Ep159 Indian Navy requests 6 nuke subs; Dems worried AZ audit may uncover fraud & more!

Sree Iyer: Namaskar. Welcome to another Monday, the 10th of May, 2021. I am with Sridhar Chityala Ji and this is Episode number 159 of Daily Global Insights with Sri and Sree.

Elizabeth Warren says Facebook Trump Ban demonstrates Tech are bigger than Government. Your thoughts sir.

Sridhar Chityala: They just proved it, they’ve taken under, 1st and 2nd Amendment. They have taken shelter under 130 and they can pretty much do what they want to do is the government is helpless, just sitting by the sideline. There’s no enforcement mechanism, they can summon them to the house hearings. They can summon them to the Senate hearings. You will have a whole bunch of Wiggly lawyers coming in and make statements. But at the end of the day, how do you stop enforcement.

Sree Iyer: True, sir, and whatever happened to that section 230 strike down that Trump initiated has it gone to the moribund or something like that in the Democratic dispensation?

Sridhar Chityala: It’s forgotten.

Sree Iyer: Well, that’s very unfortunate that deserved a second, look. Maybe, Elizabeth Warren will take that as an issue because she’s also announced that she is running for president in 2024.

Sridhar Chityala: There you go. So I think to look, that Democrats have a problem on one side, the Republicans have a problem on the other side. The Republicans have a problem because they have targeted the Republican Senators and key leaders in the Republican Party. Democrats have a problem that they are not getting their voices heard as they should, in many instances. So that’s the grouse of the Elizabeth Warren. So these Tech platforms make choices as to how they dispense content and all you need to do is look at the composition of some of their review boards and then it will become self-evident. The worry that the Democrats have is that, is this going to become a demon and that’s going to come and bite them as well but nobody wants to bell the Cat. And it is conceivable, Clarence Thomas the Supreme Court sitting judge who has initiated with three other judges, a process to review may take the lead rather than anything that’s going to come from the political side of the business.

Sree Iyer: In a very interesting development, Democrats are worried that the Arizona of audit, may uncover fraud. Viewers, if you remember a few days back, we have mentioned, how Maricopa County the largest county in Arizona is, or is it Clark County? I’m not 100% sure one of those two was going to be audited and the entire ballot boxes were given to affirm in Florida. what is this new development, sir?

Sridhar Chityala:  The new development is that I’m sure that they are getting initial glimpses of information plus probably they already have access to information by virtue of their own on ground people. So the audit process which is now completely under the control of the Republicans, because they are sitting government in Arizona at least the Senate side of the business is going to uncover that. There were specific practices, it is Maricopa County. It is not Clark County. Maricopa County was hotly contested in terms of the number of seats that changed the course of the Arizona outcome. So they’re worried that this may uncover then it will set a whole set of reactions. So it then translates into the broader agenda, that Democrats have sitting in the House for approval. And it may forthright bring control of the election process to the states with no federal intervention, which is the game plan of the Democrats. So who knows? It may even go to Supreme Court, there is not going to be any change in election reversals but it will be very stark in terms of the outcome that comes out of it and the consequences that flow from it.

Sree Iyer: And the United States government is helping the pipeline operator after a Cyber Attack. We talked about this in our last hung out. So now it is true, we had mentioned the Cyber Attack that took place in a Mumbai power station in October 2020 and perhaps we are given the most detailed account of how many different things were identified, which one that the Chinese went after and so on and so forth. Now it is now happening right here in the backyard of the United States. Sir, what are your thoughts? Do you think there is a connection between the two?

Sridhar Chityala:  First and foremost, I think this is, I have tweeted on this, which is to say when you have liberal media and when you have a liberal government and we have a liberal governance process, you will find that this is effectively, no longer a major kind of Sensational news, which impacts every human being around the country. The only thing is what percentage Colonial pipeline supplies 45% of the processed crude the Brent crude gets to  Colonial process it and the pipelines take it to the retail outlets. It’s the distribution mechanism. Imagine if President Trump was at the helm, what would be the case in the media? This is a Cyber-attack on the infrastructure which affects people and very little coverage and not even a mention of China as we are discussing here as a potential cause of this Cyber-attack, I mean one can kind of guess it. So, what is my response to this? Is there a connection? We don’t know.  what we do know is that remember we also had attacks on electrical grids in the United States, we have had to elect major electrical grids. There was also an attempt on a nuclear grid through this EMF( Electromagnetic Force) delivered, through satellites or some such mechanism. So the question therefore that is left is how vulnerable the US infrastructure is and how the vulnerable the USA’s to such attacks and what the consequences are especially after covid.

Sree Iyer: The White House covid chief says the US is turning the corner on pandemic and Commerce Secretary says the US has a long way to go and recover from the pandemic. So there are two opposing views coming out. What do you make of it? And where is the reality?

Sridhar Chityala:  We put these two because the reason is it’s a classic example of the Biden administration’s flip flop. A doesn’t know what B is doing, which makes us believe if you recall, it looks like three people are running the government, not one person, running the government, Fauci comes in and says, we are turning the pandemic. we even could have seasonal masks etc., We believe once we get past, you know, 50-60 % of the people vaccinated, then you have the commerce secretary coming in and basically saying you’re a long way to recover from a pandemic, she’s probably making a political statement to justify that covid continues, so maybe more money needs to be pumped into the system. Whereas you are getting medical advice which is to say, guys, don’t worry, you can get out. I’ll believe that we are vaccinated. We have enough vaccines and so therefore you are safe and healthy to travel outside.

Sree Iyer: And also, there is some mixed messaging as far as wearing a mask is concerned inside outside. So again, this is confusion all over the place. Let’s hope that this thing is they have to speak with one voice. I mean, as much as I like to critique the Democrats that we want a healthy democracy, you want two parties healthy, going at each other on issues and making sure that the other person is on the toes. What are your thoughts are? Why is this thing continuing to happen?

Sridhar Chityala:  Look, I think historically, you know, up until I would say, President Clinton style, you would not find these kinds of nonsense coming from in President Clinton’s Administration. I think the downward slide began somewhere in the Obama administration. And then your other things began to go sideways with this is inconsistent flip-flops that go on, which also says this probably a lot of immaturities be Administration, whether it is there way. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in the republican administration. It just simply means that that you have maybe immature or you have a divided Administration, which is just divided leadership within the administration within. We saw this in Trump as well with the conflicts contradictions between President Trump and Dr Fauci on the pandemic side as well. I said wear a mask, I said don’t wear a mask etc., but it doesn’t augur well when you’re dealing with people and people’s lives.

Sree Iyer: And to just draw some contrast or comparisons here, you know, David Axelrod who ran the campaign for Barack Obama, ran one of most disciplined campaigns leading up to his win, actually, he was up against tremendous odds when he was competing with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and I just kind of recapping what happened, sir, and even in the White House, I don’t think Obama had mixed messaging like the way we are seeing with Biden.

Sridhar Chityala:  Magnitude is on a different scale. You know, we don’t want to deal because in the interest of time like to make a lot of comments around what happened around the treasury side. What happened around the whole tarp program and how the deconstruction and who should be all those kinds of things. There are lots of, but we won’t go into that in the interest of time. But I think all I’m saying is that was the beginning of some of the challenges that we are continuing to see. Remember Biden is still Obama administration Number three, he is not, that’s why there is close proximity between the two but it seems are more divided than what we saw under Obama.

Sree Iyer: Weak Jobs Report could slow Biden money package and I am really confused, I thought it would accelerate and he would try to Double Down in his position and say that look, we going to put more money in people’s hands. The view here is a little contrarian, Sir. Can you please unravel this for us?

Sridhar Chityala:  This view is contrarian, but the view is a reality. The reason is one, people have paid so they don’t want to come to work. I think we have covered this quite extensively. This information is reaching the Democrats, that’s number one. Number two is that many Democrats are in battleground States in their own constituents. They are saying

Okay, don’t need to give so much money to people and, we need money. We can spend money in our constituencies is on only a limited budget. So you have that second issue. And the third is people can ask the question, how does their package Federal package go in? well, the Federal package has the flexibility to allocate Capital to those State and State council’s and administration’s where they believe is financially weak that is the rationale that they use to direct capital towards those constituencies. The third is that you know like Marky and Mnuchin and so on they’re all now be Cinema, raising questions really is this package working if the package is working, why people are not getting back to work that’s number one. Number two is, how come these employment numbers are not good because we are supposed to have given money to both small businesses, as well as to individuals. So I think that’s where they’re losing Steam and we’re not talking about small billion, we’re talking about trillions here. So, therefore I think if the job report says that, you know, we have had a great uptick. The money has worked, then they said, okay, we may need to put another trillion, especially to address this labour scorecard that Jerome Powell is talking about whether there is a deeper penetration into the weaker sections which have remained unemployed for a long time. We have this type of numbers then it is going to say at the top-level itself. So that means the programs are not working.

Sree Iyer: India related news, Indian Navy requests six nuclear-powered submarines of its government thinks that these are needed as a deterrent to China. Your thoughts, sir.  How many already there in the Indian Navy and why six.

Sridhar Chityala:  I don’t know why. I mean, I’ll be honest, I don’t know. Whether I am competent to answer the question which is namely to say, well, it’s a fleet of 12, whether it is a fleet of 50. I know that India had about four submarines. I may be a way of the number they initially had two, I think initially, they had some licensing arrangement with Russia. They also had an arrangement with Turkey for the final, but most of it is indigenously manufactured in India, most part of it. Why they’re asking for six? I think they looked at the overall needs. If you recall, we had mentioned much of the submarines of the US right up, they are also due, they are old and they are due for replacement, and there’s no sign of those replacements coming in. So, India is saying, look, if we’re not going to get much support from the United States and we’re not going to have the French Fleet. French is also considered, you know, very big submarine Powers. So we have augmented our air capacity. So, therefore, we now need the new submarines. China is considered to be number one or number two, Russia is in that number one, number two category. So they’re saying, therefore, we really now need to lift our game around the nuclear, so that’s our priority. If you recall, right through the DGI’s we have given, the most recent being the sixth light aircraft that can be both recognisances as well as attack capabilities, that can target submarines. They just got that lease from the United States. I think they’ve got the Air part of it covered. So the next natural extension is the submarines.

Sree Iyer: A little bit to add to the submarine saga, viewers, if you have been reading PGurus articles, search on Scorpene, it’s a French submarine manufacturer. During the UPA Saga, a lot of hanky-panky happened. You can get all that information. What amazes me is a certain individual who goes by a young name and continues to roam around and make nonsense and he can read the riot act, you can throw the book at him and he can spend his time in jail. But anyway, that’s just me saying.

Let’s go on to the next news, India, and the EU to launch parallel negotiations for trade and investment agreements. So, now, the EU is also looking towards India. Because I know, EU broke off one agreement with China, isn’t it?

Sridhar Chityala: The EU broke up agreements with China. The agreement with China was around investments. So, India is viewing this as a great opportunity. If you recall, India, not only through PLI but also through other programs is opening up a number of industries for investments, for example, insurance. Europe is considered to be a world leader in the insurance business. The insurance sector is going to be diversified or diluted. So it is very smart on the part of the Indian government to say, let’s keep the Investments separate and let’s keep the trade separate so that investment agreements can be signed even if there are disagreements on some of the trade agreements. Again, United States, Europe, Japan, have huge subsidies on their Agricultural and some of the manufacturing products. India has subsidies on agricultural products, some of the tensions can come from the subsidies to protect their respective domestic sectors or their respective regional sectors. They can take a very strong position. So they don’t want one decision to affect the other decision. So I think, it is a very strong move. I have a feeling, EU could emerge as one of the big defence partners for India because there is still some deterring going on in the United States.

Sree Iyer: Indian exports grew 80% to 7.04 billion in the period between May 1st to May 7th. This is very recent data and it’s very impressive.

Sridhar Chityala: It is. I think they’re continuing to track the macro and microeconomic indicators. The fact that the exports continue to grow is that there is substitution taking place. So in other words with covid and lockdowns, depending on the most voluminous, consumptive States, it’s to see some of these exports numbers boosting without… otherwise, the exports are not augmenting some of the domestic consumption, then you’re going to have challenges around the contraction rather than the continued, maybe, smaller growths. India’s economy was projected to grow between 10-12.5% in the fiscal year and 2021-2022. So it remains to be seen what India will finish with predicated on lockdowns cost. Exports are a very positive parameter to say, ‘Look, I think India seems to be managing it reasonably well, even if it doesn’t achieve, the 10-12.5% growth.

Sree Iyer: In Global News, Secretary of State, Blinken says that the US stands with Ukraine against Russia. So this thing is again heating up. I thought of Russian troops are withdrawing, sir. What’s the latest on this?

Sridhar Chityala: They have withdrawn, but the fact is that the Ukraine issue is not going to go away. So, he was in the EU Summit just a few days ago, so on the back of the EU Summit, he also met the Ukrainian leadership and said that this is beyond President Biden to say we are with you. We are supporting you in case Russia has any mischief in its minds, we are here.

Sree Iyer: The US Navy ceases weapons likely bound for Yemen. Where did this occur?

Sridhar Chityala: This occurred in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf seas. They intercepted the vessel and it had a large cache of weaponry. Though Iran negotiations are going on, they are almost indicating that these are the Iranian weaponry going to the Houthi rebels.

Sree Iyer: Ready. China rocket debris lands near the Maldives draws ire from NASA. Yesterday, I had a hangout with Lt General Ravi Shankar where we had talked about this in some detail. Viewers are requested to go take a look at that captivating video. It was 40+ minutes. There is a lot of stuff that has been happening in and around India by China and you’ll get a lot of that information. Sir, in the Maldives they had a major explosion where Nasheed was injured, do you have any status on that, sir?

Sridhar Chityala: They believe that to be an alleged attack. It is not confirmed. There is some sprinkle of terrorist activities around that region, pro-India, anti-India- you have these issues and India seems to a managed that quite well. You saw the external affairs minister of India immediately tweet Mr Nasheer expressing solidarity with him and so on. So I think this area, as you rightly pointed out; from Sri Lanka, Maldives, etc, we are going to see some elements of such vulnerability and such incidents for at least the next six to 12 months, until the covid issue is resolved and much more assertive positions are taken by the more powerful countries.

Sree Iyer:  Under the guise of the pandemic, many countries are up to a lot of mischiefs and this has become like a full-time occupation. Just stay where you are, keep on all these rabid elements trying to poke their noses into the affairs of the countries that they consider as adversaries. Anyway, you know, sir who I am referring to as far as India is concerned. The same entity is also trying to poke its nose in the United States affairs.

By the way, nobody has given any update on what happened to the revelation that Russia had access to several secret organizations documents document in the United States for up to nine months leading up to the elections in November 2020. I don’t know what happened to that. We will try to find out and we will give you an update on that also.

In other news, Putin reviews Russia’s military might as tensions with West sore. Where is the friction point for West, sir? We know that they are doing some sabre-rattling against Ukraine, which other area is Putin looking at?

Sridhar Chityala: I think, Putin is saying, ‘I’m have not reviewed my weaponary. I could be called in the South China Sea, I could be called into the Indian Ocean. I could be called into my own near shores.’ Russia is like a sleeping giant, we might have mentioned in DGI programs, it was a sleeping giant, which has been open up. So there are United States with NATO went right into the doorstep, which is Ukraine and also, went into the Bosphorus sea and the Baltic and they even said that the Black Sea is not the Russian Sea. So, therefore, what Russia is saying is, ‘okay, you guys are coming to my territory. I need to see whether I’m well equipped to deal with you guys.’ I think that’s the assessment he is doing.

Sree Iyer: Car bombing at an Afghan school in Kabul kills 55. Once you start seeing the Taliban come to the fore, all these things become normal. Isn’t it?

Sridhar Chityala: I think the journey has commenced in terms of the cleansing and in terms of the Taliban takeover. So, as everybody predicted, it could turn out to be a slaughterhouse.

Sree Iyer: In covid views, Indian covid crisis – an opportunity for left media targeting Modi. Indian recovery rate climbs to a record 386,444  against 403,738 new cases with net new 13,202 on May 9th, deaths at 4092 for a total of 242,362. So, with your permission, I’ll put up a small graphic while you start explaining the numbers.

Sridhar Chityala: Well, I think, when we did this, we had not received, the May 10. Now, we are looking at, the May 10th numbers. I think the number that I would like to point out is the number discharged. The number of discharge is an astronomical number relative to what the media has refused to project. The number is 353,000 people have been discharged in one single day. 353,818 people have been discharged against 366,161 new cases. So, the net increase is only 8,589, maybe during the course of the day the numbers may go up a little bit, but 353,000 is a very significant number. It shows that there is a potential convergence between new, and people getting discharged and net addition. And again, when you look at these numbers, the number of deaths is totally around 246,000. Then, when you look at more data, right here at the top, is 170 million people have been vaccinated. And on any given day, we have seen a number up to 2 million. Again, this may not have been updated, you have 689,000 people vaccinated on the previous day. 303 million samples have been tested. It translates to how many million people we don’t know. The Indian population of 1.3 billion-plus or minus if you take, the people to be vaccinated to be around 1 billion or 1.1 billion. India is moving towards a 20% to 25% number. I think these 20% to 25% number is the threshold as we saw in the United States for covid to flip the other way. So which means there is a sufficient number of vaccinated people getting into the system. There’s another number which people are saying, ‘look, don’t forget the fact that we have had a total of 22 million people who have also had covid, they naturally become buoyant as having antibodies to fight it once they get into the system. So the number is quite encouraging between vaccinated and those who have acquired this and getting back into the system, this is what made the difference in the United States. There are only two countries where you can put on a relative scale, comparative basis, that is the United States and India, potentially Brazil, but we haven’t studied Brazil very closely in terms of the microanalysis of the numbers the way we have done, India, and the United States. The problems exist on oxygen, the problems exist on hospital beds, the problems exist on hospitalizations, all those problems exist, but the fact is that there is a Silver Lining in this Dark Cloud that India is confronting.

Sree Iyer: Globally countries continue to battle covid with shutdowns and vaccine shortage.

Moving on to markets, markets finished Friday, with Dow up 200 points, inflation continues to be the big challenge. What do you see for markets this week, Sir.

Sridhar Chityala: This week, the first number that people are looking at is inflation, and what is the situation and the inflation is slowly rising. I think that’s the first number that they’re looking at. Second, this is on the back of the employment report, they are looking at is – Has this had any impact on the earnings of some of the companies in the previous quarter? If they can begin to see some headwinds in the earnings, then you are going to see the challenges in markets. Having said that we have given the charts of all the three indices and they are well, well above the targeted numbers for 2021.

Sree Iyer: With that, we bring today’s episode to a close. Thanks for watching, do subscribe to our channel. Do join the membership of our channel. As always Sridharji, it is a pleasure to have you on the channel. We will be back tomorrow bright and early. Namaskar.

Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful week.