A weekly conversation on five things that were on @ht_ed Sukumar Ranganathan's mind.
| | | Good morning! | | ONE  Will the Bharatiya Janata Party be able to make its presence felt in Tamil Nadu, a state where no national party has managed a significant footprint since the late 1960s (although some have piggybacked on either of the Dravidian parties to mark some sort of presence)? Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP have invested a lot in Tamil Nadu: this year alone, Modi has made three visits to the state; and from the Kashi Tamil Sangamam (a cultural programme to explore links between the two that was launched by the Union government in 2022) to the investiture of the Sengol (sceptre) in the new Parliament building, the party and the PM have worked hard to build a connection. The answer to that question is straightforward, and involves only one thing of the BJP: subsuming the Dravidian identity in the larger Hindu identity. This is something the BJP has done well in the Hindi belt, leveraging welfarism and Hindutva to consolidate the Hindu vote across castes (thereby eroding the base of traditional social justice parties such as the Samajwadi Party that depended on the other backward classes, or OBC, vote). But Tamil Nadu isn’t in the Hindi belt and most of its people are not poor enough to be enamored by handouts (not that they won’t take them). There’s also a demographic aspect to the answer – the politics of Mumbai has changed with migration; it’s entirely possible that the politics of Tamil Nadu, which is also dependent on migrant labour from the poorer North and the East too will – but that’s something that could take a decade, perhaps more. Still, the very fact that I’m raising the question in this newsletter suggests that the answer isn’t as categorical as it once was. | | TWO Will the Congress government in Himachal fall? It looked like it would on Tuesday when six Congress legislators (and three independents) cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha elections, resulting in the loss of the Congress candidate who was expected to win comfortably. By Wednesday, it looked like the government would stay but that the chief minister would have to go. On Thursday, the crisis seemed to have blown over, at least temporarily, with the Speaker suspending the six legislators. But on Friday, with Vikramaditya Singh – a minister in the cabinet who voted according to the party line but then resigned citing a slight to his father, the late Virbhadra Singh – meeting the rebels and then reported to be on his way to Delhi to meet with leaders in the BJP, the question-mark was back again. | | THREE  Is the Indian economy on a trajectory that no one really understands? In January, when the National Statistical Office projected that the economy would grow by 7.3% in 2023-24, I wrote in a newsletter: “It may be a bit premature to say this, but I get the sense that 7% may be the new 6% in the case of the Indian economy. That projection has now been taken up to 7.6% according to data released this week which also showed that the economy grew by 8.4% in the three months ended December (a Bloomberg poll of economists projected 6.6%). While I believe my observation in January pretty much answers the question above, HT’s editorial had a more reasoned answer. “A comparison of growth over the period between 2021-22 and 2023-24 – these are the numbers which have been revised between the data released in January and February – shows a lower GVA growth and weaker private consumption in the latest numbers than what the January data showed. The state of Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) – it accounts for more than half of India’s GDP – is particularly worrying with annual growth in 2023-24 being the lowest since 2002-03 which was one of the worst drought years in India. Unless the PFCE engine of GDP starts firing consistently, sustained economic momentum cannot be taken for granted. A broad-based revival in PFCE is also necessary for a rejuvenation of the private investment cycle,” it observed. | | FOUR Will we see a big solar storm between now and 2025? Mine is a generation of worriers, and I worry about things big and small, local and global. Sometimes, my worrying is justified (On December 31, 2019, I told my newsroom that I was very worried about the flu China had just alerted the WHO about). Often (fortunately), it is not. But to answer the original question: perhaps. Solar storms follow an 11-year cycle, with their activity going from “solar minimum” to “solar maximum” as a fascinating article in The New Yorker says, and 2025 marks the solar maximum. So, should we be worried? That’s a function of probability (which has consistently worked against us since 2019) and your individual personality type, but as that article adds, “the sectors that bear the brunt of bad space weather… are the backbone of modern society: telecommunications, aviation, space-based technology and the power-grid.” | FIVE  Is it even a Rush album if it doesn’t feature Neal Peart? I’ve been listening to Rush, the eponymous first album of the Canadian band, but with John Rutsey on the drums, that came out in March 1974 (because the Spotify algo decided I should). The Led Zep influence is clear, especially in Geddy Lee’s vocals, and in some of Alex Lifeson’s more bluesy licks, but I realised my feelings towards the album hadn’t really changed since I last heard it (must have been at least a decade ago). It’s nice, but… And so, the answer to the question would be: no. | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | | 
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