Russia says...

As reported by HT, India last year made the first payment of $850 million for the S-400 systems through a special mechanism aimed at averting sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) of the US.

A senior US State Department official said on January 8 that India won’t receive a blanket waiver for the S-400 deal signed in 2018. Under CAATSA, countries making purchases worth more than $15 million from Russia’s state-owned defence firm could be subject to sanctions, though the US president has the authority to issue a waiver.

Kudashev described the system created by Russia and India to protect deals from US sanctions as a “work in progress”. The sanctions triggered by payments have complicated trade and investment, he said.

“[The two sides] are developing inter-bank cooperation, and enhancing and strengthening the position of national currencies in their trade and investment cooperation. They are developing and testing the means of payments that are an alternative to the SWIFT system, which became one of the instruments for sanctions,” he said.

The two sides are considering other ways to “clear the way for growing cooperation in many spheres, be it military, energy and space”, he added.

Asked about China’s move to discuss the Kashmir issue at the UN Security Council, Kudashev said: “We’ve never been in favour of bringing this issue into the UN agenda because, in our take, this is strictly a bilateral matter for India and Pakistan to discuss on the basis of the Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration. This is our continuous position and it’s well known.”

Replying to another question on whether he wished to visit Kashmir to assess the ground situation, Kudashev said he hadn’t joined other envoys on a recent trip to the region as he hadn’t been invited.

“Quite frankly, I do not feel there is a reason for me to travel [to Kashmir]. Your decisions, as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, this is your internal matter, belonging to the constitutional space of India,” he said.

Kudashev echoed Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s criticism of the Us-backed concept of the Indo-pacific, saying it was divisive and omitted China and Russia. He acknowledged India’s position on the Indo-pacific wasn’t aimed at containing anybody.

“I would say quite frankly that we expressed to India, time and again, our concern about the American strategies [and] the Quad. As far as I understand, our concerns are taken into consideration and our dialogue on these issues is continuing,” he said.

Kudashev also said external affairs minister S Jaishankar will visit Russia from March 22-23 to attend a meeting of the Russia-indian-china trilateral. that his entry be blocked. He said Yadravkar had gone to Belgaum to pay homage to the martyrs, but the Karnataka government stopped him and manhandled him.

Raut said, “I have, however, learnt that the Karnataka government has issued special orders to prevent my entry in Belgaum. Belagum is in India. There may be border issues between Maharashtra and Karnataka. I am, however, a Rajya Sabha MP and an Indian citizen, hence I have decided to go. If you want to stop me, do so legally. Don’t attempt to forcefully stop me.”

The border dispute between the two states has been simmering for decades. Tensions had reignited in the border areas in between December 28 and 30 last year. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray raked up the issue and described Belgaum district as “Karnataka-occupied Maharashtra”. Effigies of Thackeray and Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa were burnt on both sides of the border by local outfits. State transport buses were stopped between Kolhapur and Belgaum as a precautionary measure.

On Friday, Raut said that Marathi-speaking people are under attack in the neighbouring state. “For some time now, Marathi people and Marathi language are constantly under attack by the Karnataka government and even the Marathi literary meets have been banned,” he said

Maharashtra claims an area of 2,806 square miles, which involved 814 villages and three urban settlements of Belgaum, Karwar and Nippani, were all part of the Mumbai Presidency before independence. The Marathi-speaking villages are spread across Belagavi and Uttar Kannada in north-western Karnataka, and Bidar and Gulbarga districts in north-eastern Karnataka — all bordering Maharashtra. are those with a GNI per capita of $12,376 or more. So, China will continue to be in the upper-middle income country classification.

Of the 218 countries for which income group data was available, according to a June 2019 World Bank classification, 80 countries were in the high-income category, while 60, 47 and 31 countries were in the uppermiddle income, lower-middle income and low income category. South Asia, which also includes India, is the only region which does not have a high-income country. India is in the lower-middle income category with a per capita GNI of $2,079 in 2018.

While China crossing the $10,000 per capita GDP barrier might not sound like a big development in the descriptive stats on income-wise distribution of countries discussed above, it’s a significant development given the size of the Chinese economy. Between 2010 and 2018, the latest period for which GDP data is available in the World Development Indicators database of the World Bank, China accounted for 29% of the total increase in world GDP in constant US dollars. This is 10 percentage points more than US’S share in incremental global GDP during this period. For India, the number is 7.5%. China’s share in world GDP in 2018 was 13%. (See Chart 2: Share in incremental global GDP)

China’s GDP growth will not come back to its earlier double digit levels, but as the first billion plus people economy to cross $10,000 per capita income level, its importance in the global economy will only increase in the future.