PAKISTAN

Fighting fire

Editorial 

Published November 24, 2023

DEATH traps litter the country’s most vertical city of Karachi. Commercial and residential buildings in the latter are haphazardly planned and fitted with inconsequential wherewithal to prevent or fight fires, boosting the chances of infernos erupting in the metropolis. The authorities have consistently failed to control the mushroom growth of multistorey structures or to take action against architects and builders flouting fire and safety regulations. This was underscored by town planners, engineers and experts present at a fire safety symposium organised by the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan on Wednesday. They said that some 90pc of Karachi’s structures — residential, commercial and industrial — were without fire prevention and firefighting systems, which was “criminal negligence” perpetrated by regulatory bodies on the city’s teeming millions. In fact, as recently as last week, a high-rise blaze on I.I. Chundrigar Road left a woman injured.Meanwhile, in 2022, according to a Fire Brigade Department report, Karachi witnessed as many as 2,081 fire incidents.

Karachi’s history offers many horrors; the ghastliest was the Baldia factory arson in 2012 — a deliberate firetrap where victims succumbed to smoke inhalation, suffocation and severe burns. But even that did not force anyone out of their stupor to notice the perils that fires pose to humans and assets. It is high time provincial governments sent notices to properties, builders, architects and planners for non-compliance with fire procedures. Moreover, newly built houses, shops and buildings should be subject to regular inspections so that fire rules are not flouted; fire alarms, sprinklers and other equipment have to become mandatory, with weekly fire drills, especially in densely populated localities and labour-intensive industries. But fire tragedies are impossible to tackle unless there is an abundance of overhauled fire brigades, firefighters and safety gear. Apathy will keep long-running questions, and pain, ablaze. Rulers would be well advised to prioritise people’s safety with a firm eye on a significant drop in fire emergencies.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

PAKISTAN

FO sounds alarm over New Delhi’s ‘covert global operations’

Baqir Sajjad Syed 

Published November 24, 2023 

FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch addresses a weekly press briefing in Islamabad on Thursday. — FO/Facebook


ISLAMABAD: The For­eign Office on Thursday voiced concern over the alarming expansion of India’s covert operations, including espionage and extraterritorial assassinations, on a global scale, condemning these actions as blatant violations of international law.

At the weekly media briefing, while recalling that Pakistan remained a victim of India-sponsored terrorism and subversion, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said, “India’s network of espionage and extraterritorial killings has gone global.”

“We have condemned and we are concerned about India’s reckless and irresponsible conduct, which we believe is a clear violation of international law and the UN principle of state sovereignty,” she added, commenting on a report in the Financial Times, which said that the United States authorities thwarted a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist, Gur­patwant Singh Pannun.

The Biden administration has conveyed its concerns to Delhi over the assassination plot.

Earlier in September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Canadian security agencies were actively investigating credible allegations linking agents of the Indian government to the June murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader, in British Columbia. Canada also expelled an Indian undercover diplomat in the country, indicating the seriousness with which it was treating those allegations.

Replying to a question, Ms Baloch said India has been involved in espionage and terror activities inside Pakistan. She reminded that Pakistan had voiced this concern in the past as well.

“If you would recall, last year we issued a dossier on the Lahore attack, providing credible evidence with regards to Indian involvement in a terror attack inside Pakis­tan. So, this is an issue of serious concern for Pakis­tan,” she maintained.

BRICS membership

Pakistan has formally requested to join the BRICS group, a significant alliance of developing countries.

“Yes, I can confirm that Pakistan has made a formal request to join BRICS, which we believe is an important grouping of developing countries,” Ms Baloch said.

The decision to seek BRICS membership reflects Pakistan’s recognition of the group’s growing clout, and the shifting geopolitical landscape, besides Pakistan’s desire to engage more actively with emerging global power centres, Pakistan’s request for BRICS membership comes at a time when the group is actively broadening its reach and influence.

The BRICS group, originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, recently expanded, adding Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

Deadly business

DAWN
Editorial

Published November 24, 2023

TWO recent reports in foreign media outlets have shed more light on India’s shadowy business of targeting dissidents and alleged enemies on foreign soil. The Intercept reported that — based on apparently leaked Intelligence Bureau documents — India, through its RAW spy agency, was running a network in Pakistan specifically to eliminate Khalistani and Kashmiri activists and fighters. The outlet’s scoop comes in the aftermath of the Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder; Canadian authorities had said the pro-Khalistan activist’s June killing in Vancouver was linked to Indian intelligence operatives. Lending further credence to The Intercept’s report was a story in Britain’s Financial Times, in which the paper said that the American authorities had thwarted a plan to kill US-based Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. The report adds that the Americans had sent a diplomatic warning to India over New Delhi’s apparent link to the plot to harm the Sikh activist. Coming back to The Intercept story, quoting the IB documents, the outlet gave extensive details of RAW’s apparent attempts to neutralise Khalistani activists in Pakistan, as well as the murders of a number of ex-jihadis once active in held Kashmir. It also claimed that Indian agents based in Afghanistan and the UAE were active in these acts of subterfuge.

It appears that India has taken a page or two out of the Israeli playbook, for Tel Aviv, over several decades, has assassinated dozens of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian fighters and officials in various foreign locales. Yet while the Israelis might have mastered the dark arts, India seems to have overplayed its hand in several instances, especially by assassinating, or attempting to kill, dissidents in the West. Pakistan has long blamed its eastern neighbour of indulging in destabilising activities, and officials have also sent a related dossier of these activities to the UN. The Kulbhushan Jadhav affair — in which the Indian spy was picked up from Balochistan in 2016 — is perhaps the most well-known case of this kind. Though the Western states pamper India as part of their geopolitical stratagems, it will be difficult for them to tolerate New Delhi’s malign activities on their soil, which are in essence an affront to their sovereignty. These revelations also support Pakistan’s criticism of India’s roguish behaviour. India can literally get away with murder domestically, but it cannot be allowed to create mischief overseas.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

PAKISTAN

When the pie shrinks

The state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

Khurram Husain 

Published November 23, 2023 

THE state, the economy and the people pull the resource envelope of the country in different directions. This is especially the case when periods of macroeconomic adjustments get going, meaning when an IMF programme is being implemented.

The state needs revenue. The economy requires liquidity. The people want incomes. Each of these can come from different sources, and they are finite. When the economy is growing, these resources grow in tandem and, for a moment, it seems as if everybody is getting what they want.

These are the feel-good years. But when the growth stops, a tug-of-war ensues between the state, big business and ‘the people’ to secure their respective shares of the pie.

Each episode of adjustment looks substantially the same, but differences of detail do emerge. Growth stalls, interest rates rise, the currency is devalued, utility prices rise, taxes are applied. But look at where the resources flow during these times, and you’ll get a better idea of who is getting how much when the pie shrinks.

An episode of adjustment began in July this year, when the country signed onto its latest IMF Stand-by Arrangement, and its first review just ended successfully. Now look closely at where the resources have gone during these months. Banks declared record-high profits all year.

Between July and September of the year, the whole corporate sector saw the “highest-ever quarterly earnings” (post tax) according to a report put out by Topline Securities. Listed companies raked in Rs417 billion in post-tax profits in these months, of which Rs149bn were taken by the banks alone.

The state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

Make sure you understand this before moving on. Banks took in more than one-third of the total profits of all listed companies in the first three months since the IMF programme began. All sectors in the listed companies’ universe saw their quarterly profits rise in the same period, even if by varying amounts. Cement, fertiliser and automobiles saw the highest quarterly profits they have made in almost two years.

Each sector paid out a rich harvest of dividends to their shareholders. According to the same report, Rs97bn were paid out in dividends, of which Rs51bn was by banks alone. The amount was higher by 13 per cent from the same period last year. A small number of people were made very rich in these months.

At the same time, small and medium enterprises issued SOS calls for survival. After all, these are months in which demand in the economy is collapsing, large-scale manufacturing is registering near zero growth, high interest rates are weighing on debt service costs of corporates, and the state is thirsting for revenue.

Partially out of this thirst, the government imposed a ‘windfall tax’ on the banks for the outsize profits they made last year on their foreign currency dealings, aiming to capture up to Rs58bn of these banking sector profits for itself, according to calculations presented by Arif Habib Ltd.

In two years, the banks raked in close to Rs145bn foreign exchange income, so the government seems to be capturing a fairly large chunk of this for itself through this (supposedly) one-off tax levied earlier in November.

Meanwhile the government’s tax revenue collection recorded an increase of 24pc from the same quarter last year. Much of this was due to inflation. A small amount would be due to nominal GDP growth. Suffice it to say, the IMF was left deeply satisfied with the fiscal performance in the first quarter.

The primary balance registered a surplus of 0.4pc of GDP (which sounds small but is actually quite large), and it is possible the government may have over-performed on the fiscal side compared to the quarterly targets set in the programme.

So business is shutting down. Imports continue to face restrictions, which is what accounts for the current account deficit shrinking so rapidly — as always happens in the first few months of an IMF programme. Small and medium size businesses are on the verge of shutting down.

Confidence in the economy, according to a recent survey by Ipsos, is near rock bottom, with nine out of 10 people surveyed saying the economy is moving in the wrong direction.

Yet big business is raking in profits and dishing out the dividends. Government is getting its revenues, slashing its expenditures, and jumping all the hoops set for it by the IMF programme in what is without doubt the smoothest IMF review we have had since 2019. So the question is, who exactly is suffering here? Why does confidence still remain so low?

The answer is simple. The poor, the working poor, the salaried classes are all suffering. Their incomes have not moved in tandem with inflation, nor with devaluation. Their savings have eroded. Their costs are seeing one shock after another, with an unending series of utility price hikes. The latest of these shocks is set to land on their doorsteps when their gas bills arrive. It is hard to say whether unemployment is increasing because we don’t have a reliable, recent data point, but it is safe to assume it is certainly not falling.

This is classic macro adjustment, Pakistani-style. It is good news indeed that we have an IMF programme being implemented smoothly after almost two and half years of reviews in fits and starts. But the state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

No sacrifice worth the name is being made by the rich, not in terms of their earnings, their asset values or their consumption habits. Of course, this does not mean we abandon the IMF-mandated adjustment. But it certainly means that we bring the reforms necessary to safeguard people’s incomes as much as the incomes of the elites and the state, in good times and bad.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.
khurram.husain@gmail.com
X: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023

PAKISTAN

Facing melting glaciers, Hunzais fight for future
Reuters

Published November 24, 2023

HASSANABAD resident Tariq Jamil shows ice taken from the Shisper glacier, which is being monitored by sensors.—Reuters



HUNZA: On the steep slope of a glacier jutting through the Hunza valley, Tariq Jamil measures the ice’s movement and snaps photos. Later, he creates a report that includes data from sensors and another camera installed near the Shisper glacier to update his village an hour’s hike downstream.

The 51-year-old’s mission: mobilise his community of 200 families in Hassanabad to fight for a future for their village and way of life, increasingly under threat from unstable lakes formed by melting glacier ice.After all the sensors are installed, village representatives will be able to monitor data through their mobiles, Mr Jamil says.

“Local wisdom is very important: we are the main observers. We have witnessed many things,” he added.

Hassanabad is part of the UN backed Glacial Lake Outburst Flood ( GLOF) II project to help communities downstream of melting glaciers adapt.

When glacial lakes overfill or their banks become unsound, they burst, sparking deadly floods that wash out bridges and buildings and wipe out fertile land throughout the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayan mountain ranges.

Himalayan glaciers are on track to lose up to 75 per cent of their ice by the century’s end due to global warming, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Deve­lop­ment (ICIMOD).

HUNZA VALLEY: An automatic weather station monitors the Shisper glacier in Hassanabad village, one of the communities being supported by the UN-backed ‘Glacial Lake Outburst Flood II’ project, aimed at helping settlements downstream of melting glaciers adapt to climate change.—Reuters

Amid a shortfall in funding for those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, village residents say they urgently need increased support to adapt to threats of glacial lake floods.

Over the past three years, residents repeatedly evacuated just in time to avoid loss of life, and many fear a flood while they sleep. Others struggle financially as their land and homes were destroyed, most recently in 2022.

In Hassanabad, Jamil and 23 volunteers, trained in first aid and evacuation planning, actively monitor the glacier, consulting with experts each summer.

Seeking international funding, they aim to expand the barrier wall 20-fold. Additionally, they seek interest-free loans for rebuilding homes with stronger materials and enhancing mobile reception for improved monitoring feed access.

“The needs are enormous,” said Karma Lodey Rapten, Regional Technical Specialist for Climate Change Adaptation at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Pakistan is the only country to receive adaptation funding from the Green Climate Fund — the Paris Agreement’s key financing pot — to ease the risk of such floods.

The $36.96m GLOF II initiative, concluding this year, serves as a global model for regions confronting glacial lake flood threats, including the Peruvian Andes and China, following Bhutan’s collaborative efforts.

Since 2017, weather stations and sensors, managed by Islamabad and UNDP, monitor factors like rainfall and water levels. GLOF II employs village speakers for warnings and infrastructure like barriers.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

MODI'S CURSED TUNNEL
Ambulances on standby as Indian rescuers near 41 trapped workers

AFP 

Published November 23, 2023 

A rescue personnel stands near an entrance of the Silkyara under construction road tunnel, during the final phase of a rescue operation, days after a portion of it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India’s Uttarakhand state on November 23, 2023. — AFP

Ambulances were on standby on Thursday morning as Indian rescuers dug through the final metres of debris separating them from 41 workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for nearly two weeks.

Rescue teams have specially fitted stretchers with wheels, ready to pull out the exhausted men through 57 metres (187 feet) of steel pipe — once it is finally driven through the final section of the tonnes of earth, concrete and rubble blocking their freedom.

Emergency vehicles and a field hospital stood ready, AFP journalists at the site said, preparing to receive the men who have been trapped since a portion of the under-construction tunnel in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand caved in 12 days ago.

“We have done rehearsals on how to get people safely out”, National Disaster Response Force chief Atul Karwal told reporters on Thursday.

“The boys will go in first,” he said.

“We have put wheels under the stretchers so that when we go in, we can get the people out one by one on the stretcher — we are prepared in every way,” he said.

‘Ready to handle it’

After days of painfully slow progress, engineers with a powerful drilling machine made a sudden rapid advance on Wednesday, before teams had to work through the night to cut through metal rods blocking the route. Drilling resumed on Thursday.

“The 10 to 12 metres (32-39 feet) remaining … we don’t know what can come up, but we are ready to handle it,” Karwal said.

“If everything is alright, tonight this operation will be over,” he said, adding that the trapped men were “keeping up their morale”.



Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the work was on a “war footing”, with a “team of doctors, ambulances, helicopters and a field hospital” all set up.

Rescuers are hoping for a breakthrough within hours, although the government has also repeatedly warned any timelines were “subject to change due to technical glitches, the challenging Himalayan terrain, and unforeseen emergencies”.

Inside the Silkyara tunnel entrance, an AFP journalist said the site was a flurry of activity.
‘Happiest day’

Worried relatives have gathered outside the site, where a Hindu shrine has been erected, with a priest holding prayers for the safe rescue of the trapped men.

“The day they will come out of the tunnel, it will be the biggest, happiest day for us,” said Chanchal Singh Bisht, 35, whose 24-year-old cousin Pushkar Singh Ary is trapped inside.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by falling debris as well as repeated breakdowns of crucial heavy-drilling machines.

In case the route through the main tunnel entrance does not work, rescuers also started blasting and drilling from the far end of the unfinished tunnel, nearly half a kilometre (over a quarter of a mile) long.

Preparations have also been made for a risky vertical shaft directly above.

The workers were seen alive for the first time on Tuesday, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity are being delivered.



The tunnel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infrastructure project aimed at cutting travel times between some of the most popular Hindu sites in the country, as well as improving access to strategic areas bordering rival China.

But experts have warned about the impact of extensive construction in Uttarakhand, large parts of which are prone to landslides.

Mysterious cosmic ray observed in Utah came from beyond our galaxy, scientists say

KATIE HUNT CNN

Few things in space are as bright as a supernova, but recently astronomer captured a flash out in the cosmos so great their instruments had trouble measuring it. Gamma ray burst GRB 2210099A, which was so bright not only was it named, but it’s what experts believe is also the birth of a black hole.

Space scientists seeking to understand the enigmatic origins of powerful cosmic rays have detected an extremely rare, ultra-high-energy particle that they believe traveled to Earth from beyond the Milky Way galaxy.

The energy of this subatomic particle, invisible to the naked eye, is equivalent to dropping a brick on your toe from waist height, according to the authors of new research published Thursday in the journal Science. It rivals the single most energetic cosmic ray ever observed, the “Oh-My-God” particle that was detected in 1991, the study found.


An artist's illustration of the extremely energetic cosmic ray observed by the Telescope Array Collaboration led by the University of Utah and the University of Tokyo. It's been named the "Amaterasu particle."
Osaka Metropolitan University/L-INSIGHT, Kyoto University/Ryuunosuke Takeshige

Cosmic rays are charged particles that travel through space and rain down on Earth constantly. Low-energy cosmic rays can emanate from the sun, but extremely high-energy ones are exceptional. They are thought to travel to Earth from other galaxies and extragalactic sources.

“If you hold out your hand, one (cosmic ray) goes through the palm of your hand every second, but those are really low-energy things,” said study co-author John Matthews, a research professor at the University of Utah.

“When you get out to these really high-energy (cosmic rays), it’s more like one per square kilometer per century. It’s never going through your hand.”

Despite years of research, the exact origins of these high-energy particles still aren’t clear. They are thought to be related to the most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as those involving black holes, gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, but the biggest discovered so far appear to originate from voids or empty space — where no violent celestial events have taken place.

Tracking high-energy cosmic rays

The recently discovered particle, nicknamed the Amaterasu particle after the sun goddess in Japanese mythology, was spotted by a cosmic ray observatory in Utah’s West Desert known as the Telescope Array.

The Telescope Array, which started operating in 2008, is made up of 507 ping-pong table-size surface detectors covering 270 square miles.

It has observed more than 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays but none bigger than the Amaterasu particle, which struck the atmosphere above Utah on May 27, 2021, raining secondary particles to the ground where they were picked up by the detectors, according to the study.

“You can look … (at) how many particles hit each detector and that tells you what the energy of the primary cosmic ray was,” Matthews said.

The event triggered 23 of the surface detectors, with a calculated energy of about 244 exa-electron volts. The “Oh My God particle” detected more than 30 years ago was 320 exa-electron volts.

For reference, 1 exa-electron volt equals 1 billion gigaelectron-volts, and 1 gigaelectron volt is 1 billion electron volts. That would make the Amaterasu particle 244,000,000,000,000,000,000 electron volts. By comparison, the typical energy of an electron in the polar aurora is 40,000 electron volts, according to NASA.

An ultra-high-energy cosmic ray carries tens of millions of times more energy than any human-made particle accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful accelerator ever built, explained Glennys Farrar, a professor of physics at New York

 University.

“What is required is a region of very high magnetic fields — like a super-sized LHC, but natural. And the conditions required are really exceptional, so the sources are very very rare, and the particles are dissipated into the vast universe, so the chances of one hitting Earth are tiny,” said Farrar, who wasn’t involved in the study, via email.

The atmosphere largely protects humans from any harmful effects from the particles, though cosmic rays sometimes cause computer glitches. The particles, and space radiation more broadly, pose a greater risk to astronauts, with the potential to cause structural damage to DNA and altering many cellular processes, according to NASA,.

Mysterious source

The source of these ultra-high-energy particles baffles scientists.

Matthews, a co-spokesman for the Telescope Array Collaboration, said the two biggest recorded cosmic rays appeared “sort of random” — when their trajectories are traced back, there appears to be nothing high-energy enough to produce such particles. The Amaterasu particle, specifically, seemed to originate from what’s known as the Local Void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way galaxy.

“If you take the two highest-energy events — the one that we just found, the ‘Oh-My-God’ particle — those don’t even seem to point to anything. It should be something relatively close. Astronomers with visible telescopes can’t see anything really big and really violent,” Matthews said.

“It comes from a region that looks like a local empty space. It’s a void. So what the heck’s going on?”

An expansion to the Telescope Array may provide some answers. Once completed, 500 new detectors will allow the Telescope Array to capture cosmic ray-induced particle showers across 2,900 square kilometers (about 1,120 square miles) — an area nearly the size of Rhode Island, according to the University of Utah statement.

Extremely energetic cosmic ray detected, but with no obvious source

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

An extremely energetic cosmic ray – an extragalactic particle with an energy exceeding ~240 exa-electron volts (EeV) – has been detected by the Telescope Array experiment’s surface detector, researchers report. However, according to the findings, its arrival direction shows no obvious source. Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are subatomic charged particles from space with energies greater than 1 EeV – roughly a million times as high as the energy reached by human-made particle accelerators. Although low-energy cosmic rays primarily emanate from the sun, the origins of rarer UHECRs are thought to be related to the most energetic phenomena in the Universe, such as those involving black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and active galactic nuclei. Yet much about the physics and acceleration mechanisms of these particles remains unknown. Because arrivals of the most energetic UHECRs are so infrequent – estimated to be less than one particle per century per square kilometer – their detection requires instruments with large collecting areas. Here, members of the Telescope Array Collaboration report the detection of an extremely energetic cosmic ray observed by the Telescope Array (TA) experiment, a surface cosmic-ray detector array located in Utah, USA, that has an effective detection of 700 square kilometers. According to the findings, the unusually high-energy cosmic ray arrived on 27 May 2021 and had a calculated energy of about 244 EeV. Given the particle’s exceptionally high energy, the authors note that it should only experience relatively minor deflections by foreground magnetic fields, and thus, its arrival direction should be expected to be more closely correlated to its source. However, the findings show that its arrival direction shows no obvious source galaxy, or any other known astronomical objects thought to be potential sources of UHECRs. Instead, its arrival direction points back to void in the large-scale structure of the Universe – a region where very few galaxies reside. The authors suggest that this could indicate a much larger magnetic deflection than is predicted by galactic magnetic field models, an unidentified source in the local extragalactic neighborhood, or an incomplete understanding of the associated high-energy particle physics.

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abo5095 

ARTICLE TITLE

An extremely energetic cosmic ray observed by a surface detector array

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Nov-2023

U$A, INDIA  AND CHINA
Devil is in the details

Aqdas Afzal 

DAWN

Published November 24, 2023

AS China recently celebrated 10 years of the Belt and Road Initiative, the mood remained sombre in Beijing largely because the “strategic competition” between China and the US has grown increasingly intense in the last few years.

The origins of this rivalry can be traced back to 2011, when president Obama was prevailed upon by China hawks to ‘Pivot to Asia’. At the time, US foreign policy experts argued that containing China required a long-term partnership with India as the two democracies not only shared common values, but India’s emergence as an economic and security anchor would also provide the necessary counterweight to China’s expansionary ambitions. Predictably, in 2015, the Obama administration, pinning its hopes on India, declared that the US relationship with India “will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century”. It appears that US foreign policy experts might be in for a disappointment.

Earlier this year, Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, argued that since previous strategy had not been able to ensure American economic hegemony, a “new Washington Consensus” was required. In other words, rapidly losing economic ground to China, the US would now employ the state in generating economic growth, something it had shunned in the era of markets-driven globalisation.

Since this new economic strategy is driven by competition from China, there were echoes of the old idea of using India as a counterweight. Where the US has tried to hobble Chinese progress in the semiconductor industry, Sullivan identified India as one of its ‘partners’ in taking its semiconductor industry forward.

It seems that India and China have much to learn from each other.

American reliance on India for developing future technologies makes good economic sense as the numbers ostensibly are in India’s favour. Where the World Bank and Western media outlets are consistently reporting a growth slowdown in China — 4.4 per cent, the slowest since 1990 — India is powering ahead with an expected growth of 6.3pc this year.

Global investors are said to be taking their money out of China and investing it in India. Where the Chinese economy, purportedly, faces cyclical and structural headwinds — property crisis, low export growth, geopolitics — India’s economy is riding high on cyclical and structural tailwinds.

Sustained economic growth has also enabled India to increase its military spending by 50pc from $49.6 billion in 2011 to $76.6bn in 2021, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, making India the third biggest military spender, surpassing Russia and the UK.

India’s political system also appears sturdier than China’s. Domestically, China has not found a way to formally institutionalise democracy. This could turn out to be a stumbling block given that China needs to find a way to sustain the relationship between a communist state and a capitalist economy. In contrast, India achieved this milestone a long time ago by consolidating democracy despite being one of the world’s poorest countries.

Given such stellar performance, have Chinese policymakers overlooked the existential challenge from India? Were US experts correct in pinning their hopes on India as the next Asian hegemon?

As they say, the devil is in the details.

Sadly, under the microscope, India’s impressive economic growth reveals some startling details. In India is Broken, Ashoka Mody takes issue with India’s official narrative of explosive growth. Mody, a former IMF economist, cites international best practices for calculating GDP to show that India is overstating GDP growth by relying only on income as opposed to averaging both income and expenditure. Using a well-rounded approach, Mody shows that India’s GDP growth in the first quarter (April-June) of 2023-24 would amount to 4.5pc, and not equal the official 7.8pc.

The quality of economic growth is also questionable. Where the Indian elite buy luxuries thanks to an overvalued exchange rate, a vast majority struggles to buy even basic necessities. Mody shows that in the first quarter, most of the growth has taken place in the finance and real-estate sectors, which generate very few jobs for highly qualified Indians, a phenomenon known as ‘jobless growth’.

Moreover, India may have raised its military spending significantly, but two-thirds of the military budget is used for salaries, pensions, and services for personnel, while only a third is directed towards capital expenditure in military systems and arms. The fact remains that China is a far superior adversary that India, despite its economic growth, would struggle to outspend. And the fact that India is a poor democracy, where political governments always need to walk a tightrope between guns and butter, further complicates the equation.

Finally, on the democracy front, things are not looking good either. Despite consolidating democracy as a poor nation, Indian democracy has hit choppy waters, according to long-time India watchers like Christophe Jaffrelot. In Modi’s India, Jaffrelot argues that India is showing major signs of having turned into an “ethnic democracy”, where a political party’s desire to turn India into a “de facto Hindu rashtra” have led to attacks on secularists, intellectuals and universities. Moreover, where China may be able to sustain itself politically given that 91pc of its population comprises mainly Han Chinese, India’s innumerable fault lines would lead to many problems, given the recent democratic backsliding.

What this analysis indicates is that though China may face constraints, it does not need to worry about India for the foreseeable future. Actually, the two nations should not be worried, as both have much to learn from each other. India should look at how China has managed to lift 800 million people out of poverty, and China should study how India enshrined and consolidated democracy — the recent backsliding notwithstanding — despite being a poor nation.

The preceding analysis should not give rise to schadenfreude in Islamabad, as Pakistan’s democracy and economy are still in serious trouble. Rather than deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune, Pakistan’s policymakers need to learn from China and India about inclusive economic growth and democratic consolidation, respectively.

The writer completed his doctorate in economics on a Fulbright scholarship.
aqdas.afzal@gmail.com
X: @AqdasAfzal

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

OPINION
Corporate America just threw a party celebrating tax cuts for the ultrarich
Igor Volsky, Common Dreams
November 23, 2023 8:21PM ET


Rich man lighting cigar with $100 bill (Shutterstock)

After narrowly avoiding a shutdown for the second time in less than two months, lawmakers have gone home to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday without making sustained investments in the critical programs that empower millions of American families and enable our economy to thrive.

Programs that provide nutritional assistance to women and children or offer housing assistance will face multiple funding cliffs early in the new year because extremists in Congress are only interested in advancing the economic interests of the very rich—and partying with them.

Just hours after avoiding a shutdown, tax policy wonks, lawmakers, and staff, polished their shoes, pressed their tuxedos, and attended “Tax Prom,” an annual fundraiser to support the anti-tax Tax Foundation. The organization is a classic D.C. deficit squawk: it flies its Wall Street coop when big corporations want tax cuts, and screeches when it's time to invest in the rest of us.

For instance, the organization advocated for Presidents George W. Bush's and Donald Trump's tax cut packages, both of which were disproportionately skewed toward the very rich and large corporations, but lowered overall revenue to just 16.5% of GDP in fiscal year 2023 and caused the national deficit to grow.

On May 17 of this year, Scott Hodge, the organization’s President Emeritus, seized on the growing debt to warn the Senate Budget Committee that "the only sustainable solution to stabilize the debt” isn’t increasing revenue or ensuring the wealthiest among us pay their fair share in taxes – it’s “controlling spending." In other words: cut Medicare, Social Security, and other critical programs working Americans rely on.

Sounds familiar, right?

And while it’s no surprise to see conservative economic luminaries and corporate sponsors from big oil, pharma, and the tax prep industry attending and funding the annual celebration, the Foundation’s ability to attract support from more progressive voices is more alarming.

In past years, the Foundation has honored Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, former Senator Max Baucus, and Rep. Richard Neal. In 2023, it bestowed its distinguished service award on Sen. Maggie Hassan – the first time the Foundation celebrated an elected Democrat for “their efforts to advance sound tax policy” since 2016.

That may not be coincidental, since deficit squawks are building momentum for a new round of policies that benefit the ultrarich.

It comes at a time when our economy, powered by the administration’s hard-fought public investments, continues its record-breaking recovery. Real economic growth was at 4.9 percent last quarter, unemployment is below 4 percent for the 20th straight month, and workers are banding together and demanding more, leading to strong wage growth and a wave of union organizing.

Deficit squawks, meanwhile, are loudly—and predictably—trying their best to turn back this economic progress by proposing significant cuts to the social programs that help power our economy and constantly bringing the government to the brink of shutdown. They’re also ringing the alarm about the nation's growing level of debt and calling for a bipartisan fiscal commission to address the so-called crisis.

Deficit squawks seek to reverse the progress we’ve made investing in workers, families, and the economy in order to invest in the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. It’s clear deficit squawks are stuck in the past, advocating for economic policies that are as unpopular and out of date as pale blue ruffle suits. Elected officials committed to building a modern economy that works for all of us should leave Tax Prom in the past.

Poll: More Americans Own Guns Than Ever Before


TEHRAN (FNA)- Gun ownership has reached a record high among American voters, according to an NBC poll published Tuesday. More than half of respondents (52%) reported that they or someone in their household owned a gun.

That percentage is the highest since NBC began asking the question in 1999.

Gun ownership rates have risen sharply over the past decade, the poll suggests, with just 42% of those surveyed in 2013 claiming they or another household member possessed a firearm. That number was up to 49% by 2019.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to own guns, with two-thirds of Republican voters reporting a gun in the household compared to just 41% of Democrats and 45% of independents. Still, the percentage of Democrats who said they or a family member had a firearm increased 11 points over the last decade.

Black voters have seen the biggest increase in gun ownership since the poll was last conducted in 2019 – from 24% to 41% – while the increase among white voters was minimal (53% vs 56%).

Attitudes were split about gun control, with 47% stating they believed the government would go too far in restricting Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms, while 48% said they feared the government would do too little to regulate firearms.

With personal safety topping the list of reasons Americans give for owning a gun, surging violent crime rates across the nation are believed to have contributed to the increase in firearm ownership. A 2021 Gallup poll found 88% of respondents said they owned a gun “for protection against crime”, a significant increase over the 67% who answered similarly when the question was asked in 2005.

The US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world and is the only nation known to have more guns than people, according to Swiss research project the Small Arms Survey. It also has the highest rate of gun homicides.

Gun control advocates argue for a cause-and-effect relationship between the two statistics. However, the gun homicide rate in Washington, DC is the highest in the US and cities like Chicago regularly see over a dozen gun deaths per week, despite strict gun control laws in both cities.

The issue continues to polarize the nation as President Joe Biden continues to campaign for a ban on assault weapons – even though a study by the RAND Corporation found no evidence such a ban would reduce gun violence or homicide rates.

This year has seen 609 mass shootings, according to gun control advocacy group the Gun Violence Archive, which defines the term as an incident where four victims were shot, either injured or killed, not including the shooter. Most recently, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio on Monday, injuring four people before turning the weapon on himself.

Elon Musk whines about 'insane' Swedish strikes against Tesla

Brad Reed
November 23, 2023

Twitter CEO Elon Musk is not pleased that workers in Sweden are conducting solidarity strikes aimed at piling pressure on Tesla workplaces in Scandinavia's largest country.

As Yahoo Finance reports, the intra-union strike against Tesla facilities in Sweden has now spread to include dockworkers, garbage collectors, electricians and postal workers, which has left these facilities without access to basic services including mail delivery and trash pickup.

As Yahoo Finance explains, the postal workers strike against Musk's Swedish shops is particularly damaging because "it’s preventing the Swedish Transport Agency from delivering license plates to new Tesla cars as regulations allow no other delivery than by post."

"This is insane," Musk wrote on Twitter in response to news about the spreading strike against his firm.

And Musk's troubles in Scandinavia may not just be limited to Sweden.

The Guardian reports that "the Tesla strike has attracted secondary action from eight other unions and is threatening to spread to neighbouring Norway, where Fellesförbundet (the United Federation of Trade Unions), the country’s largest private sector union, said it was prepared to take sympathy action."

Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, has pledged to make unionizing Tesla facilities in the United States a major goal of his union, which recently scored a major contract with America's "Big Three" auto manufacturers.