So, am I a Bhakt or an Andhbhakt?

Early last week I was having a heated debate with a friend on the just ended CJP protest in the heart of Bharat’s capital, at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. 

While the issue at hand for which CJP was supposedly agitating was a legit one aka the NEET exam paper leak, however, what it had transformed into over the course of last one month left very little to imagination as to who were the forces behind the so-called protest. And, last week, when the agitation turned violent, it further fueled the debate and that was the crux of the heated exchange with I saying that while protest can go on peacefully, no one had the right to break the law of the land and when the protest became violent, law was broken by the protestors. Now, there are claims and counter-claims contradicting as to who crossed the line — the protestors or the police with each claiming that the other crossed the line! Let us assume that the police crossed the line first and resorted to lathi charge but fact remains the protestors broke the law by gathering in numbers more than four people at a non-designated place ie. other the Jantar Mantar and they started blocking road in CBD Delhi. While it is a fact that students were injured in the police action but most of them were injured when they confronted the police and then resorted to stone pelting in which a large number of police personnel also were injured. Coming back to the heated debate of last week with this friend — my point was that the protest had been infiltrated by anti-national elements and it was evident from some of the slogans given from the podium but my friend was being sympathetic towards the young boys and girls who were injured by police lathi charge. I said that fact remains that on July 20th, the students who came to Jantar Mantar knew that the protest is going to escalate and their parents, am sure should have been aware of the same as CJP had given a call to escalate the protest on July 20th and that over the course of last one month it was also clear that anti national elements were also getting the stage in the so-called protest and on the 20th police had imposed restrictions on more than four people assembling at a place except in the designated area of protest aka the Jantar Mantar. So, with this background, if genuine students came for the protest on the 20th, they were putting themselves in the harms way and when the unlawful elements amongst the protestors broke law and later engaged in stone pelting, then genuine students were bound to get caught in the lathi charge by police. My friend, on the other hand felt otherwise and said bhakts like me would only see the political side of it and not that young students were hurt! Well, my answer was how can you ignore the background in which these protests originated — the individual leading the CJP and protestors it is a ex-member of a party that is well known for only one thing and that is creating anarchy and that he was coming from the US, only to start this protest also raised suspicions about who was really behind him. We all know that the global geopolitical situation has been in flux for well over a year now and Bharat has been in the cross hair of the US on multiple fronts from trade deal negotiations where Bharat isn’t giving the US any leeway, to Bharat’s consistent purchase of Russian oil and then there is US’ equating Bharat with Pakistan and then the the fact that US has repeatedly been claiming that it stopped the Operation Sindoor of May 2025, when we have consistently said it was Pakistan who asked for a ceasefire and we agreed and lastly US’ intervention in Bangladesh to install a anti-Bharat and anti-Hindu regime there. Then, there is the issue of China who had consistently armed Pakistan and also increasing its presence in Bangladesh and using its assets in Bharat to agitate against Bharat’s plan to develop Great Nicobar island into a major trans shipment port and a military base overlooking the Malacca Straits which carries nearly a quarter of global trade, primarily of China. And lastly, there are some key legislations lined up in Bharat’s Parliament namely the FCRA Amendment Bill to which the US has raised objections which reportedly Bharat has brushed aside. This is the backdrop of global geopolitical landscape and national political landscape when this protest was started by CJP whose founder arrived from the US to start the protest. What’s further interesting is the date of July 20th when they decided to escalate the protest and it turned violent — it is the date on which Bharat’s Parliament was to start its monsoon session and this critical legislation was to get passed — that session has been a washout so far in the past week because the protests took a violent turn on the 20th! Is that a coincidence? I think not! Also, in my 40+ years of residing in Delhi, I have never seen stone pelting by protestors in any protest in central Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and do remember there have been numerous protests there over the years — even during the 2011-12 protests against major corruption scandals of the UPA government (incidentally I too participated in those protests at the Jantar Mantar), Anna Hazare (who was on hunger strike then) was arrested by the UPA Government then and yet there was no violence by protestors, let alone stone pelting! So, to condone violence and be sympathetic towards it is unacceptable. But then, I was dismissed as a bhakt by my friend of many years and that got me thinking — is it so? For those who don’t know the term bhakt — it literally translates to being a devotee — it is a slang used derogatorily against people who support the Modi government regardless of anything Modi does or so the people who use this slang think!

With the above background, I will now examine if I am a bhakt or maybe even an andhbhakt — which translates to being a blind devotee! Since my friend of many years called me a bhakt, I am inclined to guess that most of the people who know me, perhaps do perceive me as one — and I guess I am! I say so because what Bharat has undergone since 2014 is transformational on many fronts — any sane person who can apply their mind and read data will agree to this. When Modi came to power in 2014, The Guardian newspaper of the UK, came up with an editorial saying that 18 May 2014 may well go down in history as the day when Britain finally left India (Read: India: another tryst with destiny | Editorial | The Guardian)! That wasn’t a mere statement — it was a prophecy that came true in the years that followed! Since that fateful day, Bharat has emerged from the shadows of India, year after year! Let me explain. Since independence in 1947, India has been living under west’s shadow — never taking pride in her own glorious past, its culture and its Sanatan roots, which were derided as backward and everything western was considered gold standard, from any and every western institution be it western corporations or be it institutions or media houses (so much so, there was a time when BBC News was considered more authentic in this country than her own new channels!) — anything from the west was looked up to with awe with awe and the ludicrous aspect was that we had even outsourced our history narrative to the west — and then, there were more western Indologists than Indian — things like Aryan Invasion Theory, Indus Valley Civilization having nothing to do with Vedic civilization, the Ramayan and Mahabharat we considered mythology and so was everything to do with Sanatan! And, of course fluency in English — a foreign language to Bharat — was considered superior and intellectual! Imagine! All this has changed dramatically over the last 12 years of Modi government — the Sanatan majority of Bharat today is taking pride in their roots like never before and there is a widespread cultural revival across Bharat and Sanatanis are unapologetically taking to their roots — this was unimaginable in 2014! Then there is transformation in infrastructure across the country from roads, highways, expressways to ports, airports and railways — the transformation of last 12 years on all these areas are hard not to notice! Then there is the transformation in internal security where we haven’t seen any major terrorist incidents perpetrated by Pakistan in Bharat in the last 12 years when compared to before when it was a regular affair every few months and that’s not all, Pakistan has been made to pay for each such attempt, be it Uri or Pulwama or Pahalgam — Bharat has called out Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail bluff each time with hit them and their terrorist infrastructure harder each time. Next is the transformation we have seen in our defense capabilities from almost nil defense exports in 2014 to nearly Rs 40,000 crores worth of defense exports last year and also arming our armed forces to become amongst the best fighting forces in the world with they showing their mettle in the western, northern and eastern borders with both Pakistan and China. Then, is the transformation of Bharat’s foreign policy with Bharat able to de-hyphenate its relationships with all rival global powers be it the US and Russia or Europe with elan as well as isolating Pakistan within the Islamic countries which was our Achilles heel earlier and the fact remains that Modi has been conferred highest civilian award from nearly 40 countries (including major Islamic republics as well as western nations) — am sure all these 40 countries also are also Modi bhakts! LOL! Then, there is the preservation of lives of our countrymen and maintaining economic momentum during century’s biggest pandemic which killed millions across the world as well as successfully navigating one of the toughest geopolitical challenges that has been thrown at us post the pandemic, be it the unending Russia-Ukraine war or the recent Iran-US conflict leading to disruption in petroleum products supply chains and spike in petroleum prices as well as disruption in trade routes leading to impact on international trade. This is not to forget that in the last 12 years, we also lifted a staggering 250 million people out of poverty! The list is a long one!

And as I write this, at a cafe just a few hundred meters from the ground zero (Jantar Mandir where the protests took place), the protests have ended last evening and again Modi magic has worked to diffuse it — he posted a video on Instagram a day before yesterday which generated 300 million+ views and after that Sonam Wangchuk ended his hunger strike and after resignation of the education minister yesterday, the protests too ended. For just these above listed items (and do note that it’s only a partial list as if I start listing what all we have achieved in the last 12 years as a nation, this post will become a tome) and for the fact there is no other leader close to Modi by a thousand mile who can lead Bharat today other than him, I am proud to be called a bhakt! And, knowing what we face as challenges as a nation in the near future and also keeping in mind the target to achieve the Viksit Bharat mission by 2047, I am even happy to be called an Andhbhakt! 😊

Humanity in the age of AI — Part 2

I wrote a piece on this blog (https://vikasmukundan.blogspot.com/2025/06) just about a year ago and this is in continuation to that. 

While I made a doomsday prediction saying that humanity will face an existential challenge from AI and robotics married with each other and the challenge will be in terms of job losses to begin with followed by survivability of the human race as we have seen in some of the Hollywood sci-fi flicks such as The Terminator series of the The Matrix series. Now that prognosis is something I still am sticking with, however, in this piece I want to highlight what most of the AI companies, as in the big ones such as the Open AI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, et al are up to. The money riding on the success of these companies and the ones supporting them in the ecosystem such as the chip makers, the hyperscalers, the data centers is so high that any chance of them failing or living up to expectations is a difficult to fathom scenario for the economies that are betting on the power of AI to reinvent the hegemony they have held over this world in the last few centuries.

Now, how are they doing this? 

While the prognosis of AI doomsday is real in the long term but how long is this long term is the biggest question. The answer to this question is elusive to 99.9999% or even more number of people on Earth unless you are part of the elite ecosystem that has placed heavy bets to ensure that these corporations survive and thrive so that these countries that cradle these companies go on enforcing and enjoying their hegemony over Earth and humanity. So, how do they plan to ensure that their hegemony continues — their hegemony playbook comprises of the following steps: (1) develop the most compelling AI models with the massive investments (which hardly anyone else can match) they have made via the handful of companies; (2) these companies then created a well curated ecosystem of partners and cheerleaders who help them to continually grow and evangelize the AI revolution; (3) a frenzy is unleashed by all these partners and cheerleaders across the globe making everyone awestruck, anxious and afraid, all at the same time making everyone wanting to join the AI bandwagon at the earliest to ‘gain’ efficiency, cost savings and hence competitive edge over their rivals — this is already visible across the world; (4) with large scale adoption of AI by the large number of businesses and government institutions, the select group companies with the AI models are able to develop AI agents (Agentic AI as it is known) or AI employees with the specific skillsets that are needed to run various functions within the businesses in diverse domains as well as in the government institutions — this step it in play right now — eg. Antropic teaming up with Infosys and other IT companies in India to develop Agentic AI; (5) when these AI agents are developed and they have learnt all the skills the human employee have ‘taught’ them knowingly and unknowingly through the co-piloting they did with AI to help the businesses and government institutions gain efficiency and cost savings, these AI agents will then be made available for hire to these businesses to do the job their employees were doing at a fraction of the cost than what these businesses were paying their employees. While this is happening, the AI models are also evolving and getting better and we will be reaching ASI or Artificial Super Intelligence, which would make these AI Agents better their skills at the work they are doing without any inputs from the humans. This 5th step will complete the loop and establish these large AI behemoths, who are already commanding trillion+ dollar valuations, establish themselves as the next set of monopolies who would decide who rules the business world and in turn the world and humanity! 

This isn’t a conspiracy theory but a prognosis that will dawn upon the world in not a very distant future from now. So, what’s the way forward for low income countries who do not have the economic muscle to develop these sovereign large language AI models? Is their fate sealed? Will this be the beginning of a new way of colonization of countries? Well, that will be the objective with which the US and China are progressing their AI programs — sheer global dominance in every field! 

Having said all this, I have a bad feeling about this — that is, as humanity, we have embarked on a irreversible mission to create a Frankenstien, one that will bring doomsday on itself in not so much distant future. Whilst, humans want to use AI to dominate other humans and perhaps subjugate them too using technology thinking that this too will deliver the same results as it did in the last few hundred years, but this time, its a genie that will be let out of the bottle, one which is unlikely to be controlled by humans!

The next decade will be the defining one, one that will write the future of humanity.

As I finished writing this piece, a news came in that the US government has banned the access of Anthropic’s latest offerings, Mythos and Fable to all non-US nationals (even in the US) as well as users in other countries, other than the US — a clear indicator of the hegemony as mentioned above!

A new “global peacemaker” is here! Really?

Recently Pakistan has stepped in to get the warring parties to negotiate a peace deal or should I say Pakistan has been set up by the US into this new avatar! On the face of it, it gives the US an escape route to exit the conflict which it got into without an exit plan in place and two there is also enough circumstantial evidence that Pakistan’s PM was asked to put out a post on X, which was in all probability drafted in the White House! By circumstantial evidence I mean Pakistan PM’s original post on X came with a header that said, “draft for Pakistan PM” and he amended it to remove that and let the rest of the post remain unchanged. Clearly, a Pakistan administration employee won’t call the drafted post as one with a heading “for Pakistan PM” — if a bureaucrat in India were to draft anything for PM Modi, then, they’d call it, “draft for PM” or “draft for Prime Minister Modi” and not “draft for Indian PM” — this clearly shows that the post was drafted outside of Pakistan and going by the recent bonhomie between the US and Pakistan, and the known fact that Pakistan has been subservient to the US throughout its history as a nation, this isn’t much of a leap of faith from there. The question isn’t is if Pakistan is doing this, rather it is why Pakistan is doing this and more importantly why the US is playing along nicely because just before India launched Op Sindoor after the Pahalgam terrorist attacks a little over a year ago, the US was all for India decimating Pakistan! 

So, let’s start with why Pakistan has gotten into this role of an uninvited mediator and pacemaker? For this, we need to understand the situation Pakistan was/ is in before it started out with this role. In the last few years, Pakistan has come increasingly close to becoming a failed state with its economy and finances in shambles and its internal polity is turmoil with the previous PM Imran Khan incarcerated and his supporters sporadically fighting the streets with the forces of current PM Sharif as well as the army — it is a well known fact that it is the army that decides who is the “democratically” elected government in Pakistan. Apart from economy and polity in shambles, Pakistan faces freedom movement of the Baluchis who have been in an armed struggle with the Pakistan state since its formation and off late it appears that the Baluchis are winning and so is the case of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with a major resistance group, the TTP originating from there and they too are against the Pakistan state for its closeness with the US — all these are challenges that Pakistan is facing on the internal front. On the external front, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been having a troubled relationship with scores of skirmishes on the Durand line. And then, the Pahalgam terrorist attacks were perpetrated by Pakistan in April of 2025 and what followed was establishment of India’s doctrine against cross-border terrorism and that was to pursue and destroy terrorist infrastructure anywhere it existed resulting in Operation Sindoor in May 2025 during which India destroyed Pakistan’s carefully built and curated terrorist infrastructure across that country and that led to Pakistan escalating and attacking India’s military assets as well as civilian areas which led to India’s retaliation and destruction of scores of Pakistani air bases as well as military installations and aircrafts — within three days of conflict, Pakistan sought ceasefire from India and India agreed to a cessation of operations, a pause in the ops, not a stop of the Operation Sindoor. Post Pahalgam terrorist attacks, India has also put the Indus river treaty in abeyance and since then re-started the dam projects on the rivers that were letting the waters flow to Pakistan unchecked — India stated that water and blood can’t flow together in response to Pakistan’s state sponsored cross-border terrorism in India. This is the background to where we find ourselves today when Pakistan has suddenly found favor of the US and is so-called playing a “peacemaker” in the US-Iran conflict! 

Some questions that I started with and still remain unanswered are: (1) how come the US who had stated clearly that India can take action against Pakistan for the Pahalgam attacks changed its stance to become pro-Pakistan? And, (2) how come Pakistan has now assumed this new role as a “mediator peacemaker”? Let us delve a bit deeper to understand what’s happening behind the scenes in this geopolitical soap opera!

Firstly, the first question — what led to the change in the US stand on Pakistan post Pahalgam to post Op Sindoor? During Op Sindoor, following Pakistan’s escalatory attacks on India, India hit at one of the sites in Kirana hills near Mushaf/ Sargodha air base. Kirana hills is one of the sites where Pakistan stores its nuclear arsenal — it is also believed that the US also stores some of its n-arsenal at the Kirana hills and because of this strike by India on this site, the US DS forced the hand of Trump administration to change its stand on Pakistan and started pushing for an alignment with the Pakistan state to the point that Trump himself has since kept parroting that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan and amusingly that he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for it apart from stopping so many other wars across the world! The India-US ties took a nosedive since these utterances of Trump (along with the arbitrary tariffs imposed by the US on frivolous grounds) as they were contrary to what India’s stand has been all along that it was Pakistan who asked for a ceasefire and India had thus paused Ops Sindoor — do note that India has since consistently maintained that it has paused Ops Sindoor and not stopped it and that Ops Sindoor part 2 can start anytime soon. This stand of India has kept Pakistan on tenterhooks since and its chief Asim Munir who has been granted the title of Field Marshal, unashamedly for getting a solid drubbing at the hands of Indian armed forces during Ops Sindoor! Interestingly, there has been another deal that has happened between the Pakistan state and the Trump family is on crypto currency wherein a Trump family owned entity, World Liberty Financial (WLF) joined hands with a Pakistan government entity, curiously this deal was signed just before the Pahalgam terrorist attacks in India — so, Trump family interests were aligned with Pakistan even before these attacks took place — was this just a coincidence or a planned tactic by the Pakistan state to influence alignment of the US with its own interests, post the attacks? This can be answered by the fact that there was no valid reason for this deal to take place between WLF and Pak-government as was brought to light by Pakistan media itself and thus, it does appear that Pakistan state was wanting to influence an alignment with the US post the Pahalgam attacks. Lastly, since its independence, Pakistan has been aligned with the US and many times over, it has been bailed out by the US both financially and militarily and its fair to assume that the US DS has deep interests in Pakistan’s survival as a nation (as its vassal state) as from there the US can exert its influence in the region as it has consistently done in the past — from getting rid of erstwhile USSR from Afghanistan, to keep India busy by arming Pakistan and supporting it during all the Indo-Pak wars, to have a vantage point to exert influence over Iran, to name a few. 

With this background, let us now come to the second question ie. how come Pakistan has now assumed this new role as a “mediator peacemaker” in the US-Iran conflict? Well, it’s been an engineered move by both the US DS and Pakistan military. The fact remains, that the only reason Pakistan can even play such a role of a “mediator peacemaker” between the warring entities is that it is a neighbour of Iran, nothing else! Iran and Pakistan are adversaries on many fronts, not to mention that Iran is predominantly a Shia state whereas Pakistan is Sunni dominated, and a state that has a history of atrocities against the Shia minority in Pakistan. This is further evident from the fact that Iran has been cagey about Pakistan in such a role as it doesn’t trust the Pakistan state and it knows the US-tilt that the Pakistan state has — and as evidenced by the fact that this role hasn’t delivered any result so far! But Pakistan’s role as a “mediator peacemaker” continues to make headlines across all of world media and has been touted across as an emergence of a new Pakistan as a “global peacemaker” of sorts! It is amusing indeed but what this narrative has achieved for Pakistan are brownie points of being a “global peacemaker” across the global audience that has been reeling for over two months of severe disruption in energy flows and soaring fuel prices. Thus, Pakistan has become a so-called darling of world media (which generally eats out of the US DS hands) and they have spun a wonderful narrative for Pakistan of being a global peacemaker, someone who is trying to bring stability in one of the most uncertainties  times in the recent history. It’s another matter that Pakistan is fighting off Afghanistan on its western border and recently bombed and killed 400+ people in a hospital there and it continues to kill the Baluchis who are fighting for independence from Pakistan. So, what’s the endgame for Pakistan here and with that for the US DS? As I said earlier, India has been repeating time and again that Op Sindoor is not over and part 2 will begin soon and Pakistan has been on tenterhooks since the cessation of hostilities in May 2025. India has stopped/ reduced the flow of Indus basin rivers to Pakistan after it put the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance and is restarted the stalled dam projects on these rivers at a frantic pace — this will put pressure on Pakistan this summer, starting this month. So, Pakistan will in all likelihood retaliate with another terrorist attack on India in the coming days and when that happens, India will launch Op Sindoor part 2 and go for decimation of Pakistan and to that end, this “global peacemaker” narrative of Pakistan will come handy to put pressure on India to abate Op Sindoor 2 in its tracks — this is the reason why both US DS and Pakistan state has cobbled up a fake “mediator peacemaker” narrative for the failed stated of Pakistan so that it doesn’t cease to exist and the US DS continues to have a vassal state for exerting influence in this part of the world.

So, what’s happening in West Asia?

It is seemingly a clownish behavior of a head of state to do things that have so far been done and given statements against sovereign countries as have been given and acts done as have unfolded in last over three weeks period. So, why did all of these unsavory things happen? Is it because the Americans have given reins of their country to a clown? Well, on the surface, this is exactly how it looks like. However, there far more sinister things at work here than what appears on the surface.

Let’s look at the events that have unfolded over last one year — the said head of state has imposed arbitrary tariffs on every possible country in the world, ally or adversary alike but it did not help the US as he had tom-tommed about to begin with and instead it has impacted the US economy and public negatively. On the other side, the US funding of Ukraine in the never ending Russo-Ukrainian conflict has ballooned the US fiscal deficit over an increasingly unsustainable level of $37 trillion! Over the last one year, from the roller-coaster of tariff policy with every possible trade partner over the one year, to claims of making peace across the world in ensuing wars, to attacking Venezuela and installing its pliable government there, to claiming ownership of sovereign territories of Greenland from Denmark, to getting ready to take over another sovereign country Cuba apparently saying that, “I can do what I want!”, Trump has shown clear and unmistakable signs of a megalomaniac, narcissistic clown who has by providence gotten control of the so-called solo super power of the world! With all this in background, just eight months back US-Israel had attacked Iran and claimed to have destroyed its nuclear capability — so, why was there a need to attack it again over a weekend when negotiations were going on and expected to get positive results when they were to resume on Monday post that fateful weekend?

For this, we need to go over 6 years back — just before the onset of the Covid pandemic — a pandemic that wasn’t an accident but one that was started deliberately. The question that has been asked many times over is who started it and why the it was started? The pandemic as we know it now was employed as a tool to hopefully create mass population reduction and dismantle governments across the globe that didn’t suit the powers that be, aka the deep st@te (DS). It achieved some of its goals partially especially to dismantle un-pliable governments across the globe from Brazil to the UK to Australia and many countries in the middle but it couldn’t remove one ie. Modi government in Bharat. Since then, there have been relentless effort to dismantle the Modi government by the DS — be it attack on the stock market (through the likes of Hindenburg) or be it the caste bogie to divide the Hindus and Muslim vote consolidation behind CONgress to dislodge the Modi government in 2024 general elections and yet Modi government came back, albeit in a coalition and the efforts for dislodging continued even after that under the Biden administration’s last six months or so. So, when in Jan 2025 the Trump administration took office in the White House, Bharat and the Modi government expected a reprieve and revival of Modi-Trump partnership carrying on from the 1st term of the Trump administration albeit it was clear to the Modi government to begin with itself that the Trump administration would focus on MAGA to address it constituency that had voted him to be their President for the second time. So, whilst the tariffs were expected but what was expected was some sanity in its implementation. However, on the contrary, it has been an arbitrary roller coaster of tariff announcements, withdrawals and implementation and again with arbitrary hikes on whims and fancies of Trump! To top it, Trump has had a beeline of world leaders visiting the White House to meet with him to negotiate tariffs but instead he has been heaping insults on them in front of the whole world — the latest in this has been the newly elected Japanese Prime Minister who was insulted in the White House. On the other hand, tariffs continued much of the world submitted to the tariffs imposed by Trump, Bharat and China pushed back and while China pushed back by blocking off critical mineral and rare earth magnet exports to the US and thus got lesser tariffs; Trump imposed arbitrarily high tariffs on Bharat for buying Russian oil. After almost a year Bharat-US agreed on contours of a trade deal only to be further disrupted by the US Supreme Court order of cancelling the tariffs imposed by Trump and now that trade deal’s fate too is uncertain as are his tariffs. To add to this, Trump is looking for ways to reimpose them! 

Now, there is a marked difference in the way Trump conducted his business in his 1st term versus how he is doing it now — this time around, he’s acting as a brash bully, insulting world leaders after inviting them to the White House and throwing diplomacy to the trash can! While his actions can be called clownish but it has become increasingly so as his 2nd term has progressed. Why has this change in Trump’s behavior come about to become a clownish brash bully? Today, the US faces its biggest challenge as a country as its fiscal deficit reaches unsustainable levels; the economy is teetering; its global hegemony being challenged; US dollar’s standing as reserve currency of the world being challenged; and in the stock market one always keeps hearing of a big AI bubble ready to burst — not a happy situation to be in for the so-called sole super power of the world! Even after imposing 50% tariffs on Bharat, it did not create any significant impact on Bharat’s exports which only grew (including to the US) and so did the economy that grew over 7% in all of 2025 and expected to continue at the same pace going in 2026! On the other hand, China too continues to grow around 5% even after high tariffs imposed by the US with very limited economic impact, at least visibly so. 

So, the DS’ objective to effect regime change not having worked out for Bharat and continued rise of China despite all efforts wasn’t seemingly happening under the scenarios that were visible clearly to them in the last 6-7 years and on the other hand world order seems to be changing from uni-polar to a multi-polar one with the US hegemony as well as US dollar’s dominance as a reserve currency getting challenged especially by China and Bharat. Therefore, the DS had to come up with something ingenious. And, Trump was perhaps the best candidate that could pull off what the DS wanted to accomplish — that is to stop the rise of Bharat and ditto with China. So, the ‘clown’ in Trump was ‘unleashed’ and given the job to clown around while delivering tariffs along with insults to the visiting head of states! This way post his term apologies can be sought for his misdemeanors as that of a ‘senile clown’ and the US can have an easy reset of ties with all the bruised partner countries including NATO. So, why attack Iran again and then go on to make the ‘clownish’ statements he keeps posting on X — in one such latest statement, he’s talking about ultimatums of impending destruction to power infrastructure in Iran and then in the next moment, stoppage of all hostilities for next 5 days! Why? These two statements and responses to them by Iran has left stock markets across the globe crash and oil prices touch $120 per barrel and then bounce back the next day! In the last one week, Israel attacked the oil and gas fields and infrastructure in Iran and Iran carried out devastating attacks on GCC countries from Kuwait, to Bahrain, to Qatar, to Saudi and the UAE. These attacks have ensured that a significant portion of oil and gas flows from the gulf will remain unavailable for a few years at the very least, if not more. On the other side, in the last few days Ukraine has attacked oil infrastructure in Russia as well and there has been fire in a major refinery in Texas, US. The impact of all these events will result in oil prices firming up and they will remain firm for the foreseeable future impacting the global South and both Bharat and China the most! At the same time, the FIIs are selling stocks in Bharat relentlessly since Sep-24 leading to a continuous slide of the Rupee as well as the stock markets in Bharat — this will further make oil and gas imports expensive, increasing demand for US dollar and thus leading to further slide of the Rupee. Both these, higher oil and gas prices and their depleted supplies and devalued Rupee will impact Bharat’s economy very adversely: fiscal shock, balance of payment issue, scarcity/ increase in prices of fertilizers, higher prices of oil and gas for domestic consumers, rise in inflation, decreased consumer demand and thus reduced tax collection for government or in effect, a stunted growth of Bharat’s economy and thus lesser resource availability with Modi government for social sector leading to making it unpopular. This will impact China too albeit to a lesser degree. So, the DS achieves its objective of containing Bharat while impacting China too significantly and after 3 years when the new administration takes office in the White House, it will blame it all on the ‘clown’ Trump and ask for a reset in relationship with all countries but by then they would have delayed Bharat’s rise, managed China’s power and ensured US dollar’s dominance as reserve currency and that the US still remains the global hegemon! 

 

While the DS is hoping for this outcome — but just as after the man-made pandemic where it failed, it will in all likelihood fail here too, yet again! 

 

Humanity in the age of AI!

AI is here! 

We’ve heard this hundreds of times till this moment and almost have a nauseous feeling about it now! While AI is here and I will go on to say that it is here to stay perhaps longer than humans themselves in the form as humans exist today. 

So, what can we expect the future to hold for us humans? 

This question too have been answered by many and the body of answers to this question too keeps on growing by the day. Some broad predictions include the following: in the next one year, majority of computer programmers will be replaced by AI programmers or agents as they term them; in the next two years we all will have in our pockets, intelligence that’s equivalent to the smartest mathematician or a physicist et al or what they call Artificial General Intelligence (AGI); and in the next 3-5 years or maybe 6 years we will have AI that’s more intelligent than intelligence of all the humans put together or what they call Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)! And this is only on the software side! On the hardware and computing  side, we’d have quantum computing getting advanced and applied; and also married to AI and that will perhaps speed up the evolution from AI to AGI to ASI and well beyond! It’s not going to stop at that - the hardware will also mean robotics coming of age…the age of androids is well and truly ushering in!

With AI getting married to robotics and getting sophisticated and better and better with each passing day and ubiquitous, what will all this mean for us humans? So, with androids and robots abound with intelligence and mobility equal or better than humans, one clear result will be that humans won’t have jobs as we have come to know them over the last few hundred years! Most jobs and I’d stick my neck out and say 99% of jobs in services and manufacturing as we know today will not be existing in 10 to 15 years from now. 

So, what is human race going to be doing to keep itself engaged meaningfully? What has happened so far? The Industrial Revolution that started about 300 years ago led to creation of today’s education system that kept humans busy with this education system for nearly 25% of their lifespan and then the jobs as we have known them kept us busy for another 30-40 years and then once we were in our sunset years, we were inconsequential to powers that be and hence majority of the productive and energetic population was kept meaningfully or perhaps meaninglessly kept engaged! 

But all this is going to be turned on its head in the next 10-15 years - so, what can be expected? Chaos for one in the human society! Can this impending chaos be avoided? 

What’s touted as a solution is UBI or Universal Basic Income - but, is it really a solution? I think it’s more of a consequence of the cataclysmic changes that will dawn on us as human race in the next decade or so. And, the challenge of governments across the globe will be on how to keep people engaged meaningfully (not the meaningless job engagements humans had over the last 300 years!) with UBI just providing sustenance, not engagement! 

The survivability of human race depends on finding the new age jobs that will keep humans meaningfully engaged employing all their faculties aka physical, mental and creative ones in this upcoming age of absolute automation!

Modinomics unleashed: A new economic model taking root!

Not very long ago, only some 6-7years back when there was a lot of debate on social media, print, and electronic media and on the ground among common people on the street as to what should be done at Sri Ram Janma Bhoomi when the dispute was simmering and there were a significant number of people who were of the opinion that the best way to put the dispute to rest was to build a hospital or an educational institution there! In hindsight, those opinions albeit well-meaning then, sound hollow and apologist today – it was not just a historical wrong that was corrected on that fateful day in November 2019, but a much bigger era dawned upon India that is in fact Bharat – an era of Sanatan Economics. 

Let me get into explaining it right away – it has been well over eventful 4 years of the second term of Modi Sarkar. Whilst there has been a lot of action on the ground with infrastructure building (roads, expressways, airports, ports, metro rail, dedicated freight corridors, rail electrification, semi-highspeed Vande Bharat and the upcoming Bullet Train and the train to Kashmir valley and Leh, all the traditional areas of the economy have seen multi-fold growth over the last 9 years); technology leapfrogging (indigenous 5G network and now plan for leading development in 6G, space and defence production and booming exports); domestic defence industry growth and export; digital infrastructure and digitalization of economy; et al – the list is very long. All of these will help grow India as an economy with solid infrastructure and booming manufacturing and exports that will feed into the global supply chain as a reliable partner. All of this is evident now to all and we can see it unfold before our eyes – but these are the traditional economic engines the world has come to see over the last 200 years, country after country – from Europe to America to Asia and now in India. This model of economic progress is time tested and we are seeing its results already in India and they will become pronounced more and more in the coming decades. 

However, this isn’t the focus of my piece – it’s what’s happening in the hinterland as well as the cultural renaissance that is silently sweeping the nation across its length and breadth. Bharat as we have known this nation as for many a millennium is slowly rising and will be unleashing its potential for the world to see and embrace in the coming millennia. We have all known that Bharat lives in her villages – over 60% of her people live there. The cultural renaissance is slowly not just sweeping Bharat but India today – you know what I mean, right? Apart from all the known metrics of economic developments as mentioned above, there is a new economic metric taking shape and deepening its roots again in Bharat – it’s her cultural heritage that’s centered around her Sanatan past, her temples that have been her centers of faith, spirituality, education, culture, festivals, and livelihood –in other words, the entire human lifecycle in all its manifestations – this new economic metric is Bharat’s culture & heritage infrastructure, her raison d'être. In the last 9 years, Modi Sarkar has invested nearly Rs 13,000 crores in this new economic metric. Places such as the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, Mahakaal Corridor, upcoming Ayodhya Sri Ram Mandir, Sri Krishn Janmasthali and Vrindavan, Pandharpur Corridor, development of Char Dham circuit, Hemkunt Sahib, Kushinagar and Sarnath, the Ramayan circuit, just to name a few and the infrastructure around these places are some of the examples of this new economic metric. Do remember, these are the infrastructure around the temples and not the investment in the temples that have been made by the community. If you are wondering why I call it the new economic metric, then, I will say we are on the cusp of something spectacular that we will witness in the coming decade and far-far beyond which will put the economic growth model as we know it to flip on its head. We are already seeing some green shoots which I will talk about – in 2022, Varanasi witnessed 70 million visitors, Mathura saw 60 million visitors and Ayodhya 26 million of them – in comparison, the very popular tourist destination Goa saw only 8.5 million visitors! To give an idea about the boom we are witnessing consider these figures: Varanasi saw a mere 6.4 million visitors in 2019 and Goa saw 8 million in the same year. In 4 years and a global pandemic in between, we are seeing an 11+ fold growth in visitors to Varanasi but Goa’s tourism growth remains flat. Also, to put these figures in perspective – it will be interesting to see the statistics in some of the globally popular religious places: in 2019, the Vatican saw 6.9 million visitors and Mecca saw 2.5 million visitors – these figures have remained flat post-pandemic in 2022. 

The scale of the tourism boom we are witnessing in and around the temple towns of Bharat is phenomenal, to say the least. And do note that it is just the beginning – for instance, the Sri Ram Janma Bhoomi temple is yet to open to the public – expected in early 2024 – but booking for the hotels in Ayodhya are running full for the foreseeable future and these are not just budget hotels but even luxury ones! There are over 700 districts in Bharat and around 650,000 villages i.e., almost 1,000 villages to a district – a temple town will have the power to impact the economy of 5-10districts around it or 5000-10,000 villages as people living here would get a source of livelihood from the tourists that will throng these temples. Now for some numbers: there are over 6,50,000 temples across Bharat of which 800+ are major temples across the length and breadth of Bharat i.e., more than one major temple per district – for an idea of scale, there are 33,000 ancient temples in Tamil Nadu alone – yes, you heard right 33,000 ancient temples!  

As is evident from visitor figures in Varanasi, Mathura, and Ayodhya in 2022 – if on average a tourist spends Rs5,000 per visit, between these three cities, they earned Rs 80,000 crores which is only going to grow – that’s an addition of Rs 150,000 per capita p.a. for these three districts or Rs 30,000 per capita p.a. if we consider the economic impact to be to 5 surrounding districts too – this is just the direct impact and not considering the multiplier effect this will have on the local economy. Further, this growth in just three temple towns alone will add nearly 4% points to Uttar Pradesh’s GDP this year! Now, imagine Bharat’s culture & heritage infrastructure getting unleashed at all the 800+ major temple towns across the length and breadth of Bharat. This will have a huge impact on the local economy at the district level and especially the village economy making villages sustainable, thereby arresting migration to urban centres. And then there are things like the Kumbh Melas – four in all – all of them can be huge tourism drivers. So, the success of Uttar Pradesh in developing the temple towns along with its culture& heritage infrastructure will spur other states to act in doing the same and thus ushering in a sustainable economic model that will not just be dependent on an economic model that the world has seen over the last 200 years, but one that complements it and, in many ways, exceeds it.  

To facilitate this new growth engine, the Modi government is launching its latest program, PM Vishwakarma Yojana aimed at supporting the traditional artisans and craftsmen while encouraging more people to take up traditional vocations in rural and semi-urban areas with an outlay of Rs 13-15,000 crores. This will encourage learning skills in the Guru-Shishya Parampara and perhaps usher in the setting up of gurukuls across Bharat further bolstering Bharat’s culture & heritage infrastructure. Not to mention, the previous programs of Modi Sarkar will help act as catalysts for this new economic model – these include the programs such as the Swachh Bharat program which ensured the setting up of millions of toilets in rural areas; Har Ghar Bijli program which ensured every village was connected with the electric grid; Ayushman Yojana program which has ensured providing health cover to over 500 million people with most beneficiaries from the rural and semi-urban areas; Ujjwala Yojana program which has ensured providing cooking gas connection to 50 million women of below poverty line families; Har Ghar Jal program which is on the way to provide potable water to all village households – this has already reached 67% of the 190 million+ rural households. All these programs are going to empower the rural and semi-urban population of Bharat to contribute economically because they will be freed from the daily struggles of existence – all these programs along with the support of Viswakarma Yojana to be launched in September 2023 will empower the rural and semi-urban population to take advantage of the Bharat’s culture & heritage infrastructure being built around her temple towns. 

Just a millennia ago, Bharat accounted for almost a third of the global economy and it appears that the journey to reclaim that position has well and truly begun, that too with a new, yet old, and time-tested model of sustainable growth!

We forge the chains we wear in life!

 We forge the chains we wear in life!

                                                            - Charles Dickens

This quote by Dickens made me stop and wonder about its applicability or was it merely rhetorical.

Whilst, it is true albeit some of these chains are willingly worn by us as if we like wearing them. As if, they are lovingly forged and worn with a lot of pride. For instance, if I like to write or to sing, I would develop these skills with a lot of dedication and love and spend a lot of time and effort honing them. Thus, these skills become chains forged by me that I wear happily while knowingly or unknowingly they limit me from exploring a new area or skills which perhaps would have given me equal pleasure and fulfilment.

So, are such forged chains desirable or not? 

One can argue that no chain is desirable but then, human excellence stems from such forged chains...Charles Dickens wouldn’t have been a renowned writer if he had not bound himself by such a chain in life. So, the question isn’t if a chain is desirable or not but whether the chain that we forge and wear in life is setting us on a path towards excellence, pleasure and fulfilment or is it pulling us down and limiting our life from its full expression of its potential. 

So, let's go ahead and forge chains and wear them with pride that set us free to express our life uninhibitedly to its full potential.