What Infrastructure Development in Tibet Means For India
Dear Reader,
We hope that you and your loved ones are safe and well. Since we last wrote to you, our work at Takshashila has ranged from the implications of infrastructure development in Tibet on India to the predicament of India’s jobless economic growth.
What Infrastructure Development in Tibet Means For India
In a paper for The Jamestown Foundation, Suyash Desai analyses the implications of China’s development of infrastructure in Tibet on India. He writes:
The improved infrastructure that China has built over the last two decades makes mobilization of the armed forces to counter India relatively faster and easier. For instance, the Sichuan-Tibet railway connects Chengdu to Lhasa. Chengdu and the adjacent municipality of Chongqing host the PLA’s 77th Group Army, which would be one of the first units to mobilize after the Tibet and Xinjiang Military Districts in the event of an escalation of conflict with India.
The average travel time from Chengdu to Lhasa through the existing road and railway network is around 40 hours or more. However, upon completion, the Sichuan-Tibet railway will reduce this trip to 15 hours – making mobilization much quicker.
What Does The Final Fate Of The Farm Laws Tell Us?
Following the repeal of the farm laws, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon writes about how the entire exercise revealed India’s internal disunity. He argues:
Prime Minister Modi attributed the failure of the farm reform measure to the inability of a small section of farmers to see the benefit that would accrue to them from free trade and contract farming. What was left unsaid was the failure of the government in the field of communications. This failure is evident at three levels and spawns disunity.
The article outlines three levels of failure. The first of these is the poor interaction between the party in power and the opposition. Steamrolling major and important decisions in Parliament without detailed discussions has become the norm.
The second level is the failure of dialogue between the Union and the state governments. Lack of consultation with the states has become par for the course in the union government’s style of governance.
The third level is between the government and the people of the country. Springing surprises on the population with very little or no consultation with the stakeholders is becoming increasingly common.
The Case For A Global Ban On Anti-Satellite Tests
In his fortnightly column, The Intersection, Nitin Pai writes about Russia’s recent anti-satellite test (ASAT), arguing for a global ban on such destructive tests.
On 16 November, Russia destroyed one of its old satellites by causing a tail-on collision with an ASAT rocket it had fired, at an altitude slightly higher than that of the International and Chinese space stations. The thousands of pieces of debris that resulted now pose a risk to space-stationed astronauts, other spacecraft that occupy low-earth orbits and launch vehicles destined for higher orbits. Space debris move faster than bullets and even tiny bits have enough kinetic energy to severely damage spacecraft.
In the wake of this, Nitin argues that there is an urgent need for a strict international ASAT non-proliferation and test-ban treaty. Approximately two dozen countries possess ballistic missiles or satellite launch capabilities that jeopardise human access to space.
Moreover, as a country that already possesses ASAT capability, he writes, it is in India’s interests to deter other countries from acquiring it. A test-ban treaty is crucial for space to be a new avenue for entrepreneurship and growth, one that is not inundated by dangerous garbage.
India’s Jobless Growth
India’s economy has grown at 7% on average over the last thirty years, but employment elasticity has constantly declined from 0.4 to 0.087. This number is significantly lower than the US (0.64) and Northern Europe (0.51). How can India increase employment elasticity? In the 24th November episode of All Things Policy, Aarushi Kataria and Sridhar Krishna draw on ideas from Takshashila’s 20 Million Jobs project to look for ways India can create new jobs.
Listen now:
Run The Marathon To Transform India (And Your Career)
Applications for the January 2022 cohort of Takshashila’s public policy courses are now open.
We offer two kinds of recurring programmes. The Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP) is offered over 12 weeks, while the Post-Graduate Programme in Public Policy (PGP) is offered over 48 weeks.
The GCPP is the ideal introductory course to public policy and governance for working professionals. It will help you master the fundamentals of economics, policy evaluation, ethical reasoning, effective communication and public persuasion.
The GCPP is available in four streams: Defence and Foreign Affairs (DFA), Technology & Policy (TP), Advanced Public Policy (APP) and Health & Life Sciences (HLS).
The PGP, meanwhile, is a deep dive into the world of public policy analysis and problem-solving. It brings together practitioners and academic experts from around the globe. The programme is academically rigorous and attuned to industry, media, social sector, and politics requirements.
It equips participants with a core set of skills in policy evaluation, economic reasoning, effective communication and public persuasion. Its emphasis is on how these skills can be applied to formulate and analyse policies in various settings. You can see the course structure for the PGP in the graphic below:
The January cohorts of both GCPP and PGP begin on 15th January 2022. You can avail of a 10% early bird scholarship by applying before 4th December 2021.
What We Have Been Reading
This week’s book is This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian. Recommending it, Atish Padhy says:
For the longest time, it seemed to me that the Sri Lankan Civil War was somehow both familiar and alien. It was relatively easy to recognize the majoritarianism and bigotry that drove the island nation to war with itself—such bigotry is part of India too. Yet, the sheer length and violence of the conflict seemed utterly unfamiliar. How could such a small country be mired for so long, in a war that even managed to spill over into Indian politics?
After I finished Samanth Subramanian’s excellent book, I found it easier to square these conflicting views about the war. This Divided Island presents a moving, at times terrifying, portrait of war, majoritarianism and the intoxicating pull of violent rebellion. It is a sober—and sobering—work of journalism but also an insightful and empathetic analysis of the politics of majoritarianism and militancy. It goes beyond simply chronicling pain and suffering. This Divided Island, if one is willing to read it thus, is a cautionary tale, a stark reminder of the cost of institutionalised chauvinism. A reminder that the entire Indian subcontinent would do well to heed.
Get reading!
That’s it from us this week. Take care and stay safe!