Kra and caution: Business Standard

This article appeared in Business StandardFive years ago, Wang Jing, a tycoon with close links to the Chinese government and Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president announced a $50 billion plan to cut a 278-km long canal in the Central American isthmus. Despite the scale of environmental damage it would cause, Ortega’s government quickly cleared the decks for the project, and counted on China’s reputation for rapid execution of big infrastructure projects to have the canal ready by 2020. Well, not a single shovel of Nicaraguan sand has been dug out of the ground. On the other hand, Wang’s infrastructure company quietly moved out of its glamorous office in Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper last year, without even leaving a forwarding address. Ortega’s government ran out of money in 2017 after a political crisis in Venezuela, its long time benefactor, closed the tap. He cut social security payments to Nicaraguans, triggering nationwide protests. A brutal crackdown put down the “Tropical Spring”, but Nicaragua now finds in the doghouse after the United States imposed sanctions on the Ortega regime. Ironically, the only respite came from Taiwan — in the form of a $100 million loan and port call by a Taiwanese warship — because Nicaragua is among the few countries that still recognise it as the real China.The Nicaraguan canal project is dead. In the meantime, China and Panama are getting along famously after the latter ditched Taiwan for Beijing. An unspecified amount of “non-reimbursible aid” was announced during Xi Jinping’s visit in December 2018, and Chinese firms are now building a port, a bridges and a convention centre in Panama. Like many other Caribbean and Central American countries, Panama has found Chinese presence and assistance a useful hedge against US dominance.Was the Nicaraguan canal project a stratagem to win Panama over? It is hard to be sure. Note that Wang’s venture with Ortega was shrouded in mystery. He is now in financial trouble, but certainly has connections to the Chinese government. In recent years, he has tried to buy a port in Crimea, an satellite company in Israel and a key manufacturer of aircraft engines in the Ukraine. Beijing, however, can plausibly claim that he was a private entrepreneur and his projects are his own. The prospect of a China-supported competitor in Nicaragua would certainly have weighed on the minds of the Panamanian authorities, contributing to their decision to switch to Beijing’s side.The question closer to home is whether a similar game is afoot in Thailand, where there is renewed interest in building a canal across the Isthmus of Kra, creating a direct passage between the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea. Like the Nicaraguan canal, the Thai canal is an alternative to an existing route that is both congested and not politically under Chinese influence. The economic case for the Thai canal is at best marginal — for the largest ships on long haul voyages, if fuel prices are high, if transit fees are low and if the Straits of Malacca are congested, then the canal route makes sense. The Thai proponents like it because the canal project will be accompanied by special economic zones that will boost the local economy. Like in the case of Nicaragua, the Chinese investor is a private company, that will invest over $28 billion over ten years and bring in 30,000 Chinese workers.While such a canal would have dealt a severe blow to the Singapore economy even five decades ago, it will at worst merely shave off some of its market share in ports and maritime sector today. Malaysia’s ports might lose a bigger share, but the Thai canal is no longer an existential threat for the two economies. Indeed, if the sovereign wealth funds of the two countries acquire stakes in the Thai Canal, they will be able to offset some of the losses from the lost marine traffic. Yet, to the extent that Singapore and Malaysia would want to avoid the competition they, like Panama, will be ready to please China. Beijing can squeeze concessions from Singapore and Malaysia instead of building the canal.What would a Thai Canal mean for India? From an economic perspective, having an alternate route — even one managed by Chinese operators — to the Pacific Ocean is a good thing.Concerns arise from the strategic perspective. Chinese firms will have a vantage point in the Bay of Bengal and the PLA Navy will have a faster, friendlier route into the Indian Ocean. Yet India is also suitably placed, literally, to manage them by making appropriate investments in the Andamans. Given the convergence of interests, Singapore and even Malaysia will be even more interested in engaging us. Similarly, the United States, Japan and Australia will have stronger reasons to co-operate with us in the Bay of Bengal region.No canal project can move forward until Thai politics gains stability. And after observing what happened to Ortega and Nicaragua, Thailand’s political leaders are bound to be more careful than enthusiastic.So, should we be worried? Only to the extent that we are unable to make use of the opportunities that the Thai Canal presents.

Are Pakistan’s Battlefield Nuclear Weapons a Mirage?

In April 2011, Pakistan conducted the first test of its short-range Hatf-IX or Nasr rocket. The test was interpreted as marking a shift in Pakistan’s nuclear posture to “full-spectrum deterrence,” which envisages a complete range of “strategic, operational and tactical” nuclear weapons that would give India “no place to hide.” More specifically, Pakistan claimed the Nasr was intended to “pour cold water over Cold Start,” the name given to the Indian Army’s doctrine, which involves the rapid mobilization of division-sized integrated battle groups making shallow incursions into Pakistani territory.Read More

RAW thinks espionage can be taught in 6-month crash course—it clearly needs training reforms

There is no doubt that inadequacies exist within India’s intelligence community, especially in the RAW. Instead of letting them fester and risk national security, the focus should be on reforms that focus on the people that constitute the institution.Read more

This Lok Sabha election, don’t fall for these seven deadly myths

If you are reading this, chances are that you get most of your political information online, on television or on your smartphone. Many myths are floating around these media, and given the echo-chambers and the tribal battlefields that we inhabit, some of the myths are left so unchallenged that they are accepted as truths. Let me debunk some of the most prominent ones.1. Nobody has a monopoly on nationalism. Just because the BJP’s leaders and supporters throw the term “anti-national” at anyone they disagree with, it does not follow that nationalism is the sole preserve of one party. It may be that other parties don’t proclaim nationalism as their main proposition, but it does not follow that they are any less sensitive to national interest.Also, nationalism and patriotism are two different things — like Rabindranath Tagore, you can be a patriot (a person who loves his country) without being a nationalist (a person who believes in the superiority of the national identity).Read more

RAW needs to become more like CIA, and move away from IAS & IPS

Immediately after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the rules for deputation to the RAW also came under the scanner. While the rules continue to be debated, it is clear that the benefits of separating the civil services from external intelligence outnumber the benefits brought by an amalgamation of the two. There are better-suited solutions that should not be dismissed without exploration.Read more

We need more tourists but not an insurge that overwhelms us

There is a company in Gujarat that is pioneering election tourism in India. It currently offers foreign tourists 15 packages, with names as delightful as “Hustings in Himachal", “Republic of Rajasthan", “Grassroot Democracy of Kerala" and so on.The couple of thousand tourists who have signed up to witness political rallies and follow campaign trails constitute a curious footnote to India’s multi-billion dollar election economy, but the enterprise is still a promising sign as far as the tourism industry is concerned.Read more

Focus on Voting Security Instead of Just EVM Security

Unlike those of other countries, India’s machines are offline, inaccessible via the internet. In India, what started out as genuine concerns have transformed into a thinly veiled excuse each time parties lose elections — no matter that the Election Commission of India (ECI), recognised across major democracies for its independence, has taken steps to address the worries.EVMs have made “booth capturing” — where supporters of a party physically capture a remote polling station and stuff the ballot box to influence the total count — a thing of the past. Make no mistake, India’s electoral process has flaws — fraudulent voter IDs, difficulties eligible voters face in registering and fake news. It’s these challenges India needs to focus on — when votes are counted on May 23, the EVMs can be trusted.Read the full article on ozy. 

Advanced gene editing may mutate into WMDs

Last June, German police arrested a man planning a terror attack by releasing large quantities of the biological toxin ricin, said to be 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide. The raids on a block of flats in Cologne blew the lid off our worst fears: non-state actors laying their hands on bioweapons.Technology has always changed war and its arsenal. Scientists, security experts and diplomats are increasingly talking about biological weapons when they discuss strategies to prevent proliferation of conventional and nuclear weapons. While biological attacks have been rare since the end of World War II, isolated incidents have been reported. The ‘anthrax letters’, which killed five people in the US following 9/11, is one such incident.Read Entire Article Here

The folly of breaking up Big Tech

Further, breaking up these companies would significantly reduce the value consumers get due to the high interconnectedness of the products. A lot of the value that Google has seen in the Maps platform, for instance, comes from all the data that they have from Search. Customers also receive a lot of value from other Google products that are cross-subsidised from revenue earned in other products. YouTube, for instance, is widely believed to be non-profitable but is supported by revenues earned by other products.We would also have to stop and wonder how is it that one of the most integral parts of our lives — Google Search — is provided free of cost. Google can give the service for free because it can monetise it with advertising. If Google is broken up, this would no longer be possible. Breaking up any one of these services would give us substantially less valuable services.Breaking up these technology companies would also have a severe impact on innovation in the sector. As an article in Politico points out, “The top five spenders in research and development in 2017 were all tech companies. Amazon alone spent more than $22 billion. The development of autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and voice recognition wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as they are now if it weren’t for the work of Google and Amazon”. Investing in R&D and finally introducing them into the market is an expensive ordeal. However, big tech companies can afford to do so because of the nature of interconnectedness that exist within their products...Read the entire article 

After Mission Shakti, declare a ‘No First Use’ policy in space as well

Becoming a responsible space power should be India’s natural inclination. It should focus on building only relevant deterrence capability and follow a ‘No First Use’ doctrine as well work towards its global adoption.Read more

Modi govt’s data war: Economists & accountants are fighting for political power like rivals

The recent public intervention by a group of economists over data published under the Narendra Modi government and a rejoinder to them by a bigger group of chartered accountants makes it appear as if public policy is a numbers game. And as if economics and accountancy are two rival ideologies contending for political power. Both these impressions are wrong, dangerous for public policy and corrosive for democracy. Here’s why.At a time when India needs greater expertise in public policy, the oversimplified “economists vs chartered accountants” framing seems to suggest that the two disciplines are substitutes, and in doing so, devalues the role of any expertise in public policy.Just as it would be very unwise to approach an economist to help you with corporate structuring or tax planning, it would be wrong to rely on chartered accountants for recommendations on monetary policy, welfare schemes or public finance.Read More

Lokpal Is the Latest Miracle ‘Weight-Loss Pill’ We Have Bought

Many newspaper editorials, activists and citizens are elated that the Modi government has finally appointed the first chairperson of the Lokpal. Since seven more members remain to be selected and appointed, and the entire organisation has to be staffed according to government rules, it’ll be some time before the institution begins to function. We are still years away from a properly staffed, adequately resourced, and well-functioning anti-corruption ombudsman.Read more

Terrorism needs an audience. Facebook gave Christchurch shooter more than he asked for

To be effective, terrorism must have an audience. The New Zealand attackers simply used a GoPro and live streaming on Facebook while they carried out the massacre. With social media and the mobile internet, terrorists can not only reach a global audience, they can get their message across unfiltered. These, unfortunately, are near-perfect conditions for terrorism.When Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the terrorist who carried out the atrocity at two mosques in Christchurch last week, killing at least 50 people, streamed his act live on Facebook, he proved, yet again, that terrorism is theatre. Brian Jenkins, an early analyst of terrorism, argued in 1975 that in “the age of mass communications…terrorism is aimed at the people watching.”While some terrorists make specific demands — like seeking the release of their fellows — the strategic purpose of the terrorists’ actions is to draw attention to their political cause, widen their gross public support and enlist new followers. Terrorism is, as a 19th century political activist described it, “propaganda of the deed.”Read More

Night-time commerce offers India a growth opportunity

With Future Retail signed up as its master franchise, the 7-Eleven convenience store chain will open its iconic shops in many Indian cities this year. Unlike in almost all the 18 other countries where it is “always close, but never closed", it won’t be able to operate round the clock in India. As Kishore Biyani says, “We will be open 24 hours wherever we can."That is because India ignores and often looks down on its night-time economy. Mention the phrase and the first thing that comes to mostpeople’s mind is not just nightlife, but the seedy side of it, involving dance bars, prostitution, drunken driving, gang fights and other crime. Police commissioners will refuse permission for retail establishments to stay open late because of “law and order" problems, some communityleaders will complain of the evils that go with nocturnal activities and civic groups will protest noise, traffic and rowdyism. In most cities, after-dark economic activity starts slowing down at 10pm, though restaurants and bars in a few big cities remain open until 1.30am.Read More

We need more trade, not a trade war

The decision by the Trump administration to withdraw preferential treatment to Indian goods should serve as a strong warning to the New Delhi that prioritising narrow domestic politics over good economic policy can have dangerous consequences.Trump’s decision to levy import duties on erstwhile exempted goods did not, as commonly understood, come out of the blue, nor was it the first strike in an emerging trade dispute. The US Trade Representative has appealed to New Delhi multiple times in the past to remove the trade barriers that it has imposed on US goods and investments. This move by the US is largely due to three distortions introduced by the government that hurts not only US business interests but also Indian consumers. These are the price caps on cardiac stents and knee caps, the new FDI in e-commerce industry rules that prohibit foreign e-commerce firms to run inventory based retail, and the ban on American dairy products.It is not in India’s national interest to get into a trade war with the US. We have more to lose than them by doing so. India should drop the threat of escalating the trade war. Relative size of an economy and dependence on trade with the other partner are crucial in determining whether trade barriers can achieve the necessary outcomes. The US is a lot more important trading partner for India than India is to the US.Geopolitical realism instructs us that India cannot afford to indulge in such a trade war and that the damage we can inflict upon the US is not big enough to force it to change its trade regime. If India escalates the matter, it could very well lead to a full-blown trade war that could potentially witness bigger retaliation from the US in the form of higher tariffs on pharmaceutical products or non-trade barriers on Indian software products, which can truly hurt the Indian economy. We could also suffer due to decreased investment by US firms in India and, at a time of decreasing domestic investment, this can be damaging.Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/panorama/we-need-more-trade-not-a-trade-war-with-us-722934.html 

Without realistic rules, Election Commission can’t monitor social media before polls

The Election Commission has announced that it will closely monitor the social media campaigns of parties and candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It has enlisted the cooperation of Google, Facebook and Twitter to uphold “the integrity of the political campaigns on their platforms”. As much as the Election Commission must be commended for factoring in social media activities in its overall governance of the electoral process, it is unclear how effectively it can manage to do this.Even if a significant number — around 40 per cent in urban and 20 per cent in rural areas — of the 90 crore eligible Indian voters are on social media, let us be clear that tackling the regular offline issues during elections is far more important.Read More

OIC behaves like Organisation of Internal Contradictions, but India must be a part of it

There is a delicious irony in the Indian external affairs minister being the guest of honour at the OIC foreign ministers’ conclave in Abu Dhabi last week. The hosts did not rescind their invitation to India despite Pakistan’s strident protest, and accepted a Pakistani ministerial boycott as a price worth paying for the benefit of engaging India. Ironic, because it is almost exactly the opposite of what happened in September 1969, when the leaders of Muslim countries had assembled in Rabat, Morocco to inaugurate the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (since renamed to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation).Read More

Ten Takeaways from the Recent India-Pakistan Escalation

As the fog of war between India and Pakistan clears, here’s an assessment of the strategic consequences that go beyond immediate tactical gains and losses.Read the full article on ThePrint.

Is Opposition justified in seeking Balakot evidence or shouldn’t politicise national security?

Pranay's reply to this question for ThePrint's #TalkPoint of 4th March 2019The opposition parties are justified in seeking evidence to the extent that the government’s spokespersons insist with their boastful claim that 250-300 terrorists were killed in the Balakot air strikes by the Indian Air Force.In the broader scheme of things, the strategic consequences of the air strikes remain the same irrespective of the casualty figure. It’s not as if the Jaish-e-Mohammed will stop terrorism just because the air strikes hit their facility and killed some of its operatives.But the Pakistani military-jihadi complex, spearheaded by the Pakistani army, will definitely remember that India struck on its sovereign territory in response to a terror attack by an outfit operating from its soil. So, the strikes are a dent on the Pakistani army – the self-proclaimed ideological and territorial defenders of Pakistan.This is the real strategic victory for India. Any physical damage to the JeM facility and its leadership is a bonus. Hence the government and the opposition both should desist from exploiting this successful operation for their own partisan propaganda. We as a society are on the wrong track if Pakistan and its terrorists become an important issue in the upcoming elections.Read more on ThePrint.

Social Media and the Ghost of "Political Interference"

Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey was required to appear for a Parliamentary hearing earlier this month after being accused by social media users of bias against particular political views. He did not. As the conversation around social media, fake news, and online censorship gets intense in the run-up to the general elections, Anirudh Kanisetti asks whether these companies are really interfering with India’s political process, and what could be done about it.http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/feb/23/is-twitter-interfering-in-our-politics-1942592.html