September 30, 2019
Which means all this silliness of putting pressure on Pakistan
Which means all this silliness of putting pressure on Pakistan to do more on
Afghanistan will come to naught — why would Pakistan expose itself to a decline
in influence in Afghanistan in support of an American policy that the Americans
themselves don’t really believe in?Worse, the Trump review is coinciding with a
second successive fresh-look perspective in the military leadership here.
But yet
another round of American silliness can have a damaging effect on Pakistan —
because of what it could mean for Afghanistan and what happens inside Pakistan
itself.Pak-US relations are about where they should be given all that separates
them and the little that they have in common.
The problem is that it’s not. It
makes sense to change some things on Afghanistan. US President Donald Trump
(Photo: AP) The Americans are at it again.Here’s the thing, though: the Obama
years happened. Troop surge in Afghanistan, policy review on Pakistan,
alternating between threatening and bribing us to "do moreâ€.Barack Obama may
ultimately have reversed himself on withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan,
but it was long obvious that he had no real interest in the area.A circularity
in a region full of circles and maddening conundrums. When the Americans are
breathing down your neck, you have both reason and excuse to delay deeper
readjustments.
Let’s work through it.But then in strides the American behemoth
once again, knocking heads around, demanding actions, threatening and
intimidating — all because it wants its (muddled) way in Afghanistan.More of the
same by a US administration towards Pakistan will only increase the odds of more
of the same from Pakistan on Afghanistan. In his early days, Qamar Javed Bajwa
could attempt the same: a policy review, if not a reversal.That creates an
incentives problem.
To really convince itself that fixing Pakistan is not the
automatic and inevitable route to fixing Afghanistan, the US would have to
really turn the screws on Pakistan.To fix Afghanistan, Pakistan must be fixed —
and to fix Pakistan, the usual tools are to be deployed. By coming in and
starting a military-led debate on Afghanistan that sounds so familiar, the Trump
administration is confirming what most outside powers in Afghanistan already
suspect: US policy in Afghanistan is somewhere on the spectrum between
not-interested and stale.
That drift allowed other outside powers to increase
their interest in Afghanistan — some with the explicit support of the US
(India), some with ambivalent American support (China) and some, arguably, by
the US dropping the ball (Russia).Just get them off your back and make sure you
don’t get too banged up.Possibly because the US doesn’t have the influence or
leverage it needs, but more likely because the debate we see in public is
supplemented by one out of view:The public stuff may be all Afghanistan,
Afghanistan, Afghanistan, but there’s counterterrorism cooperation, nuclear
safety and security, and a link to China and India that shapes what can be done
on Pakistan. The only realistic peaceful solution in Afghanistan is a negotiated
settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. To the extent that the
game be played out endlessly — US coaxing, cajoling and pretending it can change
Pakistan; Pakistan playing coy; the two occasionally falling out and then
sulkily sidling up to the other again — it doesn’t really matter.
The Trump
AfPak review is doubly damning because it’s back to the future after years of
White House disengagement.The terms of the debate being framed in the US for
Donald Trump on Pakistan are nascent but familiar: through the Afghan looking
glass and a blame-cum-incentives framework.That’s why the Taliban have always
insisted on primarily negotiating with the Americans.By arrangement with
Dawn.It’s like it’s 2009 again.Or at least makes sure that the public talk of
really turning the screws on Pakistan does not translate into actual action.But
there are far too many hawks on Afghanistan here to navigate a policy review
while also coming under pressure from the US to fit its stale and unworkable
agenda.But indulging that temptation just as Pakistan may be growing confident
enough to have an overall policy debate on militancy may be a classic American
mistake.Raheel Sharif tried and failed to change our Afghan policy.But if all
the US is going to do is to ensure a tenuous survival of the Afghan government,
tamp down the Taliban insurgency when it threatens to get out of control, and
give no more than lukewarm support to a peace process — there will be no real
peace process.Let’s assume Bajwa is inclined towards an overall policy rethink —
towards a militancy-free Pakistan, in all shapes and manifestations.In faraway
DC and nearby Kabul, the temptation to knock Pakistan around for perceived
misbehaviour is mostly irresistible. But it hasn’t worked and won’t.
That could
have a chilling effect on the overall anti-militancy debate that Bajwa may
want.But the only outside power that is fundamentally committed to the post-Bonn
Afghan state structure and power centres is the US.But it can’t — won’t — really
turn the three-dimensional
printer screws Manufacturers screws on Pakistan because of the other,
security-based aspects to the relationship and so the US will never reach the
stage where it can disabuse itself of the belief that fixing Pakistan is the
route to fixing Afghanistan.
There’s more. It’s 2017 and the Americans may be
about to screw it up for us — again, though perhaps in a new way. The Afghan
debate is one half of the overall militancy debate here.In faraway DC and nearby
Kabul, the temptation to knock Pakistan around for perceived misbehaviour is
mostly irresistible
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September 25, 2019
The apprehension of hundreds of crores
It is a carefully researched and scholarly work that also has a guide like
quality as it simplifies a very widely and frequently discussed subject — the
issue of black money. It is an irrefutably factual and cold analysis of what led
to the Modi demonetisation and its economic consequences. What does this
indicate?
One cannot claim any accretion of support due to
demonetisation.Demonetisation and Black Money, by C. So what was the hullabaloo
about?That demonetisation exacted a huge economic cost is without doubt. He also
specialises in the Chinese economy. The Act had the side-effect of prohibiting
nearly all US exports and most imports, greatly disrupting the US economy.
Its
utility and relevance will be undiminished even after the after effects of
demonetisation recede from our memories. But greatness lies in admitting
mistakes and learning from them. If the argument is that demonetisation stemmed
the loss of support to the Modi government, we have yet to see any empirical
validation of it.. But, instead of wisdom, there is much vaingloriousness in the
PM’s style of decision-making that crimps discussion and examination of
alternatives. But, most commentators and opinion makers have read in the results
of the UP elections that there is popular support for demonetisation. Its vote
share declined somewhat to 39. This may or may not be so.124)This as much a book
about an event as it is about economic and monetary policy and the institutional
framework they operate in.
The writer, a policy analyst studying economic and
security issues, held senior positions in government and industry. But, Reddy
gets back his cold tenor when he sums up: "The story of demonetisation and its a
ftermath, in the first two months after the event has been one of unremitting
pain and China
foaming barrel screws Suppliers hardship inflicted on the people who could
not escape its impact. This means this much good, bad and fake money was
successfully exchanged.The PM made out that demonetisation was going to mean the
extinguishing of "black money†and all that wouldn’t be returned to banks would
be its bonus. He exclaimed in public: "How could I have been so stupid?†Leaders
are not immune to stupidity or else they would not be human. Demonetisation and
Black Money By C. The pashm then began flowing to Ludhiana and helped it to
become the great centre for the manufacture of woolens it still is. There is not
even the slightest sign of remorse or that he has learned anything.
This entails
wisdom. I have described it elsewhere as a singular act of vandalism.7 per cent
in 2017.C.The decision by the government to strip 86 per cent of the currency in
circulation of its status as legal tender, followed by restrictions on
withdrawals from banks and then the general shortage of cash, deeply hurt people
at different levels and in different dimensions. Kennedy, agreed to the
disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs Crisis. It has everything one
could or should want to know about demonetisation in general and the impact of
how it was implemented by the Modi government. Rammanohar Reddy, is an
irrefutably factual and cold analysis of demonetisation and its impact. He went
public and acknowledged responsibility. It had very few Rs 2,000 or Rs 500 notes
rolling out of its security presses, and no additional small value notes to pick
up the slack somewhat. The apparent unpreparedness and haste in rolling out the
GST is indicative of this. The Embargo Act of 1807 was passed by the United
States Congress in protest against British and French interference in US
shipping.†(P. In 2014, the BJP had a 42 per cent vote share. Rammanohar Reddy
Orient BlackSwan, Rs 295; 272 pagesHistory is replete with instances when acting
out of pique or haste inflicts huge costs on a nation. Kennedy realised he was
taken in and was the one responsible. JFK had assembled the brightest men in
America to be part of his cabinet, advisors and aides. File photo of people
standing in line to exchange demonetised notes. Neither was borne out. The only
time when some emotion creeps in is in chapter nine on Distress and Despair
where Reddy juxtaposes anecdotal newspaper reports on individual and collective
distress. It just proves that new money too turns as easily into black money as
the old money and nothing has changed. Ladakh never recovered from the loss of
revenue. Yet, they led him into a disaster. Clearly, the government was
unprepared.2L crores in high denomination notes Rs 13.8L crores have come back
into the system. The book is extremely clinical in its diagnosis and
conclusions. He marches merrily on. Even the most ardent Modi admirers admit to
that. That they may have borne it stoically does not mean that their suffering
was any less.
The resultant cashlessness has cost the national economy hugely,
and devastated the livelihoods of tens of millions. When you abruptly withdraw
high denomination currency notes equal to 86 per cent of the value or Rs 14. In
1961 the newly elected US President, the brilliantly educated John F.2L crore,
one would expect proper arrangements would have been made to replace what was
now excluded. It was over the usual reasons — caste equations and local politics
being the main focus.†Closer home, the great Ladakh king, Senge Namgyal
(1620-70), imposed a punitive tax on the pashm wool trade between Tibet and
Kashmir, which largely went by the shortest route through Ladakh, in response to
a slight by the ruler of Kashmir. There is not even the slightest sign that
Narendra Modi has realised the massive screw-up his demonetisation policy has
turned out to be. Out of the Rs 14. It is to the writer’s credit that he does
not let any biases creep in — the EPW after all does have a certain editorial
political slant — and keeps the focus tightly on the subject. Rammanohar Reddy,
a former editor of the respected Economics and Political Weekly, popularly
referred to as EPW, wrote his book Demonetisation and Black Money before the UP
elections.
The apprehension of hundreds of crores in new pink Rs 2,000s from all
across the country by the police as well as the I-T authorities within weeks of
outlawing the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes is enough proof of that. Even if not
educated in the conventional sense, seeking many options from a deep examination
of the issue by the knowledgeable is a quality essential for successful
leadership. He once said at dinner with them that not since Thomas Jefferson
dined alone had the White House seen so much brilliance, intelligence and wit.
It’s a book every student and practitioner of economics and public policy must
read. The UP election was not fought over demonetisation. Even the citations are
mostly from official documentation
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