New Delhi: A new World Bank report has challenged the optimism surrounding the industrial policies of developing nations, reports The Economist.
‘India’s economic policy will not make it rich’ discusses a key highlight from the World Development Report 2024 — “at current growth rates, it will take India three-quarters of a century to reach a quarter of America’s income per person”.
According to the article, countries like India, Indonesia and Vietnam have ambitious plans to boost their economies driven by manufacturing sector and green commodities, but the authors of the World Bank report, released on 1 August, “argue that the fad for industrial policy, especially as practised in India and Indonesia, is unlikely to deliver the riches of which politicians are now dreaming”.
The authors find that the focus on development of homegrown technology, with the “hope to skip stages”, may result in wastage of scarce resources, The Economist article says. The World Bank report suggests that countries must aim at attracting capital, efficient use of existing technology and developing new technologies.
In ‘‘Nobody knows what I know’: how a loyal RSS member abandoned Hindu nationalism’, The Guardian takes a deep dive into the journey of a loyal member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Partha Banerjee, who was “on course to become a senior member” of the organisation, but “after decades within its ranks, he quit”.
Journalist Rahul Bhatia recounts that while browsing a library in Delhi, he discovered a book, titled ‘In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and the BJP of India, An Insider’s View’. This book, penned by former RSS member Partha Banerjee, came the “closest that any writer had come to describing the organisation from within”, Bhatia writes.
The piece also outlines a brief history of RSS, besides Banerjee’s journey. Founded in 1925, the organisation has been linked to significant political and social upheavals in the country, including Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 and the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.
According to the piece, Banerjee’s father was deeply committed to the RSS and felt “betrayed” when he distanced himself from the organisation and wrote his book, which aimed to expose RSS’s influence and its role in shaping contemporary Indian politics.
Banerjee, who left the RSS in the 1980s, had returned to India ahead of the Lok Sabha polls this year. “The possibility that Modi’s party would win a third term in 2024 had convinced Partha to visit India for longer than usual,” Bhatia writes.
An Independent report explores the growing trend of the abandonment of the elderly by their families in India, which “has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his ageing parents” by means of its traditions and laws.
In ‘As India grows older, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children’, Matt Sedensky writes that many elderly people are found in dire conditions, gutters, hospitals and temples, deserted and abandoned for being sick or old due to “ballooning caregiving pressure” caused by increased lifespans, urbanisation younger people away from their villages, and erosion of “multigenerational living” due to Western influence.
The report also dives into the stories of a woman and a man, who were deserted by their children, and were rescued by one of India’s many shelters that provide refuge to the elderly.
A South China Morning Post report explores how US aerospace giant Boeing is moving away from China to significantly increase its engineering base in India, reflecting the broader strategic shift by the US to reduce dependence on Chinese talent amid ongoing geopolitical tensions.
Victoria Bela, in ‘Boeing’s first engineer came from China. Now it hires mostly from India’, mentions that Boeing currently has 58 job openings for engineering roles in India, compared to three in China.
According to the report, this is happening at a time, when the aircraft maker is grappling with a major safety and management crisis. “It has been a turbulent time for the company, after deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 saw Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft grounded and the Boeing brand crumble,” Bela writes.
Moreover, the report says, Boeing’s Indian operations are expanding rapidly, with the company opening its largest facility outside the US in Bengaluru in January. The report also quotes Salil Gupta, the president of Boeing India, who told Forbes India last year, “The Indian market is an opportunity like no other, not just because of the opportunity to serve civil aviation and defence customers, but also because of the capability to support aerospace globally – both in engineering and manufacturing.”
Russia-West prisoner swap, tribal battle halts in Pakistan’s Kurram
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed three Americans freed from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who arrived late Thursday night at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. At least 24 prisoners were swapped in a multi-nation deal. To know more, read the latest New York Times report.
After weeklong clashes between rival tribes in Pakistan’s district of Kurram, which killed at least 46 people and injured nearly 200, fighting has halted after a meeting between authorities and tribal elders. To know more about how a land dispute led to a deadly tribal battle, read the latest AlJazeera report.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)