巴拉特

分类： bharat

  • ‘It’s going to be an eventful year’: India set to launch THIRD lunar mission in 2020

    India will send its Chandrayaan 3 orbiter to the Moon, hoping that it could further explore the Earth’s satellite later this year. The previous attempt failed after mission control lost contact with the Chandrayaan 2 rover.
    Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, will attempt to land on the Moon again, Jitendra Singh, minister of state for department of space, confirmed Wednesday. “Yes, the [next] lander and rover mission will happen in 2020,” he told the media.

    Singh said the new spacecraft will incorporate lessons learned during last year’s Chandrayaan 2 mission which attempted to deploy a lander called Vikram, but suddenly fell silent during hard touchdown “within 500m of the designated landing site.” However, Chandrayaan 2 can’t be seen as failure, the official explained.

    There is no country in the world that has landed on its first attempt; the US took several attempts. But we will not need so many attempts.

    Revealing some details about the mission, ISRO chief K Sivan said that Chandrayaan-3 – which is set to launch in November this year – will be similar to its predecessor. “In Chandrayaan-3, we will have landing and rover with propulsion module,” he said, adding, “this is going to be an eventful year for ISRO.”

    India is striving to become the fourth country, after the US, USSR, and China, to land on the Moon. Chandrayaan 2 stands out from other missions, as it attempted to land at the little-explored South Pole. It was tasked with gathering data on the lunar surface, searching for water and minerals. Among other things, the mission’s goal was recording and measuring moonquakes.

  • ‘Will they go to Italy?’ Indian minister rallies behind citizenship law, says other nations won’t take ‘poor’ Hindus

    ‘Will they go to Italy?’ Indian minister rallies behind citizenship law, says other nations won’t take ‘poor’ Hindus

    Migrant laborers sit on a handcart as they wait for work at a wholesale market in the old quarters of Delhi, India. 

    India’s Home Minister G. Kishan Reddy said it was imperative that persecuted religious groups in neighboring countries be granted Indian citizenship, arguing they have nowhere else to go.
    Speaking in the context of the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for religious groups fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Reddy said India must pick up the slack for other nations unwilling to take in poor refugees, singling out Italy by name.

    “It’s our moral responsibility to give citizenship to the minorities [from three neighboring Muslim countries],” Reddy said. “If they don’t come to India, where will they go? To Italy?”

    Italy will not accept Hindus or Sikhs as they are poor people.

    The citizenship act has courted controversy and sparked nationwide protests, with opponents arguing it discriminates against Muslims, who were left off the list of groups eligible for expedited citizenship. Supporters of the bill have defended the exemption, however, arguing the three neighboring countries are predominately Muslim and that the bill is designed to protect vulnerable minorities.
    Since the Mediterranean migrant crisis broke out in the 2010s, Italy has been among the least willing to open its doors to refugees, many of whom are fleeing violence and various forms of persecution in Africa. During his tenure in office, the country’s recently replaced Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – who also heads up the right-populist Lega Nord party – helped to drive an anti-immigration policy agenda. In 2018, a measure dubbed the “Salvini decree” was signed into law, scrapping a number of legal protections for migrants and streamlining the deportation process.

    Though the decree and other similar acts appear to have had some effect – with Italy taking in about half the number of refugees in 2019 that it did in the previous year – Salvini’s replacement, Luciana Lamorgese, has indicated a much less hawkish stance on the migrant question. In an interview with La Repubblica in November, she denied that Italy was “facing any invasion” – a term Salvini and like-minded lawmakers have used to describe the large influx of refugees into Europe.

  • 印度货币政策走进死胡同？

    印度货币政策走进死胡同？

    印度的货币政策越来越无计可施。印度储备银行（央行）12月保持政策利率不变，原本预计央行将连续6次降息的金融市场感到失望。为什么在经济持续减速的情况下，印度央行却不连续降息呢？探究原因会发现，背负不良债权的金融机构惜贷，货币宽松政策无法波及经济的现状。

     

    经济陷入萎靡

     

    印度央行12月5日决定保持政策利率不变后，市场相关人士受到震动。在事先实施的调查中，超过30位经济学家全部预计央行将降息。央行行长沙克蒂坎塔·达斯(Shaktikanta Das)在当日的记者会上表示，“从经济增长和通货膨胀的动向来看，认为暂时停止降息比较合适”。

     

    10月印度的消费者物价涨幅为4.6%，超过央行设定的4%的目标。这似乎成为央行停止降息的依据，不过也有观点认为，夏季天气不好导致蔬菜价格上涨，物价上涨只是暂时性的。

     

     

    另一方面，印度7～9月的经济增长率为4.5%，降至6年半来的最低水平，经济萎靡。原本有必要通过降息来支撑经济，但印度央行此次却放弃降息。印度经济研究所的菅谷弘理事表示，“（央行认为）即使降息也无法取得政策效果”。

     

    两个利率的“分裂”反映出货币政策的极限。印度央行为了唤起消费和企业投资，2月下调了政策利率（6.5%）。通过连续5次的货币宽松，10月将政策利率下调至5.15%。政策利率降低了1.35%，而金融机构的融资利率却几乎没有任何反应。在此期间所有银行平均的贷款利率基本上没有波动。

     

    通常如果央行降低政策利率后，民间的金融机构将能够以更低成本筹集资金。因此，银行可能会下调向企业和个人贷款的利率。但是在印度，即便央行降低政策利率也没有波及到贷款利率。在印度的金融行业，越来越多的观点认为“废除大额钞票引发的混乱产生了影响”。

     

    印度莫迪总理2016年11月为了打击逃税的黑钱，决定废除1000和500卢比的纸币。伴随这项措施，银行增加了近2亿个账户，过去存放在家里的现金被存入银行。2017年初银行出现了约6万亿卢比的巨额资金剩余。

     

    银行于是拼命地将这些过剩资金贷出去。2017年1月银行贷款余额的同比增长率为3.4%，而2018年4月则达到10.5%，升至2位数。

     

    对财政出动很纠结

     

    但是任意无度的融资招致了主要贷款方非银行金融机构的经营危机。2018年夏季大型非银行金融机构出现债务违约，信用崩塌。银行不再向非银行金融机构贷款，市民也越来越难获得购车等贷款。

    印度所有银行的不良债权率在2018年3月超过11%，当前也没有改善的迹象。银行担心出现新的不良债权，对向企业贷款持谨慎姿态。因此，无论央行如何降低政策利率，贷款利率也不降低。

     

    莫迪与央行的关系也陷入迷失状态。上一任行长帕特尔(Urjit Patel)以及上上任行长拉古拉姆·拉詹(Raghuram Rajan)均为科班出身，重视央行的独立性，但是似乎因与莫迪意见不合而被更迭。2018年莫迪起用与自己关系亲近的前财政部官员达斯担任央行行长，达斯一直在推行降息，但是未能取得成果。

     

    如果货币政策无法产生效果，原本这时候应该实施财政出动。但是莫迪对前政权过度补贴农户的做法进行反省，提出通过法律将财政赤字占国内生产总值的比例控制在3%之内的目标。莫迪政权对财政赤字扩大持谨慎态度，一直没有出台能够立刻提振经济的刺激政策。

     

    获得2019年诺贝尔经济学奖的阿比吉特·班纳吉（Abhijit Banerjee）10月回到母国印度，指出“印度当前的经济问题是需求不足”。如果印度不能出台推高需求的有效措施，将陷入经济减速的深渊。