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 Today’s Read Date: 22 March, 2024

s.NO CONTENT
1 To see India’s future, go south
Why Japan’s economy remains a warning to
2 others?

3 History of money: How did the Roaring Twenties in

America fade out?

Almost everyone fears death — but not in

4 the same ways
How to adapt the <theology of work= to
5 Succession-era capitalism

The lure of lucre: On the 17th edition of

6 the IPL and beyond

7 Three is a crowd: On Tamil Nadu political

scene and the general election 2024

8 Poor air quality

New capabilities: India and the Agni-V with
9 MIRV

Mastering Finance: Unlocking the Game of

SPECIAL Wealth
 To see India’s future,
Date: go
south

Most people know that India is a rising economic power. It is already the
world’s fifth-largest economy and is growing faster than any big rival, with a
turbocharged stockmarket that is the fourth-largest of any country’s. It is also
common knowledge that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is its most
powerful in decades and that, as well as economic development, his agenda
includes a Hindu-first populism that can veer into chauvinism and
authoritarianism. Less well known is that these competing trends of
development and identity politics are together fuelling a striking third trend: a
growing north-south split.
The wealthy south is where you will find the slick new India, with its startups,
it campuses and gleaming iPhone-assembly plants. Yet Mr Modi’s party gets
a low share of its votes from there and relies on the poorer, more populous,
rural, Hindi-speaking north. This north-south divide will be a defining issue in
the election in April and May, in which Mr Modi is expected to win a third term.
How the split is managed in the long run is of critical importance to India’s
prospects. In one alarming scenario, it could create a constitutional crisis and
fracture India’s single market. In a more benign future, resolving this divide
could moderate India’s harsh identity politics.
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Geographical divides often influence how countries develop. America’s
politics and economy still reflect the legacy of the civil war. When Deng
Xiaoping sought to open up China’s economy in 1992, he took a “southern
tour” to Guangdong province. His endorsement of its entrepreneurial culture
and history of openness thwarted Communist Party conservatives and led to
the boom that fuelled China’s rise as an economic superpower.
Understanding India’s divide begins with economics. The south has long been
richer and more urban. The southern five of India’s 28 states (Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana) contain 20% of the
population, but account for 30% of its loans and for 35% of the flow of foreign
investment in the past three years. Better government, education and
property rights help explain this outperformance and have fostered enterprise
and a more sophisticated financial system. A gap that has existed since
independence in 1947 has widened over the decades. In 1993 the south
contributed 24% of India’s gdp. The latest figure is 31%.
When foreign bosses visit India they still pay tribute to the national
government in Delhi, but many of the most exciting business opportunities
require a flight to the south. Consider the shift in global supply chains from
China to India: 46% of India’s electronics exports are from the south. In
India’s famous startup scene, 46% of tech “unicorns” are southerners, coming
especially from Bangalore. The five southern states provide 66% of the it-
services industry’s exports. The latest craze is for “global capability centres”,
where multinationals assemble their global auditors, lawyers, designers,
architects and other professionals: 79% of these hubs are in the south.
Even as the south acts as India’s economic engine, its politics are on a
separate planet from those of the north. There the emphasis is on the Hindi
language, macho Hindu identity politics and, often, the demonisation of
Muslims. Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) promotes all that alongside
its mantra of national development, partly out of ideological fervour and partly
because it wins elections.

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In the south that bjp formula works less well. Since the 1960s voters have
backed regional parties that promote English, Tamil and other local
languages, and advocate less strident Hindu values. In 2019 only 11% of the
bjp’s voters and a mere 10% of its parliamentary seats were from the south.
In the party’s one southern bastion, Karnataka, the bjp lost control of the state
legislature in elections in 2023. Mr Modi dreams of running a modern, tech-
enabled central government that reaches across the whole country. Yet for all
his electoral triumphs, he still lacks a truly national mandate.
How will these geographical tensions be resolved? A thriving national single
market is crucial to India’s growth because it allows firms to achieve
economies of scale for the first time and permits a more efficient allocation of
national resources, from energy to labour. Inter-state trade rose from 23% of
gdp in 2017 to 35% in 2021, underpinning growth. Mr Modi has done an
impressive job of creating nationwide infrastructure, from a unitary tax system
to transport and digital-payments schemes.
Yet under India’s constitution most of these reforms required co-operation
between the central government and the states. So will the next lot.
Education, which needs deeper reform, is a joint responsibility. More young
Indians in the jobs-scarce north must be able to move to find work in the
south. To power its economy and cut emissions India needs a truly national
energy market.
Pessimists fear a re-elected Mr Modi will upset the constitutional balance.
Southern leaders already accuse him of targeting them with bogus corruption
probes, withholding central-government funds and extracting an unfair level of
tax to subsidise the north. The south could also lose out after 2026 when
parliamentary-constituency boundaries are due to be redrawn. Against the
south’s wishes, the bjp could impose Hindi as the national language.
Over the next decade this kind of confrontation could get in the way of
essential economic reforms. In the very worst scenario it could even lead to
calls to break up India. Talk of secession last surfaced after independence
and was suppressed with a ban in 1963 on any politician proposing it.

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 Why Japan’s economy remains
Date:
a warning to others

For most of this century it has looked as if the world’s economy was turning
Japanese, with low growth, below-target inflation and rock-bottom interest
rates. Today the question is how much Japan will come to look like the rest of
the world. On March 19th the Bank of Japan raised interest rates for the first
time since 2007, after inflation seemed at last to have become entrenched.
The interest-rate target for overnight loans, previously between minus 0.1%
and 0%, will rise by a tenth of a percentage point. The central bank also
scrapped its policy of yield-curve control, which capped long-term bond yields
at 1%. Having kept monetary policy ultra-loose for years, Japan has now
begun to follow the course set by other economies since widespread inflation
took hold.
It is a remarkable moment. Before 2022 annual inflation had been above 2%
for only 12 of the previous 120 months; today it has been above that level for
22 consecutive months. Japan’s biggest firms recently agreed to increase
wages by 5.3%, a level that would have been unthinkable before the global
inflation breakout. There is a sense that change is here to stay. Stocks have
been booming and investors are optimistic about the economy.

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Yet it would be wrong to conclude that Japan is de-Japanifying. More
important than an economy’s nominal attributes such as inflation, headline
interest rates and stockmarket growth are its real, structural features. If you
look at the fundamentals, even the rise in interest rates is not quite what it
seems. The 2% inflation target which the Bank of Japan believes is now in
sight is 1.4 percentage points higher than the average inflation rate over the
ten years to the end of 2021. This 1.4-point rise in projected inflation towers
over the 0.1-point rise in interest rates, which in real terms have therefore
fallen, not risen. Moreover, the bank made clear in its statement on March
19th that it expected to maintain “accommodative” financial conditions and
would keep buying some bonds.
Rock-bottom real rates reflect the fact that Japan has abundant savings,
partly because its population is so old—30% are over 65. Firms struggle to
put these to productive use, because an economy with a shrinking population
has less appetite for capital investment. Japan’s demography and reluctance
to admit immigrants also constrain its growth. The imf expects gdp to rise by
only 0.5% annually over the next four years, compared with 2% in America.
That is respectable given the lack of workers—growth in output per worker
has been healthy. But it is hardly a resurgence.
A final factor is Japan’s enduring public indebtedness. The debt-to-gdp ratio is
255% in gross terms, or 159% after netting off the government’s financial
assets; both measures are the highest in the rich world. Even with low interest
rates, nearly 9% of the government budget is spent on debt interest. Japan
could not withstand a monetary tightening anything like as severe as the one
in America, where rates have reached 5.25-5.5%.
Long before they got to such levels in Japan, the government would have to
reduce its deficit, which was 5.6% of gdp in 2023. The economy would cool
from fiscal belt-tightening, not higher rates. With monetary policy, as with
growth, there remains only one path by which Japan will cease to be
exceptional: if the rest of the world comes to resemble it.

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 History of money: How did the
Roaring Twenties inDate:
America
fade out?

If you are a jazz lover or a fan of French fashion and have read The Great
Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald or The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway,
you probably know about the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age. If you don’t,
here’s a brief overview of the 1920s and how those years affected the global
financial system and led to the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in
modern history.
The Roaring Twenties were a time of economic growth and widespread
prosperity in North America, Europe and a few other developed countries
such as Australia. People were getting back on their feet after the First World
War and spending the money they had saved through the hard times.
At first, the end of wartime production led to a short but deep recession in
1919 and 1920. This was called the “post-World War I recession”. However,
the economies of the US and Canada quickly rebounded as soldiers returned
to work and factories that had made weapons switched to making consumer
goods.
The Roaring Twenties witnessed a construction boom and a rapid rise in consumer
goods, like cars and electronic products.

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The United States was able to make a smooth transition from a wartime economy
to a peacetime economy. Their economy grew, and they were able to help Europe
grow as well by giving them loans. Some areas, like farming and coal mining,
stayed the same. Since the late 1800s, the US has been the richest country in the
world in terms of per capita income and GDP. Its economy was based on mass
production, and its society embraced consumerism. In contrast, it was harder for
European economies to get back on their feet after the war, and they didn’t start to
do well again until about 1924.
During the First World War, industrial and agricultural production in the
Western countries outside of Europe grew. When peace returned to Europe
and production started up again, there was chronic overcapacity, which had
been driving down the prices of basic goods for a long time before 1929, the
year the Great Depression began. This made it even harder for countries with
big foreign war debts, like Germany, which had to pay reparations, to earn the
hard currency they needed to pay the interest on their debts to their foreign
creditors. In most of the countries at war, the war had also made unions
stronger, making it harder for employers to cut wages when prices fell. As
wages went up and profit margins got smaller, companies had to lay off
workers or risk going out of business.
Still, the United States, which was the epicentre of the financial crisis, was in
many ways in good economic condition when the Great Depression hit.
During the time between the two World Wars, companies such as DuPont
(nylon), Procter & Gamble (soap powder), Revlon (cosmetics), Radio
Corporation of America (RCA – radio) and IBM (computers) developed
several new technologies that made workers more productive. America was
using science, technology and new ideas in business in ways that no one had
ever done before.
Yet, it may have been these strengths that caused the first shift that set off a
classic stock market bubble. As more and more American households wanted
to buy cars and other durable consumer goods that they could pay for in
instalments, it seemed like there was no limit to what they could buy. Between
1925 and 1929, the stock price of RCA, the tech stock of the 1920s, went up
by a staggering 939 per cent.
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 his euphoria triggered a rush of new IPOs. In 1929, stocks worth $6 billion were
sold, with $1 billion of that in September alone. There were a lot of new financial
institutions called “investment trusts” that were established to take advantage of the
stock market boom. Goldman Sachs announced its own expansion plan in the form
of the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. If the Goldman Sachs Trading
Corporation hadn’t been a separate company, its failure during the Great
Depression could have brought down Goldman Sachs as a whole. After the
presidency of Herbert Hoover was inaugurated in January 1929, the stock market
boomed for the first six months. During the great ‘Hoover bull market’, stock prices
went through the roof, and everyone from bankers and industrialists to cab drivers
and cooks rushed to brokers to invest their cash or savings in securities that they
could then sell for a profit. Billions of dollars were taken from banks and put on Wall
Street in the form of loans to brokers so they could keep their margin accounts
going. It was as if the Mississippi and the South Sea bubbles had risen again.
People sold their Liberty Bonds and put their homes up as collateral so they could
put their money in the stock market. About 300 million shares of stock were bought
on credit in the middle of the summer of 1929. This caused the Dow Jones
Industrial Average (DJIA) to reach its peak level of 381 points in September. No
one paid attention to the warning signs that this financial system was built on shaky
ground. Prices started to go down in September and early October, but speculation
kept going. In many cases, this was because people had borrowed money to buy
shares, which could only be done profitably as long as stock prices kept going up.
On 18 October, the market went into a free fall, and people rushed to both buy and
sell stocks in a frenzy. On 24 October, the first day of real panic, a record 12.9
million shares were traded as investors tried to make up for their losses. This day is
known as “Black Thursday”. Still, the DJIA lost only six points by the end of the day.
This was because several big banks and investment firms bought up large blocks
of stock to stop the panic. Their efforts, however, did not help the market in the end.
On 28 October (Black Monday), when the market closed with a loss of 12.8 per
cent, the panic started up again. More than 16 million shares changed hands on 29
October (Black Tuesday). The DJIA dropped another 12 per cent and ended the
day at 198, which was a drop of 183 points in less than two months. The prices of
prime securities fell like the shares of fake gold mines.

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Almost everyone fears death — but
not in the same ways Date:

Humans may be the only species fully aware of the inevitability of death.
William James, considered by many to be the “father of American
psychology,” famously called this fateful knowledge the “worm at the core” of
human existence. This metaphorical worm today forms the basis of terror
management theory, which proposes that awareness of our mortality, coupled
with our self-preservation instinct, produces a primal terror that we constantly
struggle to manage. To do so, we often form beliefs and take actions that
provide meaning and value that we hope persist beyond our own demise,
granting us a semblance of immortality. Other times, we simply cope through
escapism or denial.
But just as we all deal differently with the omnipresent foreboding of mortality,
so too do we fear death in distinct ways. As Cara Santa Maria, a popular
science communicator pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology with a focus on
end-of-life care, noted on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast:
Surveys suggest that common fears surrounding death are tied to the
prospect of leaving loved ones behind and the dying process itself.
However, certain life choices may ameliorate the fear of death. Being married
or in a committed relationship is a significant comfort. Being in good physical
health helps, too. This may be because it creates more meaning in life and is
broadly linked to better mental health or simply that it grants the perception
that the Grim Reaper is farther away. Those on opposite ends of the
religiosity spectrum also tend to be less afraid of death. Atheists tend to be
more relaxed and “in-the-moment,” while strong believers take comfort in
knowing there’s an afterlife and that their life has meaning.
Perhaps most comforting, we tend to grow less afraid of death as we get
older. As Jade Wu, a clinical health psychologist at Duke University, writes:
“This could be because older people have experienced more of life, so they
have less fear of missing out. Or it might be because they have more
experience with witnessing and handling the death of others.”
For some, however, the fear of death can be hard to handle, developing into
what’s termed thanatophobia.
“It is healthy and normal to be afraid of death, but when we venture into these
pathological fears where it becomes all-consuming and it starts to interfere
with our activities of daily living, there are things that we can do
therapeutically,” Santa Maria said.
By far the most effective remedy is cognitive behavioral therapy. A certified
therapist will help a death-fearing client to challenge their anxiety-inducing
assumptions about dying and then expose the client to death in ways that will
alleviate their fears. Such exposure may include watching movies with scenes
that depict the end of life, reading hospice materials, or developing a plan for
their own passing.
According to clinical therapist Brittney Chesworth, clients “steadily see death
as a normal part of life and not the ‘scary monster in the closet.'”

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 How to adapt the <theology of
Date:
work= to Succession-era capitalism

In 1904, the German sociologist Max Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism. In the book, Weber argued that the paragon of
“modern capitalism” was someone who “shuns ostentation and unnecessary
show, spurns the conscious enjoyment of his power, and is embarrassed by
the outward signs of the social esteem in which he is held… He gets nothing
out of his wealth for his own person.” Weber died in 1920 and sadly never got
to see Succession, The Real Housewives, or Bling Empire. He never
popcorn-crunched his way through Leo’s The Wolf of Wall Street. I bet he
didn’t even have a favorite Kardashian. If Weber were alive today, he’d be
hard-pressed to see much that “shuns ostentation.” But we live in a different
time, and the skyscrapers shadowing our cities are built on a very different
ideological foundation. When Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic, he was
motivated to answer one unignorable question: Why were some countries,
with similar demographics and raw material deposits to their neighbors, so
much wealthier than them? Why did a select few nations come out of the
industrial revolution to dominate the modern G20? Well, for Weber, it was
down to a protestant work ethic.
Weber believed that the theological milieu after Martin Luther’s Reformation
inspired North European protestant nations to take on certain capitalistic
virtues: hard work, asceticism, and a sense of vocation. The reason why some
countries work so hard is because a German monk hammered a list of
grievances onto a church door in Wittenberg five hundred years ago. What
exactly was Weber’s position? How true did it turn out to be? And how can we
all apply some puritanical thinking to the workplace?
You have been born into a particular zeitgeist. The time you are in and the
country you were born in will have established certain values and elevated
some of them as the most important. If you have ever traveled to a different
culture, you will know the truth about this. Individualism vs. collectivism,
humility vs. assertiveness, directness vs. tactfulness, or hospitality vs. privacy
— all are examples of different people’s attitudes toward life. What determines
those values? For Weber, it’s religion. A religion will establish certain norms
and virtues as being greater than others. Within Christianity, running
tangentially to the seven deadly sins are the seven capital virtues, such as
“chastity,” “temperance,” or “kindness.” And, according to the thesis of The
Protestant Ethic, when Christianity had its reformation, there wasn’t just a
schism in the church; there was a schism in key values.
Weber believed that Protestantism — especially Puritanical Protestantism as
seen in Lutheranism or Calvinism — established two work-friendly virtues:
asceticism and vocation. Asceticism is the conscious self-denial of fasting,
cold showers, and meat once a week. It’s a modest diet to get through a
modest life. Because life should be about glorifying God — a constantly
observant and highly judgmental God.
Secondly, vocation. Puritan Protestants often believed in some kind of
predestination. This is where God has selected a few lucky individuals as his
“elect” to go to heaven. It also means that God is one to micromanage things.
So, if you’re lucky enough to have a job, then that’s God’s will. You should do
all you can to keep faith in God’s will and work yourself to exhaustion, because
to do anything less would be to denigrate God. Glorify God through
appreciating and nurturing the gifts he has given you.
Weber was certainly an armchair sociologist in one sense. He hoped to
conduct follow-up research on his thesis but never did. But, there is some
modern evidence for what Weber theorized. In 1997, Jones et al. discovered
“positive correlations between Protestant ethic values and internal locus of
control (self-discipline), hard work, honesty, and belief in a just world.” And a
2016 paper did highlight examples where Protestantism definitely impacted
capitalistic success. But it’s likely true that Weber oversimplified the matter.
In 2018, an international team of economists argued that yes, religion does
impact societal attitudes toward work, but it wasn’t Protestantism. It was the
Cistercians. The Cistercians were a group of Catholic monks who sought a
return to the strict interpretation of the monastic “Rule of St. Benedict,” which
was all about hard manual labor, austerity, and glorifying God. The pockets of
capitalistic success are more correlated with historical Cistercian influence
than puritanical Protestantism. And so, the team concludes, “the values which
Weber associated with Protestantism had in fact been promulgated several
centuries earlier.” Whether it was the Protestants or Cistercians who got there
first is historically and sociologically interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily
detract from Weber’s central thesis: some religion has given some people
certain values, and these values make them work hard and get richer. So,
what can we learn from Weber about Protestant ethics? How can we bring a
bit of Luther into the office?
Reframe your office experience. The Protestant mindset saw life as a gift from
God to be respected and trusted with. They saw a job as a vocation, and
God’s agency was in everything — from your salary to who you sit next to in
the office. Even if you’re not a Protestant, there’s a beneficial psychological
framing here: grasp opportunities. Say yes. Make the most of everything in life.
On Big Think+, we have a range of videos from CEOs, professors, authors,
and Hollywood actors about how to reframe experiences in the workplace. Be
the best you can be. The key virtue of the Protestant ethic is not gaining
capital but being able to gain capital. It’s not about being rich, but being really
good at your job (which just so happens to make you rich).
There’s good wisdom to apply here. In many workplaces, it can seem like
there are a series of milestones to reach. Every organization will have a
hierarchy to climb, and we’re encouraged to keep one eye on the next job title
at all times. Titles, for title sake, are vanity. Luther and Calvin would argue that
you should seek to simply be as good as you can at your job. Around the
same time as Weber, the American poet Douglas Malloch wrote a poem called
“Be the Best of Whatever You Are.” It starts:
“If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.”
Malloch’s poem goes on to say that we all have our jobs in life, we each fill
certain roles, and we often can’t be like others. But what we can do is be the
best we can be. Whatever your job is, take pride in it and do it as well as you
can.
Stay classy. The Protestant ethic wasn’t the one buying seven bottles of Dom
Pérignon with an expensive watch, a fast car, and a suit worth more than an
average person’s annual salary. The Protestant ethic “shuns ostentation and
unnecessary show.” Even if we enjoy a tiny bit of ostentation now and then,
there’s a deeper point to appreciate: live within your means. Save before you
spend. Warren Buffett is one of the richest men in the world. But he still lives in
the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,000. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder
of IKEA, always flew economy class, drove an old Volvo, and had employees
write on both sides of the paper. It’s not about being miserly and draped in a
Spartan cloak of thorns. It’s about staying classy and staying close to the
earth.
 The lure of lucre: On the 17th
Date:
edition of the IPL and beyond

Close on the heels of the successful comduc of the Women’s Premier League
(WPL), the Indian Premier League (IPL) looms into view. The 17th edition will
commence with the fixture between defending champion Chennai Super
Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at Chennai on Friday.
The WPL’s second edition that crowned RCB as champions will also put
additional pressure on the Bengaluru outfit’s male unit as it is one squad that
has often promised much but has never won the IPL. Meanwhile CSK, a blue
chip team in the league, would ride on M.S. Dhoni’s astute leadership and his
ability to stay relevant as an athlete even after clocking 42 summers. Dhoni in
T20s and England’s James Anderson .A, who is plying his wares in Tests
while being 41, highlight the progress in modern-day fitness and sports
medicine. As with the two cricketers, the IPL has found a way to march
ahead, be it general elections or the COVID-19 pandemic. The league’s
management was quick to shift roots to South Africa or the United Arab
Emirates, and with another general election chugging in, it remains to be seen
how the authorities would cope. Matches have been listed till April 7 even as
the remaining league stretches deep into May
Besides trying to meet their club’s goals, the players, both Indian and
overseas stars, will have an eye on the ICC T20 World Cup in the West Indies
and the United States during June. The focus would also be on Rishabh Pant,
elevated as Delhi Capitals’ skipper. Having recovered from a ghastly road
accident, Pant’s recovery over a year has been a triumph of will and his Indian
comeback would hinge on how he performs in this T20 event. Team
compositions too would come under scrutiny and the most interesting would
be the leadership change effected at Mumbai Indians with Hardik Pandya
appointed as the captain. It is a move that drew flak from his predecessor
Rohit Sharma’s legion of fans besides affecting others such as Jasprit Bumrah
and Suryakumar Yadav. With 10 teams vying for the top honours, the IPL is a
commercial behemoth. It also meant that some players prioritised this
championship over national duty. That the BCCI had to offer monetary
incentives for players to turn up for Tests, is truly an ironic moment as it is their
much-hyped product, the IPL, which is cannibalising talent from the longer
format. Until now this was seen as an issue affecting other teams, primarily the
West Indies, but now this problem has hit closer home.
 Three is a crowd: On Tamil Nadu
political scene and the general Date:
election 2024

Unlike in 2019, Tamil Nadu, in 2024, seems poised for a three-cornered

contest, with the ruling DMK-led front remaining cohesive, the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) roping in one more party, i.e., the PMK,
and the AIADMK being left with smaller organisations. The DMK leadership
has retained all its allies, accommodating them in the best possible way. Of
39 seats in the State, the DMK will be trying its luck in 22 constituencies, after
taking into account one seat allotted to the Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi
and contesting under the DMK’s ‘rising sun’ symbol. As in the past, the
Congress has 10 seats, including Puducherry, and the two Left parties two
each. The MNM, headed by veteran actor Kamal Haasan, is a recent addition
to the DMK’s coalition — the party could not be allotted even a single
constituency this time but has been assured a Rajya Sabha seat. Mr. Haasan
has done the right thing perhaps realising that it would be next to impossible
to stay afloat without the backing of either of the two principal Dravidian
parties.
Other than the DMDK, the AIADMK does not have any ally to contribute to its
vote base even minimally. Six months ago, it left the NDA over differences
with the BJP’s State leadership, especially its president K. Annamalai, who
criticised former Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai and Jayalalithaa. Though
there have been reports that the BJP’s national leadership is for joining hands
with the AIADMK — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been making laudatory
references to Jayalalithaa — the AIADMK’s general secretary Edappadi K.
Palaniswami is firm in his resolve not to have any truck with the BJP.
Consequently, many parties (such as the TMC (Moopanar) and the PMK),
which were with the AIADMK in 2019, have veered towards the BJP, possibly
sensing the advantage of allying with a national party. The AIADMK’s
breakaway group, led by former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, and the
AMMK of T.T.V. Dhinakaran are a part of the NDA. Contrary to what Mr.
Palaniswami might have visualised, after declaring that he would form a “mega
alliance”, there has been no migration from the DMK-led front. Whether his
conciliatory moves towards religious minorities will have an effect remains to
be seen given that they are perceived to be the DMK’s supporters. Mr.
Annamalai’s high-decibel campaigning over 36 months and frequent visits by
the BJP’s senior leaders, including Mr. Modi, have given the party greater
visibility, but the moot question is whether this will translate into votes, or even
significant seat wins. The AIADMK remains the principal Opposition party.
Ordinarily, the arithmetic in Tamil Nadu politics is a lead factor, but there is no
indication so far that the election results will be dramatically different from what
they were in 2019, even if the DMK has had to deal with anti-incumbency.
 Poor air quality
Date:

THE latest World Air Quality Report paints a stark picture: India faces the
ignominy of being the third most polluted country globally, with New Delhi
retaining its unenviable position as the capital city with the poorest air quality.
Begusarai in Bihar has emerged as the globe’s ‘most polluted metropolitan
area’. In 2023, Delhi’s PM2.5 (particulate matter) levels surged to 92.7
micrograms per cubic metre, signalling an urgent need for intervention. The
crisis is widespread as a staggering 96 per cent of the Indians are breathing
air whose quality doesn’t meet the WHO’s safety standards.
While initiatives such as banning older vehicles have seen some success,
more concerted efforts are needed to curb crop residue burning and industrial
as well as vehicular emissions. Air pollution is not merely an environmental
concern; it is also a public health emergency. Exposure to PM2.5 and other
pollutants leads to respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases and even
premature death. The economic impact is staggering, with healthcare costs
soaring and productivity declining.
 Poor air quality
Date:

THE latest World Air Quality Report paints a stark picture: India faces the
ignominy of being the third most polluted country globally, with New Delhi
retaining its unenviable position as the capital city with the poorest air quality.
Begusarai in Bihar has emerged as the globe’s ‘most polluted metropolitan
area’. In 2023, Delhi’s PM2.5 (particulate matter) levels surged to 92.7
micrograms per cubic metre, signalling an urgent need for intervention. The
crisis is widespread as a staggering 96 per cent of the Indians are breathing
air whose quality doesn’t meet the WHO’s safety standards.
While initiatives such as banning older vehicles have seen some success,
more concerted efforts are needed to curb crop residue burning and industrial
as well as vehicular emissions. Air pollution is not merely an environmental
concern; it is also a public health emergency. Exposure to PM2.5 and other
pollutants leads to respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases and even
premature death. The economic impact is staggering, with healthcare costs
soaring and productivity declining.
The political blame game over the findings is not only counterproductive but
also detracts from the urgency in addressing the crisis. The Central and state
governments must formulate comprehensive policies aimed at reducing
emissions. This necessitates investment in cleaner technologies, stringent
enforcement of regulations and public awareness campaigns. Collaborative
efforts at the international level can facilitate the exchange of best practices,
technology transfer and financial support for developing nations struggling to
tackle the menace. People can do their bit by using public transportation and
reducing energy consumption. The harmful effects of air pollution must be
mitigated to pave the way for a sustainable future.
 New capabilities:Date:
India and
the Agni-V with MIRV

On March 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used social media to announce
India’s entry into a small club of countries capable of delivering multiple
nuclear warheads on a single missile. This was accomplished with the
maiden flight test of Agni-V, India’s longest range ballistic missile with a range
of over 5,000 kilometres, with multiple independently targetable re-entry
vehicle (MIRV) technology under ‘Mission Divyastra’ by the Defence
Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Since its first test in April
2012, Agni-V has undergone several tests and developments including
canisterisation to improve its ease of handling and operation. The MIRV
system’s indigenous avionics systems and high accuracy sensor packages
ensure that the re-entry vehicles reach the target points accurately. The
DRDO said the mission accomplished the designed parameters. The test also
comes five years after India’s maiden anti-satellite (ASAT) test under Mission
Shakti. On March 27, 2019, a live satellite in the low earth orbit of around 300
km was shot down using a modified interceptor of the Ballistic Missile
Defence system.
This is a significant technological breakthrough that furthers India’s nuclear
weapons programme and strengthens second strike capability. This is
particularly important given India’s nuclear doctrine based on a no-first-use
policy, credible minimum deterrence and massive retaliation in case of a first
strike, which was espoused in 2003, after the nuclear tests of 1998. The
choice of the MIRV on Agni-V, a three-stage solid fuelled engine, is significant
as it is focused towards China given its range and multiple warheads give it
the ability to defeat missile defences. India completed the nuclear triad when
Mr. Modi declared in November 2018 that the country’s first nuclear powered
ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant had finished its first deterrence patrol.
The MIRV is the next technological threshold in this direction and it is now only
logical and a matter of time before the MIRV is deployed on submarine-
launched ballistic missiles. China, which is fast expanding its nuclear arsenal,
has already deployed MIRV technology — first deployed by the U.S. in 1970.
Pakistan claims to have tested it as well. In this regard, the other side of this
development is the factor of escalation dynamics that is going to accelerate in
the region with China and Pakistan. This spiral race of one-upmanship is only
going to deepen, get more technology-intensive and turn out to be an
expensive endeavour as well.