If Pakistan causes trouble, something needs to be done: Errol Musk
Errol Musk, father of the world's richest man and American billionaire Elon Musk, on Monday called for an end to the miseries of Kashmiris living under the spectre of terrorism, saying 'if it is Pakistan causing the trouble, something needs to be done about it'.
In an interaction with IANS, the 79-year-old South African patriarch of the Musk family sympathised with Kashmiris living in a hostile environment and said, 'You cannot make ordinary people suffer like this… you've got to make a plan and put an end to it.'
Talking about the Kashmir issue, he said he has always been inclined to be on India's side on this matter.
'I have spoken friends who have been on bus trips to Srinagar from Delhi, and you never know how an RPG is coming your way,' he said.
Referring to the tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, he said, 'It makes no sense to me at all… for two matured nations to be going on like this.'
'You've got to make a plan and put an end to this. You can't make the lives of ordinary people so miserable,' he said. 'It's not right.'
'If it's Pakistan which is causing trouble, something has to be done about it,' said Musk senior, in a veiled endorsement for India's Operation Sindoor.
Errol Musk's remarks about the need to give Kashmiris a better life come close to Operation Sindoor and the subsequent global diplomatic outreach to present India's anti-terror stand.
As part of the diplomatic push to consolidate global support against cross-border terrorism, an all-party Parliamentary delegation led by DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi on Monday interacted with the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), an organisation in Spain that was established in 1981 to support those affected by terrorist barbarity.
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Mint
10 minutes ago
- Mint
PM Modi to flag off first train to Kashmir on Friday: Here's why it is India's historic rail milestone
The stage is all set for the first-ever train to Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will finally inaugurate the first Vande Bharat Express train to Kashmir on 6 June from Jammu after the completion of the 272-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project. This will be Prime Minister Modi's first visit to Jammu and Kashmir after 'Operation Sindoor' – India's precision strikes on terror camps in Pakistan launched on 7 May in response to the 22 April Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. Modi will flag off the train services from the Shri at Vaishno Devi (SMVD) railway station in Katra, Jammu to Baramulla in north Kashmir. Modi will also flag off another train from Baramulla to Katra on the occasion. Trains have been running between Banihal and Baramulla in the Kashmir valley, and between Jammu, Udhampur and Katra in Jammu region. But the 111-km Katra-Banihal section was the most difficult to construct owing to the challenging terrain. Modi will also inaugurate the highest railway arch bridge over river Chenab and India's first cable-stayed Anji Khad bridge on the occasion. He is also expected to address a rally on the occasion. Earlier, the inauguration of the much-awaited train was scheduled for 19 April, however, it was postponed dur to bad weather. Three days later Pahalgam terror attack happened in Kashmir. The development will end over 70 years of wait for a direct train service to Kashmir linking the valley to rest of India first time throough a rail link. At present, trains are operational just between Sangaldan and Baramulla in the Valley and from Katra to across the country. The Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link (USBRL) Project was initially sanctioned in 1995 during the time of Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, at an estimated cost of ₹ 2,500 crore. While the ambitious project to connect Kashmir by train began in 1997, it was commissioned in bits and parts and faced multiple delays due to geographical challenges posed by the terrain. However, it gained momentum after then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee designated it as a national initiative in 2002. In 2009, Qazigund - Baramulla section in Kashmir was rendered operational, following which in 2013, the 18-km Banihal - Qazigund section, and in 2014 - the 24-km Udhampur - Katra section was started. In 2023, the section between Banihal and Sangaldan was started and now the connectivity between Sangaldan and Katra, which is believed to be the most difficult of all sections has been completed. The Banihal-Katra section contains 97 km of tunnels and 7 km of bridges. In December 2024, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister of Railways, said that the final track construction of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link was finished. "Historic milestone; final track work on the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link is complete. The ballastless track work for the 3.2 km-long Tunnel T-33, located at the foothills of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine and connecting Katra to Reasi, was successfully completed today at 02:00 hrs," he wrote on X The famous Chenab Bridge, the world's tallest railway bridge standing 359 meters above mean sea level, is also part of the track and will enhance the picturesque route connecting Jammu and Srinagar. At an estimated cost of over ₹ 43,000 crore, the USBR Lproject involved laying out ballast less tracks over bridges and tunnels, spanning deep gorges, with 90 per cent of the route traversed over 943 bridges, and 36 main tunnels, including India's longest railway tunnel, T-50 stretching more than 12.7 km. On the Katra - Banihal section, the train will also traverse another engineering marvel, the Anji Khad bridge, which is India's first cable-stayed bridge. Supported by 96 cables, the 725-meter-long bridge stands 331 meters above mean sea level. For now, only one Kashmir-specific Vande Bharat train will ply on the Katra and Srinagar route to Baramulla. More trains will start plying on the route based on the public response, officials said. Earlier a direct train from Delhi to Srinagar was expected. But due to security and weather reasons, the passengers would have to get down at the Katra railway station and board another train to continue the journey forward to Kashmir. In February, Vaishnaw said that passengers who want to travel from Delhi to Srinagar can book one ticket and change the train at Katra railway. All passengers boarding the train to Srinagar from Delhi or vice versa or from any other part of the country would have to undergo thorough frisking. Besides, their luggage would be screened at the time of boarding. The luggage would then undergo fresh scanning at departure lounges once the passengers get down at the Katra station. Before they board another train, they would again be subjected to frisking by the security personnel. The trains will ply on the Kashmir route only during the daytime. No trains would ply during evening hours in the Valley. The Kashmir version of Vande Bharat is equipped with climate-specific adaptations to provide advance heating systems in sub-zero temperatures, driver's front lookout glass embedded with heating elements for defrosting, and to ensure clear visibility during harsh winters. The region's connectivity with the rest of the country would be improved with the completion of the USBRL Project and the launch of direct Vande Bharat trains between Kashmir and Delhi via Jammu. In addition to addressing logistical issues, this will boost economic expansion and encourage travel. -The total cost of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link project is about ₹ 43,000 crore. -The seamless all-weather connectivity links Kashmir Valley to the rest of India for the first time through a rail link. -The connectivity will boost the local economy and trade by offering easier transport if local goods like apples, saffron and handicrafts to major Indian markets. Until now, these products had to be transported through Jammu and Kashmir Highway which gets affected by harsh weather during winters. -The rail link will also improve access to popular destinations like Gulmarg and Pahalgam. Tourism in Kashmir Valley was severly affeceted after Pahalgam terror attack. Historic milestone; final track work on the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link is complete. -Officials said that the project will also create employment opportunities in railway, tourism, and logistics sectors. -Above all, it simplifies travel to major cities for medical care and universities.
Indian Express
12 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Amid tariff war, China appears unfazed, but its economy could be vulnerable; high debt and high deficit loom large
China's economy seems to have ostensibly shaken off the doomsday predictions stemming from the ongoing trade war with the United States, with that country's national statistics bureau presenting a picture of calm in its later GDP data release for April 2025. It showed stable growth with a mild softening in consumption and investment, and overall employment largely remaining stable. Retail sales of consumer goods grew 5.1 per cent year-on-year, just slightly lower than analysts' estimates of 5.5 per cent, while service industry production too increased by 6 per cent, and fixed asset investment rose 4 per cent over the previous year. Officials cited key factors like consumer trading programmes that incentivise purchase of household goods through a discounting scheme, increase in tourist and transportation inflows, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative as 'stabilising forces'. They are upbeat about economic growth projections staying on track, but analysts remain cautious. China's strengths, apart from its large and diversified economy, include its strong GDP growth prospects relative to peers, its pivotal role in global trade and robust external finances. More importantly, Beijing is seeing success in its efforts to build a whole new economic engine as part of its 'Made in China 2025' national strategic plan, which promises to be a source of future resilience, according to analysts. This includes world-beating companies in areas such as new energy, including solar panels and batteries, electric vehicles, semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals and AI. Notable among these are GCL Technology, the world's second leading producer of polysilicon — the key material for solar panels; electric vehicles makers led by global auto heavyweight BYD, Leapmotor and Nio and lithium-ion battery makers including CATL and BYD. The Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) combine, which have been working together to develop and produce cutting-edge chips, particularly in the light of US sanctions limiting Huawei's access to advanced technology, have been successful, quite like the Chinese space programme that also worked around American sanctions. Even as the prolonged slump in China's property market is dragging down consumer confidence and weighing on an economy already suffering from the effects of low productivity in heavy industry and cheap manufacturing, Beijing is seeing remarkable success in its focus on creating a high-tech, clean, and sustainable replacement to its old economy in the forms of these new age companies, with the aim of becoming the global leaders in each of these technologies. These, in turn, are seen as serving to transform China's image as the world's manufacturer of mass-produced goods and materials. As US President Donald Trump and his cabinet full of China hawks set out to address the trade imbalances, there could some looming concerns for Beijing. While the general impression is that a prolonged phase of higher duties could hurt the US more than China, analysts point to the fact that given the latter's precarious finances and some inherent structural weaknesses, a drawn-out tariff war could hurt Beijing as much as Washington, DC, if not more. If it lingers, China's underlying structural issues that range from high government debt, demographic decline, rising youth unemployment, combined with growing trade tension, could force a stumble, if not a stall. Festering Problems What is undeniable is that China's growth over the last couple of decades has been powered by capital investments, especially in the real estate sector, much of which has been financed by an inefficient banking system. With domestic debt levels high and rising, the property market continues to be under severe stress ever since property major Evergrande went belly up in 2023. The real estate crisis has badly dented consumer sentiment, given that nearly one in four Chinese have some sort of an investment in real estate. The investment in China's property market fell by nearly 10 per cent in the first four months of 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to latest official data, amid the renewed trade tensions with the US. For Chinese consumer sentiment taking a hit, the residential real estate market is one important factor. Then there are structural issues with the Chinese economy as well. While China has leveraged export growth and infrastructure investments to power its economic development over the last four decades, there is now the growing problem of youth unemployment. According to Hong Kong-based Spanish economist Alicia Garcia Herrero, outsiders see less of the unemployment problem than what actually exists there because in the Chinese manufacturing sector, workers are routinely asked to take unpaid leave. So these workers end up working fewer hours, and earning less, while technically being on the rolls. This, according to Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French investment bank Natixis and adjunct Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, is one reason why disposable income is not growing in China. The trigger for that is automation, given that industrial capacity in China is increasingly getting mechanised. 'China's economic power is increasing, but household power, or purchasing power, is not'. Fitch Ratings said in an April report that the step-up in fiscal stimulus announced by China's government for 2025 is likely to support the economic outlook, but the large budget deficit points to a continued rise in government debt in the next few years. Deteriorating public finances were the key factor behind the rating agency's decision to revise the 'outlook on China's 'A+' sovereign rating' to negative in April 2024. Debt/deficit Overhang China's fiscal deficit is budgeted to rise to 8.8 per cent of GDP in 2025, up from 6.5 per cent in 2024 (on a Fitch-adjusted basis) based on government reports at the annual legislative session of the National People's Congress. Experts say this – the combined deficit of the federal government and provinces – could be closer to 10 per cent. This is well above the projected median deficit for 'A' category sovereigns of 2.7 per cent of GDP, Fitch said in its report. The government's official deficit target was raised to 4 per cent of GDP in 2025 from 3 per cent last year. Experts say that China's total-country-debt-to-GDP ratio could be higher than what is put out, if one were to take into account the so-called 'hidden debt' and adjust for 'inflated' GDP claims. Western analysts have consistently maintained that China did not grow anywhere near the reported 5 per cent pace last year and are willing to shave off up to a percentage point from that number. Lower GDP, consequently, worsens the deficit situation statistically. Some of this increase in deficit is now driven by lower revenue, due partly to a structural decline in property-related revenues and tax cuts. Revenue is budgeted to fall to just 21.1 per cent of GDP in 2025, under Fitch's adjusted definition, down from 28.4 per cent in 2019. The government is discussing the introduction of new revenue-enhancing measures, but fiscal consolidation could face challenges if these are not forthcoming. 'China has grown almost entirely through capital investment,and because there isn't enough to invest in, a lot of good money chases bad, and they have reached a limit,' noted Anne Stevenson-Yang founded J Capital Research. That problem only seems to be worsening. 'External pressures will be particularly acute for Mainland China, at a time when the domestic economy is still finding its footing amid ongoing property sector challenges, subdued household confidence and consumption, and deflationary pressures… Fiscal policy will likely be a key tool for trying to stabilise the property market and offsetting external and domestic headwinds, keeping growth at around 4.3 per cent, but driving wider fiscal deficits and higher government debt, Jeremy Zook, Director, Fitch-Hong Kong said in a report titled 'Greater China Sovereigns Outlook 2025'. High fiscal deficits, coupled with subdued nominal GDP growth and the materialization of contingent liabilities, could continue to put upward pressure on China's debt problem. 'We estimate that general government debt (including central and local government debt) rose above 60 per cent of GDP in 2024, up from around 55 per cent in 2023 and exceeding the median for 'A'-category sovereigns of 57 per cent. In 2025, the debt ratio is likely to rise to the high-60s per cent of GDP level, based on budget plans and the ongoing 'debt swap' that will bring around trillion of yuan worth off-balance sheet debt onto local government books,' Fitch said. Expanding consumption remains the top government priority for Beijing in 2025. It is still unclear as to how large the fiscal impulse has to be, or whether it will sustainably lift underlying domestic demand. The government has set an ambitious growth target of around 5 per cent for 2025, and a lot will depend on stking demand, amid headwinds from subdued domestic demand, lingering property-sector stress and rising external challenges. Growth moderation/local govt debt According to the IMF Executive Board, which concluded the 2024 Financial System Stability Assessment (FSSA) with China, said that China's investment-led high growth model has given way to more moderate growth amid an unresolved property sector adjustment and an overhang of local government financing vehicle debt. Financial stability risks are elevated and rising, as compared to the 2017 FSAP, It noted, as asset quality deteriorates and bank profitability declines. While the largest banks are well capitalised and liquid, and appear resilient to shock, mid-sized and smaller banks 'appear more vulnerable'. The property sector downturn and local government financing vehicle debt pose risks, while loss deferral practices reduce transparency and may veil losses, the IMF said. Amid all this is the unfolding US-China trade war. There is a sense in Washington DC that China has gotten away with low cost manufacturing for too long. No other country has had the same level of global dominance across product categories since the early 1970s. This is more significant now than in earlier decades, when trade represented a much lower share of global goods production and consumption. For instance, the global trade-to-GDP ratio in 1970 was around 25 per cent, but by 2022, that climbed to over 60 per cent. Weakening domestic demand, alongside export-facilitating policies in products, where China is the world's dominant manufacturer, has led to prices collapsing globally and driving other national producers out of business. While the benefit of this has been a phase of sustained lower global inflation, China has simultaneously created a progressive stranglehold over global manufacturing: a level of manufacturing dominance by a single country seen only twice before in world history — by the UK at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and by the US just after the second World War, according to research by the Rhodium Group and from views flagged by Noah Smith's 'Manufacturing is a war now' piece. What makes China's extraordinary dominance in manufacturing worse is the continuing weakness in domestic demand in China. That too comes from the problem of China's unwillingness to vacate its earlier specialisation in low value-added manufactured products as it moved up the global value chain. This has concomitantly led to a weakness in Chinese demand for imported goods, which was expected to rise if China had ceded the manufacture of low value-added manufactured goods as it progressively moved up the value chain. So, more than Beijing's export competitiveness, weak Chinese imports explain this continuing imbalance. Anil Sasi is National Business Editor with the Indian Express and writes on business and finance issues. He has worked with The Hindu Business Line and Business Standard and is an alumnus of Delhi University. ... Read More
Economic Times
13 minutes ago
- Economic Times
How is India benefiting from supply chain diversification away from China? Morgan Stanley's Chetan Ahya explains
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads , Chief Asia Economist,says India is gaining advantage due to tariff differences with China. American companies are considering increased imports from India. Government policies are boosting manufacturing and exports. Electronics manufacturing is expanding beyond mobile phones. Infrastructure development will further strengthen India's manufacturing exports. Optimism in Indian equity markets aligns with positive economic fundamentals. The organization maintains a bullish outlook on think that the government capex has been the key anchor of the capex cycle and to the extent to which India has been embarking on this focus on manufacturing capex, the government's focus on infrastructure would be an important anchor to that private capex eventually improving as now, it is still the government capex and we had seen a bump down or a small slowdown period for government capex post general elections last year. But we have seen that in the last three-four months, there has been a meaningful pick up in government capex. In March, we saw that both central and state government capex growing at a very high pace and that has now taken the 12-month trailing centre plus state combined capital expenditure to close to the peaks that we had seen right before the general have seen this strength in government capex coming back again. As far as private capex is concerned, we were expecting that would have picked up a lot more by this time, but to the extent to which we have seen this trade tensions emerge from early this year that is going to affect the capex outlook not only in the region, but also in India, despite the fact that India has lower exposure to global goods reality is that it still has a meaningful exposure of 12% of GDP being its goods exports to GDP. We are expecting private capex to be going through a bit of an adjustment period in the environment of global trade tensions and then, over the next calendar year, that is, in 2026, we should see a pick up in private capex because by that time, the damage out of this global trade tensions would have been behind is benefiting on account of it. Right now, during a period where tariffs on China, even after having come down, are still at a very high run rate of 30% and from the 2018 period, you also have about 11% weighted average tariff on imports from China that the US has imposed. Cumulatively, we still have a 41% tariff rate for import from China for the US and that does give some sectors an advantage over China in terms of pricing and even sort of thinking about a bit more from a medium-term corporate sector in America is beginning to think about importing more from India. India is probably benefiting on account of that. Then, from a medium-term perspective, we have always argued that look, it is not just about taking away market share from China, but just getting rightful market share for India in the global goods exports and for that India's policies that were important and the government has been taking the right policies to boost that manufacturing sector have seen electronics manufacturing getting a leg up. We are going to see that expand into more and more products within the electronic segment apart from mobile phones and laptops. And at the same time, we think that from a medium-term perspective, this whole push towards infrastructure will really strengthen India's manufacturing exports. It is really a lot of the domestic policies that will be important from the long term apart from the short-term benefit that it may get on account of differential tariff rates between India and our regional and India strategists have been very constructive on India. So, we are aligned up as a house on being bullish on India.
