The Free Press Journal | Analysis: Forget Trump, Biden Has A Bigger Problem — A West Asia Conflagration

At the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, the Oscar for the Best Documentary Feature was awarded to British filmmaker James Marsh, whose masterpiece ‘Man on Wire’ had enthralled audiences the world over since its release the previous year. The movie features maverick Frenchman Philippe Petit who, in 1974, performed what was then perhaps the most dangerous stunt you could ever conceive of — a highwire walk 1312 feet above the ground on a 200kg steel cable that connected the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City. He accomplished that with just a 30-foot, 25 kg balancing pole, with no protective gear whatsoever. He walked for 45 minutes, and made eight passes along the wire, during which he even danced and sat down on the wire to salute the crowd below. He was later arrested, but released on the promise that he will perform for kids in a much safer setting (which he not only did, but he has been living in New York ever since). Read the full article here.

Mint | We need to build social capital for a better quality of urban life

Five years after Bengaluru’s Church Street received a facelift, it is struggling with dumped garbage, broken pavements, damaged street lights, brazen illegal parking and inadequate maintenance in general. It has been painful to observe this deterioration right outside my office. At this point, you are perhaps rolling your eyes and saying “what’s new?", since we all know about the corruption in local government, incompetence of city authorities and the ‘lack of civic sense’ among our people. Read the full article here.

Times of India | Republic Day reminder: Let’s reclaim the right to economic freedom

Let’s get the basics out of the way — we celebrate the Republic because it prohibits any majority from running roughshod based on its numerical strength. The Constitution limits the power of governments and groups to protect the minority of One, i.e. every individual. The Republic grants fundamental rights to individuals to live, trade, work and protest peacefully. Yet, among these freedoms, the one that governments most readily and frequently trample upon — with little or no opposition—is the right to economic freedom. We can endlessly debate the current state of political or religious freedom and the decline of the freedom of expression, and that is partly the point — there is at least a debate. Read the full article here.

Le Grand Continent | The Future of the Sino-Indian Rivalry

“China+1: this is the name given to the diversification strategy adopted by a number of countries and companies to reduce their dependence on China as a single manufacturing or supply center. This approach involves exploring alternative locations beyond China to transform the geography of supply chains and minimize the risks associated with over-reliance on a single supplier. It reflects a broader effort by countries and businesses to counterbalance China's economic dominance and adapt to changes in global power relations. Analyzes of trade and investment data over the past three years indicate that the European Union, Mexico, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam have become the main beneficiaries of the China+1 strategy in sectors such as machine tools, automobiles, transportation equipment and electrical equipment.

India is also seeking to capitalize on concern over China's dominance of global supply chains by reforming its economic and regulatory framework with a view to boosting its attractiveness. India's strategy thus includes three components: reducing its dependence on China, attracting investments from those seeking to diversify their trade relations and adopting a protectionist policy by introducing customs duties on imports.”

This article was originally published in French, Italian and Spanish by the Le Grand Continent. The unedited English version of the article can be found here.

Bol India Bol | Why Neither Vivek Nor Nikki Can Out-Trump Trump?

Sometime in 2003, India’s Left leaders went to meet then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to convince him to not send the nation’s troops to Iraq to fight the ‘War of Terrorism’ that the United States had initiated in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks. The US had created a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ and President George W. Bush wanted India to be part of it. Vajpayee was dead against it, but he had two major concerns: One, refusing the US would be diplomatically awkward; and two, some of his senior cabinet ministers, led by LK Advani, and the country’s intelligentsia, including leading editors in New Delhi, were goading the Prime Minister to send our soldiers to Baghdad and exhorting him to be “on the right side of history”. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | The need to overhaul a semiconductor scheme

The mid-term appraisal of the semiconductor Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme is due soon. Since its announcement, the DLI scheme has approved only seven start-ups, markedly short of its target of supporting 100 over five years. This impact assessment, therefore, presents an opportunity for policymakers to appraise and revamp the scheme. India’s $10 billion Semicon India Program has had mixed results, at best. There are three goals of India’s semiconductor strategy. The first is to reduce dependence on semiconductor imports, particularly from China, and especially in strategic and emerging sectors, ranging from defence applications to Artificial Intelligence development. The second is to build supply chain resilience by integrating into the semiconductor global value chain (GVC). The third is to double down on India’s comparative advantage: India already plays host to the design houses of every major global semiconductor industry player and Indian chip design engineers are an indispensable part of the semiconductor GVC. Read the full article here.

The Diplomat | Playing the Long Game: Ukraine’s Approach to China

Multiple news articles report Beijing snubbing Ukraine during the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Switzerland, with Chinese Premier Li Qiang refusing to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In response, Zelenskyy clarified that he never wanted to meet Li, suggesting that the latter was not high-ranking enough to be worth meeting. “There is a Chinese premier – then our prime minister will meet with him. I would love to meet with the leader of China,” the Ukrainian president said. “As far as I know, [in China] Xi Jinping makes decisions, and in Ukraine, I make decisions. I don’t need just any dialogues; I need important decisions from the leaders who make these decisions.” Read the full article here.

The Free Press Journal | Analysis: Vivek Ramaswamy’s VP auditions have begun

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we unpack what happened in the US this Monday and Tuesday: Vivek Ramaswamy is more ‘White’ than ‘Brown’. He is indeed proud of his Indian heritage (his parents are Tam-Brahms from Palakkad, Kerala), and has never shied away from flaunting it, but if he is to be at the centre of American politics in some way, it is not his religiosity at the family dinner table that matters, it is his social and political views. In that context, it is his childhood piano teacher who has had a greater influence on him than his parents. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Army promotions must be based on capabilities, not lineage. Turf protection is main mischief

Caste is likely to be a dominant plot in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. But let’s interrogate how this hierarchical and discriminatory structure endures in the promotion system of the Indian Army. There is seemingly a system of reservation in Army promotions. Discrimination based on identity derived from lineage is the hardened core of the caste system. In the Indian Army, the enduring marker for the selection of its senior leadership is the lineage or ‘inherited identity’, particularly the professional segment one is initially inducted into. Read the full article here.

Mint | Eating together could strengthen our national consciousness

You might not have noticed it, but it is extremely difficult to find a restaurant in India that can seat a dozen people around a single round table. If you have more than six diners, you have to ask the restaurant to join two or more tables to create a long rectangle. While this allows several colleagues or family members to technically sit at the same table, conversation and sharing of food is limited to groups of four or five people sitting next to each other. Compared to many East Asian countries where big round tables are commonplace in restaurants, communal dining in India mostly caters to rather small groups. Read the full article here.

Deccan Herald | Is India on course to address maritime threats?

India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, is due to visit Tehran today, and he could probably confront Iran with evidence of its involvement in the drone attack on the commercial ship MV Chem Pluto about 200 nautical miles from the Indian coast with with cargo heading to Mangaluru. Read the full article here.

The Quint | Taiwan Polls 2024: Amid Cross-Strait Jigsaw, the Impact of US-China Tensions

Amidst a host of elections around the world in 2024, the island of Taiwan is all geared up for its own presidential election and for members of its parliament, the legislative yuan. As the popular vote takes place today, on 13 January, it has – Lai Ching-Te, the current Vice-President of Taiwan and the candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou Yu-ih, incumbent mayor of New Taipei and candidate of the Kuomintang Party (KMT), and Ko Wen-Je, former mayor of Taipei and candidate of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as contenders. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Maldives: Is Muizzu’s pro-China tilt just a balancing act?

Recently, the Maldives government decided to terminate a hydrography agreement with India, committing to conduct hydrographic activities independently after June next year. Separately, New Delhi has raised its objections with Malé that the Chinese survey vessel, Shi Yan 6, not be allowed to dock and pursue scientific exploration, such as deep water exploration, next year. New Delhi is concerned that a “pro-China” government in Malé may deepen China’s influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). How concerned should India be with Maldives’ relationship with China, and Chinese activities in the IOR? Read the full article here.

The Free Press Journal | Analysis: Trump and the art of electoral endurance

In the 2007 hit Shah Rukh Khan movie Chak De! India, women’s hockey coach Kabir Khan has to deal with a bunch of soloists in the team, athletes who refuse to blend in as a team and would rather make single-player runs into the opponent’s side, only to be defeated in their pursuit, because, well, the guys on the other side are smarter. The Americans have a word for this: Heroball, a derogatory term for a style of play where a single player tries to be the team's hero by taking and missing many low percentage shots. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Poonch incident should encourage military justice review. Bring one law for three Services

The frequency of terrorist violence in the Rajouri-Poonch districts in the Jammu division of Jammu & Kashmir has remained a cause for concern for over two years. This is in contrast to the decline of terrorism in the Kashmir valley during the same period. A combination of mountainous terrain, jungles and contiguity with the Line of Control makes the area suitable for hit and run attacks. Pakistan’s hand is obvious and the time period also overlaps with the thinning out of the Rashtriya Rifles, a counter-terrorism force, post China’s aggressive manoeuvres in Ladakh in 2020. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Global Economy 2024: Positives in macro outlook outweighing uncertainties, India in a position to dream big

Macroeconomists were created to make weather forecasters gain credibility” goes one joke. “Economists have successfully predicted 9 out of the last 5 recessions” is another dig at the predictive ability of the macroeconomics discipline. Beyond the humour, it points to the obvious complexity of interaction between hundreds of related variables in a complicated geopolitical scenario. Despite the obvious risks involved in speculating about the future in the economic domain, many brave economists undertake foolhardy tasks of making year-end projections and this is one such attempt. Read the full article here.

The New Indian Express | India’s National Geospatial Policy: Analysing progress and charting the future

As 2023 draws to a close, it is important to reflect on India’s strides in implementing its National Geospatial Policy, introduced on December 28, 2022. The National Geospatial Policy, 2022, is a pivotal initiative designed to advance the geospatial sector in support of national development, economic growth and the evolution of an information-rich economy. Geospatial technology is an advanced tool for analysing location-based data. It helps us monitor natural resources, plan development and respond to disasters. This technology provides a comprehensive view of Earth through satellite imagery, Global Positioning System (GPS), remote sensing, and Geographic Information System (GIS). It promotes spatial thinking to solve real-world problems and enables informed decisions and actions. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | What does China’s 2024 economic policy look like?

The 2023 Chinese Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC), an annual meeting mechanism of the Communist Party where the economic direction of the nation for the upcoming year is deliberated and agreed upon by key stakeholders, recently concluded on December 12, and the readout from the meeting stresses a stability-oriented pathway for the Chinese economy in 2024. Overall, the line of action seems pretty clear, at least from the CEWC deliberations - moving away from export-led to domestic demand-led growth, expanding high-quality production process, achieving self-reliance in critical tech but collaborating with trade partners as necessary, and ensuring financial discipline alongside stability of funds and liquidity. Needless to say, many of these goals have been repeated in the past few years, but some of them require intense structural reform, including by means of abandoning long-held beliefs and practices of the Chinese party-state. Read the full article here.

Spacepreneur | India's Space and Geospatial Policies: Unlocking New Horizons

ISRO has made moderate-resolution satellite remote sensing data up to 5m spatial resolution available for free to Indian citizens, which is even more than what NASA and ESA offer. This is in line with India's new Space Policy, approved in
April 2023, which aims to expand India's space capabilities, open remote sensing data, and create international partnerships. The policy encourages private businesses to participate in the space economy. Another part of this development is the National Geospatial Policy, which focuses on spatial technologies and aims to achieve significant progress by 2035. This includes conducting a comprehensive survey of India's land and water resources. Many government departments are involved in this policy, and it emphasizes the link between Space and Spatial Sciences, which plays a crucial role in resource management and national development. Both policies are intended to drive India's progress in space and geospatial sectors. Read the full article here.

Takshashila Blog | A Potential Strategy to Navigate a Fractured RISC-V Ecosystem

In the rapidly evolving world of semiconductor geopolitics, a new fault line is emerging, one that could have far-reaching implications for countries like India. The United States, in its strategic tussle with China, could be contemplating imposing export controls on (Reduced Instruction Set Computer or RISC-V technology.

Developed at the University of California, Berkeley, RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA), a set of basic instructions and functions that allows companies to develop microprocessors based on this specification.  Read the full blog here.