Friday, July 19, 2024

Usha Vance's family member was 'RSS worker' and 'jailed' during Emergency in India

RSS HINDU NATIONALISTS

New Delhi, India
Updated: Jul 18, 2024



Photograph:(Agencies)
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Usha's family is originally from a village called Vadduru in Andhra Pradesh state but moved to Chennai.


Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance, has become a household name in India because of her Indian roots. Her family member was said to be a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker and was jailed during the Emergency period (1975 to 1977) in India, as per media reports.

Usha's popularity is quite similar to Kamala Harris when she was the United States President Joe Biden's running mate and eventually became vice president following the 2020 election.

Usha, 38, is the daughter of Indian immigrants and follows the Hindu religion. She could become the "second lady" of the United States if Trump wins the upcoming presidential election.

She studied at Yale and Cambridge but quit her job after her husband's name was picked as the Republican nominee's running mate. Usha was a law clerk to US Chief Justice John Roberts and later became an attorney at American law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.

She appeared on stage to introduce her husband at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and gave an impressive speech.

Ever since Usha has gained widespread recognition on a global scale and people have been curious about her ancestral roots.

So far, the world knows that Usha has a great-aunt, aged 96, in southern India. Local media called her the country's oldest active professor.

News agency Reuters reported that Shanthamma Chilukuri, who still travels 60 km (40 miles) most weekdays to university to teach physics.

"Most of our family is academically strong and education has been a top priority," Shanthamma told the news agency by phone from the city of Visakhapatnam.

While speaking to Times of India, Shanthamma said, "Usha is the granddaughter of Rama Sastry, my husband Subramanya Sastry's eldest brother. I am happy she has inherited the sharp intel intellect and acumen that runs in our family."

"Both my husband and his elder brother (Usha's grandfather) served as university professors. Our family also holds deep societal concerns. My husband, in fact, spent two years in jail during the Emergency as he was an RSS worker," she added.

More about Usha Vance's family

Usha's father and grandfather both taught and/or studied at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), a premier engineering college in the country.

Her younger sister is a mechanical engineer with a semiconductor company in San Diego, California and her aunt is a medical professional in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

The family is originally from a village called Vadduru in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, but moved to Chennai when Usha Vance's paternal grandfather, Ramasastry Chilukuri, went to teach at the IIT there around the time it was set up in 1959, members of the family said, as reported by Reuters.

The IIT now runs a student award in memory of Ramasastry, who used to teach physics.


(With inputs from agencies)


Srishti Singh Sisodia is a digital journalist at WION and majorly writes on world politics. She is a die-hard FCBarcelona fan.

Ford's EV-to-pickup switch says a lot about electric car demand


The 2023 Ford Super Duty F-250 XL STX. Photo: Courtesy Ford

The 2023 Ford Super Duty F-250 XL STX. Photo: Courtesy of Ford

Ford Motor Co.'s decision to scrap plans for an electric vehicle hub in Canada so it can produce more gas-powered heavy-duty pickups instead says a lot about the state of today's auto market and the pressure to deliver profitable growth.

Why it matters: Trucks are hot, EVs are not.

  • While automakers say they're committed to electrification, they only make money on products customers want to buy.

Driving the news: Ford announced yesterday that it's investing $3 billion to boost output of the Super Duty, the F-150's larger sibling that's popular with tradespeople and commercial customers.

  • $2.3 billion of that will be spent to overhaul a factory in Oakville, Ontario, that was previously set to become an EV manufacturing hub.
  • A three-row electric SUV that Ford had planned to build in Oakville is getting shelved until 2027, as the automaker announced back in April.
  • About 1,800 Canadian jobs will be secured — 400 more than would have been needed to produce the three-row EV, Ford said.

Between the lines: The pivot helped Ford solve two problems.

  • The automaker needs the extra truck capacity to keep up with soaring demand; the two factories where it currently builds Super Duty trucks in Ohio and Kentucky are "running flat out," Ford said.
  • There aren't enough customers for a three-row EV. Delaying the launch until 2027 will allow the market to mature and buy time for Ford to improve the product and take advantage of emerging battery technology, the company said.

Follow the money: While Ford's EV unit lost $4.7 billion in 2023 (and is on track to lose even more this year), its Ford Pro commercial business earned $7.2 billion in 2023.

  • With an estimated $20,000 per vehicle profit on the Super Duty, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why Ford is leaning into trucks for now.

The big picture: Like General Motors and other rivals, Ford has been backing off EV commitments as it becomes clear that the early adopter era is over.

  • CEO Jim Farley is increasingly bullish on hybrids as a bridge technology — a strategy that has proven successful for Toyota — and Ford aims to offer hybrids across its entire lineup by 2030.

The intrigue: Ford is moving ahead with plans to erect a new "Blue Oval City" EV manufacturing campus in Tennessee, while its rivals are converting older factories to EV production — with help from the Biden administration.

  • GM and Stellantis scooped up a combined $1.1 billion in federal grants for such projects, while Ford didn't apply.
  • Ford plans to begin customer deliveries of a new electric pickup truck built at Blue Oval City in 2026, a few months later than originally scheduled.

What's next: Ford says it has other EV efforts simmering.

  • The automaker said it's going to "electrify" the next generation of Super Duty trucks, without providing details.
  • And a "skunkworks" team in California is developing a smaller, low-cost EV platform capable of underpinning multiple models.

 

TAYLOR SWIFT INC.

Europe has a Taylor Swift problem: "Eras Tour" sparks inflation jitters

Photo illustration of Taylor Swift holding a sparking Euro symbol

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo. Photo: Ricardo Rubio/Europa Press via Getty Image

The Swifties are wreaking havoc across the Atlantic — or, at least on European economic data.

Why it matters: "The Eras Tour" is a source of faster price increases as concertgoers spend on food, tickets and hotels. That's making for a cruel summer, pushing inflation rates higher with possibly more distortions to come.

  • Analysts attributed a surprise surge in Swedish inflation in May to three Swift concerts in Stockholm that drove up the city's hotel and other service prices.
  • It comes right as British and Eurozone policymakers are trying to assess whether price pressures have receded enough to lower interest rates.

What they're saying: Swift's concerts, along with other high-profile events like the Olympics and the Euro 2024 soccer championship, will boost inflation in the services sector this summer, says Krishna Guha, the vice chairman of investment advisory firm Evercore ISI.

  • "This will make it harder to read the underlying strength of inflation," Guha tells Axios. "The question is whether policymakers will be confident enough in their forecasts for continued disinflation to look through this."
  • Guha thinks that might be the case for the European Central Bank, though he's less certain about the Bank of England.
  • "We're at a turning point now as the Bank of England is eyeing the first rate cut. All the data matters," says Lucas Krishan, a macro strategist at TD Securities. The ECB is deciding when it might cut rates again.

By the numbers: U.K. inflation was hotter than expected in June. The service sector was to blame.

  • Hotel prices rose almost 9% last month. Live music costs have spiked in recent months: Prices are up over 20% in the March through June period, well above the average three-month gain of 5% between 2018 and 2023.

That may seem alarming, but you need to calm down: This looks to be the Swift effect at work — at least, partly. The data coincides with multiple concerts in the U.K. last month.

  • Swift's performances in London next month might have a larger impact since one lands on a possible "index day," when inflation data price quotes are collected.
  • Higher hotel prices could temporarily add as much as 0.3 percentage point to services inflation, Krishan estimated in a note appropriately titled "The New Taylor Rule."
  • Swift is, as far as we know, unrelated to Stanford economist John Taylor, who invented the Taylor Rule as a guide to where interest rates should be set.

The big picture: Even if concert effects are one-offs, European policymakers won't want to be reckless and take things too far, risking a nasty scar.

  • In the U.S., strong demand for Swift and BeyoncĂ© concerts last year showed consumers had an appetite to spend, despite higher interest rates meant to chill demand.
  • A tourism boom in European nations including Portugal, Italy and Greece is already fueling services inflation in those nations.

European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde acknowledged earlier this month uncertainty around the "root cause" of lingering service sector inflation.

  • Lagarde joked: "It's not just Taylor Swift, others have come as well."

The bottom line: Central bankers in Europe who see surprisingly high services inflation in this summer's data may be reluctant to just shake it off.