It is more willing to share technology and cooperate with India as in the bullet train technology being developed.

However, on its own, the Indian economy is not particularly indebted, and highly resilient against domestic and global shocks, with its customary tight management. This is regularly praised by the multilateral lending agencies and the global rating agencies.

Startlingly, long term projections see India clocking up $52.5 trillion by 2075!

It already has the 3^rd largest number of billionaires at 205, only behind China’s 450, and America’s 902. In 2075, not only will the Indian population have been declining for a quarter century, its economy will be placed only marginally below China.

China is projected to become the number one economy by then, at $57 trillion in GDP. However, there is some credible doubt on whether China will stay intact, given its present economic and political woes. It is expected to break into five countries in the 2030s itself according to some think tanks, plagued by internal instability rather than outside intervention. And this, soon after its protégé and protectorate Pakistan, already bankrupt, implodes. The Islamic republic is unlikely to survive as a country in its present form beyond the end of this very decade.

Meanwhile a radicalised Bangladesh, also nearly bankrupt, in collaboration with Pakistan and China, will meet stiff resistance from India if it undertakes any misadventures. The situation in Myanmar is also volatile and worthy of careful observation to prevent it from boiling over into India’s North East. The Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea are also being monitored by India, its satellites, navy, and air force for potential threats.

Relationships with Sri Lanka, Maldives and Mauritius are being strengthened and the facilities in India’s own Andaman and Nicobar Islands are being rapidly developed.

India is perforce self-reliant in matters of strategic defence, with steady support only from Russia and Israel amongst the leading military powers. All the others have axes to grind as India rises. However, it does enjoy a lot of diplomatic support from a large number of countries. India is working on building trade corridors through multiple nations in West Asia all the way to Europe, as well as via Iran and Central Asia to Russia. Many of these Indian initiatives rival China’s belt and road programmes and efforts to gird the world in a new silk route.  

While the ASEAN region has cordial relations with India, it is closer in some ways to China. The Philippines however has drawn closer to India to combat Chinese hegemony.

America is expected to be just behind India at some $ 51.5 trillion in 2075. All other countries are projected to be far behind these big three.

India’s per capita income, presently at $ 2,200 odd, is a major bugbear, because of India’s rising population till 2050. It has certainly doubled in the last 10 years, and it grew by 9.2% in 2023. But per capita can only be high in countries with small populations.

In the interim, more and more of the Global South, the African Union, South America, as well as the developed powers are lining up to do business with India. The recent FTA with Britain about to be operationalised is a case in point. An interim trade agreement with the United States is also imminent. The EU is working on an FTA too.

India is beginning to be recognised for doing things differently, both in war and peace, as well as in its use of innovation and technology. Its purchasing power parity, already places it as the No. 3 economy for long now. Its pride of place in the G21, gives it a distinct advantage over expensive, inflationary, and low growth countries of the G7 going forward.

(1,096 words)

May 26^th, 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India May Be First Globally To Sign A Bilateral Trade Agreement With The US Soon After Vance Visit

The visit of the new Vice President of America to India is a timely cameo in a very important context. JD Vance, currently in India for four days in a semi-official cum private visit to New Delhi and Jaipur/Agra, along with second lady Usha Vance and their three children, is not the usual near-invisible US Vice President.

In the first hundred days of the Trump administration 2.0, Vance has been called a ‘wingman’ by the media and has featured in most of the president’s flurry of initiatives. President Donald Trump has already been asked if he sees the young and robust Vance as a successor. He demurred, probably because it is so early in the day, but called him ‘very capable’.

Vance and his family were met at the New Delhi airport by Union Railway and Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. He also received a ceremonial guard of honour on arrival.

Vance is being treated with all seriousness, not just as a high dignitary, but a political heavyweight in current geopolitics. His recent visits to Western Europe and Greenland left their mark in terms of advancing Trump’s vision for America. His pronouncements and actions there had their salutary impacts.

India has clearly shown its keenness to progress an enhanced trade and strategic relationship with America during Vance’s visit on Monday to meet Prime Minister Modi. This, even as the prime minister jetted off to Saudi Arabia on another strategic bilateral visit on Tuesday.

It is a crucial and unprecedented time in global geopolitics, with America recasting the earlier World Trade Organisation (WTO) based trade rules and all existing trade agreements with itself and between other nations into a bilateral format. WTO rules were, lately, being ignored with impunity anyway, mainly by China. The UN too is in a sorry state with many of its agencies infiltrated by China and other pressure groups.

And now, in order to reverse China’s trade dominance built over more than 30 years, albeit with America aiding and abetting it all the way, the US, long an advocate for free trade, has decided to use tariffs. This, to right the balance in its favour amongst massive trade deficits against it.

When President Nixon’s America engineered the rise of the bilateral relationship with China, it was partially to undermine the USSR. But, now, as they say, times have changed. China became factory to the world with $500 billion of trade with the US alone, and at least $ 150 billion with Germany and France each amongst others in the EU.

Today, in the midst of the tariff wars unleashed by the Trump administration, China is threatening all and sundry that it will punish all those countries who cave in to unilateral US tariff lowering demands.

There are very high US tariffs on China, some as high as 245%, but the US has paused punishing reciprocal tariffs on some 27 countries for 90 days, soon after April 2^nd when they were announced. This, to give these countries a chance to recast their trade rules. These were the ones that did not announce retaliatory reciprocal tariffs against the US, and indeed some announced lowering of tariffs at the first salvo. Cambodia, for example lowered its tariffs against US goods from 45% to 5% at one fell swoop.

 While the EU has announced retaliatory tariffs against the US, India’s QUAD partner Japan is also fast forwarding its trade negotiations with the US, with a trade delegation just returned after several days of negotiations in America. However, Japan earns 20% of its profit from its business with America, and 15% from dealings with China, which presents a conundrum, and calls for a careful balancing act.

India has no such problems, because like America, it runs massive and ever- growing dollar trade surpluses in favour of China. Both President Trump and Prime Minister Modi are keen to take the Indo-US strategic and military partnership to new heights, incorporating and boosting bilateral trade to some $ 500 billion annually.  This, as America plans to isolate and reduce China’s global trade drastically.

On Monday21st April, Vance held talks with Prime Minister Modi both one-on-one and at delegation level at the prime minister’s residence at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg.

The forthcoming trade agreement was discussed as well as cooperation in defence, strategic technologies, energy including nuclear energy, the forthcoming QUAD Summit that India will host this year, and other areas including the contentious tariffs on highly sheltered agricultural produce.

The negotiations have been proceeding amicably and rapidly, with India amenable to lowering its tariffs in multiple instances. The prime minister hosted the Vance family to dinner thereafter.

The Modi administration, that hosted the last G20 or the G21 by its end, before Brazil took over. India not only engineered the unanimous inclusion of the multiple country African Union, but also navigated the previous Biden term adroitly. This despite bold attempts by the American deep state spearheaded by the Biden decorated George Soros, Khalistani and Islamic terrorists, and other far-left anti-India irritants.

Nevertheless, the Indo-US strategic relationship, steadily built over several successive US administrations with even-handed bipartisan support, through the Manmohan Singh and Modi led years, has stayed on track.

However, the return of President Donald Trump for a second term after a gap of four years is a stellar opportunity to take the Indo-US relationship to a whole new level.  

Prime Minister Modi was among the first heads of government invited on a state visit to the US in February, very soon after Trump was sworn in on 20^th January 2025. Observers noted that the Indian prime minister was received by the Trumps even before America’s long standing European allies.

During the swearing in ceremony, held indoors because of the exceptionally bitter January cold, India’s External Affairs Minister was seated very close to the podium as a special mark of favour in the packed hall at the Capitol. None of this was by coincidence. India has a strategic design with regard to America, while the US realises that India is very important in its plan to recast the world to better suit itself. The personal chemistry between Modi and Trump, already established in Modi 1.0, is also playing a part.

The still vigorous 78 year-old Trump, in the first year of his second term, is famously thinking about amending the US Constitution so that he can run for a third. If he succeeds, he will be the first to do so, after WWII President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt died in office during his fourth term. The US Constitution was amended thereafter to a two-term limit for presidents.

If India succeeds in signing a trade agreement within this 90 day window with the US it will be the fastest such in its republican history, and augurs well for a more comprehensive FTA to follow. As an opportunity to step into the trade void left by the strained US-China relationship, it is unique, and a chance that India cannot afford to miss.

(1,166 words)

April 22^nd, 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

The Surprising Paris Court Verdict on Marine Le Pen Is A Blot On French Democracy

In a move, startling from a republic that is the supposedly modern torchbearer of Liberte,Egalite et Fraternite, the latest move smacks of a hatchet-job style dictatorship to fix the political arena. Albeit, it was a longish trial, with all the trappings of proper judicial examination and rigour. But is the judiciary in France, along with its now tottering government, infected with leftist bias?

Earlier this week, a Paris Court judge that banned far-right leader Marine Le Pen from contesting elections for five years acknowledged that the ‘embezzlement’ of Euro 4 million of EU funds between 2004-2016, to pay staff in her National Rally party, rather than parliamentary aides, did nor enrich her or her 24 co-defendants in their personal capacity.

The Paris Court judge described the diverted payments as a ‘democratic bypass’ that deceived both voters and the European Parliament, in what seems to many to be judicial overreach.

Le Pen has been fined Euro 100,000 and sentenced to four years in prison, two of which will be suspended, and the other two served under house arrest with electronic monitoring. But her ban from running for office is with immediate effect, even though she can continue to serve as a lawmaker till new elections are called for. If she is corrupt, how do these niceties work?

All but one of her co-defendants received suspended prison sentences of varying severity also affecting their ability to participate in the political process going forward. Le Pen has vowed to appeal the rulings, calling the verdict ‘political death’ for her personally.

Le Pen’s lawyers argued that the distinction between a politician’s work as a lawmaker and as a party member was artificial. Seeming to agree with this position, President Donald Trump said he had not expected a guilty verdict at all from the court proceedings.

But crucially, with Le Pen banned from contesting for five years, unless the appeal overturns her conviction, the focus has rapidly shifted to her protégé the 29 year-old Jordan Bardella, who could well become the National Rally’s presidential candidate in 2027. He may be inexperienced but Macron himself is still in his forties and began his rising political career much earlier.. Bardella called the rulings an ‘execution’ of democracy on X.

Le Pen can contest the elections in 2032, when she will be 64.

The rampant but unproven suspicion from those who support Le Pen and her National Rally Party, is that President Emmanuel Macron and his La Republique en Marche (LREM), may have worked behind the scenes to try and eliminate a formidable challenger from the fray. Marine Le Pen is the leader of the resurgent Conservative movement in French politics.

Could such a partisan ruling on questionable charges happen in India? Well it did. When the Allahabad High Court overturned Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s election, it resulted in the infamous Emergency. Of course, Mrs. Gandhi was the sitting prime minister at the time, with the entire machinery of government at her disposal. Nothing so dramatic has been tried by the judiciary since.

While Indian politics today routinely tolerates virulent opposition, any such move by the Indian courts against the opposition figures, would certainly activate the anti-India lobbies in Europe, America, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, and amongst dissidents such as Islamic militants and Khalistanis. They would unleash a massive vilification campaign. They would howl for the blood of the ruling ‘Hindu Nationalist Party’ that is dominant in the NDA. 

Fortunately, in India however, that ship seems to have sailed, because the voting public seems to much prefer the BJP and the NDA in most elections.

But surprisingly, little has surfaced by way of criticism in the European media against the bizarre Paris Court ruling.  Marine Le Pen is being supported, not by all the powers that are proxy fighting Russia in Ukraine, but by the other side.

From around the political universe, most conservative leaders have or are beginning to speak up in support.

Macron must have thought that with the confusion over Ukraine and beleaguered European support for its resistance, he could get away with this subversion of democracy at this time. However, many members of the French public per polls conducted after the verdict see it in terms of independence of the judiciary.  Who was polled however? If you poll the left they would signal good riddance of course.

Will the French general elections in 2027, still two years away, be affected? The Russia-Ukraine War is expected to end well before that. America’s support for the Europeans in NATO has already weakened. Other international fora are also in retreat as America withdraws into its ‘America First’ stance. Can Macron’s France carry its own left-of-centre torch in European politics in 2027?

The public has been showing growing preference for Le Pen’s far-right politics, with her finishing as runner-up to Macron as president in both 2017 and 2022. So, will this suspected skullduggery then work against Macron at the hustings?

 Support for Le Pen came in promptly from Hungary and Russia after the rulings. Both condemned them as an attack on democracy. Victor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister expressed solidarity by posting ‘Je Suis Marine!’ The Russian spokesman said the ruling showed a growing tendency to subvert democratic impulses in Western Europe. Particularly those that were conservative and favoured better relations with Russia.

In addition, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, US President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have all spoken up in disapproval of the attempt to ban Le Pen from contesting elections. India, that enjoys excellent relations with Emmanuel Macron led France, particularly in the sphere of defence equipment, has been silent on this matter so far.

President Trump called the verdict ‘a big deal’ and said Le Pen was the leading contender. He also likened it to what was done to him in the lead-up to the 2024 elections in America. Others who have already spoken up in support of Le Pen are Italian League Party boss Matteo Salvini and Dutch populist Geert Wilders. Whatever  be the merits and demerits of the case, the timing of the sharp negative verdict raises more questions than it  lays to rest about the state of democratic norms in France.

(1,030 words)

April 2^nd, 2025

For: Firstpost, News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India Has Reinforced A Mauritius Advantage In The Indian Ocean

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was warmly received in Mauritius for its 57^th National Day celebrations and awarded the country’s highest civilian award during his recent two-day state visit. A large number of MOU’s, numbering eight, were signed. They covered space research, AI, digital health, the ocean economy, pharmaceuticals, ICT, FinTech, Cyber Security and maritime security. India announced a rupee-denominated credit to replace the water pipelines in Mauritius. India has a satellite tracking space station located in Mauritius.

The relationship has just been upgraded to an enhanced strategic partnership with maritime and defence cooperation as its cornerstones. India will continue to extend technology sharing, concessional loans and grants. Prime Minister Modi called Mauritius a bridge between India and the Global South and ‘family’.

The aerial distance between India and Mauritius is 5,247 km. and requires a flight that could take 6 to 8 hours. Its Agalega Islands, north and south, however, are almost half the distance, at 3,000 km from Southern India. This is comparable to that between India and the Maldives (2,200 km), also strategically important to India.

The two Agalega islands, about 25 sq.km. in total area, are 2,500 km southwest of Male in the Maldives where China has made substantial inroads.

India has built a long 3,000 metres runway on Agalega, after an MOU was signed in 2015, and heads of both countries inaugurated it in 2024. A substantial jetty has also been built. Both Mauritius and India deny that The Agalegas, population under 400, dependent mostly on fishing and coconuts, with other supplies coming in by ship, are being developed as an Indian military base. But it certainly helps the marine surveillance of the South Western part of the Indian Ocean both from the air and via radar installations set up by India as in the Port Louis area of the main Mauritius island.

Mauritius has been close to India, even since the British transported a large number of Indians in 1834 to work on the sugar plantations there. Prior to 1810, the French controlled Mauritius and they also took Indians from their holdings in Pondicherry (Puducherry today), and then there were the Dutch before the French. MK Gandhi also stopping by in 1901, and the Mauritius National Day chosen (12^th March) coincides with the start of the Dandi March.

 Mauritius gained its independence from Britain in 1968 and has a population of 1.2 million people, largely of Indian origin. Both French and Creole are spoken on the island. This, in addition to English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu. Diwali and Holi are celebrated on the island.  

Mauritius has had a defence treaty with India from 1964, and the Mauritius National Security Adviser (NSA) to date is an Indian national.

France, over and above the QUAD countries, also regularly patrols the Indian Ocean Region.

And since 2015, when Prime Minister last visited the island nation, India has done a good deal to ramp up its infrastructure via soft loans and grants of over $1 billion USD. These include a metro system, a hospital, and even a new parliament building presently under construction.

Mauritius is famous in Indian financial circles because a great deal of the FDI (foreign direct investment) into India is routed via the island nation owing to its favourable tax laws and treaties with India. In fact, after Singapore, international companies registered in Mauritius account for the second biggest chunk of FDI. Mauritius, in turn, seeks much greater commercial interest as FDI from other countries, including India.   

Even as China wants to dominate the Indian Ocean with a massive blue water navy, India has strong inherent geographical advantages. Peninsular India not only borders both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal but abuts the Indian Ocean at Kanyakumari.

China has a long way to come from its home bases on the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. However, it has indeed created a number of perches - in Sri Lanka’s largely deserted Hambantota, while India is also prominent on the island, on the Cocos Islands, ironically gifted to Myanmar by India’s then Prime Minister Nehru. Lately, it has made inroads into the cash-strapped Maldives. China has built yet another largely unused port at Gwadar in Baluchistan, now under threat of the latter’s independence movement. Earlier, it had set up a base in Djibouti on the Red Sea. It is currently angling for a port in turbulent Bangladesh as well.

India, on its part, has been modernising its existing ports on both seaboards, building new greenfield and sometimes contiguous ones, including transshipment ports, and setting up state-of-the-art ship repair and ship building facilities.

Some of this has been extended to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well, alongside tourism infrastructure, particularly as some of them, the Nicobar islands, are very near the Malacca Straits, used extensively by Chinese shipping. The Andamans also overlook busy international shipping lanes.

India’s Lakshadweep Islands are just 820 km from the Maldives, and are now being developed by India both as a naval base and for tourism.  The British-American base at Diego Garcia, nominally owned by Mauritius, occupied by  India’s QUAD partners, is roughly 1,796 km southwest of India. The rest of the Chagos Islands, owned also by Mauritius, have just been returned to it. India has been diplomatically assisting this restoration for a long time.

The Indian ship repair and refurbishment facilities are routinely offered to India’s QUAD partners and other friendly countries active in the IOR (Indian Ocean Region). This is very useful for American and European ships operating in the region but far away from their home bases.

India’s ship-building expansion and modernisation includes submarine and aircraft carrier manufacturing, specialised vessels, ones for the coast guard and  last but not least, in-demand commercial tonnage.

All this capacity is developing rapidly, with an eye to bolstering both India’s commercial shipping status, incorporating the use of India-owned and manufactured ships, as well as for military purposes.

This activity is being fast-tracked in response to the rapid expansion and size of the Chinese capabilities, which are also being extended by China to assist Pakistan in our littoral.

The part that the India-Mauritius relationship plays in the stability and prosperity of the Indian Ocean region cannot be over emphasised.

Also, as India marches on towards becoming the 3^rd largest economy in the world, it engagement with the outside world and how it is viewed by it, is also changing fast. This may increasingly take the shape of out-size alliances with friendly countries farther away, and mergers of those countries and regions that are contiguous for mutual benefit.

(1098 words)

March 14^th 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Who can truly argue that life is not a beach?

‘Life is a Beach’ was a phrase invented to denote that it was both good and great to be in a relaxed, warm frame of mind and body. It was a worthwhile aspiration coined to counter the other negative phrase that ‘Life was a Bitch’. The latter, never mind its sexist connotations, was probably brought on by a slave-driving foreman like the infamous Simon Legree in the Harriet Beecher Stowe classic Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Legree, of course, whipped Uncle Tom to death with a cat ‘o nine tails just because he could. And still Uncle Tom did not complain.

The present top leadership of L&T seems to have stepped right into the proverbial dog poo that an indulgent pet parent neglected to scoop up. And what is worse, the previously obscure Chairman and Managing Director of the group, SNS, short for SN Subrahmanyan from Chennai, trailed his smelly and dirty shoes right into the board room.

Now the matter of his pronouncements on the 90 hour work-week and the even more outrageous one about how long one can stare at one’s wife at home have gone viral on the social and mainstream media. There are many memes. Fellow industrialist Anand Mahindra has posted a picture of himself gazing appreciatively at his own wife in riposte.

L&T, the hoary Indian engineering company now headed by SNS was established by Henning Holck-Larsen, a Danish engineer, along with his fellow school mate and engineer from Copenhagen, Soren Kristian Toubro in 1938. Both the visionary foreigners saw the potential for an engineering-based company in India even before WWII.

The idea for L&T was conceived by the duo during a holiday in the hill-station of Matheran, near then Bombay, and gradually, over their lifetimes, grew into a diverse conglomerate and one of India’s most successful companies.  

L& T is now also doing good work in defence manufacturing, and was previously helmed from 2003, by the legendary and down-to-earth AM Naik, even though SNS was there making his significant contributions to the company from 1984 too.

Naik not only grew the company manifold, turning it entrepreneurial, but successfully staved off a takeover attempt from Reliance Industries. But he never thought it necessary to lecture his coworkers into the necessity of working very long hours beyond the standard 48 hour 9 to 5 week.  

The Tata Group is often thought of as the leitmotif of Indian Industry, culture, and ethics. Some will remember the Homi Mody sponsored TV advertisements for Tata Steel that waxed eloquent on many lifestyle and fun things but ended with the tag line: We Also Make Steel. Many viewers thought it underscored the sheer classiness of the Tata Group.

While comparisons may be thought to be odious, AM Naik, SNS’s boss for many years who took the company to unprecedented heights of profitability and competence did not feel the need to hector his workforce. Personally, he too was a workaholic throughout his career, but that was just how he liked to play it. He did not make it a public virtue or a formula for others to follow, except if you like, by his example.

This whole work-life balance debate has adherents on both sides, but given the number of young CEOs and other young professionals who are dropping dead now, the medical fraternity that says job-induced stress is a killer needs to be heard.

This entire debate was sparked earlier by Narayana Murthy, the now elderly  Kannadiga former boss of Infosys, who appears to have had no life beyond his work, and is extremely proud of it. He asked for a 70 hour-week that he personally followed all his working life. Earlier, he said he has never bothered to read a novel. These men are indeed very successful, very rich, but hardly inspiring. They are more objects of ridicule despite their stellar careers because they may have missed the point of life and living entirely.

This obsession with long hours may also be an Indian thing, because others elsewhere are trying to both cut down their working weeks and trying to retire early. The Japanese company man, now largely extinct in his original form, died from overwork and excessive drinking after hours. They were meant to have lifetime jobs but began to be sacked in droves during the economic downturns through no fault of their own. Strict hierarchy and terms of conduct also took their toll. These same advocates of lengthy working hourse do not hesitate to sack people whenever the bottom line dictates it. Ditto for not paying increments when times are not so good.

If Tata paid all its employees both salary and compensation where applicable when the Taj Hotel in Mumbai was being restored for two years after the ghastly attacks of 26/11, it showed a cultural nobility unmatched by any other business group in India. Those employees who lost their lives, were or would be paid their full salaries and benefits till they would have retired. Their children were or are being educated at company expense.

SNS and Narayana Murthy would do well to learn the obligations of a good company before mouthing off in their bizarre manner like cats who have first swallowed the cream.

Work loyalty, a sense of duty, and esprit de coeur comes amply from the Armed  Forces where people bravely sacrifice their lives for their country. They don’t have to be hectored by fat cat corporate honchos whom nobody can respect for their one-way and graceless view of things like this.

(917 words)

January 13^th, 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

 

Erstwhile Globocop And International Bankroller America Now Wants Reciprocity To Make America Great Again

President elect Donald J Trump wants to ‘Make America Great Again’. This stated ambition and powerful campaign slogan that in Trump’s scheme of things means making America extraordinarily wealthy again, has a great number of moving parts.

In this preparatory period leading up to his inauguration on January 20^th, 2025, he has been appointing a large number of capable loyalists to key positions in his forthcoming administration. That some of his key picks such as his intelligence chief, his FBI director and the office to cut wasteful government spending, happen to be American Hindus of Indian extraction, is remarkable.

Stopping both the wars in the Middle East and Europe is central to his early policy-making along with strong measures to strengthen the US economy. Trump is particularly provoked by the fact that a number of countries including, China, Brazil and India impose steep tariffs on US goods, some as high as 150%. He has made it clear that he too will impose tariffs likewise on imports from such countries unless there are changes in the spirit of ‘reciprocity’.

For the US economy, Trump envisages a revival of American manufacturing, new high tariffs on direct imports from China which enjoys an obscene trade surplus, as well as other countries such as Mexico and Canada that China funnels its goods through, in an attempt to evade the tariffs imposed earlier.

Trump also wants reciprocity from perceived friends in Europe, the EU, NATO, as well as strategic partners such as India, Taiwan, and an economic/military rival like China.  

Allies of America across the Atlantic, the UN and its bodies, and other international institutions such as the key international lending agencies, the World Bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank have long been used to America footing the lion’s share of the bill for most things. The same applies to the various UN Peace Keeping Forces in the many troubled parts of the earth.

And all this, without any pay-back or reciprocity for America, beyond a perfunctory thank you, and a degree of deferential behaviour from allies such as the UK. It is as if the security of the free world is principally America’s business ever since WWII. Perhaps this is because it maintains a formidable military machine and has massive annual armed forces/armaments budgets to keep its No.1 position. It also maintains the world’s largest covert apparatus in the form of the CIA for the world, and the FBI domestically.

Other NATO allies have long contributed token amounts financially at best, and provided some supporting forces to joint operations. In Trump1.0, the president exhorted all NATO allies to contribute their proportionate share and raise defence budgets to at least 2% of their GDPs. Protecting Europe, including Ukraine, should not be principally an American endeavour according to Trump’s world-view. This has made many allies uncomfortable at the prospect of a free lunch coming to an end. Others are apprehensive about their ability to finance their own security.

Donald Trump does not like this long-playing scheme of things, particularly since American debt is now at twice its GDP, and notionally every American citizen is carrying $ 100,000 of this debt. The US dollar is used as a peg for a number of international currencies such as the Saudi Rial. And because it is the main currency of international trade, American sanctions against countries like Russia and Iran have had a strong bite.  Russian assets worth billions of US dollars have been frozen and confiscated. This kind of high-handedness makes many other countries holding US Bonds and other investments apprehensive. It is a reason for seeking alternative trading mechanisms.

At the same time international dollar demand keeps interest rates payable by the US on its gargantuan external debt lower than it might have been. Interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve Bank, which has begun its cutting cycle at long last, have the potential to weaken the dollar, making imports costlier but making US exports more competitive. Rate cuts should also stimulate the US domestic economy as inflation appears to be moderating.

Trump has proclaimed on his own Truth Social platform very recently that he will not allow America to be ‘suckered’ henceforth. Anyone in the expanded BRICS, (read China in the main), that is trying to develop its own BRICS currency to get away from the US dollar in international trade, runs the risk of 100% US tariffs imposed. This would make it well-nigh impossible to sell to the US.

The strong US dollar as the global reserve currency, as well as the currency of choice for international trade has been a basic pillar of the world’s financial system since the aftermath of WWII. India readily recognises this fact of life, and has made it clear at BRICS that it does not support universal ‘dedollarisation’. Coming up with a BRICS currency of its own, if it isn’t the Chinese Renmimbi, not acceptable to India, is not easy, given the sizes and uneven financial state of the BRICS members.  

And yet, the US dollar has declined as a global reserve currency from 71% in 1999 to 59% in 2023, making room for a basket of currencies. The Euro is now held at 20%. Various other convertible currencies including the Yen account for another 19%. However, the Chinese Renminbi as a reserve currency is still struggling at 3%, up from a mere 1% in 2016. This may be a trebling statistically, but is far from where it wants to be.

India, which still does not have a fully convertible rupee, will, and has been trading with countries on a bilateral basis when both prefer to use their own currencies. It has done so notably with Russia, as the latter is working under stringent Western sanctions for its war with Ukraine. India has bought a large quantity of petroleum from Russia at very competitive prices in roubles/rupees, even as it continues to buy oil and gas from other nations using the US dollar.

India imports 80% of its ever-growing demand for oil and gas, and is the biggest international buyer next to China. China too has been using the Yuan/Saudi Rial for its oil purchases lately.

America is fuel self-sufficient, and buys internationally only in order to conserve its own reserves.

Is Trump’s latest threat of 100% tariffs to BRICS likely to be implemented? Are unilateral sanctions actually hastening the reducing influence of the US dollar?

Too many overlapping tariffs are likely to harm American interests by raising domestic consumer prices. In order to keep American interests first, President Trump might have to balance his initiatives in Trump 2.0 and distinguish sharply between friend and foe.

(1,106 words)

December 2^nd, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee