Sending a letter to India

Readers may find this interesting. On February 19th we dropped a letter into the mailbox at the Plymouth MN postoffice. Today it arrived in India. 

Narendra Modi eradicates "black money"

Why India wiped out 86% of its cash overnight

Excerpt:

On 8 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave only four hours' notice that virtually all the cash in the world's seventh-largest economy would be effectively worthless.

The Indian government likes to use the technical term "demonetisation" to describe the move, which makes it sound rather dull. It isn't. This is the economic equivalent of "shock and awe". ...

Mr Modi's "shock and awe" declaration meant that 1,000 and 500 rupee notes would no longer be valid. These may be the largest denomination Indian notes but they are not high value by international standards - 1,000 rupees is only £12. But together the two notes represent 86% of the currency in circulation.

Think of that, at a stroke 86% of the cash in India now cannot be used. What is more, India is overwhelmingly a cash economy, with 90% of all transactions taking place that way. And that is the target of Mr Modi's dramatic move.

Because so much business is done in cash, very few people pay tax on the money they earn. According to figures published by the government earlier this year, in 2013 only 1% of the population paid any income tax at all. As a result huge numbers of Indians have stashes of tax-free cash hidden away - known here as "black money".

Anger rising over India's bungled cash exchange

Excerpt:

Banks are out of cash. ATMs are broken. Frustration has given way to anger.

Five days ago India suddenly banned more than 80% of its rupee notes, launching a currency exchange program that has been dogged by logistics snafus, poor banking infrastructure and intense demand for the new money.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last week the ban on old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes would strike a blow against corruption and tax evasion. The shock move has been hailed by supporters as a "masterstroke."

Citizens rushed to swap the banned notes -- India's largest -- for new bills issued by the Reserve Bank of India. But demand has overwhelmed the country's banks, which stayed open over the weekend in an attempt to process more transactions. On Monday, lines to exchange money were again thousands deep and anger was mounting.

Comment: Image source.

There are different layers of blackmoney and this is how we should deal with it . Dr @JP_LOKSATTA explains. #IndiaFightsBlackMoney pic.twitter.com/jduaU7xSr1

— Loksatta Party (@Loksatta_Party) November 13, 2016

Talked about 1000 & 500 rupee notes ceasing to be legal tender & assured farmers that they won’t face difficulties. https://t.co/gk6wklsx6G

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 13, 2016

Our fight against corruption & black money will continue. We can’t tolerate these evils any more. pic.twitter.com/bQIhfwq7J9

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 13, 2016

ATM staff working 18 hrs a day but proud of what they r doing for their country #IndiaFirst #IndiaFightsBlackMoney https://t.co/LlG0SHy8NR

— Divya Kumar Soti (@DivyaSoti) November 14, 2016

@ArtofLiving volunteers providing chana and jaggery to people standing in queues in Mumbai.#IndiaFightsBlackMoney #DeMonetisation pic.twitter.com/qrvt25pYER

— Honest Indians (@Honest_Indians) November 13, 2016

India’s attempt to replace counterfeit currency isn't going well — via @vicenews https://t.co/2jrgn67Sp9 pic.twitter.com/NEXOO5fxhf

— BI Markets (@themoneygame) November 17, 2016

Narendra Modi wants to crack down on “black money”. Will his crackdown actually work? https://t.co/huRXsPc6tL

— Financial Times (@FT) November 18, 2016

India's rural economy hit hard as informal lending breaks down https://t.co/Uhhq7QL3fR pic.twitter.com/uxHYVBwHqu

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) November 27, 2016

McVeggie burgers for the Indians

McDonald's to open vegetarian restaurant in India

 Excerpt:

Billions and billions served won't mean burgers at a new outlet in India.

The fast-food giant reportedly plans to open its first vegetarian-only restaurant next year in India.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company has been known to tailor its menus to suit local demographics. In India, for example, it already uses chicken instead of beef for its Maharaja Mac sandwich. But this will be the first McDonald's without meat on the menu.

The first location will open near the Golden Temple in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in northern India. The second store will be near the Vaishno Devi cave shrine in northwestern Indian Kashmir, a holy Hindu temple that sees millions of pilgrims each year.

"It will be the first time we have opened a vegetarian restaurant," a spokesman for McDonald's in northern India, Rajesh Kumar Maini, told AFP. "There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants (in India) as many Indians are vegetarian."

Comment: Important because (as the above image illustrates) the US is saturated with locations.  Source of image. Stock has a dividend return of 3%.

Superbugs in Delhi drinking water

Scientists find superbugs in Delhi drinking water

Excerpt:

A gene that makes bugs highly resistant to almost all known antibiotics has been found in bacteria in water supplies in New Delhi used by local people for drinking, washing and cooking, scientists said on Thursday.

The NDM 1 gene, which creates what some experts describe as "super superbugs", has spread to germs that cause cholera and dysentery, and is circulating freely in other bacteria in the Indian city capital of 14 million people, the researchers said.

"The inhabitants of New Delhi are continually being exposed to multidrug-resistant and NDM 1-positive bacteria", said Mark Toleman of Britain's Cardiff University School of Medicine, who published the findings in a study on Thursday.

A "substantial number" of them are consuming such bacteria on a daily basis, he told a briefing in London. "We believe we have discovered a very significant underlying source of NDM 1 in the capital city of India," he said.

NDM 1, or New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1, makes bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class, called carbapenems.

It first emerged in India three years ago and has now spread across the world. It has been found in a wide variety of bugs, including familiar pathogens like Escherichia coli, or E. coli.

No new drugs are on the horizon for at least 5-6 years to tackle it and experts are concerned that only a few major drug companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L), still have strong antibiotic development programmes.

Toleman's study, carried out with Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, investigated how common NDM 1-producing bacteria are in community waste seepage -- such as water pools or rivulets in streets -- and tap water in urban New Delhi.

The researchers collected 171 swabs from seepage water and 50 public tap water samples from sites within a 12 kilometre radius of central New Delhi between September and October 2010.

The NDM 1 gene was found in two of the drinking-water samples and 51 of seepage samples, the researchers said, and bacteria positive for NDM 1 were grown from two drinking-water samples and 12 seepage samples.

"We would expect that perhaps as many as half a million people are carrying NDM 1-producing bacteria as normal (gut) flora in New Dehli alone," Toleman said.

Experts say the spread of superbugs threatens whole swathes of modern medicine, which cannot be practiced if doctors have no effective antibiotics to ward off infections during surgery, intensive care or cancer treatments like chemotherapy.

Comment: In light of the above, GlaxoSmithKline and Astrazeneca could be good investments! Image source: Rivers of Sewage: India’s Rivers Are Slowly Dying

The first thing that a traveller to India learns is not to drink the tap water. And with good reason: millions of tonnes of sewage are dumped daily into India’s rivers – and some of them, such as the holy Yamuna and Ganges rivers – are slowly choking to death, jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

"We talk a lot about industrial pollution of our rivers, but sewage pollution is a big problem," said Sunita Narain, the director of the Centre for Science and Environment on Thursday. "What is happening to the Yamuna is reflective of what is happening in almost every river in India. The Yamuna is dead, we just haven't officially cremated it yet."

Some of these rivers are the only source of water for drinking and domestic use for many poor Indian citizens, so while a tourist can make do with some plastic-packed substitute, the impact of industrial and human waste is further worsening the water crisis in a country that depends on its rivers for water in agricultural and human consumption.

A study done by the Central Pollution Control Board showed that around 70 percent of the pollution in the Yamuna is human excrement. In large metropolises such as New Delhi, 3.6 billion tonnes of sewage alone are dumped daily – but only half of that amount is effectively treated and the rest flows down the Yamuna, resulting in widespread waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea from drinking and bathing in the affected water.

Note to self: Not a destination!

Permanent

Comment: For my son who is getting married on 1/1/11

Counterterrorism in India: Inept, Corrupt, Callous

Flunking the Intelligence Test

Excerpts:

The hostage takers in Mumbai didn't need to wonder how large an armed rescue team the Indian government was sending, or when to anticipate its arrival. They had only to click on the nearest TV set, and there was the federal home minister, Shivraj Patil, obliviously telling viewers that 200 commandos had taken off on the two-hour flight from New Delhi at 2:30 a.m.

...

About an hour before the shooting started, villagers on the shore in South Mumbai saw a group of 10 young strangers climbing out of an inflatable raft. The incident was reported to local police, who did nothing.

...

[at an attacked hospital]: The state's antiterrorism chief and two other top police officials arrived at the scene with a posse of cops who were armed with antiquated .303 rifles. Seemingly unaware of any danger, the three men stood unprotected on the firing line, where they were quickly mowed down by sudden bursts of automatic gunfire.

...

Horrified police officers in Mumbai saw their vehicles hijacked by terrorists who showed intimate knowledge of the city's streets and the layouts of the huge hotels they captured. In contrast, the police displayed no familiarity with the layouts of those buildings. The commandos who flew in from New Delhi had to waste precious time getting hotel staff members to sketch out the layouts of their workplaces.

...
Today MAC [Multi-Agency Center] consists of a tiny staff using a bare-bones computer system with no real-time links to state police or other intelligence sources.

Comment: Many lessons to be learned from Mumbia attack!

The "Deccan Mujahedeen" - Who are they?

Sophisticated Attacks, but Al Qaeda Link Disputed

Excerpts:

This time, the assault was “uniquely disturbing”, said Sajjan Gohel, a security expert in London, because it seemed directed at foreigners, involved hostage-taking and was aimed at multiple “soft, symbolic targets.” The attacks “aimed to create maximum terror and human carnage and damage the economy,” he said in a telephone interview.

...

An e-mail message to Indian media outlets that claimed responsibility for the bloody attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night said the militants were from the Deccan Mujahedeen. Almost universally, experts and intelligence officials said that name was unknown.

Deccan is a neighborhood of the Indian city of Hyderabad. The word also describes the middle and south of India, which is dominated by the Deccan Plateau. Mujahedeen is the commonly used Arabic word for holy fighters. But the combination of the two, said Mr. Gohel in London, is a “front name. This group is nonexistent.”

Some global terrorism experts with experience in South Asia said that, based on the tactics used in the attacks, the group was probably not linked to Al Qaeda — although that assertion was challenged by other analysts.

“It’s even unclear whether it’s a real group or not,” said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the book “Inside Terrorism.”

That theory was echoed by an Indian security official who spoke in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to be identified and who said the name suggested ties to a group called Indian Mujahedeen, which has been implicated in a string of bombing attacks in India killing around 200 people this year alone.

On Sept. 15, an e-mail published in Indian newspapers and said to have been sent by representatives of Indian Muhajedeen threatened potential “deadly attacks” in Mumbai. The message warned counter-terrorism officials in the city that “you are already on our hit-list and this time very, very seriously.”

Several high-ranking law enforcement officials, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a commissioner of police, were reported killed.

Comment: Interesting - possible link to "Pakistani intelligence". I'm personally surprised that India and Pakistan haven't gone nuclear on each other. A CNN analyst commented this morning that this "lands like a dull thud" on the desk of President-Elect Obama.

The world’s cheapest car ($ 2,500)

Four Wheels for the Masses: The $2,500 Car

Excerpt:

Frugal engineering pervades the car’s internal machinery, too, with even greater implications for the vehicle’s safety and longevity.

To save $10, Tata engineers redesigned the suspension to eliminate actuators in the headlights, the levelers that adjust the angle of the beam depending on how the car is loaded, according to Mr. Chaturvedi of Lumax. In lieu of the solid steel beam that typically connects steering wheels to axles, one supplier, Sona Koyo Steering Systems, used a hollow tube, said Kiran Deshmukh, the chief operating officer of the company, which is based in Delhi.

Tata chose wheel bearings that are strong enough to drive the car up to 45 miles an hour, but they will wear quickly above that speed, reducing the car’s life span but not threatening consumer safety, according to Mr. Taneja. The car’s top speed is 75 miles an hour.

Reducing the weight curbed material costs and enabled the company to use a cheaper engine. People familiar with the car describe a $700 rear-mounted engine built by the German company Bosch, measuring 600 to 660 cubic centimeters, with a horsepower in the range of 30 to 35. By comparison, the Honda Fit, one of the smallest cars available in the United States, has a horsepower of 109.

Comment: My John Deer tractor is more rugged than this ... and has nearly as much H.P.

Indian ragpickers - 300,000 of them!

Picking Up Trash by Hand, and Yearning for Dignity

New Delhi Journal
Picking Up Trash by Hand, and Yearning for Dignity
By AMELIA GENTLEMAN
Published: September 27, 2007
An essential class of workers, garbage collectors in India’s capital are among the city’s poorest and most marginalized groups.

Excerpt:

A garbage collector in India’s capital, Ms. Begum is one of 300,000 little-seen workers who perform a vital role for the city: rifling through the detritus of modern life, recycling anything of worth and carefully disposing of the rest.

More than 95 percent of New Delhi has no formal system of house-to-house garbage collection, so it falls to the city’s ragpickers, one of India’s poorest and most marginalized groups, to provide this basic service. They are not paid by the state, relying instead on donations from the communities they serve and on meager profits from the sale of discarded items.

Comment: Interesting read. First I had heard of this! Image from toxicslink.blogspot.com