Viswanathan K's Thoughts

For quite some time, I was hearing that Bangladesh was growing fast, that it was even outperforming India. I finally got around to pulling up the data on the two countries only recently and here is how the comparison looks:   The graph shows that Bangladesh hasn’t outperformed India, but yes, it has been growing steadily at a good pace and in some years, grown faster than India.   In one sector though, Bangladesh has eaten into India’s share – textile and apparel exports. Pranay Kotasthane looked into how and why that has happened. The reason this sector matters, he says, is that it can employ a lot of people and it doesn’t require any educational qualifications, thus making it a great fit for our population.   One reason is that the West has given preferential treatment to Bangladeshi exports as part of its policy of helping poorer countries. The other major reason, he says, is a self-inflicted wound by India. Let us understand that next.   The global ...

The new channels analyzed to death the Modi government’s performance over the last year. Funnily, a couple of outcomes of the current government’s policies came to light only after that media phase had ended! Love him or hate him, Modi knows to switch his interfaces based on context. As the political campaigner, he takes shots at the likes of Mamata Banerjee. But as Prime Minister of India, he can work with her as CM of West Bengal! Publically. Like when he ratified the recent Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh at Dhaka with Mamata also present. The issue has been hanging since 1974! What’s in it for India? GVC Naidu wrote an excellent article explaining the benefits: 1)       The deal solves 4,000 km of land border problem. 2)      50,000 people thus move from a stateless situation to falling on one side. 3)      Indian cargo ships can now use Chittagong and Mongla ports in Bangladesh, which drastica...