Arvind’s Newsletter

1.Vande Bharat’s growing popularity may lure passengers away from airlines

The biggest impact of the swanky new trains is likely to be on shorter routes. Vande Bharat trains will force airlines to rethink their network strategies, experts say

Domestic airlines are likely to face challenges from the Indian Railways when competing for customers, especially on short-haul routes, with the growing popularity of Vande Bharat trains and plans to launch 100 more such express trains in the next two to three years.

It’s been over four years since the first Vande Bharat train started operating, but the fast-growing network of these trains, coupled with their promise of high speed, affordable pricing, comfortable travel experience, and lack of baggage and security complications, is expected to not only keep airfares in check but also spur airlines to rethink their network strategies, experts and industry executives told Moneycontrol.

The Indian Railways operates 35 Vande Bharat trains that are fully air-conditioned and come with CCTV surveillance, Wi-Fi, and bio-vacuum toilets. The top speed of these trains is 180 kmph, though they operate at much lower speeds due to safety concerns.

2.Parisians will be allowed to swim in the Seine for the first time in 100 years. Next year’s Summer Olympics in Paris will see several swimming events held in the river, just as in the last Paris Games in 1900. But authorities banned swimming in 1923 because the water was too polluted by sewage: By the 1960s, only three species of fish survived in Paris. Sewerage improvements have cleaned the river in the last 20 years but it was still not considered safe. Ahead of 2024 Parisians have made a concerted effort.There are now 35 species of fish regularly found in the river and three bathing spots will be opened to the public from 2025.

3. Indian politicians embrace influencers ahead of 2024 elections

   As the campaign for the 2024 elections in India goes digital, social media influencers have become a powerful tool to try and shape voter behavior.

   Ahead of India’s union elections in 2024, political parties in the country are chasing social media influencers to sway voters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has held a series of meetups with influencers in recent months.

   Political parties not only chase celebrity influencers, but also seek out those with smaller, more niche audiences.

   When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed nine years in office on May 26, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) marked the anniversary by holding a meetup with around 500 social media influencers at a cricket stadium in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai. The influencers, whose follower counts ranged from millions to mere thousands, were recognized for their contribution to the BJP’s success, and were asked to conduct similar meet-and-greets to reach other prominent voices on social media.

   The BJP has since held several similar influencer meetups across India, including Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, and New Delhi.

   As India gears up for a general election in 2024 — where Modi is likely to be up for re-election for a third term — social media influencers have become hot property. They are being chased not just by the BJP but several other political parties, who are willing to pay top bucks to ride on their popularity to drive the election campaigns. In June 2023, the government of Rajasthan — the western Indian state where the primary opposition party Indian National Congress is in power — said it would pay influencers between $120 and $6,000 to promote its welfare schemes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

4.India's GDP growth to drop in coming months, IMF projects 6.1% growth in FY24

The International Monetary Fund forecast a dip in India's GDP growth over the next two years. Data released on Tuesday indicated that India's GDP growth would fall from 7.2% in FY23 to 6.1% in the current financial year, and then rise slightly to 6.3% in FY25.

"For India, data and projections are presented on a fiscal year basis, with FY 2022/23 (starting in April 2022) shown in the 2022 column. India's growth projections are 6.6% in 2023 and 5.8% in 2024 based on calendar year," the IMF explained.

5.Modi’s India is moving in an illiberal direction, opines Martin Wolf in his second piece in Financial Times.

Today’s India is an “illiberal democracy”. Freedom House, the US think-tank, puts it at the same level as Hungary, whose leader, Viktor Orbán, invented that phrase. But it rates the components differently: political rights, notably electoral politics, are healthier in India than in Hungary, but civil rights are weaker. Worse, the latter have deteriorated substantially under BJP rule since 2014. India’s ratings on democracy are still far higher than those of, say, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Turkey. But it is not a “liberal democracy”: Freedom House simply labels the country “partly free”.

Yet, as India’s polity has become less liberal, its government has become more effective. World Bank indicators show that “political stability and absence of violence”, “control of corruption”, “regulatory quality” and “government effectiveness” have improved since Narendra Modi became prime minister. But “voice and accountability” and “rule of law” have worsened. His government is more repressive and more effective than its predecessors.

As Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University notes in “India’s Democratic Longevity and Its Troubled Trajectory”, the country’s vigorous democracy was an anomaly. It should not have lasted in an agricultural country with a significant rate of illiteracy. Yes, this democracy was imperfect, with high levels of corruption and violence, not to mention Indira Gandhi’s “emergency” in There has been a marked decline in civil liberties in India in recent years

Varshney’s hypothesis is that political ideology played a central role in first creating the democracy and now weakening it. The founders of independent India believed in democracy. Over time, as its politics became more fragmented, politicians thought democracy was in their interest, too, since it allowed them hope to fight another day. But today’s Hindu nationalists have a different point of view: for them, a true Indian must be a Hindu. Their critics are “anti-national” and so inherently treasonous.

All this is clearly illiberal. But is it also undemocratic? Majoritarians argue that they are entitled to do what they wish because they won. But a dictatorship of the majority is still a dictatorship. Moreover, without freedom of association and opinion, an opposition cannot function. Rahul Gandhi, a leading opposition politician, has been sentenced to two years in prison for remarks he has made on Modi. Such intimidation makes a competitive democracy infeasible. Moreover, as is too often the case in first-past-the post multi-party elections, the BJP won a huge majority of seats in 2019, despite winning fewer than 40 per cent of votes. This is hardly a true majority.

Yet we must remember that democratic rights do not of themselves fill empty stomachs or produce good jobs. Encouragingly, a recent report from the UN Development Programme argues that between 2005 and 2021, 415mn people were lifted out of “multidimensional poverty”, and the incidence of poverty declined from 55 per cent to 16 per cent. The most rapid declines occurred in the poorest states and union territories. The Modi government must take a good part of the credit for this.

At the same time, as Ashoka Mody notes, the employment record of India is persistently poor. A crucial failure is India’s low (and falling) female participation rate. Moreover, the growth rate has not accelerated under the BJP. Even today’s “India stack” of universal digital access and the successful direct distribution of welfare payments derives from the unique identity system created by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys, when Manmohan Singh was prime minister. Moreover, strong and centralised government can make big mistakes. Demonetisation in 2016 was such a mistake. Another was the Covid lockdown in March 2020, which forced some 40mn migrant workers to return home, many of them on foot. Moreover, such governments frequently have over-close relations with business cronies. This one seems to be no exception.

For someone who has long admired the vigour and diversity of Indian democracy, this growing illiberalism is depressing. It is particularly depressing given India’s rising role in the world. I can see no good reason why a predominantly Hindu society should not tolerate minority faiths. I can see no reason either why it has to assail a diverse civil society. Yet that is where the Modi government seems to be going.

Those who worry about this will be reminded that Hindus are highly tolerant. According to a 2021 study of religious attitudes by the Pew Foundation, 85 per cent of Hindus (who are 80 per cent of the population) believe that “respecting all religions is very important to being truly Indian”. Unfortunately, the 15 per cent who do not share this view are 90mn adults. Moreover, nearly two-thirds of Hindus say it is very important to be Hindu to be “truly” Indian. Thus the politics of religious identity carry dangers for both freedom and stability even in India.

This government rides the tiger of politicised religion on what it hopes to be a long journey towards the destination of creating a modern, prosperous and strong India. The question is not just where it will end up, but whether it can avoid being eaten on its journey.