India on Tenterhooks as China Builds Mega Hydropower Dam Near LAC

China is building the world’s first super dam on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) heavily militarized frontier with India. This megaproject, with a planned capacity of 60 gigawatts, would generate three times as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest hydropower plant.

Based on the 1968 Helsinki Rules and the 1997 UN Convention on Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, a lower riparian cannot veto interventions in a river by the upper riparian.

Originating on the Angsi Glacier near Mount Kailash in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the 3,969-kilometer Yarlung Zangbo flows into India, the lower riparian in this case, as the Brahmaputra. After the 2017 Doklam border standoff, the Chinese abruptly stopped communicating water flow levels with the Indians, no longer mindful of India’s concerns. Indian strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney fretted in an opinion piece on asia.nikkei July 14 that China can't just keep building the world's biggest dam in secret, lamenting the mute international reaction.

The Indians are very worried that China won't alert downstream India in case of disastrously massive flow rate during the monsoon season, or may divert the river towards the north to mitigate water scarcity in some parts of the country. For the latter, the implication for India would be a horrendous reduction of water flow to India's northern regions, Indian strategic analyst Basu Sharma has noted.

Chellaney says grimly that China will in due course be able to leverage transboundary flows in its relations with rival India, threatening the South Asian country with far-reaching strategic, environmental and inter-riparian implications of the largest dam ever conceived. In other words, India is screwed.

Anonymous

Taiwan, Japan wants to shoot down China's weather balloons

Taiwan will shoot down mainland Chinese balloons if they are seen to present a threat, the island’s military has said.

The statement from the Taiwanese defence ministry on Tuesday (Jun 27) came as new reports emerged of Beijing’s “spy balloon” programme in the region, with latest findings by the BBC showing Taiwan and Japan were targeted in East Asia....

There was evidence of balloons crossing Japan and Taiwan in September 2021, the report said.

Japan has also confirmed that balloons flew over its territory and said it was prepared to shoot them down in future, the report on Monday said.  CNA

The BBC intentionally released a report that China's weather balloons could fly over Japan and Taiwan as they crossed into the Pacific to agitate the Japanese and Taiwanese of an imaginary threat. The Japanese and Taiwanese immediately fell into the trap and made announcement that they would shoot down the balloons 'if they posed a threat' thinking that they are the cowboy gangsters.

Is there a need to make silly and unnecessary comments about balloons that have no value to good relations except to irritate and maybe for the speakers to act like a man? What is the purpose of such statements? To please the Americans?

China should take this opportunity to send more weather balloons across Japan and Taiwan and let them shoot at the balloons. An inexpensive balloon for several expensive missiles is definitely a very good exchange. Secondly, it would draw out the hawks and the aggressive behaviour of Japan and Taiwan for shooting down innocent weather balloons and can be used as excuse to shoot down Japanese and Taiwanese ships or aircraft using the same reasons. The Japanese and Taiwanese would be seen as the aggressor to the world for spurious accusation that weather balloons are hostile, behaving like American gangsters.

If the foolish Japanese and Taiwanese would do as they said, 1,000 balloons for 2,000 or 3,000 missiles is a very good deal to expend their missile stocks. It would take several shots to take down a balloon.

All China needs to do is to dare the Japanese and the Taiwanese to do so, and they would do accordingly, or they would be seen as liars or big mouths, blow a lot of hot air but afraid to do anything.

With the Americans agitating, many silly little countries think it is ok to defy and provoke China and could get away harmlessly.

PS. This is a quote in RT. '“If the PLA side continues to ignore our warnings along the way and force their way into our territorial air space and seas, we will actively strike back to safeguard national security,” Major General Lin Wen-huang, a planning administrator at Taipei’s Ministry of National Defense (MND), said on Tuesday in comments carried by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.'

Does this general know that China could wipe out Taiwan in a matters of minutes but refraining to do so because China does not want Chinese to kill Chinese?

Temasek to invest OPM US$9-10 billion in India over next 3 years

Temasek is looking to invest as much as OPM US$9-10 billion in India over the next three years as it is seeing more opportunities to deploy larger sums of capital in the Indian economy, Indian-origin senior executives told Indian media.

Temasek, which invested over OPM US$1 billion in India in FY23, has already deployed close to OPM US$2 billion so far this fiscal led by its investment in Manipal Health and a small cheque in Atomberg Technologies. Typically, in the last few years, Temasek’s investments in India have clocked around OPM US$1 billion per year.

Temasek’s overall India exposure stands at around US$21 billion on a mark to market basis, with cost basis (original cost of investments) unrevealed.

“We are very bottom up driven investors. And now we see bottom up opportunities in India growing and we see more opportunities to deploy capital, and deploy higher amounts than we used to before on an individual investment basis,” said Ravi Lambah, Head, Investment Group; and Head, India, at Temasek.

“In the past, we were putting a billion dollars (OPM) a year to work, but now we see the opportunity of India growing. We are very encouraged by a few things that are happening in the country. We like the fact that the policy framework has been very consistent here and that the government has been very forward looking on this front. GST has been a game changer. There are many different areas where digitization in India has been fantastic. We also see that infrastructure creation has been very important for the government. So if you put all this together, on a bottom up basis, we are far more comfortable to deploy large amounts of capital in companies where we see potential,” said Lambah.

Temasek’s India portfolio now forms 6% of its global portfolio, increasing from 5% last year.

“Five years ago, India was about 3%. Last year, it was 5% and this year it has increased to 6%. So clearly, the focus of the firm and India’s performance is getting more and more material,” said Vishesh Shrivastav, Managing Director, Investment (India) at Temasek.

The Singapore state investor is keen on opportunities in areas such as healthcare services, consumption, digitization, sustainability and energy transition themes.

“We are very structurally very positive on healthcare as a sector in India. We think there's a huge demand. It's undeserved. And it is part of our sustainable living trend that we see as a very long term trend that will benefit populations globally,” said Lambah.

Anonymous 

India's Rupee Wet Dream

 Amid speculation of a new BRICS currency at the upcoming BRICS Summit in August, India's external affairs minister S. Jaishankar made a big declaration that there are no plans for a new BRICS currency amid the ongoing de-dollarization push. Instead, the focus is on strengthening India's national currency.

Jaishankar said India wants the rupee to get stronger amid "de-dollarization," reflecting the mental masturbation of the Indians fantasizing that the rupee could replace the greenback as the world's reserve and preferred trade currency, and India can then enjoy the concommitant exorbitant privileges of an international reserve currency - ie unlimitedly printing rupees and there would always be endless demand for their currency.

The Indians are working hard to achieve their sordid dream - after India last week signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates that will allow it to settle trade in rupees instead of dollars, it is now in discussion with Indonesia to use the rupee in bilateral trade.

Anonymous

Asean knows the Anglo Saxon plan to rule the world

 The idea was for the Anglo Saxon White clique to rule over the coloured people forever. Every system was designed to ensure that - militarily, economically, dictatorially, forcibly as against Iraq and Libya when threatened by them with changes to the status quo.

Even world bodies are formed to lend support to their agenda and be under their control. Not only that, they want to interfere in every country's internal affairs that they have no business to stick their dirty fingers into.

They created time bombs for exploitation when required, like Israel in the Middle of a Muslim neighbourhood, left Kashmir on tenterhooks to be disputed by China, India and Pakistan. They left the Korean Peninsula in a perpetual war footing, so they can use that as a threat to South Korea in order for them to station troops in the South.

Now they are creating hot spots in Asia. Aside from Taiwan, Papua New Guinea is a proxy being cultivated to be a thorn in the side of Indonesia. Philippines is the perennial weak link in ASEAN unity against external forces. That external force or threat is not China and ASEAN members know that well enough. 

Anonymous