Undead Imperialism Can’t Digest India’s Digital Success

The Economist, a British weekly magazine, now depends on its American subscribers, having switched from backing the extinguished British Empire, to American supremacy.

It has a combined print and digital subscription globally shy of 2 million. It also claims to reach 35 million via its social media platforms.

While giving itself an unproven seventeen-fold reach, it had no difficulty in scoffing at the scale and reach of India’s digital revolution. It once praised Aadhar but that must have been a slip. Because it regularly slams the Modi administration under the present Editor’s watch, citing the original sin of the 2002 Gujarat Riots. This apparently gave it the temerity to exhort Indians not to elect the Hindu nationalist BJP, or failing that, Modi as prime minister.

This from a magazine representing a people that had its war-time Prime Minister Churchill murder over 4 million Indians in the man-made Bengal Famine of 1946. A Raj administration that shot unarmed, men, women and children at Jallianwala Bagh with nary an apology. A nation that responded with ingratitude and silence about 2 million plus Indians that fought in the two world wars alongside the British.  

A constant criticism in repeated articles is about the Indian government’s alleged antipathy towards civil liberties and the 200 million strong Indian Muslim community. The Economist treats its story-telling as proof. It pretends it knows best.

The Indian digital revolution, though a work in progress, is an astounding success. But the Economist thinks it will leave out the poorest and create a great divide between the haves and have nots. That our digital reach has been facilitated not just by the crores counted by the biometrically authenticated Aadhar, but also widespread bank accounts for the erstwhile unbanked is ignored. Common usage of the internet for online shopping, tele-health consultations, digital payments, music, movie streaming, OTT likewise.

The Economist likes adopting a tone of omniscience. But this is being challenged by others on home turf and across the Atlantic who also lay claim to economic liberalism. But not a dodgy, U-turning version of it. The magazine employs exclusively White staffers, educated at Oxford or Cambridge. Unfortunately, despite its storied history supporting the British financial establishment, it increasingly offers slanted, hectoring, Oxford Union style leftist opinion. This, dished up as sharp analysis garnished with acute word play.

The Indian digital economy, at $ 200 million in 2017-18 is headed towards $ 1 trillion by 2025, with 900 million active internet users. In 2020, 25% of the adult female population owned a smartphone while 41% of adult men did. We know most teenagers, and not a few children do as well.

Rural broadband penetration stands at 29% while the national average is at 51% (687 million people), as on March 2020. But this is changing rapidly. Rural internet penetration is growing at a pace 3 times faster than  in urban India. Wireless telephony constitutes 98.3%. Teledensity in India already stands at 86.6%.

Covid has played its part to hasten matters. School closures forced teaching over WhatsApp, and many people purchased smart phones to access it. India has the largest number of students globally at some 315 million.

Digital illiteracy and unfamiliarity with digital platforms have driven many people to community services like cyber cafes in urban areas, and village choupals that own a TV, computer, smart phones, have connected broadband, electricity back-up. They also have skilled and knowledgeable operators. There are simple EMI schemes to enable poor people to purchase inexpensive smart phones, and Mobile Libraries to borrow them for online sessions. There are ‘Digital Didis’ to teach women how to use it and reduce gender-based hesitancies.

The Economist’s neo-colonial top-down assessment is not surprising however, given its allergy to the Modi government’s nationalistic assertions, and its successes. India overtook the British ($2.83 trillion) and French ($2.71 trillion) economies at $2.93 trillion in 2019 itself. This is not the India the Economist is used to preaching at, with its endemic corruption, low growth, dependencies, and chronic inefficiency.

This time, the Indian government has, unusually, written to the magazine, calling this latest outing ‘inaccurate and biased’. Perhaps it is a warning to the British establishment that the Economist represents.

The magazine does not byline its articles, hiding under a collective eiderdown. It espouses a lofty if obscure stance of ‘economic liberalism’ and ‘radical centrism’, which probably means hitch-a-ride on the latest vehicle of Western neo-imperialism in order to survive.  It is owned largely by the Agnelli family of Fiat fame (43.4%). Other owners are its staffers, Rothschild, Cadbury and Shroder Layton. Currently, it boasts of its first lady editor, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Oxford and Harvard educated, who joined the ‘newspaper’ in 1994, and became its Editor-in-Chief in 2015.

Being left out most often in the stupendous gains India has made since 2014 is one of the reasons for the Economist’s pique. India does not need foreign help with its digital revolution. India’s software exports at $133.7 billion in 2020-2021, were up 4%.

On 21^st October 2021, India completed the free vaccination of a billion adults against Covid. The Economist can be sure many of these people were amongst the poorest, lodged in remote areas, and included a large number of Muslims. It is now going ahead with inoculating the rest of the adults, some 20 million strong, and then onwards towards children and teenagers between the ages of 2 and 18. All this with the very effective India-made vaccine Covaxin, alongside the Oxford Astra Zeneca franchised Covishield. It is also exporting vaccines and making other types under licence such as Russia’s Sputnik. Yet more are in the works.

Democracies, with growing woke sensibilities, are increasingly difficult to manage. But India, with a population of 1.4 billion and multiple religions, languages, customs, topography, does a consistently good job.

This, for whether it is turning the entire nation largely digital, running the world’s largest election machine, or lately, hitting back at Western misinformation motivated by envy, lazy journalism, and sheer disbelief.

(995 words)

October 22^nd, 2021

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India Has A Century Worth Of Coal If We Need It

Do we have a coal shortage? In absolute terms-no. But did a lot of the thermal plants around the country let their coal stocks go below even 5 days stocks-yes.

They did so, basing their demand projections on near flat Covid induced demand last year. Maybe they were expecting a third wave as bad as the second. Instead, the intense round of vaccinations, nearly 100 crore people worth, has greatly assuaged the situation.

There is a reason for the hesitation. Electricity, once produced, is a perishable commodity without expensive and high technology methods of storage. The US has created over 25 gigawatts of strategic electrical energy storage. But India has next to none, unless you count a few batteries. But we do have a National Grid and Exchange. The trouble is, it buys at market rates and sells its electricity to the highest bidder. This can upset contractual rates and force electricity selling prices upwards.

Besides, the thermal generation units let this squeeze happen every year post Monsoon. There is a dip in the mining of coal after the rains till all the water can be drained. Still, dry coal stocks at the mines are maintained at about 22 days demand. Coal India meets 80%, though many thermal units have been importing a lot in past years.

Caught out by their own calculations, particularly in Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, thermal power plants are scrambling to raise stocks to 15 days need now to meet a sharp uptick in demand of more than 20% .

The manufacturing economy has woken up to the emphasis on atmanirbhar, and opportunities based on at least partial relocations from China. Other sectors of the economy too have perked up enough to produce the highest growth forecasts in the world for this fiscal. Rural electrification has increased consumption. GDP is headed to clock 9.5% growth this year followed by another 8.5% growth on top of that next year as well. The IMF and World Bank are saying so, and not our government statisticians.

Economics being a demand/supply game there are a few associated problems on the coal imbroglio that cannot be glossed over. The thermal plants owe the coal suppliers Rs. 20,000 crores in unpaid bills. Nevertheless, enhanced coal supplies are already at 1.62 million tonnes a day heading up towards 2 million tonnes a day post Dussehra, according to the coal minister Pralhad Joshi.                                                                                                                                                                          The PMO has taken a quick supervisory interest, as it doesn’t want anything like this to damage the return to robust growth. The partially revamped and far more dynamic railways  are moving vast tonnages around the country on an emergency basis.

The electricity distributing companies (discoms) also owe the generating companies Rs. 1,60,000 crores in unpaid bills. Presumably, this is because the governments of the States and at the Centre have not paid. Private consumers have to pay if they don’t want to be cut off. Present firefighting apart, the situation seems pretty precarious.

The political buck passing that is usual in such situations has been countered rather well by the Centre in this instance with ready facts and figures. The comparisons in the international media with China are misplaced, because China is highly dependent on imports to make up the deficit in demand. That it is in a financial bind right now is another matter.

In the broader context, India has the 5^th largest proven coal deposits in the world after the US, Russia, Australia and China in descending order. Some accounts put India at No.4.These can last us for 111 years at present offtakes, but even accounting for increased requirements, it’s enough for at least a century going forward. And that’s assuming no further discoveries of large deposits.

However, with concerns over pollution, scrubbing expenses, environmental concerns, the Paris Accords, coal is regarded worldwide as a bad old Victorian Industrial Revolution leftover.  However, it would be a mistake for India to not leverage a strength just to please the climate lobbies. Concern over global warming may be real, but immediate fuel shortages and spikes in pricing are more compelling.

This year coal prices have risen from $60 a tonne to $160 internationally. India has been the second largest importer of coal after China, at about $16 billion to their $16.7 billion per annum, running neck to neck with Japan in this. But not this year.

After this page break caused by rapacious international coal prices, freight hikes and shipping congestion, India should be headed towards export of coal. This, after meeting all its needs.

A revived Coal India is now producing 600 million tonnes per annum but slated to produce a billion tonnes by 2023-24. Other coal blocks have been auctioned. Commercial production of coal as opposed to the UPA era ‘captive’ mining handed out to industrial groups has been introduced.

Are there any real alternatives to coal?  Alternate energy sources including hydroelectric, solar, biomass, nuclear-both Uranium based with its erratic supply, and the as yet non-player Thorium, have not done very much.  Then there are wind, wave, gas, petroleum, and who knows, hydrogen in the future.

For now, plentiful coal might be the main player for years yet.  At present it provides 70% of the thermal based electricity, with all the other contenders put together accounting for no more than 30%.

India has the largest reserves of Thorium in the world, but has not been able to develop a workable Thorium based reactor to produce electricity.

It may be political to create a fuss over perceived  coal shortages just as there was a real one for oxygen during the second wave last year. There may be some blackouts, and load-shedding power cuts have already begun in some states. But it is a crisis of our own making at best, and headed swiftly towards a solution. But having said that, it is another misinformation gambit aimed at a 2022 election scenario that is not going to fly.

  (990 words)

October 14^th, 2021

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee