India Leveraging the Opportunities…

All around the world the echo of the trade war is sounding on its pinnacle with the currency crises in the emerging markets adding flavor of real disruptions at the global level. But really if we talk about India, is it too bad too criticize what’s all happening or its too good to leverage upon and become the next manufacturer of the world?

There was a time when India and China use to share the level of development and was a neck to neck competitor to India but today it would be a little odd to describe that the situation has been the same. Of course the situation is not the same. Because today China is sharing its level of development with the world’s largest economy and competing neck to neck giving a cut throat competition to USA. So in 80’s India and China and at present China and USA.

China’s growth has been a result of massive FDI, increasing exports through undervalued currencies, autocracy resulting into faster execution are the factors which have worked for China to grow at such a high pace. Presently China dominates global trade with a market share of almost 20%. This share is clearly visible in its $3-trillion plus forex reserves which are more than India’s GDP. But these growth story has now a new turn where USA has started levying tariffs on Chinese imports making them expensive which has again open a new route for other countries including India to provide an alternative.

But with all these come the several effects of the Trade War which may hamper India in both positive as well as in negative ways. First of all, as the China now getting a narrowed path to push their huge quantum to USA, obviously it will somewhere want to dump the same which has not found place in USA and the prospect can be India for them if India didn’t react to this situation quickly and wisely, again at the same time India should be cautious in decisions regards to joining Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as it will be disastrous to provide more market access to China.

But looking to its positives for India is in a disruption happening in the supply chain especially originating from China. Apple originates 73% of its shipment from China and USA imports ICT products worth about of $200 billion. This whole chain is looking for an alternative to source from. And India learning from growths of countries like China, Japan, South Korea and others should learn to grab this opportunity to manufacture goods for the world and be the alternative which will be also helpful to India to improve on to the exports resulting an improvement in the current account. India should grab the opportunities like exporting soybeans to China as they have laid tariffs on imports from USA.

Here in this situation India has to move ahead strategically i.e., by leveraging its strengths to attract the global manufacturers to set up base in India using the large domestic demand as push factor for the same. Facebook recently has proposed to invest $1 billion to build a Data Centre in Singapore. Now India being the largest user of Facebook in Asia it should have such an economic environment which encourage Facebook for building a Data Centre in India. But for all these India needs to work upon several issues such as IP protection, labor laws, infrastructure and taxation mechanism, which are the main considerations for any global manufacturer.

But whatever strategy or policies India may want to follow but India will have to react very quickly as the global disruptions are highly prone to the changing dynamics and at the same time it is important for India also to sustain and get out of the currency depreciation issue which may get a relief through increased exports.

India’s Global Insights

India can take advantage of US and CHINA trade war by exporting to both countries the products and services that they were initially use to import from each other which will give India a competitive edge and thus India will be able to leverage the trade war. Mostly India can leverage on its agriculture strength, software building strengths, automobile components and other strengths. The other main advantage that India can take is attracting the US firms and industries for FDI by winning their trust through showing India an eligible country for the same with perfect environment for the same.

Talking about the depreciation of Indian currency in 2013 mainly against the US dollars, for that Indian government initiated to reduce the effect of rising crude oil prices resulting into demand of more and more dollars which again contributing to the depreciation of Indian rupee. The government opened window for the crude oil importers to purchase dollars for an undecided frame of time so that the firms may not have to demand it from somewhere else which may again take a role of high demand resulting into hike in dollars due to the same.

Basically here laws of economics work as the demand locally for dollars exceeds its supplies then the dollar is inclined to get a hike from this phenomenon. They are the importers majorly who are in need of dollars for making payment for their imports. The other reason is the selling off of the investments by foreign institutional investors and taking them elsewhere. As they will be winding off or withdrawing or selling of the investments they will obviously demand dollars in exchange which will create pressure on rupee.

Another big factor contributing towards the depreciating currency is rising prices of crude oil. Now and then the prices of crude oil increasing in the global markets and at the same time the demand for the same in India is also increasing resulting in to more and more buying of the same. Now the payment for the crude oil is made in terms of dollars so whenever the India will purchase crude in international market it will only demand high amt. of dollars which will again make dollar more and more stronger resulting into weakening of rupee further.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Universal Prosperity, a means to Universal Peace

Now a days in such a high pacing as well as transforming world, where on one hand people at individual level as well as nations at an aggregate level are enjoying the fruits of social and technological advancements on the other hand still after so much of developments the nations around the world are finding it hard to position peace between them and still around the world where on one side two nations are having summits relating to international deals on technological transfers and investments on the other side there are wars going on around nations in terms of on field wars as well as trade wars.

So one of the most needed thing is universal peace because no one wants to misuse the excellent inventions and innovations of humanity to destroy itself and everyone wants to leave a happy and peaceful life. Now the biggest question is how to establish universal peace. For that several knowns of different fields have talked about their views. But one of the views which I feel comes out to be relevant is to attain and sustain universal prosperity i.e., every nation is at least that much wealthy that it is able to fulfill its needs easily and can ensure the optimize use of its resources.

Now one may argue in vain by denoting historical evidence that, universal prosperity is good, accepted but, that rich have regularly been peaceful than poor, that is to say it is not that everyone should be prospered to sustain peace between nations. But there comes the truth that the rich and powerful nations have never felt secured against the poor or developing nations which results into their aggressiveness and constant influence of their power over other countries.

The situation would have been quiet different if every nation were rich. I will keep it open for you all to think upon that. Just think.

Social Networking Sites used as a means to destroy Social Fiber Network

In a society there is a network of interlinked connections and communication between people living in there and a society can be measured for unity in terms of stability of that network no matter the external factors may try to cause mayhem. Now if you compare the network of society with fabric, the individuals will be the threads which will make the fiber of society, which is nothing but the social fiber of that society. So the more strongly the threads are weaved i.e., the stronger the people’s network is, the stronger the fabric is i.e., the stronger the society is.

Now the external factors that we talked about includes several ones but one that’s at present popping up as a threat to the Indian society is transmission of fake news through the social media platforms mainly including social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook and many more.

Today I am going to talk about the fake news issue which has been an emerging threat to the social fiber of India. First of all, let me give you a little stance over what’s happening in India at present. In Karnataka 200 people killed a man Mohammed Azam over false assumption of him being child kidnapper. Mohammed Azam succumbed to death where as other two were badly injured. In Manipur in two villages two unidentified men were brutally beaten up by locals on suspicion of being child lifters. In West Bengal in bolpur town a middle aged man was severely beaten up by the locals on the same grounds as told in the then case. Then same was repeated in Maharashtra in rainpada village where five people were brutally thrashed by a mob leading to their death. The incident is believed to have been triggered by a rumor of a child lifting gang active in that area. Same goes with Tripura.

Now in such an environment a lady police officer has come up with a light in Telangana. Rema Rajeshwari a lady police officer who has been conducting education campaign across villages in order to aware people against fake news and its spreading phenomena where she urged villagers to not trust all the news viral on social media and especially to not forward the same, most of them being fake. And say what there has been a really very positive outcome as there has been no incident of fake news related deaths in more than 400 villages which are under her control.

Now taking about India’s WhatsApp user number, its over 200 million which is estimated to cross over 400 million by 2020(Neha Dharia, Founder of consultancy Warp Speed Reads). These situation is an outcome of cheap smartphone added with cheap data plans resulting into more number of people having a smartphone with internet but till then also its not a problem as long as people are at least that much literate or socially aware about the fake news which are pipelined at a high pace through the social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook.

Again a question arises that if the people are not enough literate, how they are able to get along these social media apps? Not going with arbitrary assumptions lets take a real case illustration to give it a true sense. In some of the rural areas in India at present the illiterate people going with a new mobile phone are helped by the local sim card salesman to install WhatsApp and Facebook and at the same time with little knowledge to read and write they mostly try to interpret images and videos which again are sent by their friends and relatives whom they may be trusting like any.

Though, Ministry of information and Broadcasting, India have started taking action by releasing a tender for a company to analyze Indians social media posts and detect fake news and at the same time giant SNS Facebook has assured the safety regard to transmission of fake news as the 2019 elections are coming closer, let the future unveil the pages.