Daily Global Insights | Jun 22, 2021 | US News | India News | Global News | Markets

Sree Iyer: Namaskar, today is the 22nd of June, Tuesday and welcome to Daily Global Insights with Sri and Sree, episode number 187. We begin with Global News.

And in global news today, the President-Elect of Iran will not meet with Biden and its sticking to Militias and Ballistic programs and Hardline stance, while the White House vows to hold the Iranian president accountable for all human rights violations. Good morning, Sridharji and what do you make of this news?

Sridhar Chityala: Well, first and foremost, I think that this was consistent, this is expected first on Biden statement is to say that’s the line that they have followed. If you recall, the statement of Antony Blinken, he said, we don’t have plans. Would Do you like to give a percentage? I can’t say. So there’s a consistent pattern that they are following, which is namely, we have no immediate plans to confront China over Covid. So, do they have plans at the house, I don’t believe they have a plan? While they say that, when McCarty says, I have a plan and we in house Republicans have come out with a plan to hold China accountable and we have a roadmap and here’s the sequence of 8 steps that we will take from Discovery, identification, imposing specific sanctions on people associated with the lab, assessing who what grants we were giving, stop funding the grants etc., before we start imposing the bans.

If you ask President Trump if he was in power, what would he do? He would say that he would impose a 10 Trillion dollars fine. And we will make sure that we deduct that money from the debt that countries owe and we tell China, those debts are cancelled, that’s what President Trump would do. Let China go to hell in terms of where they’re going to recover that from.

So, what does China do? Okay, China reacts and says, I’m going to award two Lady Scientists or two scientists we call them the bat women. This is a Chinese National Science Academy and we are going to give them an award which is equivalent to either the Academy of Sciences award or which is the Nobel Prize, which is to say outstanding contribution to science award we’re going to give it to this to people. You can see the contrarian position how divided and polarized the world is, China is really exploiting the lack of leadership in the world confronted at all.

Sree Iyer: Iran nuclear power plant undergoes unexplained emergency shutdown. The plant is located in the port city of Bushehr built with Russian help. So this is the second time that the nuclear plant is shut down.

Sridhar Chityala: It is and, you know, apparently there was some decision, the Bushehr region on the Northern side and it has been shut down and you know there is no rhyme or reason. It’s also possible that this particular plant may be going through apparently, the rods, which is used for refuelling must be sent to Russia. And it is done with Russian collaboration before it is enriched and sent back. It’s possible; some such activity is going on in the region so therefore that’s what is causing the problem.

Sree Iyer: North Kim Jong-Un vows to be ready for a confrontation with the US and Biden Administration as it offers to meet with the Korean leader any time with no preconditions. Again, this person hasn’t been doing anything, hasn’t been saying anything, why go and needlessly offer to negotiate with him, sir? What is the logic behind that?

Sridhar Chityala: The logic behind that is to show to demonstrate to the world that for every policy of Trump, you know, Biden has an equal policy to battle against.

Sree Iyer: Right opposite.

Sridhar Chityala: Yes, right. So therefore you took the words out of my mouth. So what does Mr Kim Jong-Un say I am here. I am ready to confront Mr Biden and I can take him apart, Russians have done it. The Chinese have done it. The Turkish have done it. How come I haven’t got my turn? I’m ready. So, what does Mr Biden do? Well, I am very happy to meet with the North Korean leader but I do not have any preconditions and I’ll meet them at any time. What’s he going to kind of discuss denuclearize, the Korean Peninsula and this gentleman are going to say what’s in it for me, for me to stop playing with my toys, because it’s the toys that keeps me distracted and busy, while the people are suffering, and I play around and create nonsense around. So I think this is going to be the outcome, just as the outcome from another place. At least in Russia, I feel that notwithstanding positive and negative adverse press something has come out, you’re not going to change on Ukrainian or not going to change on Crimea. But at least they may be room around this gas, oil, Energy, prices, plus of course, these ransomware attacks. There may be some progress, but the moment Navalny issue props up Russia is going to say pull back. So, with North Koreans, the key is with the Chinese, not with anyone else so unless you give a key to Kim Jong-Un, that’s what President Trump did. He says, okay, you stay there, you want few things, you know, you have but don’t put anything into the water or don’t put the other side of the Border if you do. So, then we will act because we got lots of things around the ocean and we will try to create a problem for you. He seems to have listened. So that enforcement deterrence is not there in the foreign policy of Mr Biden, there is no deterrence. Right now, there is some modicum of that is visible, only in Taiwan nowhere else.

Sree Iyer: Myanmar Myanmar Junta Chief Woos Russia with a Moscow trip. And the United States is planning more Russian sanctions over Navalny poisoning. I think we refer to this yesterday that there could be additional sanctions coming Russia’s way and I think it has come out true. Sir, as always nobody is going to give us the credit, we will have to take it ourselves. We predicted it. Your thoughts, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Indeed. I think we have probably done it. This is our 187^th show. We have reasonable predictability in terms of data plus, of course, insights that can flow with the data. So, no surprise there that there are more sanctions coming on the Russian front. My concern with more and more sanctions going in is what is it going to do to OPEC and oil prices because that is a very combative weapon that Russia can use and we’ll cover that bit in the market section. Anyway, on the Myanmar side, it’s a very well known fact that Russia and China are, you know, proactive supporters of the Myanmar Junta and that has been the case from time immemorial until they got integrated into ASEAN on and became mainstream and we began to see South Korean, Japanese and other types of Investments. So these are despotic regimes or military regimes. You just don’t shake with all this democracy, kind of stuff, just allow them to make its case or you have sufficient deterrent message to enforce. If you have China and Russia now Turkey part of this triangle, new power triangle, then all these countries get away by playing one against the other.

Sree Iyer: And a top US general wants of wildfire of terrorism across Africa. This is something that has been talked about a little bit before, but now it is beginning to start taking front and centre stage. We now have some congresswoman from these areas who are representing the American interests also, they are partly called a squad. And surely you should be able to guide the American opinion, properly. What are your thoughts, sir? Is it going to be that way? Or is it going to be the opposite where, you know, the Biden Administration came in lifted sanctions on some of these countries, more of them will now flea into the United States, sighting refugee status? In fact, the United States has rejoined UNHCR, which Trump had pulled it out of because of the indiscriminate, have to say this thing. People don’t even know how many people came in during the Obama administration who got Refugee status, and then came in. And now, of course, Biden has given Open Season, people were not even checked for what their citizenship was. They were allowed to cross the border from the South and you know a people, they are something going, south is going bad here, it is going north and it is going bad for America. I don’t know. Your thoughts sir. Where does this lead everything to?

Sridhar Chityala:  I think it leads everything to potential Hot Spot areas of terrorism and threat. This is the head of the US African command, Mr Townsend, making his observations around what he defines as or what we call as the SAHEL region, which is a combination of 10 countries, stuck right in the middle, you know, North Africa stretching from east to west-east, is basically from Somalia going back into South Sudan across Nigeria into, you know, Burkina Faso, Molly Algiers and going all the way into Liberia and so on. So what’s happened is these 10 countries have become the hot spot for the old Wings to take shelter in this specific region, especially after the Liberation of Libya and the Burkina Faso Molly Algiers and the protocol of the Niger crisis. Then you have had War lot spiking which we covered in that region. So what they are now saying is that apart from Boko Haram, which is in Nigeria, you have an Al- Shabaab, you have you know, the Al-Qaeda you have the Islamic State we have Zameen. So, you have all these different groups have taken shelter, they’re effectively running the local Administration in this new region. So is no longer the North Africa, or West Africa, which is the threat, or the Middle East, but it is the new SAHEL region. Where there is this freedom of Terror that is, running the rain in these parts of the world, they basically children are being radicalized. Men and Women are forced and compelled to follow the rules of the gate. I mean if you want an example, everybody should know what happens in Boko Haram in Nigeria or what happens, in the South Sudan region, of course, you have seen the warlord’s fighting. So if this is the region, more importantly, okay, the terrorism is developing Terror threats. What does this mean? I think you set the stage and set the context by stating that we have people from here, you know who have interest people from the United States, who have an interest. So, some of these areas which were originally made in the no-fly list where people were not allowed to come because potentially a security threat, all those doors are open. Visas processing flights have started. Of course, Covid may have restrictions, but the flights are likely to starts very soon whenever the Covid opens up. So, potentially along with the surges that are happening, across the border, we have a new threat, which is the emerging security threat. Now, if you dip further, then you go into Afghanistan. Do you know what’s happening in Afghanistan? We covered that yesterday. So this is what they are alluding to and warning, which, like a line item, appears but, we are highlighting it because it is, it could have significance in the days to come.

Sree Iyer: Singapore’s Covid-19 breath test, give the results within two minutes and Singapore questions inefficacy of sign of Sinovac. So, now again, one more country is questioning the efficiency of the Chinese vaccine’s Sinovac. A top medical adviser, says, “No Fans” Safest for Tokyo Olympics. So Fan means that if you use a fan, then the breath starts spreading around, is that why the doctor is advising this?

Sridhar Chityala:  Well, I think that quarantine programs, the test programs plus there is a, you know, the audience this is we are on the threshold of rising cases of Covid in Southeast Asia and East Asia, right? So under these circumstances, when you have Indonesia Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, even Taiwan raising cases, these are all the neighbouring countries around Japan. When the flights are restricted from many parts of the world, these are the adjacent Nation’s potentially from where flights can be open and people coming into Japan as tourists. So they’re saying that is the last thing that we want especially, you know, we just or in the process of accelerating the vaccination program proceeding Olympics. We don’t even know whether we’re going to complete dose one, let alone dose one and dose two under the circumstances, if we want to conduct the Olympics better to conduct the Olympics and people can all watch it, just like, you have zoom sessions and online sessions, you can have even Zoom sessions plus the television, so television maybe broadcasts only some components. So, you can begin to use it in a private broadcast as well to give that personalized touch from an Olympics point of view.

Sree Iyer: Now, let’s take a look at the United States news. Biden Administration says that there are no immediate plans to confront China over Covid-19. This after the New Revelations that a very senior Secret Service official may have defected along with his daughter into the United States in February 2021, with terabytes of data, this is new emerging news will keep you posted on that, but I just wanted Sridharji to answer it, in the backdrop of all these revelations coming. What are your thoughts? Why is the Biden Administration, so hesitant? And Kevin McCarthy has laid out a plan for the House, Republicans to hold China accountable for the Coronavirus pandemic, and a road map that includes eight steps that Congress can take. Now, on the contrary, China nominates, Wuhan Lab bat Woman for outstanding science award, this you alluded to. But I am just questioning the Biden administration’s sudden reticence in moving against China. I mean, this is just two, three days ago, I think we reported that Biden wants the US to get to the bottom of what happened to the source of the Virus.

Sridhar Chityala:  The enforceability of the Biden Administration based on all the bilateral discussions that have taken place is quite clearly absent. The best way to characterize Mr Biden, at least right now is what Mr Vladimir Putin said Mr Biden is great. He is like a carrier worker, but his machoism is fake and he is not a strong person. So, therefore, we are going to deal along with those terms. So, that is Vladimir Putin himself in a national broadcast on NBC channel here, in the United States, Monday preceding the summit. So what you’re witnessing here, is people sensing a weakness in administration is probably one of the progressive measures which basically says, you know, I’m soft, compassionate, accommodative, and so on, and so forth. So, he’s afraid why to ruffle the feathers and create a problem possibly, that’s what his policymakers are saying.

And you know, the United States is borrowing like nobody’s business, you know, we’re going to have six trillion dollars budget every year for the next four years so, which means we have to borrow. So under these circumstances, you have supply chain disruptions, import disruptions. You have a confrontation in the South China Sea, then, you have a confrontation in Covid, whether you will get a world consensus in United Nations or somebody will veto it to impose sanctions in China. These are all the questions that must be weighed. Linda Thomas Johnson, or Linda Thomas, who is the United Nations Ambassador is considered to be soft on China. If you are going to take United Nations as a vehicle, this came up in the hearings as well. So when you put all these things together, why anybody thinks that Biden Administration is going to be strong on Covid.

Sree Iyer: As if all this is not enough, here comes another shocker. Commerce Secretary and her husband own stakes in the WeChat parent company. Even as the United States now rescinds the decision on WeChat and TikTok bans imposed by President Trump in September last year. This news here says reviews but we believe that is already been done. So, this is screaming at me, conflict of interest, conflict of interest, conflict of interest. How can the Commerce Secretary first of all, that Commerce Secretary should have, you know, sold all the stakes, second of all now, it’s basically batting for the opposition here. It is very, very strange. I don’t understand what US politics stooping to, I’m very disappointed. What are your thoughts are?

Sridhar Chityala:  My thoughts are, this again, came up during Gina Raimondo’s hearings in the Senate, she weaned away. And basically, it was established that WeChat and TikTok remember India banned, this whole swag of applications because there’s a lot of data that is collected out of this. This is what we call transaction downloads is a lot of data that is collected, the ban related to that, therefore the usage of the applications. So, therefore now we are saying we’re going to rescind it, nobody knows whether it collects data also on a real-time basis and sense it, but it is possible because it’s a WeChat at or TikTok. So, under the circumstances, you rescind, the latest or the breaking its rescind, the decision is rescinded, so therefore you can now go and get your WeChat and Tiktok. So, the question is, whichever way you go, whether you go towards Hunter Biden, whether you go towards Swalwell or whether you to go to words Gina Raimondo, everywhere there seems to be a conflict of interest, some association or engagement with China in some way or the other. So under those circumstances you’re going to see more and more such decisions coming to Mainland. Somebody said this very well and be covered it in Daily Global Insights, he used to say ‘If it Trump’s policy was x, my policy is going to be y. If x policy was ban all oil drilling and energy pipelines, leases, etc, Biden’s policy would have been no Climate Accord, we are going to allow all these things to happen. So that is why Trump banned it, we are going to oppose it. So, very stupid decision and very regrettable.

Sree Iyer: Democratic FrontRunner Nina Turner in Ohio has special ties with controversial activist Linda Sarsour. While the Democratic candidate, Matthew Putorti who standing against Elise Stefanik at the RNC chair is registered as a foreign agent of Qatar. Wow, this is amazing. Linda Sarsour has links with Palestine, isn’t it?

Sridhar Chityala: Yes, she has links with some of the countries that you alluded to and it seems like the progressive groups have a very strong agenda of getting their people in and getting their policies in, and these policies are not reflective of what the United States locally needs here but seems to be of United States policies towards those countries outside of the United States. That is the reason why we have covid-19 aid going to all countries outside in conjunction with aid being granted here. Now, imagine if you have names ranging from Ilhan to Rasheeda, to others, all have sympathy towards specific countries. Now, we are going to have Nina Turner joining that, so, there are going to be probably more additions coming into play. And then you had the liberal New York practising lawyer Mr Matthew Putorti who has a registered relationship with Qatar. So what you’re beginning to now see is an emergence of a pattern within the present Administration in terms of where we are heading. I really see two major problems. One is a domestic problem. The second problem is what’s going to happen with the foreign policy and more importantly, what’s going to happen to Israel? because Israel is one country that is going to have maximum impact by some of the decisions and some of the actions that are going on within the United States.

Sree Iyer: The Supreme Court of the United States sides with athletes and rejects the NCAA compensation limit. This is a very good decision, in my opinion, sir, and I’ll let you answer right after I make the next announcement. Also, a transgender athlete Chelsea Wolfe qualified to represent the US in the BMX freestyle threatens the burn the US flag on the medal stand, I think this is Olympics, a. And a federal judge rules that BLM cannot sue President Trump over Lafayette Square. Now taken together, these are all elements that are still continuing to create riots and trouble and what have you. And I think burning the flag is not an act of sedition under US law. It really, really puts a very poor image of the country on the world stage, is my opinion, sir, I don’t know what you think.

Sridhar Chityala: Firstly, the Olympics is supposed to be binding countries and Nations together in a single Harmony. The podium is an occupation that is a reflection of the contribution of an athlete hailing from a nation, and recognition of it. So somebody to go onto that Podium and burning the flag when the flag is raised just speaks for itself. We don’t need to elaborate on the comment. Chelsea Wolfe is a transgender athlete who is making the observation, her whole goal of contesting and getting selected is to get on the podium and burn the US flag. The less said the better. But it is a highly disrespectful, and highly disgraceful and most unwarranted outcome from an athlete who is trying to compete and represent her Nation. Why would you want to represent a nation when you have such… You can be here burning the flags. You cannot be representing a Nation. So therefore it just very contradictory, very disgraceful.

As far as the NCAA is concerned, this was long overdue. In fact, I read many parts of the ruling. They went on to say, in one show you make 16 million dollars, for example in March Madness. Each of your Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners has salaries ranging from $5 million to $3 million-plus you have other bonuses and then you are saying the athletes who compete cannot be given and there should be a ceiling because that preserves the ecosystem. They said those are the guys who are feeding you and you are telling them that they cannot be paid. If they want to come in Lamborghini to their college, these are their exact words, ‘If they want to come in Lamborghinis, stop that. But you aren’t going to stop them from earning money, having houses and tuitions and other kinds of things. So give them decent earning and you cannot impose conditions on the compensation. So, therefore, it’s a great victory for the athletes. It’s like scholarships, expanded scholarships because now they deserve it at the end of the day. Today is nothing that bars people from work and study either, nothing. When you work, you pay taxes, so when you earn money, you pay taxes within the construct of the system. So I think it’s a great outcome, sir.

Sree Iyer: Sir, many in the United States say that watching NCAA basketball is the real thing because every one of those games is treated by the players as their last game because they need to break into the highest level, which is the NBA and for that, they need to put in their 100% effort. Therefore, I think it is only fair that they also are rewarded for all the risk they’re taking. For some, if they can’t break into the top uppermost tier, that’s it. There is nothing else they can do because this is the only skill set to survive in the world. So let’s wish the best of luck to the NCAA athletes and I’m looking forward to the next March Madness.

Moving on, unvaccinated Americans risk losing jobs potentially setting up another legal challenge. Democrats are trying to short-circuit the big Tech Legislation. So a little bit of expansion on what the Big Tech legislation is? Is it that the government is trying to break up some of these big companies like Facebook and so on?

Sridhar Chityala: There are two components to it. One is a break-up. The second element is associated with is some element of rules. They won’t remove the specific article that gives them the Unilateral Indemnity. So they have a Unilateral Indemnity against any litigation. India has led the world, Russia has followed suit and many other countries have followed. Singapore has followed suit. Florida has followed suit, forget anybody. Florida has basically said, there is a liability restriction of up to $100,000 in terms of litigating in suing these things if there is an unfair treatment that is meted out to them. In fact, in many instances it is unfair. So you will begin to see some calibration of the law associated with that. Because both Democrats and Republicans, this is bipartisan, are united that if Republicans are in power, the Democrats get the wrong end of the stick or if the Democrats are in power, Republicans get the wrong end of the stick, so they may be legislation around there. So these are the two things. One is split up. The second is the recalibration of the indemnity plus the rules of managing the content.

Sree Iyer: Biden awaits the details of a bipartisan infrastructure plan and will meet lawmakers this week while announcing that families will receive child tax credit payments from next month. Biden says that he’s eyeing the expansion of Obamacare in the $6 trillion budget. The Democrats have started to draft a budget resolution bill that would allow them to pass the bill without a GOP vote. I think we should look at what Joe Manchin is going to do on this. The voters are not sold on the Democrats 800-page rewrite of election laws, the bill appears to be doomed in Senate. Looking together at all these three news items, your thoughts. Do you think that the infrastructure bill that he dreams of 2 trillion is going to pass now? Is Joe Manchin going to change his mind? Your thoughts, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: My thoughts are very simple. Democrats have their votes. They can burst the filibuster. Harris will vote and the progressives will have their way. So they have already drafted the resolution. All this drama will soon come to an end. If it is not, then what they would do is they will pass one bill and then they will use the executive order or they will use the back end process in terms of getting the rest of the components. There is no way that they’re going to get away from all those things. The Climate Accord Bill that people are talking about is basically to have a huge segment of money maybe to feed 2.5-3 million people in the United States. So they become a captive would back. I’m sorry, I’m calling it that way. If you have data to prove the other way you come back and tell us that the data is the other way. But this is money, a countless pool of money that is being allocated funded from taxpayers because you have to pay taxes to pay for it. We do that in a separate Fireside Chat session once the 6 trillion and 2.5 trillion budget is announced. Then we will do a special budget coverage where we will tell is not 400,000, its everybody from 75,000 is going to a tax.

Sree Iyer: In India related news, India achieved the highest ever single-day tally of 8.096 million doses for a total number of 283 million doses. Indian team reaches the United States for training on MH-60r submarine-hunting helicopters. Indian railways successfully complete the trial of the first double-stack container from Mundra port to CONCOR MLP in Rajasthan. Samsung moves display manufacturing unit from China to India with the completion of construction work. So with your permission first, let me put up the chart with respect to the covid achievement that India has done. Very impressive, sir. I have it up now, please go ahead.

Sridhar Chityala: Well, sorry I have to use my phone if you don’t mind. The charts show that the numbers are very impressive because you can see the dispersion of the numbers. But what I find very conspicuous is Madhya Pradesh leads the number of vaccines doses that are given which is around 1.371 billion. Then not to fall behind, you have pretty close to a million from Karnataka. Then you go to the next which is Uttar Pradesh. That’s got about 631,000 vaccines. Then you go to Gujarat which has got 486,000. There you go to Haryana which is 450. Then you go to Bihar which has 423. When you look at the pie chart you find that almost close to 60% of this is coming from BJP ruled states. Is there some hesitancy on part of Congress-ruled states? Especially, Maharashtra has 368,000. It is one of the big States. Punjab is another one. Tamil Nadu has got only 296. I’m sure you will pick these up in your Ask Karthik.

Sree Iyer: Oh yes, right.

Sridhar Chityala: So you find that it’s quite astonishing. But great progress by India.8.096 million vaccine doses is a remarkable number. The number seems to have a slightly updated and it seems, they’re saying now it’s 8.6 million. If that’s the number, well, India is not too far from vaccinating 10 million people. Already 8 million is huge, 10 million would be an outstanding number for a country that was blamed. One important piece of data that I want to give, India is a country that is producing the highest number of vaccines, higher than the United States. India has got a domestic vaccine program. India has also exported to more countries than any other Nation. It has exported more vaccines to many countries besides its own consumption. So it is clearly showing the way that India is capable, you just have to give it a little bit of time. Yes, you have mismanagement, logistics, politics, all kinds of issues that one can think of for a country that is 1.3 billion people, but a great job.

Sree Iyer: I have the CONCOR MLP project, sir, maybe you can mention a little a bit about the railways’ accomplishment.

Sridhar Chityala: See the that’s a great chart. There are three important elements. One is the existing freight line. The second is the final DFC which is the Dedicated Freight Corridor alignment. We have talked about the Dedicated Freight Corridors are used both for Army purposes, as well as for the Freight plus also for carrying other types of manufacturing goods. What this does is that, India is now moving into a multi-nodal logistical facility or multi-nodal logistical corridor which effectively implies that many of the locations will have capabilities, basically, to store various types of goods, according to the way they are transported. They are transported by Freight, they’re transported by sea, they are transported by air, they are transported by train. So they’re building the facilities and connecting them. They’re also connecting them via the nodal roots that are adjacent, which connects to the ports and other areas. The one example is the connection, note that the blue lines reflect the connections into Gujarat, into Maharashtra from the Main corridor. So India is at least getting its act together. The multi-nodal logistical facility is not new, but many countries, which have a very effective transportation system, most advanced is the United States, Europe, China has built enormous facility. It’s good to see that India is also falling in line as it moves towards capabilities that span more than one specific sector and getting the infrastructure of the country growing.

Sree Iyer: In the economic front, India will be left with the inevitable choice of stimulus to address inflation, low growth and possible capital outflows. This again is one of the concerns that we have been raising. We’ve had many Fireside Chats, you have mentioned this. Sir, your thoughts. Where do you think India should be concentrating next in terms of its economy, sir?

Sridhar Chityala:  In terms of its economy, very clearly, the consumption sector is impacted, so therefore they really have to put more funds into the consumption. Second, the exports have done well. The manufacturing sectors require some amount of capital inflows from an impetus point of view. A lot of money has come from external FDI and external capital. We have quoted that number, $82 billion. In case there is an outflow, that gap needs to be filled in. There is a divestment program that is being launched by India, especially around the gas and energy sector, they want to do 100% FDI. My feeling is that the capital that is coming in will be redeployed. Also, they have to address the rural jobs and rural economy. Rural jobs need to be addressed in conjunction with the health infrastructure because Wave-3 is almost inevitable based on what you are seeing here. So this is the time for them to get the healthcare infrastructure to the next phase, rather than be confronted with the same challenge that they had in Wave-2. Wave-1, got away because that was not very catastrophic but Wave-2 was highly contagious. India was caught sharp, so they have to build their capabilities but the health care services continue to need to be expanded.

If there’s one more sector I would say, agriculture. Again, agriculture has grown, but these are times where you aware, I’ve seen pictures and photographs of the yield of tomatoes being thrown away when it can be preserved and productized in the collaboration with some foreign countries rather than everything being thrown because the prices came down. These are the areas I think that they need to deploy capital to preserve what they produce. And not only preserve, but make sure that it is consumed at the right price.

Sree Iyer: In Markets news, markets rolled back as Dow rallies 580 points, for the best day since March, and it is shedding all the fears of inflation. Dow finished up at +586 points. S&P up 53 points. Nasdaq at 111 points. With the rise of inflation, would oil hit $100 a barrel? It’s a definite possibility, your thoughts, Sridharji. This is the last news item for the day before we call it a wrap.

Sridhar Chityala: Thank you. I think we touched on this, in terms of the power that OPEC has. This is the best time for them as the markets open, the economy gains momentum, when there is a possibility of consumption, the best thing that you do is to raise the oil prices. So, therefore, you can’t do lots of enforcement. Already, we have both Brent, as well as the oil toggling between $72 to $74 or $75, $100 next year my bet is inevitable.

Sree Iyer: With that, we bring our today’s Consignment of DGI to a close. We’ll be back again tomorrow, bright and early. Thanks for joining. Namaskar. Do subscribe to our channel.

Sridhar Chityala: Thanks. Namaskar, have a good day. I know it’s been a long session today, 40 minutes, but thanks for your patience and listening to us.

Sree Iyer: Yes, there was so much to cover today. Thank you very much, sir.