Maeeshat Aug-Sep 2021
NEW DELHI — As America seeks to counter a rising China, no nation is more important than India, with its vast size, abundance of highly skilled technical professionals, and strong political and cultural ties with the United States. This conclusion has been made by one of the leading science and technology think tanks in the US.
The Washington based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), in a significant paper authored by David Moschella and Robert Atkinson, has said that the economic and geopolitical stakes for the US could not be much higher.
Reviewing geopolitics of the world, the ITIF said that based on what the Biden administration and the Modi government decide, the world could end up in two possible scenarios.
In the first possibility, the ITIF predicted, “As tensions between India and China are reduced, and the many business synergies between these two neighbouring nations come to the fore. The combination of China’s manufacturing might and India’s software and service prowess provides across-the-board value-chain capabilities. The United States remains heavily reliant on both nations, whose market sizes dwarf that of America, giving Chinese and Indian companies colossal economies of scale and leading to large bilateral trade deficits for the United States with both nations.”
“These dynamics ultimately result in world-leading Chinese and Indian universities, companies, and research institutions. Given its relatively small size and many dependencies, there is little the United States can do, as the heart of the global economy shifts to the East, and as democratic nations and norms are increasingly seen as failing to keep pace with China’s rapid societal progress.”
In the other scenario, “The interests of India and the United States become increasingly aligned, as the economic, military, and international relations challenges from China grow. Rapidly growing Indian manufacturing, much of it from plants moving out of China, helps reduce U.S. dependencies on China while slowing China’s growth.”
“At the same time, Indian students continue to flock to the United States, with many staying and making essential contributions to America’s technological capabilities. The Indian diaspora creates even more-powerful bonds between India and the United States, generating a great many business, political, and cultural leaders.”
The think tank argued that rising US company dependence on India-based technology services proves to have more benefits than drawbacks and is largely offset by the success of US tech giants in India and by ever-improving cloud services that make extensive customized IT services less necessary. As a result, Indian exports to the United States are broadly matched by U.S. business within India, and both nations grow.
The combined military prowess of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia (and eventually South Korea and Taiwan) proves sufficient to prevent China’s hegemony within the Pacific region, the ITIF said. In this scenario, the foundation predicted that democratic norms will prevail across most of the developed world, with many developing nations looking to the “Delhi model” rather than the “Beijing model.”
As America’s technology dependencies on India in the 2020s seem certain to rise, and therefore there is now no more important bilateral relationship for the United States than India, the ITIF paper said.
While geopolitical forces are drawing America and India closer together, long-term alignment with the United States and the West is by no means assured and will require successful policymaking by both India and the United States, the paper argued.
Though America and India are both rightly keen to move more manufacturing operations from China to India, significant shifts will take time, as China still has many advantages, the think tank warned.
Most large US companies now rely heavily on India-based IT services-whether from India-headquartered IT service providers, US-headquartered IT services companies with large India-based operations, or their own India-based capability centers.
Leading US tech companies are well positioned in India’s booming Internet and e-commerce marketplaces, but strong local competitors are emerging.
India is moving up the value chain into R&D, innovation centers, machine learning, analytics, product design and testing, and other areas, especially in IT and life sciences. Outside of IT, U.S. companies operating in India typically face stiff competition from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and of course, Indian firms-and doing business in India is still often difficult.
Therefore, the foundation has proposed that the US must ensure that Americans firms, especially technology and Internet firms (including e-commerce and payments) have the same access to the India market as India does to the U.S. market in terms of licenses, taxes, tariffs, data usage/storage, e-commerce, privacy, etc.
“India greatly values its access to the U.S. IT services market, so this is a very powerful bargaining chip that should be used as needed to ensure relatively fair and balanced trade between the two nations. For example, imposing taxes on India’s IT services sales in the United States could be used to offset any digital services taxes imposed on U.S. firms operating in India, as opposed to the tariffs on imported physical goods from India that the Biden administration has recently proposed.”
The foundation has also recommended the US and India to develop joint technology policies, rules, and regulations in the above areas as a potentially powerful alternative to the EU-and China-in terms of setting global norms. As many of India’s policies in these areas are being developed now, the Biden administration should make this an immediate priority, the ITIF paper pointed out.
The think tank also supports a limited US/India free trade agreement focused on key technology areas, including having India join the ITA-2 agreement and establishing agreements on cross-border data flows.
During the last week hundreds of Palestinian protesters have been wounded in clashes with Israeli police and more than 197 are dead in Gaza and 10 in Israel, 42 were killed in the early hours of 17 May only, after the Israeli rocket attacks and bombarding by Israeli planes on Palestinian settlements in the west Bank. Jerusalem has witnessed worst unrest in years with Arab communities inside Israel holding continuous demonstrations against the atrocities during the Holy month of Ramadan.
Events leading to the current crisis
Tension had been brewing in the Old City of Jerusalem since the end of the last month, in addition to a series of events converging at once, reaching a crescendo last Monday (10 May).
On one hand Palestinians are frustrated by a decision of Mahmoud Abbas, the 85-year-old leader of the unpopular semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority, to postpone planned elections, PA’s last parliamentary ballot was held in 2006. On the other hand, results of an election held in March earlier has further emboldened Israel’s far right, bringing a party of Jewish ultra-nationalists allied with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to power.
In addition, since the beginning of the the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Palestinians have complained of what they term as unnecessarily severe restrictions by Israeli police, who prevented them from gathering on steps outside the Old City – an unofficial tradition after evening prayers.
Amid rising tensions, there was an increase in communal violence, with videos shared online of street harassment and several attacks between Jews and Palestinians. Events came to a head in late April when hundreds of far-right Israelis marched down city streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians.
Added to this was the anger building over an Israeli court ruling, due on 10 May, on whether Israeli authorities would evict dozens of Palestinians from the majority-Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and give their homes to Jewish settlers.
On 10 May, thousands of flag-waving Israeli nationalists were due to march through Muslim neighbourhoods in the Old City in a provocative parade that celebrated Israel’s capture of the city in 1967. Though, the court date was rescheduled and the march was rerouted, but it has added to increased passions across both the parties.
Historical context
Jewish families claim they lost land in Sheikh Jarrah during a war in 1948, when Israel was created, a conflict in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were also displaced.
Israel recaptured East Jerusalem from Jordanian forces in the 1967 war and later annexed it. Under Israeli law, Jews who can prove pre-1948 title can claim back their Jerusalem properties. But no similar law exists for Palestinians who lost homes in West Jerusalem.
Why is Jerusalem a flashpoint?
Jerusalem has always been at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian tensions, as several holy sites revered both by Jews and Muslims are situated in the city.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The Palestinians want the eastern sector of the divided city to be recognised as the capital of their future state.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound situated at the southeast corner of the Old City of Jerusalem occupies a 35-acre rectangular esplanade. The area was seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, along with the rest of east Jerusalem, which was later, annexed in a move, which has never been internationally recognised.
Muslims revere this area as Al-Haram al-Sharif, and the compound houses the famous golden Dome of the Rock shrine, a seventh-century structure, believed to be where Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven and the Al-Aqsa mosque, which used to be the mosque towards which Muslims used to turn while praying, before the Grand Mosque at Makkah was declared as the Kabbah, after it was cleared of the idols by the Holy Prophet. It is the third-holiest site in Islam after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, both in Saudi Arabia.
The site is also revered as the holiest site in Judaism because it housed both the First and Second Temples. In Hebrew, it is referred to as Har Ha Bayit — the Temple Mount.
Jews are allowed to visit the compound, but are forbidden from praying there for fear of sparking tensions with Muslim worshippers.
Israel has several times tried to change the status quo and annex the whole of Jerusalem. In 1996, an Israeli decision to open a new entrance to the west of the plaza sparked clashes that left more than 80 people dead in three days.
And a controversial visit to the plaza in September 2000 by the then right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon was one of the main triggers for the second Palestinian Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005.
In July 2017, the compound was temporarily closed after three Arab Israelis opened fire at Israeli police near the site, killing two of them, before fleeing into the sacred compound, where they were shot dead by security forces.
In 2020 access to the compound was closed to the public during the month of Ramadan due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the reopening was subject to strict sanitary conditions with a limit on the number of worshippers.
Arab countries’ response
The reaction and response by different Arab countries and organisations over the recent flare-up has been the same as always. They issued hollow statements and discussed the situation telephonically with each other. The UN also just expressed its desperation; the UN Secretary General has warned that the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict is heading for “an uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis”.
The response as expected has been muted and is more subdued because of the recent wave of establishing ties with Israel by different Arab countries, which are more guarded now due to the regional geo-politics or just political pressures. Though the Arab leadership has been found wanting the response of the public at large has been that of continued support to their Palestinian brethren.
Why the Indian Muslims support Palestine?
The Indian Muslims and to a certain extent the Indian polity also, during the last 70 years has been supportive of the Palestinian cause. One reason for this was that they were experiencing the same troubles and repercussions, though not up to that level, after the partition of India at the hands of the British, who were also responsible for creating the state of Israel.
Thus, the colonialists are responsible for creating two permanent sores in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, to safeguard their interests and submerge the populace in a continuous state of flux. In addition India being one of the leading promoters of the Non-Aligned Movement, its leaders always had good rapport with the Palestinian leaders and supported their cause to the maximum, a fact that was endorsed even by late AtalBihari Vajpayee when he led the coalition Janata Party government.
In the given circumstances it seems too wishful to hope that this conflagration would die, as Israel to camouflage its military aggression, tries to give it religious colours to win its populace for support. And we know, once religion creeps into any political issue it becomes too difficult to solve it.
He has been complaining of government’s complacency
NEW DELHI — Shahid Jameel, a top virologist in the country, has stepped down as chair of the scientific advisory group of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) on Friday, news reports said on Sunday. The group, consisting of scientists from different laboratories across the country, was set up by the central government last year for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance of strains of Covid-19.
While Jameel did not explain the reason behind his resignation, reports citing sources say that he was critical of the policy of Modi government on dealing with the second wave pandemic.
Jameel who is currently director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University recently wrote an article in the New York Times where he said that scientists in India were grappling with the government’s “stubborn response to evidence-based policy making.”
Of late, Jameel had emerged as one of the foremost scientific experts explaining the behaviour of the virus that has wreaked havoc in the country, consuming thousands daily.
Jameel led the government’s advisory group of laboratories to detect and analyse genomic variants of SARS CoV 2 after there were apprehensions that the UK variant of the virus may have arrived in India.
Reports said that INSACOG did not get adequate funds which impeded the important work it has been assigned to conduct.
The government had initially said that Rs 115 crore will be allocated for the project for a period of 6 months but no allocation was done and the Department of Biotechnology under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology was asked to fund the initiative from its own resources, said a report in the New Indian Express. Citing official sources it said that the first tranche of money could be released only by March end and the revised estimate for the project was Rs 80 crore.
Scientists at these laboratories say they have been doing genome surveillance mostly from their own limited resources.