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 more”.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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