A coke plant worker beside coke battery ovens at the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, in March 2019.
Vincent Mundy | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Expect exports of iron ore out of India to remain low as the world’s fourth-largest producer reserves more of the commodity for its own use, said commodity intelligence service Kpler.
“Indian iron ore exports … have really come off in the last few months. And that is quite indicative that domestic consumption there is very strong,” said Reid I’Anson, Kpler’s senior commodity analyst, who added that this will continue throughout the year.
India’s exports of iron ore plunged by 90% year on year in October last year, and recorded an year-on-year decline as steep as 96% in September.
India produces 9.2% of the world’s iron ore. Australia is the largest producer, accounting for almost 35% of global supply, followed by Brazil and China.
“India is going to be a standout economy in terms of growth in 2023 … And I think exports out of India are going to remain pretty weak as well as they consume most of that domestic production.”
The dip in India’s exports of the commodity comes just as China’s Covid reopening sends commodity prices soaring, and I’Anson forecasts that an “upward movement of 20%” on iron ore prices is on the table.
The benchmark 62%-grade iron ore last traded at $123.37 per ton, up about 30% since December when China announced the rollback of its “zero-Covid” measures.
Iron ore is primarily used to make steel, an important material in construction and engineering projects — and both Asian nations are on track to consume more.
“You’ve got the return of the consumers in China, which is going to drive durables consumption, and you’re going to see an improvement in the property market there,” I’Anson said.
The plate mill of the Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. plant in Raigarh, Chhattisgargh, India, on Feb. 11, 2015.
Udit Kulshrestha | Bloomberg | Getty Images
According to Refinitiv, around 60% of global iron ore exports are destined for China.
“Downstream demand in China started to show some signs of optimism based on government support particularly for the construction sector, which is the largest steel using sector in the country,” Tamara Thorne, senior analyst at Refinitiv Metals Research, told CNBC.
A similar pace of demand is expected for its neighbor.
“We expect the steel consumption in India will grow much faster than what we have seen in the first nine months of the financial year (in 2022),” said Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director of JSW Steel.
The secretary general of the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, B K Bhatia, said he believes the export of iron ores in 2023 will be much more than the exports during 2022. Iron ore exports from India were affected by a 50% tax on low-grade iron ore exports, which was reversed in late November.
But while India’s exports of iron ore have picked up from December because of that, the move may not be a sustainable one, according to Kpler’s I’Anson. He maintains that the exports are unlikely to return to the levels seen in 2020 and 2021.
“The extent to which loadings have picked up recently is likely not sustainable for very long,” he said.
India’s iron ore exports won’t be the biggest factor in price volatility, however.
A laborer working at a stainless steel utensil workshop in Chennai on April 30, 2022.
Arun Sankar | Afp | Getty Images
“The largest swing factor is the ability of Rio Tinto in Australia and Vale in Brazil to operate up to the limits of their supply chains,” said CLSA research analyst Robert Stein.
Both iron ore powerhouses expect production to be flat year-on-year on the low side, and a 5% increase in a bullish scenario.
“Working capital has stabilised but remains somewhat elevated with commodity price volatility, higher raw material prices and global supply chain pressures,” mining giant Rio Tinto recently stated in its fourth-quarter production results.
China is another big factor.
“Demand is still impacted by the Chinese property deleveraging program and whilst in any given week, positive sentiment may lead price higher, [but] to sustainably reach those levels we would need to see widespread property stimulus or support,” said Stein.
LONDON — As nations around the world scramble to secure crucial semiconductor supply chains over fears about relations with China, the U.K. is falling behind.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the world’s heavy reliance on Taiwan and China for the most advanced chips, which power everything from iPhones to advanced weapons. For the past two years, and amid mounting fears China could kick off a new global security crisis by invading Taiwan, Britain’s government has been readying a plan to diversify supply chains for key components and boost domestic production.
Yet according to people close to the strategy, the U.K.’s still-unseen plan — which missed its publication deadline last fall — has suffered from internal disconnect and government disarray, setting the country behind its global allies in a crucial race to become more self-reliant.
A lack of experience and joined-up policy-making in Whitehall, a period of intense political upheaval in Downing Street, and new U.S. controls on the export of advanced chips to China, have collectively stymied the U.K.’s efforts to develop its own coherent plan.
The way the strategy has been developed so far “is a mistake,” said a former senior Downing Street official.
Falling behind
During the pandemic, demand for semiconductors outstripped supply as consumers flocked to sort their home working setups. That led to major chip shortages — soon compounded by China’s tough “zero-COVID” policy.
Since a semiconductor fabrication plant is so technologically complex — a single laser in a chip lithography system of German firm Trumpf has 457,000 component parts — concentrating manufacturing in a few companies helped the industry innovate in the past.
But everything changed when COVID-19 struck.
“Governments suddenly woke up to the fact that — ‘hang on a second, these semiconductor things are quite important, and they all seem to be concentrated in a small number of places,’” said a senior British semiconductor industry executive.
Beijing’s launch of a hypersonic missile in 2021 also sent shivers through the Pentagon over China’s increasing ability to develop advanced AI-powered weapons. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine added to geopolitical uncertainty, upping the pressure on governments to onshore manufacturers and reduce reliance on potential conflict hotspots like Taiwan.
Against this backdrop, many of the U.K.’s allies are investing billions in domestic manufacturing.
The Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, passed last summer, offers $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. The EU has its own €43 billion plan to subsidize production — although its own stance is not without critics. Emerging producers like India, Vietnam, Singapore and Japan are also making headway in their own multi-billion-dollar efforts to foster domestic manufacturing.
US President Joe Biden | Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Now the U.K. government is under mounting pressure to show its own hand. In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak first reported by the Times and also obtained by POLITICO, Britain’s semiconductor sector said its “confidence in the government’s ability to address the vital importance of the industry is steadily declining with each month of inaction.”
That followed the leak of an early copy of the U.K.’s semiconductor strategy, reported on by Bloomberg, warning that Britain’s over-dependence on Taiwan for its semiconductor foundries makes it vulnerable to any invasion of the island nation by China.
Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, makes more than 90 percent of the world’s advanced chips, with its Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) vital to the manufacture of British-designed semiconductors.
U.S. and EU action has already tempted TSMC to begin building new plants and foundries in Arizona and Germany.
“We critically depend on companies like TSMC,” said the industry executive quoted above. “It would be catastrophic for Western economies if they couldn’t get access to the leading-edge semiconductors any more.”
Whitehall at war
Yet there are concerns both inside and outside the British government that key Whitehall departments whose input on the strategy could be crucial are being left out in the cold.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is preparing the U.K.’s plan and, according to observers, has fiercely maintained ownership of the project. DCMS is one of the smallest departments in Whitehall, and is nicknamed the ‘Ministry of Fun’ due to its oversight of sports and leisure, as well as issues related to tech.
“In other countries, semiconductor policies are the product of multiple players,” said Paul Triolo, a senior vice president at U.S.-based strategy firm ASG. This includes “legislative support for funding major subsidies packages, commercial and trade departments, R&D agencies, and high-level strategic policy bodies tasked with things like improving supply chain resilience,” he said.
“You need all elements of the U.K.’s capabilities. You need the diplomatic services, the security services. You need everyone working together on this,” said the former Downing Street official quoted above. “There are huge national security aspects to this.”
The same person said that relying on “a few [lower] grade officials in DCMS — officials that don’t see the wider picture, or who don’t have either capability or knowledge,” is a mistake.
For its part, DCMS rejected the suggestion it is too closely guarding the plan, with a spokesperson saying the ministry is “working closely with industry experts and other government departments … so we can protect and grow our domestic sector and ensure greater supply chain resilience.”
The spokesperson said the strategy “will be published as soon as possible.”
But businesses keen for sight of the plan remain unconvinced the U.K. has the right team in place for the job.
Key Whitehall personnel who had been involved in project have now changed, the executive cited earlier said, and few of those writing the strategy “have much of a background in the industry, or much first-hand experience.”
Progress was also sidetracked last year by lengthy deliberations over whether the U.K. should block the sale of Newport Wafer Fab, Britain’s biggest semiconductor plant, to Chinese-owned Nexperia on national security grounds, according to two people directly involved in the strategy. The government eventually announced it would block the sale in November.
And while a draft of the plan existed last year, it never progressed to the all-important ministerial “write-around” process — which gives departments across Whitehall the chance to scrutinize and comment upon proposals.
Waiting for budget day
Two people familiar with current discussions about the strategy said ministers are now aiming to make their plan public in the run-up to, or around, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s March 15 budget statement, although they stressed that timing could still change.
Leaked details of the strategy indicate the government will set aside £1 billion to support chip makers. Further leaks indicate this will be used as seed money for startups, and for boosting existing firms and delivering new incentives for investors.
U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt | Leon Neal/Getty Images
There is wrangling with the Treasury and other departments over the size of these subsidies. Experts also say it is unlikely to be ‘new’ money but diverted from other departments’ budgets.
“We’ll just have to wait for something more substantial,” said a spokesperson from one semiconductor firm commenting on the pre-strategy leaks.
But as the U.K. procrastinates, key British-linked firms are already being hit by the United States’ own fast-evolving semiconductor strategy. U.S. rules brought in last October — and beefed up in recent days by an agreement with the Netherlands — are preventing some firms from selling the most advanced chip designs and manufacturing equipment to China.
British-headquartered, Japanese-owned firm ARM — the crown jewel of Britain’s semiconductor industry, which sells some designs to smartphone manufacturers in China — is already seeing limits on what it can export. Other British firms like Graphcore, which develops chips for AI and machine learning, are feeling the pinch too.
“The U.K. needs to — at pace — understand what it wants its role to be in the industries that will define the future economy,” said Andy Burwell, director for international trade at business lobbying group the CBI.
Where do we go from here?
There are serious doubts both inside and outside government about whether Britain’s long-awaited plan can really get to the heart of what is a complex global challenge — and opinion is divided on whether aping the U.S. and EU’s subsidy packages is either possible or even desirable for the U.K.
A former senior government figure who worked on semiconductor policy said that while the U.K. definitely needs a “more coherent worked-out plan,” publishing a formal strategy may actually just reveal how “complicated, messy and beyond our control” the issue really is.
“It’s not that it is problematic that we don’t have a strategy,” they said. “It’s problematic that whatever strategy we have is not going to be revolutionary.” They described the idea of a “boosterish” multi-billion-pound investment in Britain’s own fabricator industry as “pie in the sky.”
The former Downing Street official said Britain should instead be seeking to work “in collaboration” with EU and U.S. partners, and must be “careful to avoid” a subsidy war with allies.
The opposition Labour Party, hot favorites to form the next government after an expected 2024 election, takes a similar view. “It’s not the case that the U.K. can do this on its own,” Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said recently, urging ministers to team up with the EU to secure its supply of semiconductors.
One area where some experts believe the U.K. may be able to carve out a competitive advantage, however, is in the design of advanced semiconductors.
“The U.K. would probably be best placed to pursue support for start-up semiconductor design firms such as Graphcore,” said ASG’s Triolo, “and provide support for expansion of capacity at the existing small number of companies manufacturing at more mature nodes” such as Nexperia’s Newport Wafer Fab.
Ministers launched a research project in December aimed at tapping into the U.K. semiconductor sector’s existing strength in design. The government has so far poured £800 million into compound semiconductor research through universities, according to a recent report by the House of Commons business committee.
But the same group of MPs wants more action to support advanced chip design. Burwell at the CBI business group said the U.K. government must start “working alongside industry, rather than the government basically developing a strategy and then coming to industry afterwards.”
Right now the government is “out there a bit struggling to see what levers they have to pull,” said the senior semiconductor executive quoted earlier.
Under World Trade Organization rules, governments are allowed to subsidize their semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, the executive pointed out. “The U.S. is doing it. Europe’s doing it. Taiwan does it. We should do it too.”
This story has been updated. Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.
Workers surveyed in China are the least likely to retire as soon as possible — even “in an ideal world,” Randstad said. And 3% of workers in Asia-Pacific never want to retire at all, which is the highest percentage out of all regions.
Edwin Tan | E+ | Getty Images
The cost of living crisis is delaying the retirement plans of working professionals worldwide, said recruitment agency Randstad.
But those in Asia will continue to work because for reasons beyond a paycheck, according its new report.
Its latest Workmonitor report found that only half of surveyed workers believe they can permanently leave the workforce before they turn 65, down from 61% last year.
The annual report surveyed 35,000 people across 34 markets for their sentiments on the world of work.
While 70% of workers surveyed said that money worries are preventing them from enjoying their golden years, workers in Asia-Pacific are more likely to feel that work is a necessity in their lives.
For example, 66% of those from India and 61% from China saw work as a “need” — almost twice the global average of 32%.
% who say they “need work” in their lives
Country
% of respondents
India
66
China
61
Malaysia
45
Singapore
43
Japan
34
Source: Randstad
“Whether for meaning and purpose, social interaction or to experience the challenges that come with a job, employment for many is more than just a paycheck,” Randstad said.
“It keeps them connected and gives them a sense of belonging.”
Workers also stay at their jobs because they “feel a sense of obligation to their employer,” said Randstad.
The report found that about one fifth, or 21%, of Asia-Pacific workers felt that their employer needing them would deter them from retiring, compared with 12% of the global population.
“There are cultural factors at play here with the role of work and education in people’s lives,” Sander van ‘t Noordende, the CEO of Randstad, told CNBC.
Workers feel they “need” work in their lives because having a stable job allows them to “feel valued and respected” by their peers, he added.
% who feel their employer “needs” them
Region
%
Asia-Pacific
21
North America
12
Latin America
7
Northwestern Europe
10
Eastern Europe
10
Southern Europe
8
Source: Randstad
“However, the countries’ booming economies and an exponential increase in demand for talent, both domestically and internationally, are also likely to contribute to this disparity compared to global counterparts.”
Asia is home to three out of five of the world’s largest economies, which include China, Japan and India.
Workers in some Asian countries were also more likely to say that they consider work an “important part of their lives,” van ‘t Noordende added.
For example, 89% of workers in China consider this to be true and 90% of Indians agree — which is almost 20% higher than the global average, according to the report.
Regardless of where workers are located, they want “the whole package” from their employers, said van ‘t Noordende, which is secure, flexible, inclusive and financially stable work.
“People want to feel like they belong at work and demand that their organization mirrors their own priorities in terms of things such as flexibility and good work-life balance,” he added.
“This is particularly true of the younger generations, who are seeking more satisfaction from work than a pay cheque alone provides.”
That’s also crucial in Asia, where labor markets continue to be tight. Employers should therefore focus on how to attract and retain talent, said van ‘t Noordende.
“It’s becoming increasingly evident that workers are prepared to quit their jobs if they do not meet their demands. For example, over half of Asia-Pacific workers would quit a job if they felt like they didn’t belong there.”
On top of that, talent scarcity will grow in the coming years in light of shifting demographics, added Randstad.
“Companies should develop flexible roles that allow those near retirement age to slowly transition from full time to part time and then completely retire.”
India’s Adani Group, run by Asia’s richest man, has hit back at a report from U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research, calling it “malicious,” “baseless” and full of “selective misinformation.”
Shares in the conglomerate have suffered massive losses since Hindenburg issued its report alleging fraud and other malfeasance. In trading Monday, the company’s Adani Enterprises gained 4.8% but shares in other Adani listed companies fell between 5% and 20%.
Adani’s 400-page rebuttal issued late Sunday accused Hindenburg of attacking India and its institutions and of breaking securities and foreign exchange laws. Adani has also accused Hindenburg, which said it was betting against the group’s companies, of trying to derail a share sale originally expected to bring in about $2.5 billion.
“This is not merely an unwarranted attack on any specific company but a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India,” Adani’s statement said.
Hindenburg denied the accusations and said Adani’s response largely confirmed its findings and failed to address key questions. It said the group was trying to conflate its rise with the success of India itself.
“We believe India is a vibrant democracy and emerging superpower with an exciting future. We also believe India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group,” Hindenburg said in a statement. “We also believe that fraud is fraud, even when it’s perpetrated by one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.”
Gautam Adani, chairman of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, speaks at the World Congress of Accountants in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 19, 2022.
INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP via Getty Images
Gautam Adani and his family have built a vast fortune mining coal to fuel energy-hungry India’s fast-growing economy. Businesses in the conglomerate include infrastructure, ports, data transmission, media, renewable energy, defense manufacturing and agriculture. Adani’s own net worth has skyrocketed nearly 2,000% in recent years.
His net worth reached nearly $125 billion late last year, surpassing Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to briefly make him the world’s second-richest man, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. After last week’s losses, the Bloomberg index ranked him seventh richest in the world with a fortune worth $92.7 billion.
The report from Hindenburg said it judged the seven key Adani listed companies to have an “85% downside, purely on a fundamental basis owing to sky-high valuations.”
Hindenburg said its report, “Adani Group: How the World’s 3rd Richest Man is Pulling the Largest Con in Corporate History,” followed a two-year investigation. It listed 88 questions it invited the company to answer. Most of the allegations involved concerns about the group’s debt levels, activities of its top executives, use of offshore shell companies and past investigations into fraud.
Investors began dumping Adani-linked shares on Wednesday, wiping out some $48 billion in market value.
Over the weekend, Adani said it would carry on with its share sale in Adani Enterprises as scheduled, despite the value of its shares falling well below the price range of the offering. On Monday, Adani Enterprises was trading at 2,892.85 rupees ($35.50), up 4.8%, but well below the band of 3,112 to 3,276 rupees initially set for the offering, which closes Tuesday.
In its response to Hindenburg, the Adani Group said none of the 88 questions was “based on independent or journalistic fact finding.” It rejected numerous questions as baseless, misleading or biased. In response to other questions, the group attached documents and tables of data and said it had followed local laws.
Adani also dismissed concerns over its debt-fueled growth, saying the “leverage ratios of Adani portfolio companies continue to be healthy and are in line with the industry benchmarks of the respective sectors.”
In an interview with CNBC TV-18 on Monday, Adani chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh said the group’s gross debt was $30 billion, out of which $9 billion was with Indian banks.
Hindenburg said only 30 pages in Adani’s response focused on issues it raised and the rest consisted of court records, general information, company financials and “irrelevant corporate initiatives.” Adani failed to specifically answer 62 of the 88 questions it had posed, it said.
Late Thursday, Jatin Jalundhwala, head of the Adani group’s legal department, said the group was considering legal action against Hindenburg. Hindenburg said it stood by its report and would welcome legal action by the Adani group.
The start of 2023 was meant to be India’s. The nation’s fast-growing economy and rapidly expanding equity markets had convinced money managers from Morgan Stanley Investment Management to State Street Global Advisors to call it a top investment destination.
Then came the $50 billion selloff in billionaire Gautam Adani’s corporate empire.
It’s a shock that forces Wall Street to reexamine its confidence on India’s expansion and its pro-business government, which helped the benchmark Sensex index trade last quarter at the highest in a decade versus the S&P 500. Those already-lofty valuations — combined with a scathing New York short-seller report attacking Adani Group — spotlights the contradictions within India’s runway for growth.
“India has to show its institutions are strong,” said Rajeev De Mello, a global macro portfolio manager at GAMA Asset Management, who owns the nation’s equities as part of his overweight emerging-market position. “Governance issues are a concern for all markets. But when valuations are higher than other countries, maintaining the integrity of the financial markets is critical.”
Investors have been increasingly drawn in by the narrative of opportunity in Indian assets. While bonds have been slowly making their way into global benchmark indexes, a flurry of companies have rushed to sell shares, increasing the size of the nation’s burgeoning stock market.
India’s stocks now account for more than 14% of MSCI’s emerging-market equities index, trailing only China, after it surpassed the weightings of Taiwan and South Korea last year. Morgan Stanley predicts India’s equity market is set to be the world’s third largest before the end of the decade.
But such optimism is what’s led shares in the Sensex index to trade at about 21 times their forecasted earnings, a metric that shows investors are willing to pay a premium on the prospect of stronger growth. Amid such high valuations, the Sensex index is headed for a second month of losses even as broader emerging equities rally.
Adani’s counter
The 100-page report by short seller Hindenburg Research last week containing allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud by Adani entities added more fuel to selling.
Hindenburg released its report just days before the billionaire’s flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd. launched India’s biggest ever primary follow-on public offering that’s seeking to raise 200 billion rupees ($2.5 billion).
In a 413-page rebuttal published Sunday, Adani Group said Hindenburg’s conduct was “nothing short of calculated securities fraud,” and stated that the research company was attacking India as a whole.
For some, including Hasnain Malik, a strategist at Tellimer in Dubai, “bad behaviour by one corporate, should that prove to be case in this instance, usually does not derail confidence in the entire equity market.”
Even so, the downfall of one of India’s most-sprawling businesses could be what holds the nation back as it competes against China as an investment magnet.
Cheaper alternatives
Indian stocks will be vulnerable to portfolio shifts as investors reduce their exposure to expensive assets and instead bet on China’s economic reopening its beneficiaries, such as Taiwan and South Korea, said Jon Harrison, managing director for emerging-market macro strategy at TS Lombard in London.
Carrhae Capital LLP, whose emerging-market hedge fund beat peers last year, also prefers to bet on China’s reopening. The manager will only seek bargains in Indian “structural growth” stories if “investors rush out of India to chase the China story,” said Ali Akay, the firm’s London-based chief investment officer.
“I personally do not think the structural story in India has changed much,” Akay said. “The increasing perception of China a strategic competitor rather than a partner has enabled India to assume the mantle of the regional bulwark against China that the West needs to build up and integrate further with.”
In an environment of heightened geopolitical risk — with the increasing rivalry between the US and China and Beijing’s mounting pressure on Taiwan — India provides a degree of “safety,” said Gaurav Mallik, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. The money manager has an overweight position in India, drawn to a growing middle class that “bodes well for consumption plays,” he said.
Mark Mobius, who spent more than three decades at Franklin Templeton Investments, plans to put more money into India, which may have already surpassed China as the world’s most-populous nation. A young and growing workforce could boost productivity if education and infrastructure investment can keep up.
“The long-term future of the market is great,” said the co-founder of Mobius Capital Partners LLP, which counts India as one of its top allocations.
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Netty Ismail, Marcus Wong, Ronojoy Mazumdar, Bloomberg
When you’re feeling under the weather, the last thing you want to do is trek from pharmacy to pharmacy searching for basic medicines like cough syrup and antibiotics. Yet many people across Europe — faced with a particularly harsh winter bug season— are having to do just that.
Since late 2022, EU countries have been reporting serious problems trying to source certain important drugs, with a majority now experiencing shortages. So just how bad is the situation and, crucially, what’s being done about it? POLITICO walks you through the main points.
How bad are the shortages?
In a survey of groups representing pharmacies in 29 European countries, including EU members as well as Turkey, Kosovo, Norway and North Macedonia, almost a quarter of countries reported more than 600 drugs in short supply, and 20 percent reported 200-300 drug shortages. Three-quarters of the countries said shortages were worse this winter than a year ago. Groups in four countries said that shortages had been linked to deaths.
It’s a portrait backed by data from regulators. Belgian authorities report nearly 300 medicines in short supply. In Germany that number is 408, while in Austria more than 600 medicines can’t be bought in pharmacies at the moment. Italy’s list is even longer — with over 3,000 drugs included, though many are different formulations of the same medicine.
Which medicines are affected?
Antibiotics — particularly amoxicillin, which is used to treat respiratory infections — are in short supply. Other classes of drugs, including cough syrup, children’s paracetamol, and blood pressure medicine, are also scarce.
Why is this happening?
It’s a mix of increased demand and reduced supply.
Seasonal infections — influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)first and foremost — started early and are stronger than usual. There’s also an unusual outbreak of throat disease Strep A in children. Experts think the unusually high level of disease activity is linked to weaker immune systems that are no longer familiar with the soup of germs surrounding us in daily life, due to lockdowns. This difficult winter, after a couple of quiet years (with the exception of COVID-19), caught drugmakers unprepared.
Inflation and the energy crisis have also been weighing on pharmaceutical companies, affecting supply.
Last year, Centrient Pharmaceuticals, a Dutch producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, said its plant was producing a quarter lessoutput than in 2021 due to high energy costs. In December, InnoGenerics, another manufacturer from the Netherlands, was bailed out by the government after declaring bankruptcy to keep its factory open.
Commissioner Stella Kyriakides wrote to Greece’s health minister asking him to take into consideration the effects of bans on third countries | Stephanie Lecocq/EPA-EFE
The result, according to Sandoz, one of the largest producers on the European generics market, is an especially “tight supply situation.” A spokesperson told POLITICO that other culprits include scarcity of raw materials and manufacturing capacity constraints.They added that Sandoz is able to meet demand at the moment, but is “facing challenges.”
How are governments reacting?
Some countries are slamming the brakes on exports to protect domestic supplies. In November, Greece’s drugs regulator expanded the list of medicine whose resale to other countries — known as parallel trade — is banned. Romania has temporarily stopped exports of certain antibiotics and kids’ painkillers. Earlier in January, Belgium published a decree that allows the authorities to halt exports in case of a crisis.
These freezes can have knock-on effects. A letter from European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides addressed to Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris asked him to take into consideration the effects of bans on third countries. “Member States must refrain from taking national measures that could affect the EU internal market and prevent access to medicines for those in need in other Member States,” wrote Kyriakides.
Germany’s government is considering changing the law to ease procurement requirements, which currently force health insurers to buy medicines where they are cheapest, concentrating the supply into the hands of a few of the most price-competitive producers. The new law would have buyers purchase medicines from multiple suppliers, including more expensive ones, to make supply more reliable. The Netherlands recently introduced a law requiring vendors to keep six weeks of stockpiles to bridge shortages, and in Sweden the government is proposing similar rules.
At a more granular level, a committee led by the EU’s drugs regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has recommended that rules be loosened to allow pharmacies to dispense pills or medicine doses individually, among other measures. In Germany, the president of the German Medical Association went so far as to call for the creation of informal “flea markets” for medicines, where people could give their unused drugs to patients who needed them. And in France and Germany, pharmacists have started producing their own medicines — though this is unlikely to make a big difference, given the extent of the shortfall.
Can the EU fix it?
In theory, the EU should be more ready thanever to tackle a bloc-wide crisis. It has recently upgraded its legislation to deal with health threats, including a lack of pharmaceuticals. The EMA has been given expanded powers to monitor drug shortages. And a whole new body, the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) has been set up, with the power to go on the market and purchase drugs for the entire bloc.
But not everyone agrees that it’s that bad yet.
Last Thursday, the EMA decided not to ask the Commission to declare the amoxycillin shortage a “major event” — an official label that would have triggered some (limited) EU-wide action— saying that current measures are improving the situation.
A European Medicines Agency’s working group on shortages could decide on Thursday whether to recommend that the Commission declares the drug shortages a“major event” — an official label that would trigger some (limited) EU-wide action. An EMA steering group for shortages would have the power to request data on drug stocks of the drugs and production capacity from suppliers, and issue recommendations on how to mitigate shortages.
At an appearance before the European Parliament’s health committee, the Commission’s top health official, Sandra Gallina, said she wanted to “dismiss a bit the idea that there is a huge shortage,” and said that alternative medications are available to use.
And others believe the situation will get better with time. “I think it will sort itself out, but that depends on the peak of infections,” said Adrian van den Hoven, director general of generics medicines lobby Medicines for Europe. “If we have reached the peak, supply will catch up quickly. If not, probably not a good scenario.”
Helen Collis and Sarah-Taïssir Bencharif contributed reporting.
CHENNAI, India (AP) — The former computer professional — now a very specialized type of artist — locked his gaze on the deity before him.
On a recent afternoon, 33-year-old S. Goutham was perched on a ladder at the altar of the goddess Durga at the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Chennai, India. Goutham — his hand moving steadily — was pleating a green silk sari to adorn the deity.
“You cannot get tense when you are doing this work,” he says. “You can’t do this if you are not patient. You need to become one with her.”
A computer science graduate, Goutham quit his job nearly a decade ago to pursue his calling. He has since followed in the footsteps of his ancestors as a fifth-generation decorator of temple deities.
In Hindu temples, idols are mostly made of materials such as black granite, white marble or five-metal alloys that have sacred significance. These deities are worshipped as physical, tangible representations of god (Brahman) who is believed to be infinite, omnipresent and beyond comprehension. Worship in a Hindu temple includes bathing these deities in milk, decorating them with colorful clothes, flowers, perfumes such as sandalwood, jewelry, and even weapons such as swords, clubs and tridents. Oil lamps are lit at the altar, and sacred chants and foods are offered to the gods.
Decorating the deities is a millennia-old practice that is described in the Hindu epic Ramayana, and Goutham has been learning the art since he was a toddler. He crafted his first formal decoration when he was 13 — at the very altar where he stood 20 years later on a day in November.
He has done thousands of decorations, ranging from relatively simple ones that take an hour or two to complete, to others that are more complex and take several days.
Goutham said he became interested in decorating deities as a child because of his father.
“When you are little, your father is your hero,” he said. “I wanted to be just like him.”
The first lesson Goutham got from his dad was about the weapons each god would hold. He heard stories about the power of each weapon and how gods would wield them.
“The personality of the deity and the story of the god or goddess could change depending on their weapons, the clothes they wear, the expression on their face or the position in which they are sitting or standing,” he said.
When he sets out to decorate a deity, Goutham says he has a concept of what to do, but doesn’t start out with a sketch. He goes step by step — placing the deity’s hands, feet and weapons. Then, he moves on to the clothes and jewelry. Gradually, the god’s form manifests.
There are rules about the types of materials that can be used on deities.
“The human body is made up of earth, water, fire, air and space, and everything you see naturally occurring on Earth is made of these elements,” Goutham said. “To show this, we decorate deities using things that occur in nature and are a representation of these elements, like copper, cloth, coconut fibers and so on.”
He says decorating a deity combines elements from art, dance and yoga, in terms of the hand gestures and postures the deities assume. Man-made materials such as plastic are prohibited. Goutham says he uses little pins to hold fabric together, but makes sure the pins don’t directly touch the idol.
He sources the deities’ arms and legs, mostly made from copper or brass, as well as the weapons and jewelry, from artisans.
He has also created an app and website for those who wish to learn more about this art and dreams of establishing an institution to train artists who can maintain the sacred tradition. While most deity decorators are men, he sees no reason why women cannot learn and practice it.
“Everyone is equal under god,” he said.
Storytelling is an important part of what he does. One of his favorite installations depicts the friendship between Lord Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, and Kuchela.
“It shows Krishna washing the feet of Kuchela, a poor man, conveying the message that humility is a virtue — whether you are a human being or god,” Goutham said.
The term “idol worship” may have negative connotations in some faiths. But for Hindus, deities — which are kept in temples, homes, shops and offices — serve as focal points “for to us channel our devotions, our actions and serve as a reminder of all the positive values that are associated with those deities,” said Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation.
Shukla says this form of worship is a way for her to connect with her ancestors.
“As a second-generation Hindu American, I didn’t grow up with all these things around me where I could absorb through osmosis,” she said. “But just knowing that I’m part of a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation is personally powerful for me.”
In U.S. Hindu temples, community members come together to help create the costumes for the deities, and it is an act of devotion, Shukla said.
“No one has to sit there and embroider a skirt or sari for a goddess, but they do it as a display of love,” she said. “It’s humbling and empowering.”
Goutham says he doesn’t view his job as a vocation.
“You can call it service because it brings pure joy to so many and plays a role in our spiritual awakening,” he said. “But in my view, it’s much more than that. It has the power to transform people.”
Goutham has decorated deities in temples abroad as he has in tiny Indian villages and little-known temples. He remembers stopping once at a village tea shop and hearing the locals praise his decoration of their temple deity.
“It really warmed my heart,” he said.
As Goutham placed a crown and garland on the deity at the temple in Chennai, neighbor Sucharithra Surendrababu watched awestruck, snapping images of the decorated goddess on her cell phone.
“I love seeing mother Durga whether or not she is decorated,” she said. “But, when I do see her all decked up and looking gorgeous, it makes me so happy. It’s uplifting and empowering.”
There are some decorations which bring tears even to the artist’s eyes.
“It’s not just something that is pretty to look at,” Goutham said. “It’s about love and faith. When you touch the deities, clothe them and decorate them, you think of them as your friends or parents. You need skill and vision to do this. But above all, it takes heart.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
India will overtake China this year to become the world’s most populous country.
The likelihood of India passing that major milestone within a few months shot up Tuesday, when China reported that its population shrank in 2022 for the first time in more than 60 years.
This shift will have significant economic implications for both Asian giants, which have more than 1.4 billion residents each.
Along with the population data, China also reported one of its worst economic growth numbers in nearly half a century, underscoring the steep challenges the country faces as its labor force shrinks and the ranks of the retired swell.
For India, what economists and analysts call the “demographic dividend” could continue to support rapid growth as the number of healthy workers increases.
There are fears the country might miss out, however. That’s because India is simply not creating employment opportunities for the millions of young job seekers already entering the workforce every year.
The South Asian nation’s working-age population stands at over 900 million, according to 2021 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This number is expected to hit more than 1 billionover the next decade, according to the Indian government.
But these numbers could become a liability if policymakers do not create enough jobs, experts warned. Already, data show a growing number of Indians are not even looking for work, given the lack of opportunities and low wages.
India’s labor force participation rate, an estimation of the active workforce and people looking for work, stood at 46%, which is among the lowest in Asia, according to 2021 data from the World Bank. By comparison, the rates for China and the United States stood at 68% and 61% respectively in the same year.
For women, the numbers are even more alarming. India’s female work participation rate was just 19% in 2021, down from about 26% in 2005, the World Bank data shows.
“India is sitting on a time bomb,” Chandrasekhar Sripada, professor of organizational behavior at the Indian School of Business, told CNN. “There will be social unrest if it cannot create enough employment in a relatively short period of time.”
India’s unemployment rate in December stood at 8.3%, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an independent think tank headquartered in Mumbai, which publishes job data more regularly than the Indian government. In contrast, the US rate was about 3.5% at the end of last year.
“India has the world’s largest youth population … There is no dearth of capital in the world today,” Mahesh Vyas, the CEO of CMIE, wrote in a blog post last year. “Ideally, India should be grabbing this rare opportunity of easy availability of labor and capital to fuel rapid growth. However, it seems to be missing this bus.”
Lack of high quality education is one of the biggest reasons behind India’s unemployment crisis. There has been a “massive failure at the education level” by policymakers, said Sripada, adding that Indian institutions emphasize “rote-learning” over “creative thinking.”
As a result of this toxic combination of poor education and lack of jobs, thousands of college graduates, including those withdoctorates, end up applying for lowly government jobs, such as those of “peons” or office boys, which pay less than $300 a month.
The good news is that policymakers have recognized this problem and started putting “reasonable emphasis on skill creation now,” Sripada said. But it will be years before the impact of new policies can be seen, he added.
Asia’s third largest economy also needs to create more non-farm jobs to realize its full economic potential. According to recent government data, more than 45% of the Indian workforce is employed in the agriculture sector.
The country needs to create at least 90 million new non-farm jobs by 2030 to absorb new workers, according to a 2020 report by McKinsey Global Institute. Many of these jobs can be created in the manufacturing and constructions sectors, experts said.
As tensions between China and the West rise, India has made some progress in boosting manufacturing by attracting international giants such as Apple to produce more in the country. But, factories still constitute only 14% of India’s GDP, according to the World Bank.
With a 6.8% expansion in GDPforecast for this fiscal year ending March, the South Asian nation is expected to be the world’s fastest growing major economy. But, according to a former central banker, even this growth is “insufficient.”
“A lot of this growth is jobless growth. Jobs are essentially task one for the economy. We don’t need everybody to be a software programmer or consultant but we need decent jobs,” Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, told media company NDTV, last year.
According to the Mckinsey report, for “gainful and productive employment growth of this magnitude, India’s GDP will need to grow by 8.0% to 8.5% annually over the next decade.”
Wedding ceremonies are held differently even within India with some couples choosing big religious ceremonies, while others lean toward a more intimate celebration.
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Indian weddings are big business. But some of them may not be quite so big this year as they once would have been.
The celebrations are famously known for being week-long extravagant affairs filled with elaborate religious ceremonies, glamorous outfits, singing and dancing, and of course lots of jewelry.
Many couples in India get married from November to February, which is viewed as an auspicious period in Indian culture.
According to Nikkei Asia, trade body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimated that 3.2 million weddings would happen during November to December of last year.
Celebrations in that month would have generated 3.75 trillion rupees ($46 billion) for businesses in the wedding industry, a steep increase from 2.5 trillion rupees in 2019, Nikkei Asia reported based on data from CAIT.
It’s therefore no surprise that lavish Indian weddings often draw up to 1,000 guests — and that comes with a hefty price tag.
However, the mindsets of millennials in India have changed, and many are starting to believe that less is more.
Couples are moving away from “big, fat” Indian weddings toward intimate celebrations with a slimmer guest list, said Tina Tharwani, co-founder of Mumbai-based wedding planning company Shaadi Squad.
They have chosen to give guests a more personalized experience at the event, rather than making it a competition with their peers on who can throw a biggest wedding, Tharwani told CNBC.
Smita Gupta, founder of Delhi-based wedding planner Wedlock Events, agreed.
“The success of weddings obviously depends on the guests, but it’s not the number of guests nowadays,” Gupta said. “They are more worried [about] the guest experience.”
“If you call 600 guests to your wedding, it’s just extra money that you’re paying,” said 29-year old Manika Singh. She is getting married in December 2023 and plans to invite only up to 250 guests for the main celebration, which will be held at the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand.
Renting the venue for two days will set the couple back by 1,500,000 rupees ($18,400), or about 600,000 rupees ($7,400) more than what it was before the pandemic and higher inflation.
To accommodate her parents’ desire for a big wedding, Singh will also have a lunch reception for 300 guests at the family home a day before.
“You won’t even know half of the people, they’re just acquaintances of your parents,” she said, adding that this is a common practice that couples often succumb to to pacify their families.
Despite couples trimming the size of their weddings, they’re spending just as much. Even with a shorter guest list, spending big on the venue, food and decorations remains the norm, Gupta said.
Singh agreed, adding that inflation has driven up the cost of food, and rice prices “have gone through the roof.”
Rising inflation has caused many soon-to-wed couples to spend a large amount of their budget on food.
Jupiterimages | The Image Bank | Getty Images
Although India’s retail inflation dipped from 5.88% in November to 5.72% in December, cereal and milk prices continue to rise, according to Reuters.
Singh anticipates food being the costliest item at both the lunch reception and wedding celebration in December.
That affirmed her decision to scale down the number of guests at her wedding but spend more on her outfit and jewelry instead, which is costing her 700,000 rupees ($8,600)
“More people means less luxury at your wedding,” Singh said, “We can splurge on that instead of feeding people.”
But that isn’t stopping soon-to-be married couples from buying gold for their big day, Ramesh Kalyanaraman, executive director at Kalyan Jewellers said.
High costs haven’t necessarily deterred people from making big purchases, but they may wait a couple of weeks to see if prices drop, Kalyanaraman said. “It is not a drop” in sales, he said, but “a delay in their purchases.”
According to the World Gold Council, India’s gold industry contributed 1.3% to the country’s GDP and is dominated by small and medium enterprises.
Bhawna Jain / Eyeem | Eyeem | Getty Images
And that was no different during Covid.
Kalyanaraman said the ticket size for wedding jewelry was much higher during the pandemic, because people were unable to spend money on entertainment or rent big marriage halls due to government restrictions.
“Gold jewelry is not a fashion accessory; it is actually a part of every custom and ritual,” he said.
Kalyanaraman said that in some Indian cities, parents start buying gold for their daughters from birth and will continue adding to the collection as they grow older. Many of those pieces are then worn on their wedding day.
Singh said she has a different stance and won’t be decked out in expensive jewelry. She will purchase only one set of new jewelry, and use another from her engagement ceremony. For the rest of it, she is “just going to wear fake jewelry.”
A man walks past the office enterance of Marion Biotech, a pharmaceutical company in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, December 29, 2022.
AFP/Getty
New Delhi — The World Health Organization has issued an alert warning against the use of two Indian cough syrups blamed for the deaths of at least 20 children in Uzbekistan. The WHO said the products, manufactured by India’s Marion Biotech, were “substandard” and that the firm had failed to provide guarantees about their “safety and quality.”
The alert issued on Wednesday came after Uzbekistan authorities said last month that at least 20 children died after consuming a syrup made by the company under the brand name Doc-1 Max.
India’s health ministry subsequently suspended production at the company and Uzbekistan banned the import and sale of Doc-1 Max.
The WHO alert said an analysis of the syrup samples by the quality control laboratories of Uzbekistan found “unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and /or ethylene glycol as contaminants.”
Diethylene glycol and ethylene are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.
“Both of these products may have marketing authorizations in other countries in the region. They may also have been distributed, through informal markets, to other countries or regions,” WHO said.
The products were “unsafe and their use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death,” it said.
Marion Biotech officials could not be reached immediately for comment.
It is the second Indian drugmaker to face a probe by regulators since October, when the WHO linked another firm’s medicines to a spate of child deaths in Gambia.
The EU’s green ambitions are, for its trading partners, turning into a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Developing nations, especially, worry that Brussels is throwing up trade barriers in its pursuit of climate neutrality and sustainable food production. To them, it looks like all the EU can export is rules that will hold back their own economic progress.
Indonesia, for example, has warned the EU should not attempt to dictate its green standards to countries in Southeast Asia. “There must be no coercion, no more parties who always dictate and assume that my standards are better than yours,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo told European leaders at the EU-ASEAN summit last month.
In another striking example of the anger provoked by the EU’s green agenda, Malaysia has threatened to stop exports of palm oil to the bloc over new rules aimed at fighting deforestation.
The EU’s ambitions to become climate neutral by 2050 — its so-called Green Deal — herald a huge economic transformation for the world’s largest trading bloc.
Now that the Green Deal is being translated into actual legislation, developing nations are waking up with a hangover of its effects.
One diplomat from a third country said Brussels is mishandling the power of the EU’s single market instead of respecting the sovereignty of its trading partners.
“We see a regulatory imperialism by the EU whereby Brussels sees itself as an exporter of rules to third countries — as the legislators of the world,” said Philippe De Baere, managing partner at law firm Van Bael & Bellis.
The Green Deal goes beyond the so-called Brussels effect, in which multinational companies use EU rules as global standards. De Baere said Brussels had gotten “drunk on its success” and started exporting environmental objectives to developing nations, “which are unable to comply economically, or if they comply, it is with an enormous economic cost.”
Imposing new taxes
The EU’s carbon border levy is the latest, and most symbolic, measure to upset the EU’s trade partners. The idea is that producers importing carbon-intensive products into the bloc will have to buy permits to account for the difference between their domestic carbon price and the price paid by EU producers.
“There must be no coercion, no more parties who always dictate and assume that my standards are better than yours,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo told European leaders | Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images
The goal of the levy, called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), was to level the playing field for EU producers and avoid companies moving their production over lower climate standards — so-called carbon leakage. For Brussels, the sense of climate urgency is too high to wait for others to follow suit, or to reach a deal at the multilateral or global level.
But there is a difference between the intent and real-word outcomes, said Milan Elkerbout of the Centre for European Policy Studies: “If you’re not in the internal logic of the European debate, this will just look like the perfect example of the EU having a protectionist intent.”
Brazil, South Africa, India and China have jointly expressed their “grave concern regarding the proposal for introducing trade barriers, such as unilateral carbon border adjustment, that are discriminatory.” The measure is likely to be challenged at the World Trade Organization.
Mohammed Chahim, a Dutch MEP who helped craft the CBAM, said the measure should be offset by the delivery of tens of billions in annual public financing promised for climate projects in the developing world.
“I think they are absolutely right in their complaints about the EU (and other developed countries) not fulfilling their pledges,” he said of these emerging economies. But it would be impossible for the EU to end protections for heavy industry at home while granting exemptions to other countries.
Even for the poorest countries, Chahim said, an exemption “would be the wrong signal, they also have to decarbonize their industry to make it futureproof.” But under the newly minted regulation, those countries were eligible for support to comply, he added.
Making imports harder
The carbon border levy is far from the only measure to make exporting to the world’s biggest trading bloc harder.
Brussels’ Farm to Fork strategy seeks to prioritize sustainability in agriculture by slashing pesticide risk and use in half by 2030. A plan announced last September to ban imports of products containing residues of harmful neonicotinoid insecticides from 2026 has drawn “unprecedented” criticism from other countries, according to a senior European Commission official.
As the Green Deal tightens rules on pesticide use in the EU, new trade barriers are going up, said Koen Dekeyser of the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM). “Certain farmers can make those investments. Other, more small-scale farmers are likely to seek other markets, for example in Asia,” said Dekeyser.
The EU’s effort to stop deforestation is likely to have similar results.
Under new rules, it will be illegal to sell or export certain commodities if they’ve been produced on deforested land.
Brussels’ Farm to Fork strategy seeks to prioritize sustainability in agriculture by slashing pesticide risk and use in half by 2030 | Jean-François Monier/AFP via Getty Images
One third-country diplomat said it was easy for the EU to take a stand on deforestation in the developing world, having already deforested its own land in the past.
Countries in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia have lobbied hard against the proposal, calling it “discriminatory and punitive in nature” and arguing in a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that it will result in “trade distortion and diplomatic tensions, without benefits to the environment.”
In technology, where the 27-country bloc has passed a series of rules to promote its standards on privacy, online competition and social media to the wider world, other countries, too, have chafed at what they see as overly bureaucratic rules that favor well-resourced regulators within the EU. These can be difficult to implement in developing countries with less expertise and money at their disposal.
More far-reaching legislation is still underway. The EU is also preparing a sustainable production law for companies to police their supply chains against forced labor and environmental damage. Brussels wants to hold companies responsible for abuses throughout their supply chains.
Same goal, different roads
In their deforestation letter, the group of developing countries touch on a sensitive point. While they agree with the EU’s climate goals, they regret that Brussels is imposing its own measures instead of forging an international deal.
The Paris climate agreement is based on the logic of common, but differentiated, responsibilities. At least, that allows countries to move at their own speed and determine their policies toward the same goal.
“Now, not only is the EU telling them what to do, but a lot of developing countries also feel they are now prohibited to do what Western countries have done for decades: industrialize without thinking about pollution and subsidizing infant industries,” said Ferdi De Ville, a professor in European political economy at the University of Ghent.
The unilateral character of a lot of these measures is creating resentment, argues De Ville, especially given the bloc’s huge market power.
“In Brussels, everyone looks at these measures separately,” said another diplomat from a third country. “But who looks at it together and thinks about what it means to us? CBAM, deforestation, the Farm to Fork strategy. These are all unilateral measures which are making things harder for our exporters.”
European officials stress, however, that Brussels is not inflicting its Green Deal on the rest of the world.
But Brussels is also being pushed by NGOs to lead by example. “Europe is one of the major contributors to the current crises related to climate, biodiversity, energy and human rights violations around the world. Therefore we consider it the responsibility of the European Union and other countries in the Global North to urgently start tackling these crises through lawmaking,” said Jill McArdle from the NGO Friends of the Earth.
Agreeing on new rules on the multilateral front remains the EU’s first best option. But, in the absence of a well-functioning World Trade Organization, Brussels has little choice but to go at it alone, EU officials and diplomats argue. “If we want to achieve the Paris targets, there is no time to wait,” one EU official said.
Mark Scott contributed reporting. This story has been updated.
In a deliberate emulation of India’s revered independence hero Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the country’s main opposition leader at present is on the final leg of a mammoth public walk across the length of the subcontinent.
Defying critics and sceptics, the 3,500km (2,175 miles) walk by Rahul Gandhi — no relation to the freedom fighter — has succeeded as both political protest and mobilisation. Over the last three months, the Bharat Jodo Yatra or the March for the Unity of India has been met with widespread enthusiasm.
Now in its last phase, the yatra entered the northern state of Punjab on Tuesday night as it makes its way to its conclusion on the high peaks of Indian-administered Kashmir. In walking so long, Gandhi — the face of the Indian National Congress — is offering the world’s largest democracy a new political vision and script pitched against the shrill political Hinduism or Hindutva of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The aim of the yatra, a term usually associated with a Hindu pilgrimage, is political redemption. It has reignited the Congress party that had been immobilised for a decade with serial electoral defeats. Mocked mercilessly by the BJP as an amateur politician, Gandhi has emerged today as a leader with mass appeal.
With a simple message of interreligious harmony and prosperity for all, the epic walk has focussed on common human interactions. At each stop every day, Gandhi’s aides document and disseminate on social media the conversations their leader has with farmers and workers, young and old, men and women and children too about their shattered dreams under the Modi government. These capture a snapshot of the lived realities of the Indian economy, where unemployment and inflation are high, with a government that has been high on promises and low on their delivery.
Gandhi’s message is that Modi’s strident Hindutva is what is weakening the economic and social potential of India. All this and the accompanying clamour for hugs and selfies with the bearded opposition leader have charged a political and media landscape that has otherwise been monopolised by Modi. For the first time since his ascent, Modi has been rendered silent.
The political message is indeed that of a clash between a multicultural or secular polity on the one hand and Hindu supremacist policies on the other. But it is clear that the march is framing that battle as also being led by two very different kinds of men who now animate and divide Indians.
Modi and the BJP have long railed against India’s secular politics typified by Gandhi’s family as embodying corruption and decay that they claim have denied India its rightful place in the world order. Gandhi’s great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi all served as prime ministers.
Two massive majority mandates for Modi, in 2014 and 2019, have helped to cloak violent Hindutva in the guise of popular anger against entrenched political elites. Modi has fashioned himself as a strong but populist everyman who has risen against this so-called ancien regime.
Today, from laws to political rhetoric, Modi embodies an aggressive “Hindu first” agenda for India. From proposed legislation that introduces religious discrimination in citizenship to the routine violence against minorities, Modi’s agenda for cultural uniformity is seeking to drastically recast India.
At 52, Gandhi has long been vilified as a fourth-generation dynast. Yet precisely because of his family history, he has long and intimate knowledge of power and violence. Both his grandmother and father were assassinated. Shunning political office and the trappings of power, Gandhi has immersed himself in pursuing a direct relationship with the people. He appears to have understood that Modi’s strongman tactics can be countered only with the power of shared vulnerability that brings together everyone who is less than fully committed to Hindutva and has — as a consequence — felt the sharp wedge of authority that stalks India’s public life.
If Modi has expressed his political power through authority and populism, then Gandhi has sought a compassionate connection. In seeking a horizontal coalition of different sections of India, the yatra’s message is to empower a politics of fearlessness. In so doing, it seeks to rediscover the principles of diversity and equity that have been foundational to independent India. Strikingly, the yatra has emphasised a simple political script of emotions such as love, fellowship and sacrifice to blunt and counter the dominant narratives of violence and identity.
About a century ago, the famous salt march of Gandhi – the Father of the Nation – thwarted the British empire and Indian political elites alike as he shunned political office and power but lit up common Indians with audacious hope. He was searching for a transformation of politics and a redefinition of political relationships. He succeeded.
It would be ridiculous and foolhardy to compare the two Gandhis. The contest today is not about the overthrowing of a foreign imperial power. It is an entirely internal and intimate choice about the future identity of India.
But in offering a political paradigm different from that projected by Modi and the BJP, the Bharat Jodo Yatra has helped demarcate the battle lines for 2024, when the next national elections are scheduled to take place. After being overwhelmed by Modi and Hindutva for nearly a decade, Indian democracy might finally be ready for a real contest of ideologies, emotions and personalities.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Karnal, Haryana – India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s countrywide Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India March) entered the northern Haryana state earlier this week.
Thousands of his supporters thronged the streets of Karnal – a city in Haryana state, a three-hour drive north of the Indian capital New Delhi – as the Gandhi scion entered the last leg of the march after passing through the politically important states of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Experts say Gandhi’s march is an effort to revive the electoral fortunes of the Grand Old Party, which dominated India’s politics for decades.
The Congress party, which spearheaded India’s anti-colonial struggle, has been relegated to the margins of Indian politics since the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Gandhi also raised issues such as inflation and joblessness during the march [Courtesy: All India Congress Committee]
The march, which kicked off in the southern city of Kanyakumari in mid-September, will conclude on January 30 in Sri Nagar, the main city of Indian-administered Kashmir.
The nearly 4,000km (2,500-mile) yatra covering 12 states has been dubbed the largest mass contact programme undertaken by the party. Rahul Gandhi, three members of whose family have been prime ministers, launched it, accusing the Modi government of throttling the opposition voice in parliament and media.
The 52-year-old leader has highlighted rising prices, farmers’ issues, record unemployment and rising attacks against minorities in the multi-faith country of 1.3 billion people.
“Hindu-Muslim hatred is being spread 24-7 to divert your attention from real issues,” Gandhi said in his speech at the Mughal-era Red Fort in the Indian capital on December 24.
“Main nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabat ki dukan lagane aaya hun,” (In the market of hate I am setting up a shop of love) Gandhi said on December 19 at Alwar in Rajasthan state.
Response ‘heartwarming’
Senior Congress party leader Kamal Nath said Rahul Gandhi was forced to hit the road due to the authoritarian style of Modi’s rule. He used the slogan “Vyawastha Modi hai, media godi hai aur janta ro di hai,” (The establishment is Modi, media is in the lap of the establishment and the people are crying) to describe the state of affairs in the country.
“The kind of response we are seeing is extremely heart-warming,” said Kamal Nath, a former central minister and chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state.
“I have never seen such affection and faith in the eyes of the people in my long political career as I saw during the Madhya Pradesh leg of Rahul Gandhi’s yatra,” he told Al Jazeera.
In Karnal, Satyendra Chaudhry, a farmer, compared the march to the famous Salt March led by India’s independence icon Mahatma Gandhi in 1930.
“This yatra will be a gamechanger,” he told Al Jazeera. People who joined the yatra in Haryana praised Gandhi for raising issues facing common people.
“He is raising the real issues – communal harmony, unemployment and price rise are the issues concerning us,” Yash Shrivastava, who came from Uttar Pradesh to participate in the yatra, told Al Jazeera.
Communal harmony has been a cause of concern since Modi took office in 2014. His government’s legislative agenda, such as the controversial citizenship register, critics say, has targeted Muslims while Hindu far-right groups have increased attacks on minorities, particularly Muslims.
Will this walk achieve its stated objective? We don’t have any parameters to judge.
If we judge by the people’s response, the march can be called successful. But will this translate into votes in the 2024 general elections?
Experts say the party needs to strengthen its organisational weakness to win elections. A senior Congress leader told Al Jazeera the party needs to strike alliances with key regional parties to pose a formidable challenge to Modi.
‘Just a road show’
Gandhi repeatedly raised issues such as inflation and joblessness, which concern the masses.
By the size of the march in Karnal, it seems he has succeeded in galvanising the party cadres. But senior BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal said the yatra “in both the stated and unstated objective” has failed.
“It is just a roadshow of the Congress, by the Congress and for the Congress. Bharat has nothing to do with it,” he told Al Jazeera. Taking a potshot at the Congress leader, Mittal said the yatra was a ploy to relaunch the Gandhi scion.
“This is the nth number at relaunching a product which has not worked in many forms,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Gandhi’s failure to lead the Congress party to victory in the last two elections. He also questioned Gandhi’s claims on rising hate in the country.
“He claimed BJP is spreading hate and that he travelled entire country but could not find any hate.”
The yatra, which will now head to the northern state of Punjab, has generated a lot of buzz, with Gandhi sporting a new beard and walking in a t-shirt in extremely cold weather, making him the centre of social media gossip.
As the Karnal rally was coming to an end, a group of enthusiastic supporters tried to make their point heard amid the cacophony of the crowd.
A young Sikh man said: “Sura soi pehachaniye jo lade deen k heth,” (Brave is who fights for the underprivileged) suggesting that Gandhi is fighting for the poor.
Another youth borrowed a line from superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s dialogue from his latest film, Pathan, scheduled to be released soon.
“The yatra has proved that secularism zinda hai, bhaichara zinda hai, Congress zinda hai,” (The march has proved that secularism is alive, communal harmony is alive, the Congress is alive).
Electric vehicle charging stations from Tata Power can be found on 350 of the 600 highways in India.
Puneet Vikram Singh, Nature And Concept Photographer, | Moment | Getty Images
When most people think about electric vehicles, they think cars.
From brands like Tesla and Rivian in the United States, to Nio and XPeng in China, global sales of electric vehicles have surged. Two million EVs were sold in just the first quarter of 2022 — that’s a significant jump from a decade ago when sales hit only 120,000 cars worldwide, the International Energy Agency reported.
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India’s different. The United States and China have focused on the adoption of EV cars. But in India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, two-wheel vehicles such as scooters, mopeds and motorbikes, dominate the market.
James Hong, head of mobility research at Macquarie Group, said two-wheel vehicles are in higher demand than cars in India, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Underdeveloped road infrastructure and lower personal incomes make it more convenient and affordable for people to own scooters, motorbikes or mopeds, rather than cars, Hong said.
Still, adoption remains low.
EVs make up only around 2% of total automobile sales, but the Indian government has ambitious targets to increase EV adoption in the next decade, focusing on raising purchases of two-wheel vehicles.
Sales in India are expected to rise by between 40% and 45% by 2030, at which point 13 million new vehicles will be sold annually, according to projections from Bain & Company published in December.
India’s four-wheel vehicle sector is poised to grow by only 15% to 20% by 2030, with 1 million new vehicles sold annually, the consulting firm said.
Growth of India’s four-wheel EV segment is expected to be smaller because the cars are mostly owned only by drivers who travel out of the city on longer routes, said Arun Agarwal, deputy vice president of equity research at Kotak Securities.
Bain & Co. predicts that total revenue across the full supply chain of India’s EV industry will generate $76 billion to $100 billion by 2030.
People in India have long preferred two wheels to four, and the country is home to more than 10 startups serving the market, Agarwal said.
For India to increase purchases of two-wheel vehicles, they need to be cheaper, and more charging infrastructure needs to be in place, Jinesh Gandhi, equity research analyst at Motilal Oswal Securities, told CNBC.
Gandhi said that 90% of two-wheel vehicles with internal combustion engines cost between 70,000 rupees ($845) and 140,000 rupees ($1,690). The starting price of electric two-wheel vehicles can be as high as 160,000 rupees.
Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro
The cost of EVs will come down if battery prices drop, Kotak’s Agarwal said.
High inflation and disrupted supply chains have driven batter prices higher in 2022, Bain & Co. said. The cost would have to fall by an additional 20% to 30% for EVs to compete with internal combustion engine vehicles.
Arun Kumar, chief financial officer of two-wheel EV manufacturer Ola Electric, said it’s a “myth” that EVs are more expensive than internal combustion vehicles because the “lifecycle cost of ownership of an EV is lower” than a two- or four-wheel vehicle that runs on fuel.
Ola Electric’s two-wheel scooters, and upcoming motorbike and four-wheel passenger car, all range between $1,000 and $50,000.
Ola Electric
That means the amount of money EV owners can save in fuel and maintenance costs can offset the higher initial purchase price, he said.
Ola’s two-wheel scooters, an upcoming motorbike, and four-wheel passenger car range between $1,000 and $50,000, he said.
“There’s no coming back to [internal combustion engine] vehicles. It’s a single direction,” Kumar added.
Central and state governments in India have been providing incentives to encourage consumers in India to make the switch to EVs, Kotak’s Agarwal said.
According to the International Energy Agency, government programs have provided funding to ramp up production of EV public buses and taxis, as well as increase charging stations around India.
Including taxes, owners of two-wheel internal combustion engine vehicles in India typically pay 3,000 rupees a month for their vehicle, Kumar said. Government initiatives coupled with money saved on petrol would therefore mean that the monthly installment on a vehicle becomes largely free to a customer, he said.
As the adoption of electric vehicles is set to increase, so will charging infrastructures around the country. That remains a factor deterring people from making the switch away from carbon-intensive vehicles, Kotak’s Agarwal said.
“If you are stranded on the road, you don’t have any option but to get the vehicle towed to the nearest charging station, which is time- as well as a cost-consuming,” Gandhi said.
India’s charging infrastructure will need to significantly expand to support the number of EV companies that are set to come on the roads, the Bain & Co. report said, noting that several companies have made early investments and are committed to increasing the availability of chargers.
Tata Power claimed that it has built about 2,500 charging stations over 300 cities and towns in India.
Tata Power
One of them is Tata Power, India’s largest privately owned power generation company.
Tata Power claimed it has built about 2,500 charging stations in 300 cities and towns in India. They can be found on 350 of 600 highways in the country, said Virendra Goyal, the firm’s head of business development.
Many EV owners suffer from “range anxiety” when the distance between charging stations is too far, and bridging the gap would encourage more drivers to migrate to e-mobility, he said.
The company aims to have 25,000 chargers across India by 2028, Goyal said.
Correction: This article has been updated to accurately report where India ranks among the world’s biggest economies. An earlier version misstated its ranking.
LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Authorities in an Indian Himalayan town have stopped construction activities and started moving hundreds of people to temporary shelters after a temple collapsed and cracks appeared in over 600 houses because of sinking of land, officials said Saturday.
Residents of Joshimath town in Uttarakhand state say they started noticing cracks in houses, especially after 2021 floods in the region. No injury was reported in the temple collapse late Friday and those living nearby had vacated the area a day earlier.
A motorist navigates his way through a crack on a road in Joshimath, India, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023. Authorities have stopped all construction activity and started shifting hundreds of people panicking after seeing a temple collapse and cracks in over 600 houses due to subsidence of land in a northern Indian hilly town, officials said on Saturday. (AP Photo)
Himanshu Khurana, a district administrator, said more than 60 families have been moved to government relief camps. The number is likely to go up to 600 families, media reports said.
Television images also showed cracks in roads, hampering the movement of vehicles.
Ranjit Sinha, a top state disaster management official, said the immediate cause of the cracks “seems to be the faulty drainage system, which has resulted in water seepage under the houses that has led to their sinking.”
The government will pay 4,000 rupees ($50) per month for six months to those rendered homeless in Joshimath, a temple town of around 25,000 people that sits at an altitude of 1,890 meters (6,200 feet) and falls on key Hindu pilgrim as well as trekking circuits, Khurana said.
Tens of thousands of devotees heading for Badrinath and Him Kund Sahib, key Hindu and Sikh pilgrimage sites, pass through Joshimath, 490 kilometers (305 miles) northeast of New Delhi. The huge flow of pilgrims and tourists saw the town expanding exponentially over the years with the massive construction of buildings and roadways, which some experts have linked to land subsidence.
The construction activities that were temporarily halted include the Chardham all-weather road — a flagship federal government enterprise to connect various Hindu pilgrimage sites, a project to set up trolleys pulled by ropes to carry pilgrims and tourists in nearby Auli, and hydropower stations.
The region witnessed a devastating cloudburst — an extreme rainfall in a short time — that resulted in the death of hundreds in 2013 as well as severe flooding in 2021. Experts say fast shrinking glaciers, in part due to climate change, is also another reason the region is hit by repeated disasters.
“Between 2015 and mid-2021, at least 7,750 extreme rainfall and cloudburst instances have been noted in Uttarakhand. Such instances are detrimental to Joshimath as they may increase the number of impacted buildings, eventually exacerbating the vulnerability of the locals,” said Kavita Upadhyay, a water-policy expert who is currently a research associate in the Oslo Metropolitan University’s Riverine Rights project.
Upadhyay, who is from Uttarakhand and lives in the region, said unabated large-scale infrastructure projects as well as uncontrolled tourist inflow have also contributed to land sinking.
“The slopes of Joshimath are formed from landslide debris. This means that there’s a limit to which the town can be burdened by buildings or disturbed by activities such as the construction of big infrastructure projects like dams and roads.”
A study by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority has warned that construction by removing boulders and blasting the hillside would lead to severe environmental damage.
In May last year, Meera Rawat, a resident, was startled while cooking in the kitchen when she heard a gurgling sound of water flowing underneath the floor.
“That day, I realized something bad was going to happen in our town of Joshimath. In September, I saw a small crack in the floor. In December, it widened, and we vacated the house,” Meera said.
Associated Press writer Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, contributed to this report.
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Almost half of recent graduates said they didn’t apply for entry level jobs because they felt underqualified, according to the survey.
And that’s even more of a challenge for those new to the workforce.
“One of the challenges that young workers may face is lack of experience as they enter the workforce,” said Pooja Chhabria, career expert and head of editorial for Asia-Pacific at LinkedIn.
Hard skills can help you get a recruiter’s attention, but soft skills can help you land the job.
For example, job postings on the platform have grown year on year in October 2022 for sectors like government administration — which registered a 52% growth in Australia and a whopping 88% in Singapore.
Retail job postings grew 114% in Australia and 49% in India, while openings in logistics and supply chain grew by 41% in Singapore.
Those jobs may be from different industries, but they have one thing in common — an emphasis soft skills, which Chhabria stressed are valued across multiple sectors and jobs.
Companies have been shifting from a “traditional experience-based” hiring approach to a skills-first one, Chhabria said.
That’s because of the “rapid pace of change and disruption” that industries are going through, and skills-based hiring helps employers to hire talent that matches businesses’ evolving needs, she added.
“87% of recruiters believe skills are crucial as they vet candidates. A skills-based approach also creates a much broader talent pool, and diversity of talent is necessary for remaining competitive in today’s marketplace.”
“LinkedIn data reveals that across Asia Pacific, a skills-based approach to hiring will increase the overall Gen Z talent pool by 10.8 times in Australia, 14.1 times in India and 7 times in Singapore,” she said.
While hard skills remain crucial to securing a job, soft skills can help candidates stand out from the pack.
“Hard skills can help you get a recruiter’s attention, but soft skills can help you land the job,” Chhabria added.
“Hard skills are the technical skills required to do your job. For instance, if you are applying to be a sales professional, then you need to have knowledge of sales processes and how to use a CRM platform,” she said.
“[But] you also need soft skills such as presentation skills to deliver a great sales pitch to your customer or communication skills so you can communicate with confidence with your team and the customer.”
These are the top five soft skills young workers should focus on building in the new year, according to LinkedIn:
Communication: Being able to communicate your ideas, views, and opinions concisely so people can understand what you are sharing.
Time management: With the rise of remote working, time management has become even more important for building trust with your employer and demonstrating the value you’re adding to the team.
Critical thinking: Ability to understand and address a situation based on all available facts and information.
Problem solving: Coming up with solutions and looking for new ways to resolve issues.
Interpersonal skills: In a post-pandemic workplace, the ability to build relationships and collaborate with teams globally is an important skill.
Taking on new assignments or projects can improve your ability to problem solve and provide opportunities to learn how to better handle stress, criticism, and conflict.
“The Book of Everlasting Things” by Aanchal Malhotra (Flatiron)
Star-crossed lovers. Intoxicating scents. Old war journals containing ghosts and secrets. What more could you want in a work of historical fiction?
Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel “The Book of Everlasting Things” paints a riveting picture of the 1947 Partition of India using all senses — especially and unusually leaning into smell.
The Vij family, Hindus living in Lahore who become minor celebrities as perfumers, are well known and highly regarded for their unsurpassed ittar, extracted from flowers. This success attracts the Khans, a Muslim family whose patriarch teaches calligraphy at the Wazir Khan Mosque across town. On a fateful visit to the Vij shop in 1938, it’s the young Firdaus Khan’s scent that bewitches perfuming apprentice Samir Vij.
Over the next 10 years, their relationship grows from the curiosity of children to the fierce and longing love of young adults. But Partition takes “star-crossed lovers” to a new level as violence takes hold of Lahore, threatening to leave no person untouched by the impending split that would result in Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
But the story stretches far beyond Partition, even beyond Samir and Firdaus. To truly understand the history and the characters, Malhotra brings us back to Samir’s uncle — the first in his family to enlist in the army — witnessing firsthand the horrors of World War I trenches for the sake of India’s colonizer, Great Britain.
The story also stretches decades into the future, allowing the ramifications of war and heartbreak to echo through generations. And although the facts are predictable, the people are decidedly not.
“The Book of Everlasting Things” is a book to stroll through and indulge in; a sensory paradise basking in the sound of words, the smell of a childhood memory, the alluring hook of a nose or a letter. It’s an ode to passion, from handicraft to the first and deepest love. Tender moments slice through enchanting descriptions. Scenes of violence and accompanying smell-scapes of rot and decay breathe life into history. Loving relationships are laid bare in their many forms: mentorship, friendship, romantic love, marital partnership, parental affection — and each of these through various stages.
Having already proved her deep knowledge of Partition in her previous two nonfiction works, along with over a dozen articles and other works, Malhotra tried her hand at longform fiction and succeeded with elegance. At all turns, “The Book of Everlasting Things” is deeply human, with careful attention paid to both factual and emotional accuracy.
NEW DELHI — When midnight approaches in New Delhi and a freezing fog settles over the Indian capital, thousands of homeless people spread torn mattresses and blankets on the pavements and lie on them to keep warm.
Those who can’t afford the blankets spend the night around a smoldering fire built with garbage and discarded cardboard boxes. Others hunker down in a government shelter system.
It’s a scene that repeats itself every year when India’s capital experiences a harsh bout of winter cold, blamed for killing scores of homeless people and leaving tens of thousands of others shivering on the streets.
On Sunday, New Delhi recorded a low of 5.5 degrees Celsius (41.9 Fahrenheit), with India’s weather forecasting agency warning of a severe cold wave from Monday.
New Delhi’s 20 million inhabitants are conditioned to various weather extremes, from blistering heat waves in the summer to thick, grey smog that envelopes the capital before the onset of the winter when a brutal cold wave sweeps most of northern India. The cold blankets streets in freezing fog so blinding that drivers cannot see cars in front of them, causing accidents.
The piercing chill is an ordeal for the city’s homeless, who curl their bodies on sidewalks and sleep as the traffic goes by. Even though the city’s night shelters are a refuge to many who would otherwise find themselves sleeping near busy roundabouts and underpasses, most people there live in harsh conditions. Many of the night shelters are overcrowded and have unclean toilets and no water.
“Overcrowding is a big problem. Because of too much footfall, some people sleep on the roadside,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia of the Centre for Holistic Development, who has worked with Delhi’s homeless population for decades.
India’s 2011 census figures show about 47,000 of the city’s residents were homeless, but activists say the number is a vast underestimate and that New Delhi has more than 150,000 without permanent residences to sleep in.
Official figures also show the city’s 195 homeless shelters can accommodate only about 19,000 people, leaving tens of thousands struggling to keep warm.
