Uncategorized – Page 17

Happy Independence Day to young and vibrant India

On this Independence Day for India, 15 August, it was a privilege to attend the flag raising ceremony at the Indian Consulate in Melbourne (picture below).

It made me reflect on one amazing statistic about India – more than 50% of its population is below the age of 25 (that’s 600 million) and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan.

This “Demographic Dividend” will drive economic growth and cultural change.

Happy Indian Independence Day!

Time for the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty to end for Congress Party

For almost 100 years, generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family have led the Indian National Congress Party – is this dynasty coming to an end?

This question pre-occupies Indian commentators as Rahul Gandhi (pictured above) quit after leading the party to a disastrous 2019 election loss to Narendra Modi.

The modern Indian electorate is aspirational and finds little to like in the conservative and history obsessed Congress Party.

One key element of becoming a leader is that you are driven to do it, that becoming leader is your life’s passion. Rahul Gandhi never convinced in this – he looked like a man forced to run because of the dynasty.

In 1919, Motilal Nehru (pictured below) became the president of India’s oldest party, the Indian National Congress. Rahul was his great-great-grandson.

This dynasty goes from Motilal Nehru to his son Jawaharlal Nehru (independent India’s first Prime Minister), and then to Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi (who had married a man named Feroze Gandhi, and since then the dynasty has been called the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty), and her two sons, Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. After Rajiv Gandhi was murdered by a Tamil terrorist in 1991, the party eventually convinced his Italian wife, Sonia Gandhi (born Sonia Maino), to take over the steering wheel. Sonia brought into Indian politics her two children: Rahul and Priyanka, making them the fifth generation of the Nehru-Gandhi family line within the party leadership.

Sonia Gandhi returns as fill in leader of the Congress Party as it contemplates the future

Many say Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (pictured below) has all the leadership qualities Rahul lacked, and could succeed to the leadership.

The huge victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has only underlined how the BJP has replaced the Congress as “India’s natural party of government”.

Congress has been decimated, with only 52 (up 8) national parliamentary seats compared with the BJP’s 303 (up 21) and none from 19 of the country’s 36 states and territories. It is estimated that the BJP won 92 per cent of contests with a Congress candidate and only 52 per cent of direct contests with other parties.

“The Congress Party must radically transform itself,” Rahul Gandhi wrote in his resignation letter. The question is – can it look beyond the dynasty to find a new, modern leader and political brand?

Watch Out! Divided world ahead!

You can see the world dividing, as the USA and China continue locked in a trade war.

The global division began when Trump pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership – of which Australia was a part. With the TPP, Trump could have dealt with China on behalf of “the world”. Once this was gone, he was free to just speak for America and that is where the divisions began. This seems to be what he wanted all along.

Then the trade war with China revved up and seems unstoppable.

One result (unintended consequence) of the Trump approach has been to unite the 15 countries trying to create the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – the biggest free trade deal in history. Australia is part of this, as is, surprisingly, India. So too are Japan, China and Indonesia. The USA is not.

So what would a divided world look like? China on one side (potentially with Japan, Australia, India and the other 15 RCEP countries), USA on the other, different digital technologies and communication platforms – much more fundamental that just selling cheap shirts and tennis shoes. This is a huge divide, not just about trade.

Australia can probably play this division on both teams – we probably have to, but it will be one hell of a balancing act. Remaining close to America while engaging with China and others in the RCEP could see a win-win for Aussies. But others might have a different view.

AustralianSuper leads the way on Indian infrastructure investment

The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) of India has just announced that AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest superannuation fund, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Ontario Teachers’), Canada’s largest single-profession pension plan, have each signed agreements for investments of up to USD 1 billion with the NIIF Master Fund.

The agreements include commitments of USD 250 million each in the Master Fund and co-investment rights of up to USD 750 million each in future opportunities alongside the Fund.

AustralianSuper and Ontario Teachers’ will now join the Government of India (GOI), Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Temasek, HDFC Group, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance and Axis Bank as investors in the Fund.

Pictured Mark Delaney, CIO, AustralianSuper

AustralianSuper and Ontario Teachers’ will also become shareholders in National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Limited, NIIF’s investment management company. Domestic investors HDFC Life and Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance have further committed INR 600 million in the third round.

With this, NIIF Master Fund becomes the largest infrastructure fund in India with assets under management of over USD 1.8 billion and a co-investment pool of USD 2.5 billion, which will enable the Fund to invest at the scale required for the large infrastructure requirements in India.

Well done AustralianSuper – leading the way for investing in India.

India and Australia to be key players in world’s largest free trade deal

Australia and India are poised to be key players in the world’s largest free trade deal – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership which should be signed by mid 2020.

There are 15 countries in RCEP excluding the USA. Major players are China, Japan, Indonesia, India and Australia.

RCEP will have a market of over 3.5 billion people and almost 33% of the world’s GDP.

As we have noted before – Trumps’s trade war with China has given some urgency to RCEP negotiations and the 15 countries are set to complete the deal.

Pictured the two Prime Ministers excited about RCEP – Australia’s PM Morrison (left) and India’s PM Modi

Revoking special status of Kashmir seems to be common sense by PM Modi

Not many people outside of India would be aware of the “special status” given to Kashmir – but all has changed as the status has been revoked by the Modi Government.

Under the previous special status Jammu and Kashmir had their own constitution and decision making rights for all areas except defence, communications and foreign affairs.

But the special status went further than that – forbidding Indians outside the state from permanently settling, buying land, holding local government jobs and securing education scholarships.

While it might have initially been designed to protect Jammu and Kashmir, we know from experience that special status like this also condemns the recipient to live in a kind of time warp, stagnating and excluded from the broad benefits of economic growth and social change.

In other words, the decision of the Modi Government to revoke the special status seems to be good common sense.

But there appears to be no end of trouble in this area disputed by India and Pakistan.

Maybe the India side can be peaceful via the longer term plan to split the state into two territories – Jammu and Kashmir with their own elected legislature and Ladakh (picture above) which will be ruled directly by the central government.

Let’s hope the move is positive and the people can be free from conflict.

Now the challenge for PM Modi is to find some resolution of the conflict with Pakistan – but that seems a challenge beyond resolution.

India’s richest man to target retail as a balance to energy investments

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man and boss of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), is launching an ambitious plan to boost retail revenue as a balance to his energy interests.

RIL will soon hire distributors to sell private-label brands owned by its retail unit through neighbourhood stores – across categories such as staples, food, home and personal care and general merchandise.

RIL sells these products through its retail stores under brand names such as Best Farms, Good Life, Masti Oye, Kaffe, Enzo, Mopz, Expelz and Home One.

Ambani expects the consumer businesses to contribute nearly as much to RIL’s overall earnings as the energy and refining businesses by 2025.

As part of this strategy, RIL is taking on online retailers such as Amazon and Flipkart in the e-commerce segment and the likes of Hindustan Unilever Ltd and ITC Ltd in the offline segment.

Watch this space!

Reliance Retail already operates neighbourhood stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, wholesale, specialty and online stores.

India’s renewable energy reaches new highs

We often look at India from outside and just see pollution – but look closer and you will see major change is taking place.

Solar and wind energy are taking off – “An aggregate of 80.46 GW of renewable energy limit has been introduced in the country as on June 30, 2019 which includes 29.55 GW from Solar and 36.37 GW from Wind control,” according to Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister Mr R K Singh.

The government has set a focus of 175 GW of clean energy capacity by 2022, including 100 GW solar and 60 GW of wind energy.

According to India’s submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), a combined electric power limit of 40 per cent from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources is to be introduced by 2030.

The Ministry also told the House that a sum of 42 solar power parks with a total limit of around 23.40 GW have been approved by the government so far to encourage accomplishment of 100 GW target by March 2022.

Well done India – keep it going.

Tata’s big jump in global brand value rankings

For many years the Tata group has been the stand out leader among Indian corporates.

It regularly tops brand valuation charts.

But it has made a big leap forward this year, making the highest gain among the top 25.

In the 2019 study by UK-based Brand Finance of the nation’s leading 100 brands, there was a sharp jump in brand valuation achieved by the “salt-to-software” business house.

The 2019 list shows a 37 per cent jump in brand value for the Tata group, to $19.55 billion for 2019, the highest in the top 25. Last year, the group had achieved a brand value of $14.23 billion, which was a jump of nearly nine per cent.

Well done Tata.