| | | Good morning! | | | | One On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his 10th Independence Day speech, promised to make India a developed country by 2047. An analysis by my colleague Roshan Kishore in July said that with the International Monetary Fund’s estimate for 2028 as the base, India’s per-capita income by 2047 could range between $8,503 and $20,581 in 2047, assuming 5% as the base growth rate for the economy, and 10% as the peak. Taking 7.5% as the convenient mid-point, largely from the mathematical perspective (India’s growth rate in the coming 24 years is far more likely to be 6-7%, with a few years being outliers on the higher side), India’s per-capita income in 2047 is likely to be around $14,500. That would nudge India into the ranks of high-income countries as defined by the world bank’s current classification (although the multilateral institution could redefine its slabs by then). Just for comparison, India’s current per-capita income is around $2,250. India will definitely be richer by 2047, but what about Indians? That question begs an obvious follow-up. How many Indians are becoming richer in India? The simple answer: Not enough. But becoming a developed country would also require India to address several other challenges, and improve its standing on several social, economic and developmental parameters — although, it would be fair to assume that some improvement will happen automatically as the economy becomes bigger and per capita incomes rise. HT detailed some of these challenges, in areas as diverse as energy consumption (low right now), undernourishment (high), infant mortality (high), share of food in household budgets (high), share of manufacturing in the economy (low), and proportion of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihood (high). | | Two When an economy grows, but doesn’t build enough capacity, it overheats, resulting in inflation. To be sure, inflation can also be caused by disruptions to the supply chain such as the ones caused first by Covid-19, and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or to supply itself, such as the ones increasingly being caused by extreme weather events brought about by the climate crisis. India is experiencing the last right now. Food inflation soared in July, taking overall retail inflation to a 15-month high of 7.44%. That’s way above the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerance band of 2-6%, although RBI governor Shaktikanta Das has been emphatic that 4% is the target, suggesting that just because there is a tolerance band, 6% doesn’t somehow become the target. The subtext of RBI’s latest monetary policy statement suggests that it has pushed back the calendar on a change in its stance — it is currently in pause mode — which means any cut in the policy rate will now happen only in early 2024, perhaps even towards the middle of the year. That’s bad news for a government going to polls next year. Bloomberg reported this week that the government is trying to put together almost ₹1 lakh crore from the budgets of various government departments and use that to tackle inflation. HT reported earlier this week that the government could continue with free food and fuel subsidy schemes past their original deadline of December 31. And the government is mulling more stringent steps to keep food inflation in check. But as HT wrote in an editorial, there’s a more fundamental problem here: “As the climate crisis inflicts more extreme weather events, agricultural supply chains will be held hostage to a crisis which is beyond the tools at the disposal of monetary policy.” | | Three It isn’t just food supply chains that are being roiled by the climate crisis. Two Indian hill states, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, have been wrecked by floods and landslides, triggered by extreme weather events brought about by the climate crisis, but fundamentally caused by poor planning and development, including of large infrastructure projects including highways and hydropower plants. “Continuous rainfall is obviously a trigger but there are other triggers also like tectonic activity and anthropogenic causes such as drawdown of groundwater which can create a vacuum under the surface, heavy construction activity and mining,” said Kalachand Sain, director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. The August rains (and landslides) in the two states are the second this season; both witnessed similar events in July. And the reasons then were the same: the climate crisis (which increases the chances of extreme rainfall); a young mountain range (by geological standards) that is still active; and mindless infrastructure projects. | | Four The best news of the week was the presence of four Indians in the quarterfinals of the FIDE World Cup. Three have since exited — R. Praggnanandhaa is the only one who remains – but not since Russia in 2013, has a country managed the feat. It all began with Vishwanathan Anand, of course, and he has had a major role to play in the emergence of a group of young players he terms “India’s golden generation”. Presciently, days ahead of India’s feat, he called it in an essay in Hindustan Times. “The trickle has turned into a flood,” he wrote. “The golden generation of Indian chess, led by D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa, but also made up of so many other promising young people, is starting to truly make its mark on the world stage.” Anand attributed this to the “ecosystem that is in place” now: “There are sponsors, there is exposure, there is access to the best equipment and there is a lot of talent. For chess to grow in India, this depth of talent was important. The depth stokes intense competition and that, in turn, creates very strong players. Now, if you want to represent India at the World Cup or the Olympiad, you have to be playing at a very high level. No one is fully safe and that keeps them on the edge. It keeps them honest.” And true to form, he didn’t want to look too far ahead. “Will we come to dominate the sport in a decade? Will these youngsters challenge for the world titles? Will another Indian become a world champion? These are questions that will have to wait; for now, the one thing that is for certain is that Indian chess has come of age.” That it has. | | Five June marked the 75th anniversary of the 33 1/3 LP. Vinyl has been making a comeback in recent years; pressings have gotten better, and so have systems. There’s also something deeply ritualistic about playing and listening to vinyl. There’s some music I like to listen to only on vinyl — jazz, of course, and soul, but also bands such as Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. I do not listen to western classical music at all, but aficionados tell me CDs work better for that. Back in June 1948, though, as Bhanuj Kappal writes in HT Wknd, no one “could have predicted just how transformative the long-playing record, or LP, would be. It changed how we create, consume, even think about music. The increased playing time led to the birth of the album. The idea of the album, a cohesive collection of songs, would challenge and eventually replace the pop single as the dominant music format. It remains the dominant format today.” I’ve heard it being said that vinyl is bad for the environment. As Kappal writes: “So, how bad is the LP or long-playing record, from an ecological standpoint? According to researchers at Keele University, in an article published on the university website in 2019, the average vinyl record contains about 135gm of PVC, and is responsible for the release of about 0.5kg of carbon dioxide. That’s about the same as driving about 2.5km in a car fuelled by petroleum.” But streaming isn’t particularly environment-friendly either: “The Keele University researchers estimated that streaming an album for 17 hours would involve the same carbon emissions as producing an LP. For CDs, which are made from recyclable plastic, five hours of streaming equals one CD. So, if you listen to your favourite music over and over, opt for a physical format.” That’s exactly what I do. | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
