India’s economic growth is evaluated with frequency, passion, and feverous pitch. Many of these evaluations are relative in opinion and outlook. The Gulf News reported that earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee cut its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth forecast for fiscal year 2020 to 7 per cent, from an earlier projection of 7.2 per cent. The RBI also delivered a third consecutive rate cut in five months to boost credit growth and revive sluggish economic activity. However former Chief Economic Adviser, Arvind Subramanian recently wrote a research paper published by Harvard University, said India's growth in the period 2011-12 to 2016-17 is most likely to have been over-estimated, because of a change in methodology for calculation.
Dawn Holland, Chief of Global Economic Monitoring at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, has said that India should focus on increasing private sector involvement in investment to bridge this gap. Similarly, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in its World Economic Outlook that reform is key to bringing down India’s elevated public debt and raising its growth levels.
Goldman Sachs stated that GDP growth will accelerate to 7.2 per cent. In May the United Nations report, World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) 2019 Mid-year Update, said India’s economy will grow at 7 per cent in 2019 and 7.1 percent in 2020 on the back of strong domestic consumption and investment. Both figures reflect a downward revision from January (7.6 and 7.4 respectively).
Whatever be India's currrent economic siatuation, there is no doubt that it plays a pivotal role, as a trade and business partner. A recent report published by the Parliament has clearly pointed out that UK is not keeping up with India's changing status globally and says the country should not be complacent.
Interestingly, the Financial Times in a recent article wrote, that Washington considers India as a critical part of its long-term security strategy for Asia which involves increased defence cooperation between Japan, Australia, the US and India to defend from the rising Chinese influence. Obviously US does not want a Cold War situation and India on non-alliance. No one has to talk about the Trump-Modi friendship and that has its affect on various policies.
US companies see India’s 1.3bn people as a lucrative market. But they have been frustrated with the capital's protectionism and ever changing business policies. Though India-US bilateral trade has more than doubled to $142bn in 2018, up from $66bn a decade earlier, Mr Trump is upset by the US’s $24bn trade deficit with India. But the differences have now started aggravating between US and India.
Just a day after Mr Modi came back to power, Washington revoked preferential trade privileges through which $6bn worth of Indian goods had duty-free access to the US market. In terminating the advantages, Mr Trump cited India’s failure to ensure “equitable and reasonable access” to its markets for US companies. India has responded by imposing import tariffs on more than 20 items from the US, including almonds, apples, walnuts and pulses, with a total value of about $1.4bn. Both sides seem keen to prevent tensions from escalating further, and ruining the relationship, but points of disputation remain.
With Brexit in the horizon, if Boris Johnson becomes the Prime Minister, it is evidential that UK will have a no deal Brexit. In that case, India has the potential to play a key partnership role. India day was organised on Monday by India Inc- which is an example of the popularity of the diaspora and the growing significance of the relationship. Reawakening UK-India ties, the Committee behind the recent report says that the Government must address India's priorities, facilitate easy movement of people, and support India's efforts to take up its rightful role on the international stage.
There is no excuse for the migration policies that have led the UK to lose ground in attracting Indian students and tourists - who not only contribute to our economy but build lasting bilateral ties. The FCO should ensure that the goal of improving the overall relationship with India is woven into the broader Government migration policy. Something has gone wrong it if it is more difficult for citizens of a strategically important democracy that shares our values, language and history to visit or study in the UK than those of an autocracy such as China. The Government should prioritise talks with India and do more to lay the groundwork for an eventual deal. It must ensure that the 'Global Britain' strategy is heard in New Delhi.
Kaleshwaran: An engineering marvel
The Chief Minister of Telangana, K. Chandrashekhar Rao, inaugurated the world’s largest multistage Lift Irrigation Scheme last week in the presence of Chief Guests, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagmohan Reddy and other notables. June 21, 2019 was truly a red letter day for Telangana, its immediate neighbours, and for India.
A drought prone area, crippled frequently in the past by water scarcity, the affected districts will now be guaranteed water for irrigation and consumption, making it a veritable land of milk and honey. So what are the basics of this remarkable project? The Godavri river will be tapped by reverse pumping and storage, thereby boosting agriculture, rejuvenating thousands of tanks, providing water for critical industrial of Hyderabad, Secunderabad and surrounding areas through vast storage tanks and a network of pipelines, which will also have an abiding impact on smaller projects downstream.
In three years, the project has transformed thousands of lives for the better, bringing hope when there was almost none, as the first shoots of real prosperity began to appear. The major sections of theKaleshwaran project have been completed, with the construction of the scheduled reservoirs on fast track.
The world’s largest pump site with seven pumps of 139 MW each has been deployed, along with eight pumping stations 150 metres underground. This structure has five floors with each floor housing lifting operations. The project’s mega pumps and motors lift water 100-600 metres , carrying it 400km through the main canal.
Hitherto Egypt’s Mubarak Pumping Station, built as part of the Toska Project of 2005 was considered a peerless engineering wonder.
The scale of Kaleshwaran is even more awesome, as is the expansion underway. The Project is designed to Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha schemes planned to provide drinking water to hundreds of villages and improve the capacities of tanks.
The scale and cost of the Project have grown in tandem, hence the Telangana State government seeks to persuade the Centre to grant KaIaleshwaran national status to qualify it for extra funding. Lack of water in parts of India’s South is acute, notably in Tamil Nadu, which is receiving water tankers from neighbouring Kerala to cope with its present scarcity.
Bleak news from India has a habit of travelling faster in the Western media than bad news. Few people in those sainted parts will have heard of the Kalaleshwaran Project, just as few are aware of the Gujarat-based Amul brand in dairy products. Such is life.
World Cup: Smart TV sales soar
Cricket’s ODI World Cup has led to soaring sales of Smart Television sets across India. Samsung India saw a 110 per cent growth in the sales of its 55-inch and ultra higher definition TVs. The company also claimed that sales of its ultra premium 75 inch and broader TVs grew five times in the first weeks of the tournament, indicating preference for large and larger screens.
According to Samsung, smaller Tier II cities such as Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Hubbali, Jodhpur, Agra, Nagpur, Ludhiana, Dehra Dun , Cochin, Tirupati, Madurai, Asansol, Kolhapur, Coimbatore, Baroda, Ranchi, among others, are following this trend.
Samsung, the market leader in India, commands 47 per share in the premium 55 inch segment. ‘We want to take this share 55 per cent by this Diwali riding on the rising sales of large screen TTVs, said the company. With the recent launch of the Samsung QLED 8K models, Samsung is eyeing 70 per cent market share in ultra premium TVs (75 inch and above) from its current market share of 53 per cent, said Samsung.
