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Saso to play at Evian major

FIVE of the top 20 players in the world rankings, including Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang, will not play in the Evian Championship, the fourth major of the LPGA Tour season.

The Evian, played annually in France at a resort of the same name, is scheduled for July 22-25. This year’s tour schedule packs in two majors (the Evian and the Women’s Open at Carnoustie) and the Tokyo Olympics in the span of a month, July 22 to Aug. 22.

The deadline to commit to the event was Tuesday, according to Golfweek, and Kang and Thompson do not appear in the official field list. They have not publicly said why; however, Kang and Thompson are two of the four women who’ll compete at the Olympics for Team USA, so the tight schedule may have factored into their decision.

Earlier this season, Hannah Green of Australia and Shanshan Feng of China said they would take time off from the tour schedule to prepare for the Olympics. Japan’s Nasa Hataoka, the runner-up at last month’s US Women’s Open, also did not appear on the field list.

That’s not to say the Evian field will be weak. All three of this season’s major champions — Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit (ANA Inspiration), Philippines’ Yuka Saso (US Open) and World No. 1 Nelly Korda (Women’s PGA Championship) — have committed to play in France. So has Korda’s sister Jessica Korda, the final member of the American Olympic team after her sister, Thompson and Kang.

World No. 2 Jin Young Ko of South Korea will look to defend her 2019 Evian title. The major was not contested in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. — Reuters

Shocker

Roger Federer fans, and there are legion, couldn’t help but beam with delight after their favorite player steamrolled to his record 18th quarterfinal-round appearance at Wimbledon earlier this week. He certainly didn’t look the part of a would-be champion heading into this year’s staging of the sport’s premier event. Felled by two knee surgeries and safety protocols owing to the raging pandemic, he was able to play in only eight tournaments in the last 17 months. And his relative lack of sharpness showed early on; in fact, he could very well have been down and out in the first round had hitherto-unheralded opponent Adrian Mannarino not retired due to injury while leading two sets to one.

A week in tennis may not be long, but Federer spoke as if an eternity had passed between his near miss and his dominant showing in the Round of 16. He declared himself “extremely happy” with his performance and continued march at the All England Club. A month short of his 40th birthday, he appeared to be gaining momentum and peaking at just the right time for a projected meeting with World Number One Novak Djokovic in the final. All he had to do was claim two more victories to keep his supposed date with fate. As things turned out, however, he could not summon the magic that made him the king of Centre Court for the better part of two decades.

That Federer lost to Hubert Hurkacz was arguably a shock in and of itself — with due apologies to the 14th seed. That he did so in straight sets, a development not seen since he claimed the first of eight Wimbledon titles in 2003, was downright unforeseen. This was, after all, THE living legend, and ostensibly sharp and ready for his place under the klieg lights, with the hardware on the line. Then again, he wasn’t simply going up against a capable opponent. He was, more importantly, going up against himself; pushing the big Four Oh, he looked all too ready to test the rocking chair that await him.

Understandably, Federer refused to commit whether he would still be motivated to compete, or if he would contemplate going gently into the good night. He was forthright in his post-mortem, disclosing that he would discuss his future thoroughly with his team. No matter what path he decides to take, however, there can be no questioning his place in the annals of tennis as the greatest player it has had the privilege to host. He most definitely raged against the dying of the light. And rages still.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.

It’s the message, not the messenger

FREEPIK

Once upon a time, a commentator said of him: “Roubini predicted a recession in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. He was wrong four years in a row. So, in 2008, his prediction appears to be finally coming true. Well, a stopped clock is correct twice each day.” This was the same observation of an assistant editor of UK’s The Daily Telegraph. His correct call on the 2008 crisis showed that “if you say something consistently enough for long enough, eventually you will be proved right.”

Nouriel Roubini is a good example of an academic steeped in theory, teaching at Yale and then in New York, while working for the IMF, the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and the Bank of Israel, posts that grounded him in public policy. He served in the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton and then moved to the US Treasury to advise former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

While at the IMF in 2006, he warned about the Global Financial Crisis, “that the US was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, and, ultimately, a deep recession.” A year earlier, he observed that home prices rode a speculative wave that was expected to sink the economy. Before he got the economics right, people in the profession called him a Cassandra. Since then, he has been considered a sage. Even Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was quoted to have said that Roubini’s outlandish predictions have been matched “or even exceeded by reality.”

While the messenger of doom speaks English, Persian, Italian, Hebrew, and conversational French, having been born an Iranian Jew in Turkey, lived briefly in Iran and Israel, and studied in Italy and now a US citizen, he would always have a singular message and would stick to it for years. That is tenacity.

His latest warning against a repeat of the 1970s stagflation and 2008 debt crisis promises to be another interesting treat to central bankers and finance officials. His point of departure is the pandemic-induced extremely loose monetary and fiscal policies.

Roubini wrote on April 15 “Why stagflation is a growing threat to the global economy.” On June 30, he reiterated his arguments in another article with a catchy title “The Looming Stagflationary Debt Crisis.” And on July 2, he followed up with another article “Conditions are ripe for repeat of 1970s stagflation and 2008 debt crisis.”

Roubini’s thesis is bad news. He argues that excessively “loose monetary and fiscal policies when combined with a number of negative supply shocks, could result in 1970s-style stagflation.”

Before stagflation in the 1970s, we saw a stable relationship between inflation and unemployment. Inflation was deemed tolerable because output was growing, jobs were being created. It seemed a great brave world with a little price run-up in a condition of increasing demand and employment.

Such a relationship was debunked by stagflation — slow growth with rapidly rising inflation — which came about with the phenomenal climb in oil prices, higher inflation and joblessness, and ultimately economic recession. Most important, as Milton Friedman became very relevant in the 1970s, it was proven that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” US Fed Chairman Paul Volcker delivered the monetarist solution by escalating the policy rate to double digits, taming inflation but bringing the economy to a deep recession. The earlier 15 years of easy monetary policy disanchored inflation expectations and harmed the Fed’s credibility as an inflation fighter.

Historically, stagflation has not been associated with bursting debt ratios. High inflation wiped out debts in real terms at fixed rates. Public debt burdens in advanced economies were effectively reduced.

But high debts became problematic during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. With the asset bubbles bursting, recession resulted in weaker price movement that finally morphed into deflation. With the credit crunch, we saw aggregate demand weakening in a big way. In contrast, the shocks today are coming from the supply side.

What Roubini is suggesting is that we might be seeing the worst of both the stagflation of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2010. His analytical harbor lights include high debt ratios, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, supply shocks for both food and non-food commodities — all tending to elevate inflation. More supply shocks could come from trade protectionism, population ageing, tight immigration policy, manufacturing re-shoring, and what Roubini called Balkanization of global supply chains.

The great risk could come from the anticipated difficulty among central banks to immediately act against inflation. Many monetary authorities during the pandemic lost their independence trying to support government pandemic measures and infrastructure spending by monetizing massive fiscal deficits because of rising public debt levels. Many governments are virtually in a debt trap. Previously the only game in town, central banks would be facing a hard choice. If they lift their unconventional policies and begin to jack up their policy rates to fight inflation, Roubini argues that massive debt problems and deep recession may be triggered. Maintaining their easy monetary policy up to what it takes to see stronger evidence the economy is already on the mend will risk both high inflation and output decline.

Bottomline, stagflation becomes unavoidable should another negative supply shock come around.

While indebtedness in some advanced economies may be mitigated by higher unanticipated inflation, emerging-market debts in foreign currency may have to be addressed either by default or basic restructuring. Corporates, banks, and shadow banks stand to lose because of interconnectedness.

If there’s a Minsky moment, or the beginning of market collapse due to speculative activities, there could likely be a Volcker moment, that which would require a sharp increase in interest rates to force a disinflation but at the expense of the real sector. A double dip recession ensued in the US after the Volcker gambit.

Our ears should be attentive to today’s possibility that the future stagflation could be a lot worse. Debt levels and ratios to national output are many times bigger than those in the 1970s. Any central bank action to tame inflation “may likely lead to a depression rather than a severe recession.” The situation could get more serious because the global economy is still recovering from negative aggregate supply shock. Loose monetary and fiscal policies are bound to lead to higher inflation or that plus depressed output.

Roubini concludes his piece by likening the forthcoming crisis to a slow-motion train wreck. Needless to say, it is into everybody’s best interest to avoid it.

This was also where we were coming from last March when we suggested the need for an exit strategy for our ultra-loose monetary policy. We recognize that domestic inflation appears to be slowing down but this is due more to the negative output gap, or because the economy is still weak. Once the rebound gains traction, we would be facing the risks of an overly expansionary money measures.

Roubini is cognizant of the counter-narrative to his thesis and it is based on technological innovation and demographic factors being offset by higher retirement age, as well as by regional integration and outsourcing of services providing the counterweight to limited labor migration. The first prevents tight labor supply from pushing wages and prices up. The second promotes the greater supply of labor beyond national borders as a dampener to higher wages and prices.

If Roubini got it right only after a few years, that means we have a window of opportunity to prepare our economy against this global threat. As a Roubini fan said: “Who knows what economic perils lie in store ahead of us because even today, we’re dissecting the credibility of the Doomsayer rather than heeding his downbeat message…”

 

Diwa C. Guinigundo is the former Deputy Governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He served the BSP for 41 years. In 2001-2003, he was Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. He is the senior pastor of the Fullness of Christ International Ministries in Mandaluyong.

Pacquiao vs Duterte

He has done nearly everything else except formally announce it, because if he does, under Commission on Elections (Comelec) rules he could be liable to charges of premature campaigning, but perennial absentee senator-cum-boxer Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao seems determined to run for President in 2022.

He has reportedly narrowed his choices for vice-presidential running mate to either Senate President Vicente Sotto III or Senator Panfilo Lacson. But that is not as significant as his decision to distance himself from the current regime by initially being critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s unwillingness and inability to defend the country’s interests in the West Philippine Sea, and lately, by in effect declaring that corruption in government has reached unprecedented levels.

Mr. Duterte has not surprisingly accused him of politicking in behalf of his presidential ambitions. However, Pacquiao would only be in the same company as Duterte’s daughter Sara, Manila Mayor “Isko” Moreno, and presidential confidant Christopher “Bong” Go, all of whom could also be accused of launching their drives for the country’s highest elective post way ahead of the official campaign period that starts only in February 2022.

But whatever his motives, Pacquiao’s is one more addition to the many other voices — those of civil society, sectoral and mass organizations, business associations, journalists’ and lawyers’ groups, ordinary folk, and such global corruption watch groups as Transparency International — that have been lamenting the misuse of government funds, the unaccountability, and the racketeering in many government agencies. While rampant even in previous administrations, these practices have visibly worsened in the present one in which, it is widely believed, even the pandemic crisis has become another source of public sector profiteering.

His focus on the West Philippine Sea issue and on government corruption is doubly significant. It indicates not only a break with the Duterte camp. Pacquiao’s publicists and advisers have apparently convinced him that both issues would resonate most among the electorate while not incidentally keeping his name in the media and the public mind — and that, perhaps together with whatever other concerns they decide to hold against Mr. Duterte, they are most likely to have an impact on the results of the elections next year.

As is his habit of insulting anyone who disagrees with him, Mr. Duterte accused Pacquiao of ignorance about the West Philippine Sea issue and told him to study it. In response, the latter said one does not need to study to do right, by which he apparently meant that the need to defend Philippine interests against Chinese aggression in, and occupation of parts of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is evident enough for anyone to understand.

Dared by Mr. Duterte to prove his claims about corruption in government by naming the agencies involved, Pacquiao named the Department of Health (DoH) and its present head. Only the presidential spokesperson took exception to his allegation. But apparently unaware that even the worst publicity is still publicity, Mr. Duterte continued to hurl insults at Pacquiao, and so did the regime’s keyboard legions of trolls and its hirelings in print and broadcast media.

Mr. Duterte vowed to abolish corruption during the 2016 campaign for the presidency, and has often proclaimed his supposed dedication to putting an end to it. But the reality is that in a number of instances, his deeds have not matched his words. Among the most obvious of cases are his removing from office bureaucrats accused of corruption only to appoint them to some other, at times more lucrative, post, and his refusing to take any action against others perceived to be close to him despite his vow to remove anyone with “the slightest whiff” of wrongdoing.

The latest surveys do say that Mr. Duterte remains as popular as ever despite the runaway corruption, his anti-American grandstanding, his pro-China policy, the economic recession, the huge unemployment numbers, the attacks on the free press, the extrajudicial killings, the rank incompetence of many of his officials, his regime’s less than sterling performance in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and his statements that seem to be declarations of State policies, but which later turn out to be jokes, exaggerations, or mere attempts to fill dead air.

It is uncertain if the survey results truly reflect the sentiments of the majority of Filipinos, or were driven by fears that any criticism of Mr. Duterte and his administration, no matter how minor or merely implied, could provoke his and his cronies’ and enforcers’ anger and vindictiveness. Only the results of the 2022 elections, assuming they will be fair and honest, can prove the surveys right or wrong.

But the extent and intensity of Mr. Duterte’s, his apologists’, cronies’, and henchmen’s reaction to Pacquiao’s statements constitute implicit recognition that, in addition to his billions and his millions of fans, supporters and idolators across these isles, his focusing on the West Philippine Sea and corruption issues,  the (mis)handling of which the majority of Filipinos have expressed extreme dissatisfaction in the same surveys, gives him an edge over other candidates that could result in his winning the presidency in the 2022 elections.

However, rather than being based on popularity, name recall, and the mass appeal of the issues he has raised, his hypothetical victory next year should be based on how different from the present dispensation a Pacquiao administration would be.

Thanks to whoever his publicists and advisers are, Pacquiao does sound more reasonable and more presidential today than Mr. Duterte has ever been. Gone are the off-the-cuff, shoot-from-the-hip statements that he used to issue on such matters as his death penalty advocacy; and his statements on the West Philippine Sea and corruption were instead well rehearsed and calculated to make him sound patriotic, civil, and in tune with the issues.

But these are not enough to sway in his favor those among the electorate who are looking for an alternative to the Duterte regime and who cannot be blamed for recalling how Pacquiao had so enthusiastically supported and been so much identified with it, as both his possible running mates Sotto and Lacson have been.

For the righteously skeptical to be convinced of the difference, Pacquiao and company will have to complete their self-re-invention by putting together the coherent, rational and doable program of government that the country sorely needs but which the so-called political parties and a succession of regimes have denied it for decades. Such a program would necessarily include a serious commitment to the recovery and defense of Philippine independence and sovereignty, as well as the means through which corruption can be contained if not eliminated altogether. Even more crucial are getting the economy moving by effectively ending the pandemic, and putting a stop to the killing and harassment of government critics, human rights defenders, independent journalists, lawyers, and even local officials.

Such a program of government is equally imperative for the other political formations the individuals vying for the presidency and other posts to craft. It could help imbue with some sanity the madness that Philippine elections often are. Should, say, Pacquiao’s group or 1Sambayan put together a credible platform that promises to address the country’s most urgent woes, to justify its determination to remain in power the Duterte camp could be compelled to do the same. It could initiate at least some debate on the issues rather than once more dooming the electorate to making a choice between who can tell the most offensive jokes, who can better sing and dance, or who looks prettier on stage.

 

Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).

www.luisteodoro.com

It’s not just bad behavior – why social media design makes it hard to have constructive disagreements online

Good-faith disagreements are a normal part of society and building strong relationships. Yet it’s difficult to engage in good-faith disagreements on the internet, and people reach less common ground online compared with face-to-face disagreements.

There’s no shortage of research about the psychology of arguing online, from text versus voice to how anyone can become a troll and advice about how to argue well. But there’s another factor that’s often overlooked: the design of social media itself.

My colleagues and I investigated how the design of social media affects online disagreements and how to design for constructive arguments. We surveyed and interviewed 257 people about their experiences with online arguments and how design could help. We asked which features of 10 different social media platforms made it easy or difficult to engage in online arguments, and why. (Full disclosure: I receive research funding from Facebook.)

We found that people often avoid discussing challenging topics online for fear of harming their relationships, and when it comes to disagreements, not all social media are the same. People can spend a lot of time on a social media site and not engage in arguments (e.g., YouTube) or find it nearly impossible to avoid arguments on certain platforms (e.g., Facebook and WhatsApp).

Here’s what people told us about their experiences with Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube, which were the most and least common places for online arguments.

Seventy percent of our participants had engaged in a Facebook argument, and many spoke negatively of the experience. People said they felt it was hard to be vulnerable because they had an audience: the rest of their Facebook friends. One participant said, on Facebook, “Sometimes you don’t admit your failures because other people are looking.” Disagreements became sparring matches with a captive audience, rather than two or more people trying to express their views and find common ground.

People also said that the way Facebook structures commenting prevents meaningful engagement because many comments are automatically hidden and cut shorter. This prevents people from seeing content and participating in the discussion at all.

In contrast, people said arguing on a private messaging platform such as WhatsApp allowed them “to be honest and have an honest conversation.” It was a popular place for online arguments, with 76% of our participants saying that they had argued on the platform.

The organization of messages also allowed people to “keep the focus on the discussion at hand.” And, unlike the experience with face-to-face conversations, someone receiving a message on WhatsApp could choose when to respond. People said that this helped online dialogue because they had more time to think out their responses and take a step back from the emotional charge of the situation. However, sometimes this turned into too much time between messages, and people said they felt that they were being ignored.

Overall, our participants felt the privacy they had on WhatsApp was necessary for vulnerability and authenticity online, with significantly more people agreeing that they could talk about controversial topics on private platforms as opposed to public ones like Facebook.

Very few people reported engaging in arguments on YouTube, and their opinions of YouTube depended on which feature they used. When commenting, people said they “may write something controversial and nobody will reply to it,” which makes the site “feel more like leaving a review than having a conversation.” Users felt they could have disagreements in the live chat of a video, with the caveat that the channel didn’t moderate the discussion.

Unlike Facebook and WhatsApp, YouTube is centered around video content. Users liked “the fact that one particular video can be focused on, without having to defend, a whole issue,” and that “you can make long videos to really explain yourself.” They also liked that videos facilitate more social cues than is possible in most online interactions, since “you can see the person’s facial expressions on the videos they produce.”

YouTube’s platform-wide moderation had mixed reviews, as some people felt they could “comment freely without persecution” and others said videos were removed at YouTube’s discretion “usually [for] a ridiculous or nonsensical reason.” People also felt that when creators moderated their comments and “just filter things they don’t like,” it hindered people’s ability to have difficult discussions.

We asked participants how proposed design interactions could improve their experiences arguing online. We showed them storyboards of features that could be added to social media. We found that people like some features that are already present in social media, like the ability to delete inflammatory content, block users who derail conversations, and use emoji to convey emotions in text.

People were also enthusiastic about an intervention that helps users to “channel switch” from a public to private online space. This involves an app intervening in an argument on a public post and suggesting users move to a private chat. One person said “this way, people don’t get annoyed and included in online discussion that doesn’t really involve them.” Another said, “this would save a lot of people embarrassment from arguing in public.”

Overall, the people we interviewed were cautiously optimistic about the potential for design to improve the tone of online arguments. They were hopeful that design could help them find more common ground with others online.

Yet, people are also wary of technology’s potential to become intrusive during an already sensitive interpersonal exchange. For instance, a well-intentioned but naïve intervention could backfire and come across as “creepy” and “too much.” One of our interventions involved a forced 30-second timeout, designed to give people time to cool off before responding. However, our subjects thought it could end up frustrating people further and derail the conversation.

Social media developers can take steps to foster constructive disagreements online through design. But our findings suggest that they also will need to consider how their interventions might backfire, intrude or otherwise have unintended consequences for their users.

 

Amanda Baughan is a PhD Student in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.

Global COVID-19 deaths reach 4M

REUTERS

THE GLOBAL death toll from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has reached 4 million, as a growing disparity in vaccine access leaves poorer nations exposed to outbreaks of more infectious strains.

Even as rapid vaccine rollouts allow life to start to return to normal in countries like the UK and US, it’s taken just 82 days for the latest million deaths, compared to 92 days for the previous million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The real toll could be far higher than reported because of inconsistent calculations around the world.

The developing world is shouldering a rising death toll. India accounted for 26% of the increase from 3 million to 4 million deaths, and Brazil about 18%. By comparison, the US, where more than 332 million shots have been administered, accounted for about 4% of the rise. The UK accounted for just 1,000 of the extra deaths, the data showed.

The US and UK had accounted for a far higher share of new deaths worldwide prior to April, reflecting how fast vaccination has brought about stunning turnarounds in their pandemic performances over the past three months.

“Vaccine equity is the greatest immediate moral test of our times,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement marking the gloomy milestone. “It is also a practical necessity. Until everyone is vaccinated, everyone is under threat.”

“The tragic loss of 4 million people to this pandemic must drive our urgent efforts to bring it to an end for everyone, everywhere,” he said.

Mr. Guterres said he will call on all countries with vaccine production capacity, the World Health Organization, and international financial institutions able to deal with the relevant pharmaceutical companies to create an Emergency Task Force to at least double vaccine production and ensure equitable distribution.

The spread of the more transmissible delta variant is also causing outbreaks in rich countries where vaccination rates are lagging. Sydney, Australia’s largest city, on Wednesday extended its lockdown for at least a week to stamp out an outbreak that has now reached almost 400 cases. Taiwan, which had largely suppressed the virus through 2020, now has lost more than 700 lives after a resurgence earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Mexico, which has the world’s fourth-highest overall death toll, saw its share of the latest million deaths drop about 5 percentage points from the previous million, the likely result of post-infection immunity, some vaccination and proximity to the US.

Peru, already one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic, updated its official death toll in June, adding more than 110,000 fatalities than previously reported. The South American nation contributed about 4% of the latest million deaths.

While Thailand had registered barely 100 deaths when the global toll reached 3 million, a surge in infections has sent the toll to more than 2,000, threatening the nation’s target to fully reopen in about 100 days.

Other Southeast Asian nations have also seen deaths climb. Malaysia and the Philippines each added more than 3,000 fatalities since the previous global milestone was reached in April. — Bloomberg

India supercharged its economy 30 years ago. COVID unraveled it in months

REUTERS

THIRTY YEARS ago on a summer evening in late July, India liberalized its Soviet-style economy in a transformation that eventually pulled about 300 million out of poverty, fueling one of the biggest wealth creations in history.

Then came the world’s fastest coronavirus surge which left overflowing hospitals turning away the dying and crematorium smoke darkening city skies.

Years, and perhaps decades, of progress have been unwound in months, as many Indians who had clawed their way out of poverty face grim job prospects and carry heavy debt loads wracked up to get themselves and loved ones through the pandemic. The devastation has highlighted just how much poor health care and infrastructure — often neglected in the boom after liberalization — are holding back the nation and its people.

More than 200 million have gone back to earning less than minimum wage, or $5, a day, the Bangalore-based Azim Premji University calculates. The middle class, the engine of the consumer economy, shrank by 32 million in 2020, according to the Pew Research Institute. That means India will be regressing on vital fronts just as its global importance is growing.

This decade, India is expected to become the world’s most populated nation, taking that mantle from China, which for years drove global growth. But the Indian economy is grappling with big threats even as it becomes home to the kind of young, working-age population that drove lengthy booms in other nations.

“We’re talking about a decade of lost opportunities and setback,” said Arvind Subramanian, a fellow at Brown University and a former chief economic advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration. “Unless there are some big reforms and fundamental changes in the way economic policy is done, you’re not going to be anywhere close to what we saw in the boom years. A lot needs to happen in order to get back to the 7%, 8% growth that we desperately need.”

Even before the pandemic, cracks had begun to emerge. Mr. Modi came to power in 2014 amid voter frustration over scandals and policy paralysis that had contributed to bad loans at banks and threatened to derail Indian growth. Yet, the economy has faced other hurdles in recent years including Mr. Modi’s 2016 cash ban, which roiled the informal sector, and a hurriedly implemented new tax system.

Mr. Modi had pledged to turn India into a $5 trillion economy by 2025, but the pandemic is set to push that back by years. The International Monetary Fund expects India to grow 6.9% in the next fiscal year that starts in April 2022, lower than the more than 8% needed long term to reach Mr. Modi’s ambitious target and create jobs for the millions entering the work force.

Jim O’Neill, chairman of Chatham House in London — who coined the term BRICs to describe the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China while serving as a top Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. economist — is these days cautious on India, largely because the government hasn’t made many of the long-term structural changes, he believes are needed for it to reach its full potential.

When still at Goldman Sachs, Mr. O’Neill says he presented a paper to Mr. Modi in 2013, before he became prime minister, recommending 10 things that would allow the Indian economy to be 40 times larger by 2050. The list included making substantial improvements to areas like infrastructure, education, introducing better public-private partnerships in areas like healthcare, further liberalizing financial markets and working on environmental issues. Mr. Modi hasn’t fully pursued these ideas, Mr. O’Neill said.

“India’s got these fantastic demographics, which should have given it the potential to be rising a lot more strongly, possibly at the same kind of double-digit rates China enjoyed for a long time,” Mr. O’Neill said. Yet “the Indian system seems to quite often smother itself, as we’ve seen sadly a few times during the Covid pandemic,” he said.

A government spokesperson didn’t respond to request for comment, but the Modi administration has in recent weeks acknowledged the need for longer term changes. “If we are looking at getting growth — of 8%-10% — back on a sustainable path, we have to think about not just a current revival,” Sanjeev Sanyal, the government’s principal economic adviser, said at the India Global Forum on June 30. Structural changes are needed and to that end the government is constantly opening up new sectors of the economy, he said.

Once the fastest-growing major economy, India saw its biggest ever contraction last year — shrinking more than 7% — after a stringent nationwide lockdown. Just when the economy started showing some momentum, another wave of infections hit the nation. This year, the central bank expects India to grow at 9.5%, sharply lower than the double-digit rebound many had earlier expected. That estimate is heavily boosted by the comparison with the sharp contraction of the previous year, and many economists expect it could be pared even further.

Foreign direct investment surged 19% last year, but even that remains lower as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) compared with countries like Singapore and Vietnam. And a big portion of the foreign investment went to billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s digital platforms.

Some experts, including former central bank head Duvvuri Subbarao, have warned of a K-shaped recovery for India, where the rich get richer and poor get poorer. “Growing inequalities are not just a moral issue,” said Mr. Subbarao. “They can erode consumption and hurt our long-term growth prospects.”

Two of the richest men in Asia –  Ambani and ports magnate Gautam Adani — are Indians, and their net worth has surged as stocks rallied on the back of cheap liquidity worldwide and tax cuts for companies even as economic growth slumped. Meanwhile, overall Indian wealth — or the value of financial and real assets owned by households minus debts — fell by $594 billion, or 4.4%, in 2020, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

Thirty years ago, India was forced to remake its economy. A mammoth trade deficit and plunging foreign exchange reserves necessitated a loan from the International Monetary Fund. On July 24, 1991, then finance minister, Manmohan Singh, announced major steps to cut tariffs and encourage trade, essentially opening up the economy to the outside world.

In the boom that followed liberalization, growth crossed 8%. Technology giants like Infosys were born and start-ups worth billions are now mushrooming in Bangalore. A new middle class emerged that watched Netflix and shopped online on Amazon. In the south, the Wistron factory won special economic benefits to assemble Apple iPhones. India became the world’s biggest supplier of generic medicines and the Serum Institute of India became the world’s biggest vaccine maker. An Indian exchange now handles the world’s highest number of derivatives contracts.

Yet there were signs that India wasn’t hitting its full potential. Average GDP growth of 6.2% over 30 years has been lower than China’s 9.2% and even lagged Vietnam’s 6.7%. For years, Indians have been living shorter lives and are now earning less on average than people in smaller nations like Bangladesh.

Vast inequities developed. Researchers have found wealthier people in urban areas and from upper castes were taller in India, a sign of development favoring groups that were already advantaged. The percentage of women joining the workforce fell from 30.3% in 1991 to about 21% in 2019, according to data from the International Labor Organization. India’s government spent less than 2% of GDP on healthcare before the pandemic.

INEQUALITY
“Had the healthcare system not been so neglected for so long, India would have been prepared to face the Covid-19 crisis,” said Jean Dreze, the Belgian-born Indian economist and a lecturer at Delhi University. “Had India built a more robust social security system, the humanitarian toll of the crisis would not have been so catastrophic.”

Unlike the old guard in 1991, Mr. Modi has turned the economy more inward, focusing on self-reliance and homegrown companies. Despite championing free trade in global forums, he’s raised tariffs on goods including electronics and medical equipment, partly reflecting global trends.

Some of those decisions came back to haunt India when citizens struggled to import life-saving products like oxygen concentrators during the pandemic. Top scientists wrote to Mr. Modi, asking him to reverse protectionist duties imposed on key items needed to study the coronavirus and its variants including the delta one, which now threatens the globe.

After pledging to contribute to global vaccine programs, the Modi government slowed exports of Covid-19 shots, derailing the inoculation program of a World Health Organization-backed initiative.

“India’s ambition of being seen as a major player on the world stage has taken a substantial hit as the pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses in the capacity and competence of its government,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

The key question for global investors now is whether India will get old before Indians get rich. Netflix is counting on India for its next 100 million customers. Mr. Bezos is pouring billions of dollars — and even braving Indian courts — to battle India’s richest man Mr. Ambani for a slice of the only open retail market with more than a billion people.

“The pandemic has set us back hugely, and we were already on a growth downswing when it happened,” said Indira Rajaraman, an economist and a former member of the Reserve Bank of India’s board. “Going forward, it all depends on how cleverly we design the way we come out of these doldrums.”  — Bloomberg

Prenatal test developed with Chinese military stores gene data

A PRENATAL TEST taken by millions of pregnant women globally was developed by Chinese gene company BGI Group in collaboration with the Chinese military and is being used by the firm to collect genetic data, a Reuters review of publicly available documents found.

The report is the first to reveal that the company collaborated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to develop and improve the test, taken in early pregnancy, as well as the scope of BGI’s storage and analysis of the data. The United States sees BGI’s efforts to collect and analyze human gene data as a national security threat.

China’s biggest genomics firm, BGI began marketing the test abroad in 2013. Branded NIFTY, it is among the world’s top selling non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT). These screen a sample of blood from a pregnant woman to detect abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome in a developing foetus.

So far more than 8 million women globally have taken BGI’s prenatal tests, BGI has said. NIFTY is sold in at least 52 countries, including Britain, Europe, Canada, Australia, Thailand and India, but not the United States.

BGI uses leftover blood samples sent to its laboratory in Hong Kong and genetic data from the tests for population research, the company confirmed to Reuters. Reuters found the genetic data of over 500 women who took the test, including women in Europe and Asia, is also stored in the government-funded China National GeneBank in Shenzhen, which BGI runs.

Reuters found no evidence BGI violated privacy agreements or regulations; the company said it obtains signed consent and destroys overseas samples and data after five years. “At no stage throughout the testing or research process does BGI have access to any identifiable personal data,” the company said.

However, the test’s privacy policy says data collected can be shared when it is “directly relevant to national security or national defense security” in China. BGI said it “has never been asked to provide — nor provided — data from its NIFTY tests to Chinese authorities for national security or national defense purposes.”

The US National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which has previously warned about Chinese firms collecting health data, said in response to Reuters’ findings that women taking the NIFTY test abroad should be concerned by a privacy policy that allows data to be shared with Chinese security agencies.

“Non-invasive prenatal testing kits marketed by Chinese biotech firms serve an important medical function, but they can also provide another mechanism for the People’s Republic of China and Chinese biotech companies to collect genetic and genomic data from around the globe,” the center said.

China’s foreign ministry said Reuters’ findings reflected “groundless accusations and smears” of US agencies.

Other companies selling such prenatal tests also re-use data for research. But none operate on the scale of BGI, scientists and ethicists say, or have BGI’s links to a government or its track record with a national military.

BGI began working with Chinese military hospitals to study the genomes of fetuses in 2010 and has published over a dozen joint studies with PLA researchers to trial and improve its prenatal tests, the Reuters review of more than 100 public documents showed.

The PLA General Hospital in Beijing and Third Military Medical University in Chongqing ran clinical trials on the NIFTY test in 2011. They worked with BGI researchers to expand the genetic abnormalities the test screens for, papers published in 2019 and 2020 show.

In one example, the PLA General Hospital worked with BGI on the first Chinese prenatal trial to screen for dwarfism, which BGI later brought to market.

Also, a BGI study published in 2018 used a military supercomputer to re-analyze NIFTY data and map the prevalence of viruses in Chinese women, look for indicators of mental illness in them, and single out Tibetan and Uyghur minorities to find links between their genes and their characteristics.

As well as genetic information about the foetus and mother, the testing process captures personal information, such as the customer’s country, weight, height, and medical history, according to BGI computer code reviewed by Reuters. The customer’s name is not collected.

Reuters spoke to a woman who took the test in 2020, a 32-year-old office administrator in Poland. She said that if she had known her data could be shared with the Chinese government, or understood the extent of BGI’s secondary research, she would have chosen a different test.

“I want to know what is happening with such sensitive data about me, such as my genome and that of my child,” said the woman, Emilia, who asked to be identified only by her first name. — Reuters

Thai authorities propose tighter curbs as COVID-19 deaths climb

REUTERS

BANGKOK — Thailand’s health ministry said on Thursday it had proposed new travel curbs and tighter restrictions in high-risk areas to contain coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, as the country reported a daily record of 75 deaths from the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is due to consider the new restrictions in a meeting on Friday.

“The health ministry will propose measures first to limit travel and so that people do not leave their homes unless necessary,” the ministry’s permanent secretary, Kiatiphum Wongrajit, told reporters, noting a halt to inter-provincial travel was also being proposed.

Other measures being proposed include closing down non-essential venues and areas that attract crowds, Mr. Kiatiphum said.

The rules would be in place for 14 days and would cover the Bangkok metropolitan area and “buffer zones,” Mr. Kiatiphum said, without elaborating.

“This has similar intensity as April 2020,” he said referring to lockdown measures last year that included a nationwide curfew.

Currently, Thailand has in place measures in “high-risk zones,” including Bangkok and surrounding provinces, to close malls early and prohibit dining in at restaurants, but they have not been able to halt an acceleration of infections in the past month.

Thailand’s COVID-19 task force on Thursday reported 7,058 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number in the country to 308,230. The country has recorded 2,462 fatalities since the pandemic started last year. — Reuters

Advancing gender parity in workplaces of all sizes

PIXABAY

By Brontë H. Lacsamana 

Businesses of all sizes can and should contribute to gender parity initiatives. “Too often, SMEs [small and medium enterprises] are ‘frightened’ of the larger gender equality advocacy due to the scale of finance, logistics, and strategic planning associated with it. In our observation, these advocacies need not be complex,” said Ma. Aurora “Boots” D. Geotina-Garcia, co-chair of the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (PBCWE), via e-mail. 

The annual Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Awards, held by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) in Asia-Pacific, is accepting nominations for the 2021 competition and inviting companies of all sizes to be signatories. 

There are 51 Philippine-based signatories to the WEPs so far, with eight of them having 10 or fewer employees. Twelve have 11 to 50 employees, including last year’s Youth Leadership winner, the public-private startup platform QBO Innovation Hub. 

“The awards were an amazing opportunity for QBO, a young startup, to network with established organizations that share our vision,” said Katrina R. Chan, the Executive Director of the small enterprise, in a press release, “Attaining this recognition raises our profile around the efforts to ensure equal gender representation in tech becomes the norm.”  

The Gender-inclusive Workplace category in the WEPs Awards, which PBCWE is presenting along with the Australian initiative Investing in Women (IW), will focus on those that have concrete gender parity efforts, including equal recruitment and pay, and the promotion of women’s career development and leadership. 

“We know improving performance in gender equality is linked with positive business outcomes,” said Dr. Julia Newton-Howes, IW chief executive officer, in a statement. “Recognizing the work some companies are doing towards workplace gender equality will demonstrate the benefits this brings such as better risk management, greater innovation, and increased profitability.” 

The objective of this year’s WEPs Awards is to recognize businesses persevering towards a more gender-inclusive economic recovery from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the competition’s press release.  

PROGRESS STALLED BY THE PANDEMIC
The Philippines is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Report, which placed the country 17th out of 156 countries.  

Meanwhile, the 2021 Female Opportunity Index, published this July by the digital bank N26, ranked the Philippines 41st out of 100 countries in terms of gender parity in the workplace. 

“We are also one of the few countries that has closed at the same time its gender gap in senior roles and in professional and technical roles,” said PBCWE’s Ms. Geotina-Garcia. “This is an important milestone for the private sector.” 

The Female Opportunity Index also showed the Philippines placing 37th in terms of women in management. However, based on salary level and wage gap, the country ranked 66th, leaving room for improvement when it comes to equal pay. 

“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Ms. Geotina-Garcia, citing a 2019 study on women in managerial positions done by PBCWE and the Makati Business Club that showed that women are more likely to stop working during their childbearing age. “Women tend to step back during their childbearing life phase, whereas males are expected to step up to increase their financial support for the family.”  

The progressive leave policy of Accenture in the Philippines was included in PBCWE’s 2019 study as an example of best corporate practices in handling gender diversity. The consulting company implemented 30 days of paternity leave to encourage equal distribution of responsibilities for couples even before the passage of the Philippines Expanded Maternity Leave Law, which allowed mothers to transfer seven of their 105 paid-leave days to the child’s father. 

The study also focused on the state of women in the executive level of corporations: it found that while 95.1% (103 female respondents) are confident in their skills, education, and leadership potential, they rated their suitability for leadership roles lower when asked to consider a career upgrade or immediate elevation to a top role. 

More recently, the UN Women and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) documented similar efforts in their 2020 report on corporate practices that support gender equality in the face of COVID-19. One of these is Filipino company Insurance Life’s “Sheroes program”, which develops online content advising women how to maintain physical, psychological, and financial well-being in the pandemic. 

Progress towards gender parity, however, has been stalled in many economies during the pandemic. “[This is] partly due to women being more frequently employed in sectors hardest hit by lockdowns, combined with the additional pressures of providing care at home,” said Ms. Geotina-Garcia. 

GENDER LENS
On a larger scale, the field of gender lens investing (GLI) in the country has also been active. Global social enterprise Value for Women’s case study on the Manila Angel Investors Network Inc. (MAIN) showed how the investment group, founded by men, did not start out with a gender lens. MAIN only shifted focus and partnered with IW three years into its existence. 

“I think all Filipina women would invest in more women,” an unnamed female MAIN member shared for the study, on the topic of woman investors, “They would understand there’s a need for that (product) and they’d be more empathetic to the woman entrepreneur’s experience.” 

Like MAIN, businesses and organizations may not deliberately set out seeking to empower women, but end up doing so over the course of their lifetime. 

Consider solar energy company Upgrade Energy Philippines, Inc., a WEPs-signed small enterprise that is 70% women, including engineers, with 60% of the management being women as well. 

“This was not deliberate to start with,” said Ruth Yu-Owen, Upgrade Energy president and co-founder of the tech entrepreneur community Connected Women, at the 2021 WEPs Awards info session about how women are naturally taking the forefront. “What does it tell us? It just happened because women are equally qualified engineers, managers, and leaders in an industry dominated by men.” 

FRAMEWORK FOR EQUALITY
Business, companies, and enterprises of any size, including subsidiaries of multinationals and their branches, industry associations, stock exchanges, and chambers of commerce of eligible countries — a very broad and inclusive scope — can apply to the WEPs Awards.  

“The WEPs provide a framework for all businesses to guide their work towards gender equality regardless of size, sector, industry, or location,” said UN Women Philippines Program Manager Ma. Rosalyn G. Mesina, during this year’s information session. 

“If you’re sitting on the fence, just go for it,” said Ms. Yu-Owen of Connected Women, “You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so I highly encourage everyone to join the WEPs awards and sign the WEPs. It makes good business sense to do so.” 

The 2021 WEPs Awards will accept nominations until July 31. The National WEPs Awards ceremonies in the Philippines will be hosted by WeEmpowerAsia in October.

U.S. industry groups, lawmakers press White House to lift travel restrictions

WASHINGTON – A coalition of 24 industry organizations urged the White House to lift coronavirus restrictions that bar much of the world from traveling to the United States but a White House official told Reuters late on Wednesday reopening will need more discussion.

The group, led by the U.S. Travel Association and representing airlines, casinos, hotels, airports, airplane manufacturers and others, urged the administration to ease by July 15 entry restrictions imposed last year as the coronavirus was spreading around the world.

Separately, 75 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are also seeking the easing of travel bans, in particular entry restrictions on travelers from Canada and Britain.

In early June, the White House launched interagency working groups with the European Union, Britain, Canada, and Mexico to look at how to eventually to lift restrictions. Those meetings have generally been occurring every two weeks.

“While these groups have met a number of times, there are further discussions to be had before we can announce any next steps on travel reopening with any country,” the White House official told Reuters.

“We want to ensure that we move deliberately and are in a position to sustainably reopen international travel when it is safe to do so.”

The 75 members of the U.S. House of Representatives called on Biden to reopen the U.S. border with Canada to non-essential travelers.

The lawmakers in a letter cited projections that if the restrictions are not lifted, the United States could “lose 1.1 million jobs and an additional $175 billion by the end of this year.”

The industry groups also called for quickly lifting restrictions on European travelers and others, calling as a first step for allowing fully vaccinated travelers from non-high-risk areas like the European Union to enter the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised concerns about the Delta variant of COVID-19 in U.S. government meetings, sources said.

Industry and U.S. officials told Reuters they do not expect the administration to lift restrictions soon.

The White House official said the interagency working groups have looked at “progress in our domestic vaccination effort and the risk posed by the Delta variant.”

The CDC wants airlines to implement international passenger contact tracing as part of any lifting of restrictions, sources told Reuters.

Airlines and others have pressed the administration to lift restrictions covering most non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in Britain, the 26 Schengen nations in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.

Some travel industry officials think it increasingly likely the restrictions will not be lifted until after the busy summer travel season.

The 75 lawmakers called for lifting restrictions that bar most UK travelers and to develop “a risk-based, data-driven roadmap to ease inbound entry restrictions.”

Some in Congress have also called on the administration to lift rules for travelers to wear masks in airports, subway stations and on airplanes and trains but is not currently considering lifting those requirements, officials told Reuters.

The Transportation Security Administration in April extended the face mask requirement in transit through Sept. 13.

Last month, the administration again extended restrictions barring non-essential travel at Mexican and Canada land borders until July 21. – Reuters

U.S. states allege Google ‘unlawfully’ preserves Play Store monopoly

REUTERS

WASHINGTON/OAKLAND, Calif. – Thirty-seven U.S. state and district attorneys general sued Alphabet Inc’s Google on Wednesday, alleging that it bought off competitors and used restrictive contracts to unlawfully maintain a monopoly for its app store on Android phones.

The allegations about Google’s Play Store stem from an investigation involving nearly every U.S. state that began in September 2019 and have already resulted in three other lawsuits against the company. The cases threaten to force major changes to how it generates billions of dollars in revenue across its businesses, including advertising, in-app purchases and smart home gadgets.

Google said on Wednesday the litigation was about boosting a handful of major app developers that want preferential treatment rather than about helping small businesses or consumers. It maintains that unlike Apple Inc with its App Store on iPhones, Android supports competitors to the Play Store.

“Android and Google Play provide openness and choice that other platforms simply don’t,” the company said in a blog post.

The states, led by Utah, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee, argue that Google has generated “enormous profit margins” from the Play Store by engaging in illegal tactics to preserve monopolies in selling Android apps and in-app goods.

In the United States, Google Play accounts for 90% of Android apps downloaded, according to the lawsuit.

“Google leverages its monopoly power with Android to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in the Android app distribution market,” the lawsuit stated.

The states pointed to agreements already targeted in other lawsuits such as those Google has with mobile carriers and smartphone makers to promote its services.

But they added fresh claims after newly reviewing internal company documents. The states alleged that Google bought off developers so they would not support competing app stores, and that through numerous secret projects it intended to pay Samsung Electronics Co, whose rival app store posed the biggest threat, to stop competing.

Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plaintiffs, which include California and the District of Columbia, also say Google has unlawfully mandated that some apps use the company’s payment tools and give Google as much as 30% of digital goods sales. The “extravagant commission,” compared with the 3% other marketplaces charge, has forced app makers to raise prices and consumers to spend more, the states said.

“Google Play is not fair play,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a statement. “It must stop using its monopolistic power and hyper-dominant market position to unlawfully leverage billions of added dollars from smaller companies, competitors and consumers beyond what should be paid.”

The states want the consumers to get their money back. They also called for civil penalties and a court-imposed monitor to ensure Google eases the process for consumers, app developers and smartphone makers to use or promote alternatives to the Play Store and the official payment system for 20 years. In addition, the states seek to stop Google’s payments to Samsung and developers.

The states said on Wednesday they have not ruled out taking similar action against Apple over its App Store.

The filing drew praise from Meghan DiMuzio, executive director for the Coalition for App Fairness, which represents companies including Match Group Inc and Spotify Technology SA that oppose some of the Play Store rules.

“Anti-competitive policies stifle innovation, inhibit consumer freedom, inflate costs, and limit transparent communication between developers and their customers,” DiMuzio said.

 

FEARING SAMSUNG

The lawsuit said that while Google does enable consumers to avoid the Play Store, it displays “generally misleading warnings and hurdles” to discourage such activity.

Google does not break out Play Store’s financial performance but has said the unit along with several others together generated $21.7 billion in revenue last year, or about 12% of overall sales.

Google’s worries about Samsung grew after the South Korean company worked with video game maker Epic Games Inc to exclusively launch “Fortnite” for Android devices in 2018, according to the lawsuit.

Epic’s bypassing of the Play Store cost Google some millions of dollars in revenue, the states said.

Google “immediately launched multiple coordinated initiatives designed to block the emergence of a competing Galaxy Store,” the lawsuit said. “Google viewed these projects as an integrated approach to eliminating the threat of more developers following Epic’s lead.”

Last year, Epic itself sued Google and Apple separately in federal court in California over app store policies. Proposed classes of developers and consumers have joined the cases.

A judge’s decision in the Apple fight is expected in the coming weeks, and a hearing on Google’s effort to dismiss the case against it is scheduled for July 22.

The lawsuits come amid growing antitrust scrutiny of big tech companies, but regulators suffered an early blow last week when a judge dismissed a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Facebook Inc.

The ruling should not affect the Play Store case because it covers different circumstances, the states suing Google said.

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