In a televised address to the nation on November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a spectacular announcement. At the stroke of midnight, rupee notes in the denomination of ₹500 and ₹1,000, corresponding to an estimated 86 percent of all cash (₹15 trillion) in circulation, would cease to be legal tender. Currency holders were asked to exchange or deposit the demonetized notes in the bank by December 30, 2016.
About the Speaker:
About the Speaker:
Anjali Thomas Bohlken is an Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics and political economy with an emphasis on India. Her current research focuses on the politics of infrastructure and public service provision in India. Her previous research focused on the causes of local governance, on party politics and democratic accountability, and on the link between economic conditions and ethnic conflict.
About the Speaker:
In February 2014, shortly before he became India’s National Security Advisor, former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval proclaimed a major policy shift via a long public speech. Pakistani support for separatist and extremist groups in India was declared a strategic threat to be met with disproportionate retaliation in kind, up to and including detaching Balochistan.
On December 30, 2016, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chairman of the Samajwadi Party, expelled his son, Akhilesh Yadav, from the party. Just one day later, the expulsion was rescinded and Akhilesh Yadav was reinstated. Akhilesh Yadav, the charismatic Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), had begun to throw his weight around in the party, something to which the party elders—Akhilesh Yadav’s own family members—took strong exception.
The strength of India-Afghanistan relations was on full display at the 6th Heart of Asia Conference held in Amritsar on December 4, 2016. Criticizing Pakistan for providing a “safe haven” to “terrorists” associated with the Afghan centric Haqqani Network and the India centric Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, New Delhi and Kabul successfully used the platform to isolate and humiliate Islamabad. The two countries also discussed the possibility of an air cargo corridor bypassing Pakistan, which has consistently denied Afghanistan access to Indian markets and vice versa.
American small businesses—over twenty-eight million, of which eight million are minority owned—accounted for 64 percent of net new jobs created between 1993 and 2011, and employ nearly half of the U.S. workforce. Small business performance is therefore expected to be critical for the success of the Donald Trump presidency. It can be safely construed that the supplier diversity ecosystem fostered for decades will not suffer cuts and lashes given its unique status. Minority-owned firms generate $1.4 trillion annual gross receipts and employ 7.2 million people.
About the Speaker:
