Sydney Smile; Flying Fit; Gaining Growth
Opinion Watch
Sydney Smile
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal stamp can be seen in the robust bilateral ties with Australia, and The Indian Express in its Editorial underlined that he undertook a visit to the country of 27 million people in 2014 after late Rajiv Gandhi had gone there in 1986. Now, the ties cover warmly areas such as defence, security, trade and investment, science and technology, opined the daily, while stressing Modi’s statement that the relationship is more than transactional.
Yet, the Noida-based daily stressed that the bilateral relations have a fresh set of challenges, with the underpinning of domestic politics, and attacks on Hindu temples and visible activities of Khalistani activists are clearly the top concerns for New Delhi, as conveyed by Modi to his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
Australia in the last few years gave up its aloofness and equivocation by firmly committing to the Quad membership along with Japan, the US and India. The nudge by the western powers to Australia for growing role in the Indo Pacific and India being somewhat a pivot explain the warmth in ties between New Delhi and Canberra.
Flying Fit
The shadow of the Go First going bust is looming over the Indian aviation industry, and The Economic Times has in its Editorial called upon the Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to give breathing space to the airlines by cutting down the fuel cost. To Scindia’s suggestion that the airlines should tap international market to make money, the daily has argued that the capacity constraints may not make the task easy.
The business daily opined that India indeed should aim to become an alternative transit point for air travelers to Singapore and Dubai, but that will require more wide-bodied fleets, trained pilots, infrastructure upgradation and the overall operational fines.
Too many Indian fliers opt for the international airlines for reasons which include the pricing, and the Indian airlines will need to compete with them on their terms. The airlines have no alternative to the fossil fuel, and there should be emphasis on innovation, knowing well that no state government is going to cut the taxes on air turbine fuel for being the cash cow for them.
Gaining Growth
There are early signs of an economic turnaround, and The Asian Age in its Editorial has drawn comfort from the statement of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Shaktikant Das that the Indian economy may scale seven per cent growth mark in the current fiscal.
The daily quoted Das to state that the private sector manufacturing may have surpassed 75 per cent capacity, and the retail inflation is heading below 4.7 per cent for May. But for a chin up, reasoned the daily, India will need a normal Monsoon.
If not for high credit cost, with lending interest rates at a high of several months, India would have been touching much higher GDP growth, for there is indeed appetite in the US and Europe to search for China alternative in the global supply chains, while consumption within the country stays robust, as reflected in the GST collections.
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