All help, but no troops to Afghanistan

India will expand aid to strife-hit nation, Nirmala Sitharaman says after meeting U.S. Defence Secretary

R.V. MOORTHY ■

Meeting of minds: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with her U.S. counterpart James Mattis at South Block in New Delhi on Tuesday.

India on Tuesday ruled out deploying troops in Afghanistan even as it pledged to expand development and medical assistance for the strife-torn nation.

“We have made it very clear that there shall not be boots from India on the ground,” Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in response to questions on the issue, at a press conference she addressed along with her U.S. counterpart James Mattis.

The U.S. Defence Secretary is in New Delhi for the first Cabinet-level visit from the Trump administration. For Ms. Sitharaman, it was the first ministerial engagement with a counterpart since she took charge of South Block.

“Indian contribution to Afghanistan has been for a very long time and has been consistently on developmental issues... Medical assistance is also provided by India... So India’s contribution has been on these grounds, and we shall expand if necessary,” Ms. Sitharaman added.

The Defence Minister’s statement puts to rest speculation about India deploying troops in Afghanistan after U.S. President Donald Trump called for greater Indian involvement. India has already extended $3 billion aid to Afghanistan, provides security assistance in the form of training and has also

supplied some utility and attack helicopters.

Kabul has repeatedly sought lethal weapons and ammunition from India.

In their press statements after the talks, the two leaders also resolved to eradicate terrorist safe havens across the globe.

“There can be no tolerance of terrorist safe havens. As global leaders, India and the U.S. resolve to work together to eradicate this scourge,” Mr. Mattis said, but made no direct reference to Pakistan.

Maritime engagements

With increasing Chinese presence in the region, Mr. Mattis said expanding “maritime engagements” was one of his top priorities.

He said India had a “vital role to play in supporting South East Asia’s regional institutions, particularly ASEAN, and in building partner capacity across the region.” Both sides reiterated their support for “freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded lawful commerce” in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific Region.

“We also believe that disputes should be resolved through peaceful means and in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law,” Ms. Sitharaman said, in an apparent reference to China.

Stating that the recent Malabar trilateral naval exercises demonstrated the progress made in “operational synergies” between the navies, Ms. Sitharaman said, “In our talks today, we agreed to explore additional, specialised exercises.”

This visit was largely a familiarisation trip for Mr. Mattis and also a chance for the leaders to know each other. Later in the day, Mr. Mattis held discussions with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

Mr. Mattis called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the afternoon. “The Prime Minister recalled his wide-ranging, candid, and fruitful discussions with President Trump during his visit to the United States in June this year,” a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

Mr. Mattis briefed the Prime Minister on the progress in advancing the bilateral agenda and implementing the decisions taken during that visit, the statement said.

“They also discussed enhanced cooperation, regionally and globally, in pursuing shared priorities for peace, stability and combating terrorism. The Prime Minister appreciated the close engagement between the two countries on regional and global issues of mutual concern,” it said.

Dutch gridlock could hold a portent for Germany

Six months since the elections, the Netherlands is yet to get a government as coalition talks grind on

Chancellor Angela Merkel arriving for a meeting on Tuesday.

If German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to see how tough it can be to form a multi-party government, she needs only look across the border at the Netherlands, where four-party coalition talks are still grinding on more than six months after the election.

Talks resumed here on Tuesday afternoon. On his way in, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he did not have any tips for Ms. Merkel. “She’s very wise and will be able to handle it without my advice, no doubt,” he said.

Lengthy talks to form a coalition government are a regular feature in some European democracies — Belgians once had to wait more than 500 days for a new government.

Position weakened

Ms. Merkel’s bloc came in first in Sunday’s vote but its position was weakened. Her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavaria-only ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won 33% of the vote — down from 41.5% four years ago. Her coalition partner for the last term, the Social Democrats led by Martin Schulz, won 20.5% and vowed to go into Opposition.

The most politically plausible option for Ms. Merkel is a three-way coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the traditionally left-leaning Greens.

The current Dutch negotiations are the second-longest on record for them, eclipsed only by a 208-day formation process in 1977.

The parallels

Her position now is similar to that of Mr. Rutte — they both emerged victorious after an election, but lost seats and their coalition partners.

Mr. Rutte initially tried to build an alliance between his free market People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the Christian Democrats, the centrist D66 party and Green Left. The Greens, however, pulled the plug on that alliance in May when negotiators failed to bridge the yawning gaps between the parties on immigration policy. Ms. Merkel will likely face a similar problem if she attempts to co-opt the German greens into a coalition.

The talks “will certainly be very complicated and very difficult,” said the Greens’ co-leader, Katrin Goering-Eckardt. “We will negotiate with great responsibility and great seriousness.”

The fourth-term challenge

Germany’s election was supposed to be a sedate affair. Angela Merkel would be confirmed as Chancellor. The German people, happy with brisk growth, 4% unemployment, and a high trade surplus, were supposed to rubber stamp their satisfaction with the status quo. Chancellor Merkel’s moment of peril in 2015 — when her open door policy brought more than 900,000 asylum seekers to Germany — had passed.

A different campaign

Ms. Merkel thought so too. Having overcome the twin challenges of the Eurozone and refugee crises, she relied lazily on satisfaction with the life in Germany today to carry her to victory. Together with Martin Schulz, leader of the centreleft Social Democrats, she made a Faustian bargain to run the anaesthetising campaign focussed more on German happiness than hidden anxieties and future challenges. In their one and only TV debate, Ms. Merkel and Mr. Schulz talked more about highway tolls than they did about NATO, Russia, Brexit, the Eurozone crisis, Syria, North Korea, the rise of Asia or terrorism. Even the issues that Germany is known around the world for — climate change and trade — played little if any role in the election.

But in an election that brought 75.6% of eligible voters to the polls, the German electorate dealt Ms. Merkel a wake-up call. The message was muddled. But certain trend lines — and warnings — are present.

First, Germany is entering into a period of uncertainty. Germany is not immune to the anti-establishment, reactionary forces sweeping the western world. The comfortable position that the grand coalition had after 2013 was winnowed down to a mere 54%. The rightwing, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) catapulted to the third strongest party in Parliament. It even came in first in the state of Saxony. Combined with the Communist successor party, Die Linke, extremist parties will make up 22% of the new Parliament.

Second, the German political landscape is more fragmented. Not one but two parties, the AfD and the pro-business Thatcherite Liberals, that were not in the previous Parliament are in. The size of the Bundestag will also grow from 631 to 708 seats. The Social Democrats have already indicated that Ms. Merkel is on her own to forge a new governing coalition. That leaves her with no other option than an unstable coalition with the Liberals and the ecologically-minded Green party. Most estimate that laboured coalition talks could extend into early 2018.

Third, Germany has turned toward a more insular brand of conservatism. In total, 56.4% of Germans voted for parties to the right. That compared to 37.8% for progressive parties. But what drove this process? Economic performance, at least in the top line numbers, is not responsible for the rising tide of reactionary populism in Germany. Even 73% of AfD voters would describe the economic situation in the country as good.

Behind the swing

Two elements animated the swing rightward: a simmering unease toward Muslim immigration and a resentment toward a world that thinks Germany needs to do more in the Eurozone, the European Union (EU), NATO and globally.

German voters bristled at attempts both at home and internationally to talk more about German leadership. As one former Defence Minister quipped wryly, “When Americans or Europeans talk about German ‘leadership,’ they really mean money.” It’s a resentment that many Germans feel. Some of the campaign’s best applause lines excoriated what others expected from Germans. Do more to support French President Emmanuel Macron’s EU vision with a transfer union to stabilise weak Eurozone economies; do more on domestic spending to balance out Germany’s massive trade surplus; do more on defence spending to meet NATO’s 2% mark; do more on sanctions against Russia and Iran; more on Brexit; the list goes on.

And across the spectrum, there was a new-found embrace of the politics of national identity coupled with fear and distrust of Islam in political, social and moral life. Even as the refugee crisis waned, the sparring from Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this summer drew new anxieties into high relief. Germans in Turkey jailed for no reason. Reporters suppressed. Rule of law rolled back in the wake of a shadowy coup. Mr. Erdoğan’s demagogic rhetoric attacking Germany for not allowing him to hold rallies on German soil. And all the while, over 60% of Turks from Cologne to Berlin to Hamburg voted in support of Mr. Erdoğan’s authoritarian referendum. The incident left many German asking whether Germany’s Turks and Muslims share their values.

The EU factor

These elements leave Ms. Merkel more politically constrained as she enters her fourth term. She joins Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl in the pantheon of German leaders to have served for well over a decade at the helm of the Federal Republic. Adenauer saved West Germany from the ashes of World War II and firmly embedded it in the family of Western liberal democracies. To this day, he is still the most admired person in German history beating out Luther, Gutenberg, Bismarck and Einstein. Kohl was the reunification chancellor, the man who literally erased borders both between Germans and within Europe. What will Ms. Merkel’s legacy be?

Many expect her next four years to be defined by the EU. But it is hard to see how she will forge an EU with cleaner lines with a smaller majority in the Bundestag, the austerity-driven Liberals in her coalition and a Euro-hostile AfD breathing down her neck. Given the domestic constraints, it won’t be easy.

Tyson Barker is Programme Director and Fellow at the Aspen Institute Germany. He is a former U.S. State Department official

Trying to find place for me: Pandey

India batsman says he is feeling pressure of batting in middle order and that he prefers more time at crease to feel at ease

Bengaluru: Manish Pandey is feeling the pressure of holding on to his spot in the Indian ODI team and says the only way he can beat stiff competition is by scoring tons of runs.

“Definitely, there is pressure in the middle order. I would like to play more games and win matches for India. I am doing the hard work to try and find a place for me in the playing eleven,” he said ahead of the fourth ODI against Australia on Thursday.

Pandey, who scored two fifties in three innings on his comeback tour of Sri Lanka earlier this month, was not among the runs in the first two ODIs against Australia before making an 36* in Indore.

He played at No. 4 in Chennai and Kolkata before Hardik Pandya’s surprise promotion brought him down to number six in Indore. “It is completely different when you are playing No. 3, 4 or 6. It is all about the mindset. It is about aggressiveness. I would like to spend more time on the wicket to make myself feel at ease at the crease,” he said.

India have already secured the series with a hat-trick of wins but Pandey insisted that Australia remain a tough opposition.

He also reacted to Harbhajan Singh’s jibe at the struggling Australians. “I think it is his own views about cricket. I think Australia is a fairly good side which boasts of quality batsmen. It is this series where they have lost matches on the trot. Nevertheless, they are a team to beat,” said Pandey.

Asked whether the confidence level of the Aussies is down after losing a series of ODIs against India and other teams, Pandey said their middle-order is not clicking.

“I think they are doing really well, but some of the things are not clicking for them. Their top order is getting runs, but not the middle order,” he said. —PTI

How employment in affected

Hyper-globalisation has led to concentration of economic power and wealth in fewer hands (Representational Image)

For ardent optimists betting on India and China to continue to serve as the growth poles that would fuel a global economic recovery, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has poured cold waters by terming such an expectation as “clearly unwarranted”. This is so because as even the growth in the world’ two most populous economies—china and India—remains relatively buoyant, the pace is slower than before the crisis and they confront “some serious downside risks”.

In its flagship annual publication, Trade and Development Report (TDR) 2017, the Geneva-based UN body that traditionally calls a spade a spade regardless of treading on the toes of rich or poor members, said two factors now sway on growth. First is that oil and commodity prices, while emerging from their recent troughs, are still well below the highs witnessed during the boom years. This has dampened recovery in commodityexporting countries. Second with developing nations abnegating responsibility for a coordinated expansionary push, austerity has become the default macroeconomic policy position in many emerging economies facing fiscal imbalances and mounting debt levels. India being no exception to this norm with its economic slowdown and monetary policy doing the heavy-lifting with sticking to fiscal deficit target the authorities’ mantra.

Without resorting to any persiflage or prevarication UNCTAD said India’s growth performance depends to a large extent on reforms to its banking sector, which is burdened with large volumes of stressed and non-performing assets. There are already signs of “a reduction in the pace of credit creation”. As debt-financed private investment and consumption have been important drivers of growth in India, the easing of the credit boom is likely to slow GDP growth, UNCTAD noted.

Besides, the informal sector, which still accounts for at least one-third of the country’s GDP and more than four-fifths of employment, was badly bruised by the government’s “demonetisation” in November 2016, and it may be further hit by the roll-out of the GST from July 2017.

Stating that the explosion of domestic debt since the crisis is proving a major challenge to sustained growth in China as its debt-to-gdp ratio stands at 249 per cent, UNCTAD report minced no words when it observed that the dependence on debt makes the boom in China and India difficult to sustain and raises the possibility that when the downturn supervenes in these countries which is at this juncture manifest in growth slowdown, deleveraging would accelerate the fall and make recovery difficult.

Even as India and many developed and developing countries pitch for inclusive growth to ensure that the gains of growth are distributed justly to iron out widening inequalities, UNCTAD report unequivocally asserts that “inclusive growth across the global economy will remain an elusive goal in the absence of sustained international efforts to manage a coordinated expansion”. The report regretted that since 2010, the majority of advanced countries have opted for ‘medium’ to ‘severe’ austerity, and even the countries that have considerable fiscal room for manoeuvre have resisted robust expansion. Until recently, some major emerging market economies were exceptions to this trend, but evidence suggests that they too are now curbing expenditure with a view to fiscal consolidation.

As to the recurring issue of whether trade can bail out countries by paving the way for growth, the UNCTAD report casts doubts contending that even world trade is likely to pick up this year from its very sluggish performance in 2016, the sustainability of the export surge from emerging markets that underlies and underpins this improvement is unlikely this year. Given the weak worldwide demand, global trade is unlikely to serve as a broad stimulus for growth, other than for particular countries that benefit from special circumstances. Besides, hopes of an imminent breakthrough in multilateral trade negotiations under the WTO umbrella with a strong development orientation are ‘fading’.

Taking a broader view of how hyperglobalisation with the help of the very visible hand of the State has recovered its poise, business as usual has set in, the push for lighttouch regulation is underway yet again and austerity is the preferred response to ‘excessively’ high levels of public debt, the report emphatically argued that “no social or economic order is safe if it fails to ensure a fair distribution of its benefits in good times and the costs in bad times”. It singled out hyperglobalisation as the principal villain of the piece and extant predicament of the world economy, stating that unlike the textbook world of pure competition, hyper-globalisation has led to a considerable concentration of economic power and wealth in the hands of a remarkably small number of people.

That is the reason why UNCTAD’S TDR this time around presciently warns that as long as organised business faces little pushback across several key sectors, increased market concentration and the spread of rentextracting behavior would persist apace. This would exacerbate inequalities that have been rising over the past three decades of hyperglobalisation and technological changes might worsen the situation if they hamper job creation, adding to a growing sense of anxiety.

Pointing out that how market concentration for the top 100 firms rose fourfold in terms of market capitalisation but less than doubled in terms of employment, UNCTAD said this lends further support to the view that hyper-globalisation promotes “profit without prosperity” and that asymmetric market sway is a strong contributory factor to rising income inequality across the universe. The report also singled out the intense lobbying by the patent community, mostly in the rich world, as a major force driving the consolidation of market power, along with regulatory capture by large corporations. It further pertinently noted that multinational corporations’ excessive use of patent protection for defensive purposes also directly hits “innovation dynamics in major emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and India”.

What is more deplorable is that mounting evidence suggests that other non-financial rent-seeking ploys such as tax evasion and avoidance, public sector gouging (of both assets and subsidies) and rampant market manipulation to boost compensation schemes for companies’ top management are being adopted by firms not only in the more advanced economies but also increasingly in developing ones. In order to correct these imbalances which entail systematic and concerted action at the national and international levels, UNCTAD plumps for forging a global new deal. In this regard, it said States require the space to tailor proactive fiscal and other public policies to boost investment and raise living standards, bolstered by regulatory and redistributive strategies to tackle the triple tasks of large inequalities, demographic pressures, and environmental problems. The moot point is whether the global community has the gumption to launch such a new deal before long to rescue the global economy from sinking to new lows?

(The author is a freelance commentator on economic issues. Views expressed are strictly personal.)

Won’t send troops to Af, India makes it clear to US

PM Narendra Modi with US defence secretary Jim Mattis in a meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday

New Delhi: India has made it clear to the US that it will not contribute combat troops to stabilise and secure Afghanistan but will further crank up its ongoing security, economic and development assistance to the wartorn country which is battling a resurgent Taliban backed by Pakistan.

Though US President Donald Trump has called upon India to play a greater role in Afghanistan, in a policy shift that has riled Pakistan, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the presence of her visiting US counterpart James Mattis on Friday that there “shall not be any boots from India on the ground in Afghanistan”.

Sitharaman also pointedly raised with Mattis the entire issue of continuing US military aid to Pakistan despite it providing “safe havens” to terror groups targeting both India and Afghanistan. “The very same forces that find safe havens in Pakistan hit New York and Mumbai. I have requested the US secretary of defence to take this up when he visits Pakistan,” she said.

Mattis, who later met PM Narendra Modi and national security advisor Ajit Doval, asserted that “there can be no tolerance of terrorist safe havens anywhere” but did not specifically name Pakistan. India and the US, both of whom have suffered “grievous losses” due to terrorism, have resolved to work together to “eradicate this scourge”, he added.

Mattis is the first cabinetrank minister to visit India after the Trump administration took charge of the White House in January.

India and the US, in delegation-level talks, decided to further deepen their strategic partnership by stepping up defence cooperation, combat exercises, co-development and production of cutting-edge weapon systems, and maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region and beyond.

Confronted with an aggressive and expansionist China in the Asia Pacific region, especially in the contentious South China Sea, the two countries reiterated the critical importance of freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded lawful commerce in the global commons. “Disputes should be resolved through peaceful means and in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law,” Sitharaman said.

Afghanistan figured high on the agenda. Apart from the around $3 billion worth of development assistance to build dams, highways, hospitals, schools and the like till now, India has helped “capacitybuilding” of the Afghan National Army by training over 5,000 personnel and supplying small arms and four Mi-25 attack helicopters.

This security assistance is going to be further increased, with India examining an Afghan military equipment wish list ranging from 105 mm artillery guns and armoured vehicles to utility helicopters and communication equipment.

India is obviously worried about the stability of the strategically-located Afghanistan amid the advances made by the Taliban and its deadly arms like the Haqqani network, which have long worked in league with the Pakistan army against Indian interests.

Stressing the “strategic convergence” between India and the US based on common objectives and goals in the region, Mattis welcomed India’s “invaluable contributions” and “further efforts” to promote “democracy, stability and security” in Afghanistan.

Google is celebrating its 19th birthday today

Google is celebrating its 19th birthday. The only problem is that it’s had at least six 19th birthdays already.




The company is showing everyone a cute, celebratory doodle on 27 September to mark the company’s coming-of-age. In it, most of the letters making up Google's name are balloons, except for the first "O" that's a cake, followed by the second that resembles a big circular spinner. This spinner plays a special part in the birthday celebrations, allowing you to select different games via the Google interface.

Aside from these bells, whistles and balloons, there’s nothing especially meaningful about the 27th in the Google timeline. There’s at least six other days that have been celebrated as Google’s birthday – and none of them are any more meaningful than any of the others.

Indeed, Google might not even be 19. If we use one date – when the Google.com domain was first registered – then the company turned 20 on 15 September this year.

But if Google was 19, and so founded in 1998, then there’s a lot of dates to celebrate too. Google was given its first investment of $100,000 in August 1998 – paid to Google Inc, which didn’t actually exist yet.
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Then the next month, Google files for incorporation in California, making it an official company and giving it a bank account to deposit that check in. hat happened on 4 September, 1998 – the earliest of the celebrated birthdays, and probably the one with the best claim to being the actual birth of Google. The rest of September sees a number of big moments for Google. Those include the establishment of its first workspace – in a garage – and the hiring of its first employee.

All of that confusion led Google to admit in 2013 that it didn’t really know when its birthday was.

As such, it has celebrated on at least four days in September: the 7th, the 8th, the 26th and the 27th. The latter – which appears to be what Google’s sticking to for now – was first celebrated in 2002, on Google’s 4th birthday, though the company has celebrated a range of other dates since.

But in fact, Google has spent much of the month celebrating its birthday – sending out posts and decorating various parts of its headquarters. Google is perhaps so big that it can’t just be pinned down to one day – apart from when it needs to make a Doodle for it.

The problem is complicated even more by the involvement of the Google Doodle. Google’s Doodles are actually older than Google itself is, officially.

The company posted its first Doodle on 30 August, celebrating the Burning Man festival. But even the earliest estimate of Google’s birthday – 4 September, when the company was incorporated – happened a week after that.