Arvind's Newsletter- Weekend edition

1.India's manufacturing PMI dips marginally to 58.8 in April, shows data

58..8 is what HSBC final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) was in April, dropping marginally from a 16-year-high of 59.1 in March. The index, compiled by S&P Global, was still well above the neutral mark of 50.0 and its long-run average of 53.9 and recorded the second-fastest improvement in operating conditions in three and a half years. Output and new order sub-indices were also second-best readings in three years, signalling strong demand.

2.Adani Group eyes 5 GW electrolyzer capacity with up to $3 bn investment

Adani New Industries Ltd, which was selected for a pilot on indigenous technology-based electrolyzer production under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, is looking to set up a cumulative capacity of 5 GW electrolyzer manufacturing with an investment of up to $3 billion, according to two people aware of the matter.

The company, which plans to set up the initial 2 GW capacity by FY25, would manufacture indigenous alkaline electrolyzers, under the government's Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) scheme of the hydrogen mission.

Adani New would initially set up about 198.5 MW capacity and receive an incentive of up to ₹293.78 crore from the government under the scheme.

3.India ranks below Pakistan at 159 among 180 countries in World Press Freedom Index: 'Unofficial state of emergency'

India ranked 159 among 180 countries in the latest annual World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF, short for Reporters sans frontières in French), an international non-profit organization. India had ranked 161 in the 2023 list.

Meanwhile, Pakistan ranked seven spots above India at 152. It had ranked 150 in 2023. Norway topped the ranking , while Denmark was on the second rank in World Press Freedom Index. Sweden ranked third on the list.

4.Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance

Last week, Moderna and Merck launched a large clinical trial in the UK of a promising new cancer therapy: a personalised vaccine that targets a specific set of mutations found in each individual’s tumour. This study is enrolling patients with melanoma. But the companies have also launched a phase III trial for lung cancer. And earlier this month BioNTech and Genentech announced that a personalized vaccine they developed in collaboration shows promise in pancreatic cancer, which has a notoriously poor survival rate.

Drug developers have been working for decades on vaccines to help the body’s immune system fight cancer, without much success. But promising results in the past year suggest that the strategy may be reaching a turning point. Will these therapies finally live up to their promise? Read the full story.

5.The cadence of talks between adversaries of the US is increasing, demonstrating their growing ties and deepening joint opposition to Washington. 

In one week in April alone, officials from Belarus, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia held 10 high-level, public bilateral meetings, the Institute for the Study of War noted. The talks point to the support they offer one another in combating the US and its allies, such as via materiel directed to Russia to advance its war in Ukraine, a conflict that has “accelerated their deepening economic, military, political, and technological ties,” two experts wrote in Foreign Affairs. The convergence is creating what they dubbed a new “Axis of Upheaval.”

6.Dr. Orangutan

A wild male orangutan in Indonesia was observed applying a medicinal paste to a scrape on his face, according to new research. It's the first documented example of an animal self-medicating a wound using a plant with healing properties.

Roughly 14,000 orangutans inhabit the northwest portion of Indonesia's Sumatra island. In 2022, the 35-year-old, named Rakus, was seen plucking and chewing leaves of the anti-inflammatory Fibraurea tinctoria plant—also known as yellow root and commonly used by humans to treat illnesses like malaria and dysentery—later applying both the juice and bits of leaf to the scape like a bandage. The wound healed after eight days. Scientists suspect Rakus may have observed the skill from orangutans outside the national park he was observed in.

Orangutans feed on over 400 types of plants in the biodiverse region, though rarely yellow root; no other individual has been seen self-medicating in the region. Researchers have noted the species increasingly learns socially when food is abundant.

7.Even disillusioned young Indian voters favour Narendra Modi, The Economist

India is a young country: around two-fifths of its 1.4bn people are under the age of 25. That makes them an important constituency in the general election, which will end on June 4th. Getting their vote is not straightforward. Just before the election, data released by the election commission showed that less than 40% of eligible first-time voters were registered to vote. Some youngsters are disappointed with what they perceive to be a lack of economic progress since the last general election, in 2019. “I am voting for nota,” shrugs Jitender Kumar, a 24-year-old from Katihar, a small city in the eastern state of Bihar. nota stands for “none of the above”.

Mr Kumar’s complaints are echoed by other young Indians elsewhere. Unemployment and the rising cost of living were the main concerns voters cited in a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CDSS), a think-tank in Delhi, in the run-up to the election. “We are told we can all be entrepreneurs...but actually there are no routes to success,” says Isha, a 26-year-old radio producer in Patna, Bihar’s capital. In the csds survey, 62% of respondents said it had become harder to get a job over the past five years.

A survey of people between 18 and 35 published in February by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a think-tank, and Mint, a financial newspaper, found that 57% of respondents did not believe that employment prospects would improve over the next five years. Although the unemployment rate has improved slightly in recent years, it is still strikingly high for educated young Indians: 41% of graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, compared with 8% of those who had primary or lower-secondary education (see chart). This partly reflects the fact that better-educated youngsters are more likely to have family support that allows them to keep looking for jobs. But it also suggests that there are not enough jobs that match their qualifications.

Despite this, few young Indians appear to blame many of their problems on Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mr Modi has governed India for the past decade and is expected to continue to do so for another five years. Youngsters are only slightly less likely than older people to approve of Mr Modi’s government: fully 44% of the youngest respondents (born after 1996) identified with the BJP in the CPR survey, compared with 48% of those born after 1980 and 52% of those born before 1980.

Why is Mr Modi so popular among the seemingly disillusioned young? In part, their preference for the BJP reflects the party’s general success. It has used its deep pockets and organisation to ensure that people around the country associate improvements in living standards with Mr Modi’s time in charge. It presents any government programme, whether the distribution of free grain, which 800m people benefit from, or the building of new roads and the installation of electricity and water connections, as a gift dispensed by the prime minister himself. Adverts for government handouts carry his picture; the party’s manifesto comes in the form of 24 “Modi’s guarantees”. “We are struggling, but all the good things my family has—cooking gas, bank accounts, electricity—we owe to Mr Modi,” says Siyaram, a 23-year-old who runs a food cart in Patna.

The BJP is also good at social media, where most young people consume news, says Prateek Waghre of the Internet Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group in Delhi. Mr Modi directly communicates with nearly 100m followers on X (formerly Twitter). The prime minister has almost 90m followers on Instagram, which has between 360m and 500m active users in India, most of them younger than 35. He sweet-talks Indians on his monthly radio show, short clips of which make it onto WhatsApp and Instagram. The BJP was also early to build relationships with influencers on Instagram and YouTube. By contrast, Congress, the main opposition party, has only belatedly started targeting young people through social media.

Many young people also think Mr Modi’s government has raised the profile of the country. A study published earlier this year by the Observer Research Foundation, a think-tank in Delhi, found that 83% of urban Indians between 18 and 35 approved of the country’s foreign policy. As many again saw the country’s G20 presidency, a rotational position touted by the government as Mr Modi’s personal achievement, as an effective way of tackling India’s interests abroad. Certain development policies also find near-universal approval. Though some young people may not think that the government has improved their own circumstances, they still appear to think Mr Modi has done some good for the country.

Some of their problems also predate the bjp. Job growth has been poor: despite economic growth averaging 6.4% each year over the past 30 years, the number of jobs grew by only 1.6% a year between 2000 and 2012 and not at all between 2012 and 2019. Young people are particularly affected. They have become better educated over the past two decades, yet their employment situation has deteriorated over the same period. Labour-force participation has fallen and unemployment has risen among people under the age of 30. The bjp’s manifesto vows to create more jobs by investing in infrastructure and by promoting manufacturing and entrepreneurship. But the plans are thin on detail.

This lack of progress may eventually come back to bite Mr Modi. So far, protests against the dire employment situation have been sporadic, most notably in response to an army reform that reduced benefits for new recruits. Yet turnout in the first two phases of the election has been lower than in 2019, perhaps suggesting waning enthusiasm for Mr Modi. For now, young people seem willing to give his government the benefit of the doubt. Unless he delivers on jobs this time around, they may not do so again.