India's stand on Eastern Ukraine conflict

The recent developments in the conflict currently going on in the Eastern Ukraine is a matter that should really concern Indian think-tanks.
Few days back, members of Russian paratroopers were caught by the Ukrainian army.
The paratroopers were clearly at a location they weren't meant to be.
But the serious development came with the sighting of "T-72 BM" tank in the convoy of rebels.
"T-72 BM" is the advanced version of Russian T-72 which hasn't yet been exported to any other country.
This shoots hole in the Russian claim of the rebel tanks being of captured Ukrainian army divisions.
It's clearly evident that Russia is sending military aids to the rebels, but still Russia is denying it's involvement.
It wouldn't be long before Russian army actually moves inside Ukrainian territory to hold positions.

Can you spot a similar pattern??
Remember Crimea?
Last year end, Russia illegally captured Crimea from Ukraine.
After few weeks of consistent denial, Putin accepted that Crimea  is a part of sovereign Russia.
Crimea was part of Russia about 50 years back and Russia justified the accession with the injustice done to it in the past.

Well then, the case was different.
To remind you, India took a neutral stand and stood by Russia against the international boycott.
The world gradually accepted that Crimea is a part of Russia despite the toothless American and European sanctions.

It appears now that Russia is acting like a spoiled kid. With any further accession of Ukraine, the world will no longer be forgiving.
Russia is definitely going to witness larger sanctions, if they further pursued their territorial agendas.
India and every other major nation will  be forced to take a side in that case.


Russia is a time-tested friend of India.
Indians can't forget the Russian help in the 1971 war when Russian submarines stood in the way of American aircraft carriers heading towards India.
Russia has always stood along with us in the Security council and vetoed resolutions against India.
So, India can't and shouldn't be seen on the different side.
But at the same time India can't support Russia.
Supporting Russia in such daring endeavors will mean encouraging foreign accessions in a sovereign country.
Indians will definitely not like Kashmir's accession by Pakistan or Arunachal Pradesh's  accession by China.
Similarly,  China is also having many territorial disputes with it's neighboring countries.
So, it can be assumed that even BRICS nations will not want to be seen standing along with Russia.
Serious international sanctions against Russia will not have a very large impact on Indian exports and imports, but it will affect Indian military procurements.

But again, sanctions are double edged swords.
It boils down to the question that "Are European nations and U.S. ready to bring perils to the Russian economy at the cost of their own?".
Economic sanctions will be the one and only solution left with the international community.
None of the world powers, is in a position to respond militarily against "Nuclear Russia".

Indian think-tanks should keep a close watch on the issue and be ready with the action plans in such a scenario.

The act of "Self-Censorship" on social sites

With the penetration of social media into masses and the internet connected smartphones in every other hand, more and more of our "friends" are online at any particular time.

Some had hoped that this might provide new outlets that encourage more discussions and the exchange of wider range of opinions.
But we see the opposite- a notion called the "spiral of silence" exists online, in which people tend to keep opinions to themselves if they think they are in the minority.
In simpler words, people have self-censored themselves. Self-censorship is the phenomenon of preventing oneself from speaking.

Social media also affords users the ability to type out and review the contents before posting.
Still, people refrain from posting that controversial political argument online that they used to easily express when they hanged out with their friends in the past.

The fear of online bullying as well as the fear of even losing a friend restricts the people to post or express only non controversial views.
This phenomenon recently attracted my attention while talking to one of my friends,
and I realized that it was not just me but most of the people fear to express their views on social sites where they have most of their friends online.
People are more likely to express the same argument offline than online.

Consider the recent Israel-Gaza situation, I found my Facebook news feed flooded by one of my friends with anti-Israel posts and racist posts promoting hatred against Jews.
But, I found that none of the mutual friends commented on the issue, neither I did. Unknowingly, I along with my other friends were self censoring themselves.
Every now and then, I find anti-Pakistan posts on my Facebook news feed, but I ignore those posts because, I fear being labelled as "traitor" by my "patriotic" friends.
I am more comfortable posting my views here on the blog or on my Twitter channel considering that very few of my friends care to visit my blog and I have very small list of Twitter followers.

This can also be attributed to the fact that we as the social media users know more about the depth of disagreement over the issue in our wide circle of contacts.
This makes us hesitant to speak up either online or offline for fear of starting an argument, offending or even losing a friend.
It is just another visible sign of the way, online activities affects a person's life.

May God give me power and will to express my views freely.

Thorium and its Illegeal extraction in India

Thorium, the element believed to be the key to Indian energy security among academicians is being looted from the Indian shores of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Did you know that??? It's all out there on the internet. This looting has been accused by the media as a scam performed by the nexus of politicians and smuggling mafias.
Is it simple ignorance on the part of bureaucrats or is it really a scam???
CAG report on the issue is still awaited.

Licenses were provided to certain individuals to mine and supply for the "Department of Atomic Energy". But, those individuals turned themselves into the mining barons, apparently out of the reach of the long hands of justice. The officials, privately admit that due to heavy mining by the companies floated by these individuals, it is almost impossible to keep check on illegalities involved. The department relies on the data provided by the companies itself. The same companies despite being accused, recently have been awarded certificates from Product Export Promotion Council of Central government.

India has the highest reserve of thorium which is found in the sands of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In other Countries, it is embedded in the rocks and requires elaborate processing to extract.While in India, it is found in the form of monazite, the raw material from which thorium can be extracted through simple quarrying and processing.

The government has failed to control the export of monazite and has allowed 2.1 million tonnes of it to be extracted. If the allegations are found to be true, it will be the largest scam ever in Indian history not only by the monetary perspective but also by the strategic perspective. The amount of monazite disappeared from Indian shores, as per the government data is believed to have equal amount of energy to meet 50 years of Indian requirements.

Currently countries like US and Japan are actively looking to increase their thorium production and the thorium based reactors. The thorium is important because:
1. Greater fuel efficiency
2. Less nuclear waste
3. Larger abundance

Also, weapons grade fissionable material is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from a thorium reactor.

While research is under way in many countries, only India is building utility-scale thorium fueled plants. India's Kakrapar-1 reactor is the first reactor that uses thorium rather than depleted uranium across the reactor core. The thorium reserves have thus, a significant strategic value for India.

Hence, India needs to safeguard its mineral resources and put an effective mechanism to check any such scams or ignorance related to its strategic interests.

My exact views published in Zee News article about Indian Economic Situation..

30th March 2014
My article:
http://viditviews.blogspot.in/2014/03/indian-economy-in-last-eight-months.html

1st April 2014
source: 
http://zeenews.india.com/business/news/finance/rajan-warns-of-turmoil-in-markets-if-polls-deliver-unstable-govt_97152.html


Mumbai: Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan on Tuesday said the markets have built up high hopes of the elections delivering a stable Government, but cautioned against "some turmoil" in the equity, and perhaps the bond and forex markets, if an unstable dispensation comes to power.

"The issue is that the markets right now are anticipating a stable Government and rapid policy actions. To the extent markets are disappointed, it will reflect on stock markets, perhaps on bond markets, perhaps on exchange markets. We have to be prepared for some turmoil," he said, speaking at the customary post-policy press conference.

It can be noted that the equity markets have rallied by over 6 percent during March, as expectations of a stable and pro-business Government are getting built up. The rupee has also risen during the period and is now trading below the crucial Rs 60 against the dollar mark.

Rajan, the academician-turned-central banker, added that he believes that even in the case of an unstable Government, there will be positive re-assessment by the investors so long as the Government addresses concern over the economy and the fiscal management.

"Even if the Government is not necessarily a stable one, provided any new structure shows the appropriate concerns about the economy, about the fiscal and so on, I would suspect that after an initial bout of turmoil, there might be a re-assessment which will be more positive," he said.

The RBI will wait and watch the situation, Rajan said, adding that the real solution for insulating against such issues in the future lies in strengthening the balance sheet of the country.

The Visible Change in Lok Sabha 2014

The temperature of the Indian politics has soared in the last few months. Here, I will be drawing your attention towards the changes happening around which you might have missed.

With the emergence of AAP on the national political stage, soon after the Delhi assembly elections, we saw the first visible sign of increasing voter maturity. Citizens of Delhi, then decided to rise above the petty issues of caste, creed, religion, etc. and voted for the promise of development without corruption. The AAP’s later use of organized chaos may or may not prove costly to them, is a different issue. But, the most significant contribution they made was to force the existing political parties to introspect their actions. The parties are now increasingly willing to accept the new voting patterns. No political party can any longer take a community for granted as its vote bank.

In such a changed scenario, the arrival of intellectuals in politics is certainly a welcome sign. The popular faces such as Nandan Nilekani, V Balakrishnan, Satyapal Singh, Ashutosh, etc. are definitely not the products of ugly caste politics.

We certainly, can expect these people if elected, to not hurl their shoes or throw chairs away in the Lok Sabha. The next thing, we can expect from them is to rise above party politics and raise their voices together for the nation’s development.

In the previous few years, the people witnessed the unraveling of scams and corruption of the magnitude unseen before. These things have further enhanced the voter’s desire to abandon apparently corrupt politicians. These views were reflected in the opinion polls and hence forced the parties to move away from controversial political figures. The fourth pillar of democracy is thus playing a critical role in the largest Indian festival.

The election commission reports about the enrollment of 23 million new voters, approximately 3% of Indian Eligible Voters. These are the youths less affected by communalism and brought up in the times of increasing inter-caste marriages. This segment of voters is comparatively better educated and more favorably positioned to part away with their caste identities and vote for common good.

The emerging youth power in politics is now set to disturb all sorts of caste equations. The election results may bring certain degree of shock and surprise to parties playing divisive vote bank politics.

Another major change, though not much welcoming is the shift of focus in campaign from policy ideas to personal reputation. BJP has been promoting a certain individual as the only issue that matters while Congress and most of the other major national parties had always have an individual or a family being supreme in party matters. The idea of collective leadership thus, is proving not to be working in Indian scenario.

Finally, It may be concluded that the country is ready to witness an entirely new voting pattern and the politics may become less dirtier.

Indian Economy in last Eight months

It was the month of August 2013.
The news headlines screamed loudly about Indian economic crisis.
Some even compared it to 1991 crisis when India had to airlift its gold reserves as a pledge with the International Monetary Fund(IMF) for a loan.
The Indian Prime Minister, a well known economist, Mr. Manmohan Singh opened his mouth to assure the people that India of 2013 is not that of 1991.
Still, the rupee hit record lows every day.
The foreign investors pulled out their money out of Indian markets.
The faith in the Indian economy also plunged to a record low.

Now, look at the current scenario. The rupee has crossed Rs.60 mark, a psychological barrier despite the several attempts by RBI to keep it under control.
The foreign Investors are pumping their money in the Indian markets with enormous pace. The share markets are at record high.

Is it the symbol of renewed faith in the Indian market??
Or, Is it the bubble waiting to burst????

The market is laden with euphoria of an investment friendly stable government at the centre.
But what if the Indian people give the fractured mandate?
What will happen on 16th May in market when the election results are out?

It seems that RBI is already preparing for the worst. RBI has been seen buying dollars in the last few days.
The Indian foreign reserves may touch $300 billion any moment.
The way Raghuram Rajan, RBI governor, has brought back the confidence in Indian market is really commendable.
The import reduction in gold has been highly instrumental in bringing down Indian CAD(Current Account Deficit).
As, It is rightly said "Tough times requires tough measures".
After two months,it will be the right time to bring out some tough economic reforms in India.
Reforms that could bring back the pace of growth which we lost in previous government.

Lets, hope the next government remains stable for the five years and India proceeds towards the aim of being economic superpower.