World Bank retains projections for India's economic growth at 7.5%

Current Affairs

After the weak gross domestic product (GDP) data, India has something to cheer about. The World Bank has retained projections for India’s economic growth at 7.5 per cent for the current fiscal year even as it cut global economic expansion by 0.3 percentage points.
In its Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank, however, pegged the growth at the same pace of 7.5 per cent for the next two fiscal years.
For the current fiscal year, the growth is quite high, given the fact that India’s economy grew just 6.8 per cent in 2018-19, a five-year low. Also, the growth plunged to 5.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, also a five-year bottom. Also, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had earlier cut economic growth of India to 7.3 per cent from earlier projection of 7.5 per cent. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) pegged the growth at 7.2 per cent.
World Bank retains projections for India's economic growth at 7.5%
Without naming Pulwama terror attack and Balakot strike, the Bank made a reference to these incidents between India and Pakistan. “Skirmishes between India and Pakistan in February are a reminder that latent geopolitical tensions can flare up at any time," the Bank said. The Bank said investment rate in India was expected to grow at a slower pace in 2019 than in 2018. It, however, said investment growth was expected to remain robust as benefits of recent policy reforms further materialised.

 “Private consumption and investment will benefit from strengthening credit growth amid more accommodative monetary policy, with inflation having fallen below the Reserve Bank of India’s target," it said.

Pulwama attack: UN Secretary General calls on India, Pak to defuse tension

Current Affairs:

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on India and Pakistan to take "immediate steps" to deescalate tension that soared after 40 Indian security personnel were killed in an attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pulwama.

"The Secretary General stresses the importance for both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalation, and his good offices are always available should both sides ask," the UN Chief's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Tuesday at the daily press briefing.

Dujarric was asked about a meeting Pakistan's Permanent Mission to the UN has sought with the Secretary General and also about Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi saying the UN must step in to defuse tensions between the two nations.
"...Looking at the situation in general between India and Pakistan, we're deeply concerned at the increase in tensions between the two countries in the wake of the attack on Indian security personnel on 14 February in Pulwama," Dujrraic said.

He said Pakistan's mission at the UN requested for the meeting with the Secretary General.
"We have seen press reports of a letter having been delivered to the UN. As far as we've ascertained, none has been received as of this very minute," he added.


 Last week, Guterres had "strongly" condemned the terror attack against security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, perpetrated by Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, calling for those behind the attack to be brought to justice...Read More

Pulwama attack: Sitharaman slams Pak for seeking proof of its involvement

Current Affairs:

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lammed Pakistan for seeking proof of its involvement in the Pulwama terror attack and said it was India which has been providing evidence but the neighbouring country has not taken any action on it.

She was reacting to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's message to India to share 'actionable intelligence' if his country was involved in the terror attack for any action.

"Since the Mumbai attacks, not just this government, the earlier government also had sent dossiers after dossiers, evidence after evidence, what action has Pakistan taken on them?" she asked.
Also, at every level India has been following the process of law and the Mumbai attackers had been brought to book and punished by court of law, she told a press conference here.
"In Pakistan not even the first court is doing its job. There is nothing for Pakistan to show," she added.

Reacting to Khan's comments over the attack, Sitharaman said she would not want to say how the government was going to respond to it as no word is sufficient enough to assuage the anger and disappointment of every person of the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already allowed the Indian Army to respond at any given time and as they see fit, Sitharaman said.


 On the defence forces morale following the Pulwama terror attack, Sitharaman said "The morale is not affected at all, they are absolutely ready to do their job...Read More

Strategies for Pulwama-like attacks trace back to ISI HQ: Christine Fair

Current Affairs:
In the wake of the Pulwama terrorist attack, India needs a discussion about what is in its best interest — should it continue with its strategy of restraint or change its behaviour — says C Christine Fair, author of In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Fair tells Bhaswar Kumar in an interview that terrorist attacks like Pulwama will continue because this is the only way Pakistan can show India that it is not defeated, no matter how powerful India becomes. Edited excerpts:

Indian governments do not say so. Unlike the US, India does not have a written National Security Strategy (NSS). Each American President has to issue an NSS and this is the standard by which informed citizens can monitor the budget and other applications of national powers. Few countries have NSS documents. These are helpful documents, as they effect a public debate and provide a road map for the elected government.

So, though one could not be certain, one could infer a general avoidance of confrontation from the Indian government's behaviour. And, it seems to be a constant since the post-Kargil time.
India understands that if it can keep focusing on its economy, it can continue increasing its defence allocation in real terms, with its overall economy continuing to grow. That will allow India to outgrow the Pakistan threat.


 For its part, Pakistan understands that it has an army that cannot win the wars that it starts, and nuclear weapons that it cannot use, so it must demonstrate that India's hegemonic goals are not unchallenged. This means Pakistan must attack India through proxy actors under its nuclear umbrella, just to demonstrate that India has not defeated it or forced it into accepting the status quo...Read More

Pak, China share the blame for Pulwama attack but India must introspect to

Current Affairs:

Millions of Indians will by now have seen the twisted wreckage of buses carrying dozens of Indian paramilitary soldiers from the Central Reserve Police Force, or CRPF; at least 40 of them died when a car loaded with explosives rammed into their convoy as it passed through Pulwama district of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a group of militant Islamic extremists who pioneered suicide bombings in the disputed region of Kashmir, claimed responsibility for the attack. As one Kashmiri politician wrote on Twitter, it was “reminiscent of the dark days of militancy pre 2004-05.”

Jaish-e-Mohammed is based in Pakistan. Its leader, Masood Azhar, gives speeches freely and the group has built a sprawling training complex in the city of Bahawalpur, which features a wall painting of suitably militant-looking horses bearing down on Delhi’s Red Fort. Periodically, the Pakistani government pretends to crack down on militant Islamists such as Azhar; in fact, the terrorists continue to raise funds, recruit and strike at will across Pakistan’s borders. Nor is it just India that suffers. The Afghan government tells all and sundry that it cannot defeat the Taliban as long as the militants are supported by Pakistan. Just a day before the Kashmir attack, the Pakistan-based Sunni extremist group Jaish al Adl killed 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, also using a car bomb.


 Pakistani officials often like to say that their country is among the foremost victims of Islamist terrorism. Perhaps. But, their response has been at best to accommodate extremism, and at worst to try and convince terrorists that their efforts are best turned outwards, towards India, Afghanistan or Iran. Indian government officials -- like the Afghans -- are caught in a bind. They have little leverage over the militants’ patrons within the Pakistani military establishment. Nor are the Americans any longer influential enough to help: Jaish-e-Mohammed went quiet in the mid-2000s at American insistence but reemerged soon enough.