This is IDF’s 11^th COVID-19 analysis a Politics will still rage. The fight to control the ravages of COVID will run side by side in every country. BJP   politicked in MP in early days of COVID. Co-operation is difficult in any democracy, but more in a less educated democracy with poverty, lacking social security. In such nations politics is big money too, scripted in devious legal ways, Eg. Electoral Bonds and unregulated elections.

 IDF as a Navigator, says this with conviction, as Harvard/ Columbia   educated Franklin Delano Roosevelt son of a US President Theodore (ex Secretary of the Navy), was one of USA’s Greatest Presidents!(1933-45). He navigated USA out of the 1938 Depression with a New Deal, to provide relief, recovery, and reform, and won World War II for USA which was followed up with a Marshall Plan in 1948 to take USA to heights. Franklin, a paralytic wheel chaired   President, believed, “In politics nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned.” IDF adds, “Despite Love between Husband and Wife, lurks politics.” In friendships, politics lurk ! India saw that with an Advani and a Vajpayee. It needs a close look. Education is important to lead. All this is food for thought.

India cannot be immune to politics, as HM Shah is India’s COVID Policy War Room Coordinator. NK Singh a wealthy flamboyant old time bureaucrat now a diehard BJP aged 80, is crafting a New Deal. He could not complete Finance Commission report for 2020 for two years in this Computer Age. Was it politics ? Some states are crying for GST refunds.

Economics needs number crunching young Economists, like Gita Gopinath, with Data Analytics, AI and Algorithms and Graphs of past allocation to states and sectors to seek outcomes. Niti Ayog has replaced Planning Commission seen more on TV to defend policies, not debate them ! India’s brains have gone to USA. Over taken by COVID, Finance Commission is revising allocations. Defence is hit badly and Defence Industry wants GOI not to pay abroad, but the dues to Indian firms.

Someone well versed, will have to study Roosevelt’s New Deal, sans politics and a Marshall Plan for India to grow. May be a non partisan PMO!

IDF politely asks, does the only non true BJP or RSS Minister EAM Jaishakar, a bureaucrat, have a say ? He is India’s best firefighter, as he can “Hi Five”, to any including Pompeo he speaks to often. Are we in QUAD ? BJP has even made a fine uniformed Military CDS, a bureaucrat in MOD. Can one be both ??

 It’s all politics Steeve, as my closet colleague said when he deservedly became an Admiral, and IDF got to write a Book on another colleague, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat Sacked of Sunk ! It was politics by another name—– Intelligence leak on ATV as our Official Secrets Act is of 1923 vintage made for the British to rule the Brown man, gets   used.

 India can reform and be rich again, but internecine fights between non BJP and BJP states and the centre, and Hindu Muslim divides are raging and after Yes Bank, Templeton has gone under……IDF analysis, predicts more shocks. And asks what has our IPS controlled Intelligence and Finance Ministry and RBI been doing; how many community clashes are taking place that Republic TV Intelligence locates, and are there any Intelligence business watchers in the frauds section,   like every Bank has ?

In India frauds are called NPAs, when the horse has bolted. Then our sleuths go abroad and hire expensive Queens’s Counsels. India’s leading lawyer who defended Cdr Jadav too spends more time abroad— forgotten case ?  

Worldwide,   a third world war of sorts is on, and UN and G-20 have not discussed the world which is, “Toxic With Covid Disorder More Than Order”, and though Trump wants to sue China, China has sovereign immunity and it is the CCP that matters in China. Only anger against it by its own people can help. No one knows the state there, but Amb Shyam Saran seems confident XI Jinping is in trouble. How can you be a life long leader, surely CCP has politics.

When Harvard students interviewed Lallu Prasad Railway Minister who had done well by his aide’s brains, they asked, “Lalluji do want to be Prime Minister ?” He replied, “ if you are Sub Editor …do you not want to be Editor !” Politics.

UN and Nations are sadly looking inward as USA has stopped immigration and suspended WHO funding. Islamic friends of India are saying unfriendly things and WHO says the worst is still to come. Nobel Prize winning Professor of Medicine, Professor Dr Tasuku Honjo feels that CIVID-19 is not   natural, that www.indiadefence.com   reported on 12^th April.  

The new verbal and Cyber world war is on   against China , for the accidental leak and needs to be taken to task,   but How ? It still has the supply chain lever. Can India be that ? Sudden lock down has led to shuttered shops, wage losses and businesses have disrupted supply chains and India’s motor car industry is crashing. Crippled oil exporting economies and Governments except China and Germany are scraping the bottom, and cutting wages.

India is fortunate with an oratorical PM Modi but sadly his well meaning reforms like Demonet and GST have had disastrous out comes for India’s economy. PM Modi focused more on India’s image and Foreign relations and did brilliantly; but   ebbing, as India has to take sides……..Are you with China or against China ?

 PM’s PMO needs a course on the New Deal, Marshall Plan and how to do a non partisan Military Appreciation for outcomes one wants, and what one may get. Excessively draconian measures like over nite lock downs and changes may not always be beneficial   for controlling the spread, but the economic impact is evidently huge, especially on the livelihood of vulnerable sections of the society,

China is taking advantage. On 18^th   April, all 15 prominent pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong were arrested sending shockwaves. China sailed a Carrier Armada in to South China Seas and USA and Australia sent USS America, guided-missile destroyer USS Barry and guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill into   fortified Island’s territorial waters, an innocent passage legally permitted by UNCLOS. A US warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on a “routine” transit for the second time in a month.

Prasun Sengupta reports Navy P8I’s are tracking a PN Type 22P FFG PNS Saif F253 headed for Malacca Straits from Dondra head to escort   a Chinese Freighter that is   carrying the first tranche of 24 VT-4/MBT-3000 MBTs to Karachi Port Trust’s Port Qasim for the Pakistan Army. Can Uncle Sam do something ?

Finaly   India is staring at a ‘sombre economic situation’, which needs major stimulus like Bonds and Reforms of a New Deal with honest implementation,   the opening of India’s Economy would be crafted in USA, UK and EU, when India postpones payments. They will lay conditions to open India like PM Rao and FM Manmohan Singh had to do in 1991. Let us pray it happens peacefully,   for our younger generations ! Shan Na Varuna.