Uncategorized – Page 12

What does the close relationship of India and Russia mean for the rest of us?

India is very close to Russia. Few people in the west know this. The two countries have built close strategic, trade and cultural friendships ever since India gained independence.

So what? We’ll get to that soon.

The Russia relationship was reinforced this week when India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said, “2019 was a landmark year which boosted the bilateral relations between India and Russia to hitherto unscaled heights.

The special and privileged strategic partnership between our two countries was strengthened significantly. Hon Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has described Russia as a reliable partner and a special friend and President Putin in turn has talked of taking India-Russia relations to new heights of cooperation.” He said.

Getting the picture? There’s much more.

He went on: “It is uncommon to find two major powers that have developed a partnership such as ours.”

He wants it to go much further.

Example one – coking coal – “We recognise the immense potential of Russia in supplying coking or metallurgical coal, which is largely imported by India, to support the Indian steel industry.”

Example two – inland and port logistics (does this remind you of Belt and Road?) – “I had requested Russian authorities to invest in developing the inland and port logistic of the Far East, improve connectivity of these ports with mining locations and improvements in evacuation infrastructure.”

Example three – oil and gas – “There is an ‘Energy Bridge’ between our two countries. With Russia being one of the largest producers of oil and natural gas and India being the world’s third largest energy consumer, Russia has the potential to become an important source to fulfil India’s oil and gas requirements.”

Example four – investment – “We invite investments by Russian companies in Indian oil and gas sector, particularly in gas business, gas infrastructure and petrochemicals.”

Example five – sea routes – “We are keen to explore the new sea route to source crude oil and LNG through Russia’s Arctic. A sea line between Far-East Russia and the East coast of India will also facilitate sourcing of coking coal from the region.”

Example six – crude oil – “We are working on the strategy to diversify our crude oil supply sources and we are now exploring ways to import crude from Russia as well.”

So what?

While many countries (such as Australia) have a black and white, goodies and baddies view of the world, India manages to live comfortably with multiple regimes. To get on with India and do the deals we want, we (Australia) need to adopt some of this thinking.

Let’s work on the answer to this one – what does the India-Russia relationship, one of the closest on the planet, mean for the rest of us?

10 reasons to look again at India in 2020

Dr Mark Morley is an Australian Trade Commissioner in India. In the last twelve months, like many of us, he has changed his view of Australia’s prospects in India. Why?

Here are 10 reasons to change – taken from his writings:

Indian tourists coming to Australia has for the first time beaten the number of Aussies going to India – there were about 350,000 and each of them sees “clean and green” and innovative Australia first-hand. Plus, more than 700,000 Indians live down under.
Across India, Australia has a great reputation for clean, safe and reliable supply. We are well known as a premium supplier of produce, and we have a global reputation for our quality brands.
India’s ease of doing business and transparency has improved, its regional infrastructure – including roads and airports, as well as its cold chain – is improving, it now has a national GST alongside unified regulations around food importation and labelling, and a hungry entrepreneurial scene that is looking for international brands.
Most importantly, and this is the game-changer for Australian FMCG producers, it has unified, national (or near national) platforms for Australian companies to connect their products with consumers. Can you believe this change? India now has a platform for Australian companies to connect their products directly with consumers.
Amazon, as well as other platforms such as FlipKart and niche online marketplaces such as NetMeds, have turned the retail environment on its head.
The scale and scope of the opportunity in India is now hard to ignore: Amazon India can deliver to 50% of all postcodes in India within 3 days of order, and 100% within 5 days.
The Amazon platform is currently adding 200k+ Stock Keeping Units (SKU) every day, joining the 170 million SKUs already present on the site.
With the cheapest mobile data accessibility in the world, 85% of Indians access online platforms via their mobile devices. This has huge implications for a market of more than 1.3b people.
Mobile accessibility has meant that the modern retail format in India has been largely leap-frogged. Greater connectivity, greater receptivity to international brands, and greater opportunity for Australian exporters.
India is a global player. But it’s not China (and that’s important for many of you with lots of eggs in the one basket). So, hasten slowly.

I would add to this list that India has 450 million millennials (those aged around 21 to 37), more than any other country and they will not live, learn, watch, listen, consume, travel, drive or behave like the previous generation.

Why not start a conversation with Mark? Email mark.morley@austrade.gov.au

The Belt and Road Initiative and the Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region

David Morris is a former Australian diplomat and current expert/advisor on regional issues, risk and international relations. He recently wrote on “The Belt and Road Initiative and the Geopolitics of the Pacific Region” published in Research on Pacific Island Countries, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2019.

The Belt and Road Initiative has become associated with a geopolitical “China threat” discourse in the South Pacific, he writes.

Are China and Australia, the dominant regional player in the South Pacific, driven by geopolitical imperatives to compete for power? Or do their different geopolitical needs provide opportunity for cooperation that is mutually beneficial and manages risks in the region?

As a commentator on India and the Indian Ocean, I can see much of what David Morris writes could be applied to the Indian Ocean rim countries.

Morris analyses supposed Chinese “threats” as well as risks to China, including fears of a military base in Vanuatu, Chinese debt-funded projects in Tonga and closer economic cooperation with Papua New Guinea.

He concludes that it is feasible for Australia to meet its geopolitical imperatives if its regional security leadership can be maintained.

A geopolitical analysis of China in the South Pacific concludes that China is unlikely to seek regional security leadership if it can ensure access to trade routes and markets.

If Australia could move beyond geopolitical rhetoric, it should therefore be possible for Australia to partner with China to support sustainable development, mitigate risks and ensure broader stability of the South Pacific region, he writes.

With large doses of common sense, Morris writes that Australian activity could be complementary to China’s BRI, and that while there are political risks, the two countries could cooperate to reduce risk and ensure projects are sustainable.

This would be great – but my view is a big barrier to anything Australia does in our region is always its world view of “goodies and baddies” with the USA as the major “goody” and China the current “baddy”.

It would be great if influential countries like India, Australia and China could create a new collaborative model that brings real development to those poor communities in our region.

Is this possible?

India launches Artificial Intelligence knowledge centre for NSE

India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) has launched a Knowledge Hub in New Delhi, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered learning ecosystem that will assist the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector.

India has two major stock exchanges – the NSE and the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Speaking on this occasion Commerce & Industry Minister Mr Piyush Goyal (pictured above right) said that although India has developed as the second largest fintech hub in the world, a lot of work still needs to be done in the BFSI sector. He hoped that the Knowledge Hub created by NSE will fill in these gaps and help the financial sector to move into the future.

The NSE Knowledge Hub will enhance skills and help academic institutions in preparing future-ready talent for the financial service industry. It is also available on mobile and attempts to bring together world class content and learners through this state-of-the-art and future-ready platform.

The use of AI will ensure that the skill upgrade is affordable and accessible. Piyush Goyal said AI and Machine Learning will contribute US$ 1 trillion to the Indian economy by 2035.

India critics get it wrong again!

2019 finished with lots of Indian critics slamming the economic performance of India. But the reality is shown in this Economic Times review of global investor interest – India is still an attractive investment on the rise, despite the critics.

Is India really growing? Hyatt Hotels think so, adding 11 new hotels in 2020

Hyatt Hotels is bullish on India and plans to open 11 new hotels across India by the end of 2020.

Hyatt now has 32 hotels across 20 destinations under its eight brands in India – I recently stayed at Hyatt Regency in Chandigarh and it was an outstanding hotel – well located, good food and beverage service and everything went smoothly.

The hotels at Thrissur, Kochi, Jaipur, Dehradun, Trivandrum and Udaipur will be under the Hyatt Regency brand.

India is a very important market for Hyatt. It is one of the top three global growth markets for the company after the US and China and there is a huge scope of growth as the demand still exceeds the supply.

So, for Hyatt, in 2020 India is a growth story.

Reflections for the New Year – from Ram Dass

From his beginnings as Harvard Professor Richard Alpert, he became Ram Dass in India and is now at the age of eighty-eight. Here, for the New Year, are some of his quotes.

“Everybody is playing with their stories; who they think they are. It’s more fun to just witness it all. To be in the environment in which it’s all happening.”

“Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”

“You walk down the street and you’re somebody; you dress like somebody; your face looks like somebody. Everybody is reinforcing their structure of the universe over and over again and you meet [each other] like two huge things meeting. We enter into these conspiracies. You say, I’ll make believe you are who you think you are if you make believe I am who I think I am.”

“How do we know who we are? We might be one breath away from enlightenment or death or who knows? The uncertainty is great. It keeps it wide open.”

“Give up the anger. Working it through is making it something. Just give it up.”

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgement mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

“The game is to be where you are. Be it honestly and as consciously as you know how.”

And from me – wishing you a happy and healthy New Year.

How should you start a speech?

I have just had three wonderful weeks in India. I made some speeches. I listened to a lot of speeches.

I was asked: “What is the best way to start a speech?”

We all know the bad ways. For example, someone just reads from their powerpoint. Or someone is checking the microphone.

But from Conor Neill from Ireland I have long applied these three ways to start a speech:

Ask a QUESTION

My recent topic has been How to Communicate and Survive during Industrial Revolution 4.0. So some times I start with “How will you keep your job when robots take over?” The question should be about a problem your audience faces.

State a FACT

Find some amazing fact that leads to your topic. One of Conor’s favourites is “There are more people alive today than have ever died”. If the fact shocks, even better. With my topic I use “over 65% of the kids in school right now will find jobs that have not even yet been invented.”

Begin a STORY

“I was in India recently and I met a person who said something which changed how I think about communication and leadership”. The audience is keen to hear what that “something” was. It should connect to your topic.

So, that’s the beginning.

Then, I suggest you have a long pause every 5 minutes or so (shorter if you like) and use another beginning and bring the audience along again using one of these three starters.

Good luck! (equals good preparation).

The harsh truth about how Australia has made a mess of relations with India

Scott Morrison has a huge challenge ahead as he travels to India. As leading Asia commentator, Greg Sheridan, has written in The Australian, Morrison “needs to fundamentally reset the relationship.”

In my almost two decades now of connection with India, I have seen first-hand how badly Australia has dealt with India – and this goes for government, education and business. You could possibly put in the arts and culture too.

As Sheridan says: “There is no relationship of such importance that Australia, historically, has managed so badly.”

Check out how Sheridan describes India – “By 2035 India will have more people than China. All forecasts are fallible, but it is widely thought that by 2030 India will be the world’s third largest economy. India commands immense soft power and cultural richness. In any bookshop there are novels written by Indians from India, and Indians in the diaspora. A chunk of the British and Canadian cabinets are of Indian origin. The US has had two ethnic Indian state governors, Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley. Both became national figures. The best Australian film this year was Hotel Mumbai.”

One big hurdle for Aussies is that since independence India has been very close to Russia (and still is) and has the capacity to maintain close relations with countries we do not like.

Australia has a “goodies and baddies” approach to the world – whereas India does not make the same judgements. We need to work with this.

Sheridan provides the first accurate statement of how bad things have been – “…over many decades, Canberra comprehensively messed up the Indian relationship and achieved radically sub-par outcomes in our own interests. The three great non-Chinese Asian powers are India, Japan and Indonesia. They are critical to geo-strategic and economic balance in the Indo-Pacific. We have a deep relationship with Japan. We pay a lot of attention to Indonesia. But the work with India is almost all ahead.”

Are we up for this challenge? I am not sure. Canberra is so Washington focused, and China preoccupied, that India does not rate enough.

Sheridan wants Australia to try again for a free trade agreement with India. I love the idea, but I have little confidence we can achieve it. In my time with India, Australian diplomats have blamed India for every delay and the fact that we did not get a deal. I have talked to the Indians and am not so sure the blame was so one sided. The question is – can Australia adapt and become more flexible with India? If we can, we might just snare an FTA.

Well done Greg Sheridan for such insights in Australia’s relations with India.

Anil Wadhwa could be reviving Australia-India trade relations – Lowy Institute – but health, agri and sport could be the key

So good to read on the Lowy Institute daily publication “The Interpreter” that India is doing something unusual in response to Australia’s Peter Varghese report – it is responding with an Australian Economic Strategy (AES). By the way, well done Lowy Institute for powering this and other national discussions.

The AES is led by former Ambassador and Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs in India, Anil Wadhwa (pictured).

Let’s not get bogged down on the failed Free Trade Agreement with India – let’s not wait forever, and, by the way, trade is progressing without it. We would prefer to have one, but we can make mutual gains without it.

The key is that the AES from India means for the first time we will have a blueprint for economic engagement with another nation – this is the view of Mukund Narayanamurthy and Danielle Rajendram writing for Lowy Institute. Well done to you both!

They point out that unlike India’s engagement with the US, Canada, UK, and Japan, our relative size means that it is highly unlikely that Australia will have a similar scale of engagement with India. So, they say the crux of the relationship, certainly from a materiality perspective for both sides, will lie in mining, energy, infrastructure, education, and tourism.

This where I differ. They see healthcare, agribusiness, and sport having relevance but “may not be as material in absolute dollar terms” – my view is that these could be the areas that unlock the “India code” and get Australia into the big game with India.