Narendra Modi at the White House
“There comes a tide in the affairs of men/ Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune……” Shakespeare’s memorable lines come readily to mind when considering Prime Minister Narendra Modi meteoric rise from tea seller to provincial politician, chief minister, and evolving international statesman. He has scarcely put a foot wrong since his his arrival as BJP leader and the thunderous BJP victory in India’s general election earlier this year. He has proved his mettle as a superb communicator, political strategist and tactician, outthinking and outflanking his opponents into a vainglorious defeat. His American odyssey was an demonstration of his ability to take the sternest challenge, on unfamiliar ground, in his stride. He was in his element in New York’s Central Park and Madison Square Garden, as he addressed vast crowds; he handled his encounter with America’s top business heads with rare aplomb and deftness, impressing men and women not easily impressed and notoriously hard to please. Having surmounted these hurdles, he entered the White House, the citadel of American power and authority, for a meeting with President Barack Obama, pressing the reset button on the stalled Indo-US relationship and getting it moving again. Mr Modi, very much a rising star, grasped his opportunity; he dwelt on the themes of the India story (as he saw it), buoyed by the spectacular success of the country’s Mars Orbiter Mission, but not omitting to dilate on the stupendous obstacles of poverty, deprivation, and social disadvantage that needed to be overcome before India could reach the sunlit uplands of an economically developed nation. On message, he said India was open for business, that its aspirations, while ambitious, were not threatening to a stable global order, that its time-tested values were rooted in freedom of thought and expression, of cultural pluralism, the rule of law and democratic governance. In short, Mr Modi exuded confidence, notwithstanding the daunting obstacles that lay ahead for India and himself. This sense of direction reflected his robust optimism about his country’s prospects going forward. The same cannot be said for Mr Obama, clearly a beleaguered president and serial interventionist with seven wars in Muslim countries to his name. His latest foray against the Islamic State of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon (ISIL) promises to be as bloody, long and indeterminate as the kindred catastrophes visited upon the Greater Middle East, from Afghanistan to Libya, with no detectable endgame or exit strategy on the radar. The Indian angle to the mayhem was cogently explained by Brahma Chellaney on the edit page of The Hindu newspaper. He writes: “The US has also contributed to India’s terrorism problem…..large portions of the CIA’s multibillion-dollar military aid for the Afghan rebels in the 1980s were siphoned off by the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (IS), to trigger insurgencies in Kashmir and Punjab……America’s continued [cosseted] ties with the Pakistani military and its ISI spies” have done little for regional peace and stability. Paradoxically, the US and India are on the same page apropos of the current situation in Afghanistan. As elucidated on this page before, issues pertaining to bilateral trade, investment, trouble-free market access and much else in the field, plus greater educational exchanges and science and technology cooperation dominated the Modi-Obama conversation and the India-US delegation-level talks. Intelligence sharing on jihadi terror networks was also discussed and its implementation will be worked ou in the weeks and months to comet. Mr Modi’s tactful warning that there could be no meaningful distinction between “moderate” and “extremist” jihadis (as is the wont in Washington) was code for much that has gone wrong (and continues to go wrong) with US policy. Consider US Vice President Joe Biden’s explosive admission that America’s allies such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms were responsible for arming jihadi groups, in the hope that the Assad regime in Syria could be overthrown. Yet, confusion worse confounded, these self-same allies constitute the core of the US-led coalition in the war against ISIL! Truth is a full blown Indo-US strategic relationship at this stage is unfeasible; but this does not preclude a calibrated dialogue on areas where there is a recognizable convergence of national interests between the two sides. Realism rather than wishful thinking lies at the core of the Modi-Obama vision statement published in the Washington Post and The Hindu. It provides a viable roadmap to the future.
Evaluating the science of the Mars mission
India’s Mars mission proved to a first-time success, and the cheapest on record. Why so? One major reason was that home-grown technologies were prioritized over expensive foreign imports. Second, the salaries paid to the large corpus of Indian scientists and engineers were modest by American and European standards. Third, the Indian project was kept simple, unlike NASA’s bigger Maven satellite. India’s Mangalayaan carried a smaller payload by far. Briton’s top space scientist, Professor Andrew Coates, who will be a principal investigator on Europe’s Mars rover in 2018, said of the Indian project: “They’ve kept it small. The payload weighs only 15kg. Compare that with the complexity in the payload in Maven and that will explain a lot of things about the cost. Of course, that reduced complexity suggests it won’t be as scientifically capable, but India has been smart in targeting some really important areas that will complement what others are doing.” For instance, Mangalayaan is equipped with an instrument that will try to measure methane in the atmosphere. This is one of the foremost topics in present-day Mars research. Earth’s atmosphere contains billions of tonnes of methane, the vast majority of it originating from microbes found in organisms in the digestive tracts of animals. Hence the speculation that some methane-producing bugs, or methanogens could perhaps exist on Mars if they lived underground away from the planet’s harsh surface conditions. So, despite Mangalayaan’s small payload, it will actually address some of the biggest questions at the Red Planet. Western scientists are excited also to have the Indian probe on station. The Indian satellite’s measurements of other atmospheric components will dovetail well with Maven and the observations being made by Europe’s Mars Express. “It means we will be getting three-point measurements, which is tremendous,” opines Professor Coates. This will enable scientists to better understand how the planet lost the bulk of its atmosphere billions of years ago, and determine what sort of climate it could have once had, and whether or not it was conducive to life. And so to the concluding assessment of Mangalayaan and its works. The familiar handwringing and breast-beating wails of self-styled social activists, much given to deploring the financial waste. They argue that the money could have been better spent ameliorating want and poverty. This is specious exhibitionism of casuistic cant. It’s a position that takes no account of the role of science and technology in improving human lives down the ages. Could India have effectively tackled food scarcity without the Green Revolution which doubled and trebled wheat and rice yields to meet the needs of an expanding population? Space activity is a wealth generator through new, derivative technologies and services. It contributes immeasurably to the country’s economic strength, is a guarantor of India’s future development.
Delhi Metro second in customer satisfaction
The Delhi Metro, which was opened to the public a little more than a decade ago and has expanded phenomenally since, has been ranked second among 18 international metro systems for customer satisfaction, according to a survey by the Global Benchmarking Groups, NOVA and CoMet. The Delhi Metro along with the London DLR [not to be confused with the London Underground, which was also graded, but got a lower rating] and Bangkok were the three best performers. Delhi Metro commuters rated ’availability,’ ‘reliability’ and ‘crowding’ as their three most priority areas. The Delhi Metro has lived up to public expectations. It has a high quantum of the best Japanese technology; its management system put in place by its first head, the peerless, E. Sreedharan, has turned out be a model for other metro systems coming up across India, and it has been a life-changing experience for the citizens of India’s sprawling capital, where travel from corner of the city to a far-flung destination was a purgatory best avoided, if possible. The gleaming, high-tech Metro is now Delhi’s blessing, pride and joy.
