Daily Archives: August 4, 2021

On July 21, the Idaho Governors office announced in a press release that the state had a record breaking budget surplus of almost $900 million for the fiscal year of 2020. For the first time in Idahos history, state revenue collections exceeded $5 billion, according to the release.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little claimed he and the Idaho legislature made strategic investments in Idahos transportation, education and other areas included in his Building Idahos Future plan, and will continue to do so moving forward with this new budget surplus.

Alex Adams, administrator in the Department of Financial Management, said the larger-than-normal surplus is due to the amount of federal funding that flooded the local economy.

So, if you or any of your fellow students got the stimulus checks, for example, the $1,400 stimulus checks that were mailed out earlier this year, my guess is many students went out and bought things with those, Adams said. Some might have bought books and others might have bought bicycles, and some might have used it for groceries or other things.

Over the past couple years Little grew K-12 education spending 29% in 2019 and 12% in 2020, Adams said. That may sound fantastic, but when you look at how much Idaho was spending per pupil in 2018 compared to other states, we ranked No. 51 in the nation.

According to Idaho Education News, Idaho spent $6,747 per pupil during the 2018-19 school year. This was only an $8 increase per pupil from the year before. The National Education Associations 2021 Ranking of the States report stated the national average for spending per student was $13,597 in 2020, while it was $12,693 in 2018.

With spending this low, Idahos education is suffering even with the increased spending Little has done in the past couple years, and the states ranking as lowest hasnt budged one bit.

These budget issues paired with the recent attacks on education from high-ranking politicians and powerful political groups seriously puts Idahos education at risk.

Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin and the education indoctrination task force she assembled in April are striking fear and spreading misinformation among Idahos parents, teachers and students. The task force is co-chaired by Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who is currently facing an ethics hearing after posting the name and face of an alleged rape victim on her social media.

McGeachin and Giddings are running for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, in the 2022 elections.

The task forces meetings have focused on examining Critical Race Theory, Socialism, Communism and Marxism in Idahos public schools.

Those words are enough to put a little fear into almost every American because of the terrible connotations they have in our country, but apparently the public schools in Idaho are throwing them around and brainwashing children with them.

Boise schools and their equity-focused programs became the target of Giddings $100,000 records request, the only one she made in her search for indoctrination throughout Idaho according to Idaho Education News, in preparation for the June 24 meeting that focused on indoctrination in K-12 schools.

On July 29 the task force turned their blades toward higher education and, in the footsteps of the State Board of Education and Idaho School Boards Association, universities in Idaho refused to send a representative. Whether showing the task forces lack of legitimacy was these institutions intention or not, I cant help but think they were right for not putting in the effort.

Out of the three meetings held by the task force so far, none of them have accepted comments from the public. The August meeting will be where the public can voice their thoughts, according to McGeachin.

Meanwhile, Idahos K-12 federal relief plan, which included hundreds of millions to be spent on education, has been denied by the U.S. Department of Education and sent back to the state for revision. After the state failed to explain how they would meet the federal plan requirements, Idahos schools are forced to wait for the funds they need.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation, which has members on the indoctrination task force, seems to think Idahos spot as last in spending per student is undeserved, arguing there is plenty of money to educate Idahos students.

They argue because well under half the money Idaho spends per student is going toward educators, which says something in its own right, there is enough money.

The rest of the money is spent on other staff, which includes everything from counselors to administrators, physical therapists to IT professionals, the IFF article states. Additional funds are spent on buildings, supplies, transportation and foodservice.

Idaho is struggling to fund all of those areas, and all of those things are what students need to attend school. Positions and classes dealing with anything outside of what is needed to pass standard testing, such as art and home economics classes, are eradicated in order to reallocate that money to areas where it is needed more, like transportation, supplies, buildings and foodservice.

To many of the students attending Idahos public schools, myself included, this mess of politics and lack of funding looks like a failure. Education funding needs more attention, reform and, most importantly, more funds. Idaho is failing their students while bragging about budget surpluses in the meantime.

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OPINION: Idaho is bragging about the wrong things - Argonaut

Craven County residents rely on the areas 145 bridges every day, yet 25 of them need corrective action.

Car and truck traffic is expected to double on New Berns bridges in the next 20 years. Corrective repairs to the two largest and most traveled bridges-- the Neuse and Trent River bridges -- will be imperative.

Throughout this article, we take a deeper dive into our bridge inspection database found here:Craven County, North Carolina Bridge Inspections | newbernsj.com

Repairs are rated two ways… critical finds and priority maintenance, said Rhett Gerrald, bridge maintenance engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). Critical finds are urgent time-sensitive repairs needed, and priority maintenance is suggested to extend the lifespan of the structure.

There are 25 bridges that require priority maintenance, but noneare critical -- yet.

While inspection terms like need corrective action and structurally deficient" are alarming, they are not as concerningas residentsmight think, according to the NCDOT.

A bridge can live in the structurally deficient phase for a long time before its actually unsafe, said David Snoke, a project engineer in the NCDOT's structures management unit.

When a critical find is made, the NCDOT aims to have a plan in place within 10 days and make the repairs within 45 days, Snoke said.

For priority maintenance items, the goal is to have the repairs made before the next inspection cycle.

More: Do the Neuse River Bridge Run on your own terms, at your own pace this year

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It is sometimes dependent on access to the bridge and material or labor being available, Snoke said. With priority maintenance repairs, that is also very dependent on priorities within the division.

On July 1, the NCDOT entered into its 2022 fiscal year and has a bridge preservation budget of just over $1.2 million. This number does not include preservation work that is contracted out.

Craven Countys Maple Cypress Bridge is one of the bridges that was deemed structurally deficient and has already begun to be replaced under budget savings, according to Gerrald. Construction got underway in early June and will not be completed for a couple of years.

Repairs to the existing structure will keep the maximum weight limits from dropping, he said.

Four of Craven Countys most traveled bridges were deemed structurally unfit. Though the bridges listed were not claimed to be critical finds requiring immediate repair.

"A bridge can live in the structurally deficient state for a long time before it is actually unsafe," Snoke said. "There is several tiers within the category structurally deficient."

The repairs needed were/are of priority maintenance.Priority maintenance is any repaire that requires more attention than just routine maintenance. It often occurs when structures are starting to decay, loosen or crack.

The repairs on Neuse River Bridge, constructed in1999, were inspected in September 2019. Inspections are done every two years.

By 2040, experts predicttraffic to double at 18,000 travelers across the bridge, compared to the current9,000 travelers that cross Neuse Riverdaily.

With traffic projected to increase, repairs such as deck geometry were stated "intolerable requiring high priority of replacement," according to the NCDOT data.

What is deck geometry?

"When a bridge is functionally obsolete, that means the design of the bridge does not meet current standards or does not meet the current traffic demand, Gerrald said.

For instance, he said if there is heavy traffic across a bridge, additional lanes may be a necessityfor travelers convenience.

Other minor repairs included bank protection, which claimed to have minor amounts of drift and a slight chance of flooding.

All the needed repairs over New Berns Neuse River Bridge have been fixed, according to Gerrald.

In December 2020, repairs were made to the Freedom Memorial Bridge, originally built in 1976 and reconstructed in 1998. The repair team mended a few of the bridge's joints and further repairs are scheduled for the end of this summer.

The cost to repair just the joints is around $30,000.

By 2040, the bridge is expected to have average daily traffic of 53,000, a considerable jump from its current 26,500.

When the Freedom Memorial Bridge was last inspected in September 2019, the bank protection needed minor repairs and the channel was susceptible to minor amounts of drift.

Then, work was proposed due to general structure deterioration. The maintenance responsibility for the bridge falls on the State Highway Agency.

Wilson Creek bridge in Trent Woods

Wilson Creek bridge was originally built in 1984 and was never reconstructed.

The repairs were similar to the other four focused bridges, but the condition is fair.Fair condition could mean minor section loss, cracking of the concrete surfaceor a hard cleaning to brighten the appearance of the bridge.

Other repairs on the bridge included deck geometry, bank protection to prevent erosionand the prevention ofany chances of flooding.

Traffic is lower but the bridge is important for Trent Woods residents. The Wilson Creek bridgeis still projected to double from 2,600 reported in 2017to 5,200 by 2040.

Gerrald said all repairs that were deemed needing repairs for Wilson Creek have been completed.

The Slocum Road bridge in Havelock was built in 1984 and its maintenance responsibility falls on the Navy/Marines.

After its last inspection in October 2018, the total cost of repairs needed is $75,000. Fixing the asphalt alone is a $40,000 job.

The deck geometry was considered intolerable and corrective action was marked high priority. The overall condition of the bridge was considered fair, with minor section loss and cracking.

The bridge's average daily traffic is 2,500 and is expected to be 3,000 by 2032.

How do experts inspect bridges and what do they do to fix them?

As of March 2021, 8.2%of bridges in North Carolina were considered in poor condition, meaning they are safe, but have deteriorating components. The cost to repair all of them is over $3.8 billion.

The Federal Highway Administrations bridge inspection process and standards are a result of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968.

The NCDOT inspects bridges every 2 years, or more if a certain bridge poses a potential threat. Underwater inspections occur every5 years.

A bridge gets a sufficiency rating, which is calculated from data by the National Bridge Inspection program, on structural condition, functional obsolescence, and how essential it is to public use

"So, if that sufficiency rating meets a certain score or drops down to a certain score, it gets labeled as structurally deficient," according to Gerrald.

We typically look at every part of the bridge when we do an inspection. That typically means putting our hands on the bridge, though that is not 100 percent of the time, Snoke said.

If a hands-off inspection is done and something is noticed, the team gets special access to do a hands-on inspection for that portion of the bridge with the issue.

A bridge is scored on the condition of three things: its deck, superstructure, and substructure.

The most common types of issues on the deck are potholes and joint damage. For superstructures, damage usually occurs where the steel or concrete touches water. The ends of steel stands will sometimes corrode or concrete ones will have some chunks fall off due to passing debris, Snoke said.

When we do our bridge inspections, maintenance items are flagged by a bridge inspector and an engineer will categorize those maintenance items into three categories: routine, priority and critical, Snoke said. Those are the indicators for how quickly those items get done.

The information then goes to the local bridge maintenance engineer who prioritizes the work.

Creeks, rivers, and inlets snake through much of eastern North Carolina, making bridges a necessity in the region. Carteret and New Hanover County both had a slightly higher percentage of bridges that need to be repaired, 21.82 and 20.18 percentrespectively. Onslow and Pitt had roughly 7 percent fewer bridges that need repairs, at 10.98 percent and 10.71 percent.

In NCDOT's division 2, which Craven falls under, three bridges are closed for repairs. Two are in Pitt County and one is in Beaufort.

Originally posted here:

New Bern's busiest bridges need 'corrective action' and millions to fix - New Bern Sun Journal

New U.S. citizens recite the Pledge of Allegiance during a naturalization ceremony on World Refugee Day, held in recognition of those who have come to the U.S. with refugee or asylum seeker status. The event took place at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 20, 2016. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

This summer marked the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 20th anniversary of World Refugee Day. Both came at a moment of unprecedented crisis. The UN Refugee Agency reports that as of the end of 2020, some 82.4 million peopleabout 1 in 95 people in the worldhave been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order. For decades after the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States was a haven for those fleeing persecution and violence. Until 2018, it welcomed more refugees than any other country. Religious groups are and have been central in this process. Today, as Religion News Service reports, six of the nine agencies contracted by the U.S. government to resettle refugees are faith-based. These organizations and their supporters have a substantial interest in the direction of U.S. refugee policy and considerable political and moral power they can wield with lawmakers. Yet their religious affinities, coupled with the political orientation of their memberships, sometimes dictate which refugees they view as most worthy of their advocacy. This dynamic is not new, as history shows, but it can lead to preferential treatment for some groups over others, undermining the U.S. image as a beacon of hope for the worlds persecuted peoples.

On May 3, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that he had raised the national cap on the number of refugees that would be allowed into the United States. For this fiscal year, the limit is 62,500 admissions, up significantly from the historic low of 15,000 that the Trump administration set in late 2020. Religious groups had emerged as strong opponents of the Trump-era reduction in refugee admissions, including some connected with the politically conservative and predominantly white evangelical churches that had otherwise aligned themselves strongly with the then-president. Refugee policy represented a rare breach in their support for Trump. Biden stated that his new cap would reinforce efforts that are already underway to expand the United States capacity to admit refugees, and his ultimate goal would be 125,000 refugee admissions for the next fiscal year. Despite his assertion that U.S. refugee admissions reflected Americas commitment to protect the most vulnerable, and to stand as a beacon of liberty and refuge to the world, Bidens announcement came only after significant pressure from refugee advocacy groups, religious organizations, and Democratic leaders in Congress. An earlier Biden White House memorandum had left refugee admissions capped at 15,000, the same low level left by the Trump administration.

As individuals who are fleeing persecution in their home nations because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, refugees constitute a distinct group in U.S. and international law. They are different from migrants, who have chosen to move from their home countries but could return safely if they so chose, as well as from people seeking asylum, who have fled persecution but have not yet been formally recognized as refugees. Acrimonious debate about immigration policy in the United States tends to blur the distinctions among these groups in the popular imagination, however.

Political considerations also affect how the United States assigns those legal categories to people from different countries who are seeking asylum or entry into the country. In 2018, Trump administration officials moved to implement stricter standards for asylum seekers that would block claims from individuals fleeing domestic violence or persecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity in their countries. The policy reflected conservative rhetoric about illegal immigration as well as the conservative political aim of greatly reducing the number of Central Americans entering the United States. Liberal activists and immigrant rights organizations viewed the policy to deny gender-based violence claims as an attack on women and LGBTQ rights. Liberal groups also mobilized in response to Trumps ban on refugees from several Muslim-majority countries, decrying the policy as Islamophobic as well as counterproductive to the administrations purported national security aims. Even though advocacy on behalf of refugees exists across the political spectrum, the way that activist organizations and lawmakers discuss refugees reveals that broader debates about immigration cannot be easily separated from the countrys contentious political and cultural divides.

Religious organizations, many of which have positioned themselves as stalwart champions of refugees because of their faiths doctrines as well as their commitment to supporting persecuted co-religionists, are not immune from these political dynamics. Add to this mix the desire to protect core constitutional values such as religious freedom and to promote those values internationally through U.S. foreign relations, and refugee policy takes on extra ideological weight. Spiritual and national values notwithstanding, the nature of faith-based advocacy for refugees reflects the current political conflicts and ongoing culture wars in the United Statesand this is not a new phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, politically liberal and conservative religious organizations alike dedicated particular attention to the cause of protecting and welcoming refugees, yet the individuals or groups that these organizations defined as refugees often differed based on their political commitments.

Although U.S. faith groups of all stripes have involved themselves in organized global humanitarian work since the nineteenth century, the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War brought renewed focus to refugees, religious persecution, and related human rights issues. In July 1951, the United Nations adopted its Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which offered a specific and inclusive definition of refugee based on the idea codified in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights that all people have the right to seek asylum from persecution. The Cold War with the Soviet Union initially diverted U.S. attention from international human rights. By the 1970s, though, a confluence of factors including ideology (in particular the idea that the United States was at war with godless communism), ongoing religious persecution in the Soviet bloc, and the emergence of the international human rights movement empowered congressional action and religious activism on human rights. Alongside these developments, the proxy and covert wars of the Cold War contributed to an increased flow of refugees worldwide throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Refugees seeking to flee faith-based persecution in their home countries prompted special concern in the United States.

Jewish organizations and human rights advocates in the United States worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the plight of the Soviet Jewry, who faced legal discrimination, deeply rooted anti-Semitism, and restrictions that limited their ability to leave their country. In the 1970s, U.S. Jewish activists put pressure on the Nixon administration to address this religious persecution as part of its diplomacy with the Soviet Union. President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger preferred backchannel discussions for such issues and generally disdained overt congressional human rights advocacy, but nonetheless did begin to address Jewish emigration restrictions with Soviet leaders. In addition, in November 1971, The Washington Post reported that the Nixon administration would admit without limit Soviet Jews seeking refuge from persecution in the Soviet Union. When the Kremlin imposed a new and onerous system of exit fees and diploma taxes aimed at further limiting the rights of Jews to leave the Soviet Union in 1972, Jewish organizations and members of Congress mobilized.

Senator Henry Scoop Jackson of Washington and Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio introduced an amendment to an international trade act that would make trading privileges with non-market countries contingent on those countries upholding the right of citizens to emigrate. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment passed Congress and became part of the Trade Act of 1974. When it did, it became a crucial tool in the arsenal that human rights advocates and sympathetic policy makers could use to influence U.S. foreign relations. In conjunction with congressional and interest group activism, the amendment ensured that restrictions on the freedom of religious minorities in the Soviet Union to emigrate or practice their faiths would remain a sticking point in U.S.-Soviet relations into the 1980s. Despite some improvements for religious minorities under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the U.S. government continued to grant refugee status to almost all Soviet Jewish emigres. That said, the number of exit visas that the Soviet Union issued to Jews remained fairly low for much of the decade.

In 1989, the Soviet Union fully loosened emigration restrictions, in part because Soviet leaders hoped that the removal of Jackson-Vanik-imposed trade limitations would improve their countrys poor economic situation. This turnabout led to such an enormous increase in Soviet religious minorities seeking admission to the United States as refugees that the George H.W. Bush administration moved to impose new admission limits. Jewish organizations, along with evangelical Christian groups concerned about persecuted Soviet Baptists and Pentecostals, mounted a speedy response. A New York Times article on the new admissions cap noted that the debate over Soviet emigration demonstrates how United States refugee policy can be affected by domestic political pressures. Dozens of groups have prodded the Administration to keep the doors open to refugees from the Soviet Union and Indochina; there is much less debate in Congress about the plight of Africas four million refugees. Religious organizations in particular exercised tremendous political power through their activism on behalf of persecuted co-religionists.

Religious persecution and refugees also became a contentious factor in U.S. relations with Central America during the Reagan administration. A long history of U.S. interventionism and economic coercion throughout Latin America had contributed to political instability, poverty, and violence in many countries. During the Cold War, U.S. policymakers viewed the emergence of any left-leaning political parties in the region as evidence of attempted Soviet subversion. They responded by authorizing covert operations to remove from power leaders they perceived as unfavorable and replace them with friendly authoritarian leaders instead, such as in the 1954 CIA coup that ousted the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo rbenz, and installed the right wing dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, in his place. Many of the right-wing military dictatorships that the United States supported committed gross human rights violations against their citizens in order to suppress political dissent. In addition to creating new flows of refugees, these abuses provoked the ire of human rights activists and members of Congress, who managed to impose at least some legislative restraints on the extension of U.S. aid to repressive authoritarian regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, he resisted these efforts, seeking instead to revivify the Cold War and crush what he perceived as a rising communist threat in Central America.

Politically conservative white evangelical Christians became key allies in Reagans fight. In the Nicaraguan Contra War, where the Reagan administration backed the counterrevolutionary Contras in their fight to oust the Sandinista government, these evangelicals mobilized through Christian radio, television and other media to share White House messaging that claimed the Sandinistas threatened religious liberty in Nicaragua. Despite widely reported evidence (including from progressive evangelicals) that Contra forces were torturing, maiming, raping, and killing civilians, Reagan and his evangelical supporters contended that the Sandinistas were placing restrictions on churches and harassing and attacking religious believers. In addition, they lambasted the Sandinistas for forcibly relocating a large group of Miskito Indians, most of whom identified as Moravian Christians. With this messaging in hand, conservative evangelicals lobbied members of Congress to provide aid to the Contras. They also sought to evangelize Nicaraguan refugees who had fled to Honduras to escape the war and supported efforts to raise money for their support. At a fundraising dinner for the conservative Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, Reagan lamented the refugee situation and expressed great concern for the Nicaraguans who were fleeing what he described as a Sandinista police state.

This concern came in marked contrast to the stance the Reagan administration and its white evangelical allies took on refugees fleeing from brutal human rights abuses in El Salvador and Guatemala. Reagan contended that unlike in Nicaragua, with its totalitarian government, people living under military dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala were not being persecuted and should not be classified as refugees. Human rights organizations and many Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Jewish organizations disagreed, however. Despite the threat of fines and legal action, hundreds of U.S. churches and synagogues provided sanctuary to undocumented Central Americans who had escaped from the devastating political violence in the region. They also aided in resettlement efforts for those still living in refugee camps outside of their home countries. The religious organizations that led the Sanctuary Movement brought considerable attention to the plight of refugees and to the effects of the Reagan administrations foreign policies in Central America.

Clearly, many religious groups in the United States have long demonstrated their commitment to welcoming refugees, particularly those that share their faith. In recent years, they have mounted a strong defense against the efforts of the U.S. government to curtail refugee admissions. This is admirable and important work. Yet the same tendency to focus on co-religionists that has made these groups so effective as advocates means that not all are devoting their concern equally to refugees from outside of their faith tradition. While religious organizations of all varieties rallied against former president Trumps Muslim ban, many (though not all) white evangelicals espoused support for it, and some of those who opposed it did so on the grounds that it might limit their evangelistic reach. Similarly, in the 1970s and 1980s, advocacy for (or against) particular refugee groups tended to follow sectarian and political allegiances. Given the scale of the current refugee crisis, the severity of religious persecution worldwide, and our stated national commitment to promoting human rights and religious liberty, the United States must commit its efforts to fostering a truly inclusive policy for welcoming refugeeswhatever their religious (or non-religious) background.

Lauren Turek is associate professor of history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations. Follow her @laurenfturek on Twitter.

See the article here:

The Religious Activism Behind US Refugee Policy - Religion & Politics

India will celebrate 100 years of Independence in 2047. We have magnificently created the worlds largest democracy on the infertile soil of the worlds most hierarchical society. But can the next 25 years combine this vibrant democracy with mass prosperity? We make the case that this prosperity is possible and best accomplished by the goal of making the rupee a global reserve currency by India@100.

Picking goals for countries is complex. Overcoming the five giants of want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness needs education, health, infrastructure, low inflation, financial inclusion, high GDP per capita, etc, while navigating wicked trade-offs between current and future generations. In Obliquity, economist John Kay suggests that the best strategy for complex systems that change with engagement is accomplishing goals indirectly. Becoming a global reserve currency is a wholesome goal because it indirectly aligns fiscal, monetary, and economic policy. And its a legitimate goal because democracies like ours recognise success to be the outcome of fair voting; reserve currency status involves voting by impartial wallets.

Official foreign exchange reserves of about $12 trillion across 150 countries are currently stored in eight currencies: 55 per cent in US dollars, 30 per cent in euros, and 15 per cent in six other currencies. This concentration is inevitable given exploding trade, rising capital flows, and the less acknowledged motivation of protecting your reserves from your currencys volatility. A reserve currency has to serve as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. The main property of a reserve currency country is trust and the main upside is the exorbitant privilege of lower real interest rates.

Getting countries to store their reserves in the rupee needs luck and skill. Our luck arises from a multipolar world (America now accounts for less than 25 per cent of global GDP), the need for diversification (central bank reserves in dollars have fallen to 55 per cent from 71 per cent in 1999), new US thinking about indebtedness (in the last 13 years, their debt increased by $20 trillion equivalent to 90 per cent of GDP), central bank credibility (lower-for-longer creates a quantitative easing addiction), demographics (25 per cent of the worlds new workers in the next 10 years will be Indian), the UKs secular decline, a global shift of economic gravity to Asia, and the challenges of trusting China. Our economic skills have a strong opening balance: India has never defaulted and the 1991 reforms have been accelerated by big reforms like GST, IBC, inflation targeting, education, labour, and agriculture.

The base camp for this ambition is full capital account convertibility, as suggested by the Tarapore Committee in 1997. The rupee is substantially convertible for foreigners. A 2030 deadline for finishing the agenda could be a nice interim milestone. Dollar investors in the last decade not experiencing the usual big bite out of rupee returns is useful for advocating trading partners to start rupee invoicing, raising corporate rupee borrowing offshore and onshore, accelerating our CBDC (central bank digital bank currency) plans, and taking our UPI payment technology to the world (the dollar gets heft from global networks like Visa, MasterCard and Swift)

The policy agenda is clear. Fiscal policy must raise our tax to GDP ratio, raise the share of direct taxes in total taxes, and keep our public debt to GDP ratio under 100 per cent. Monetary policy must control inflation while moderating central bank balance sheet size. Economic policy must raise the productivity of our regions, sectors, firms, and individuals to reach goals in formalisation (400 million workplace social security payers), urbanisation (250 cities with more than a million people), financialisation (100 per cent credit to GDP ratio), industrialisation (less than 15 per cent farm employment), internationalisation (higher share of global trade) and skilling. These goals must be complemented by reinforcing institutions that signal rule of law; cooperative federalism, press freedom, civil service effectiveness, and judicial independence.

Being a reserve currency, like life, is a beauty contest to win you dont have to be perfect, just better than your competitors. Our competitor is China. The 2 per cent renminbi share in global reserves despite a 25 per cent increase last year doesnt reflect their status as the worlds second-largest economy and biggest trading nation. While India has no interest in becoming China, its useful to understand competitors and reflect on the three reasons why the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last month got so much more global attention than the 100th anniversary of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1985. First is the CCPs skill and need for propaganda. Second is the INC in 1985 it wasnt the original party, it was no longer a meritocracy, and its global soft power was damaged by the Emergency. But the most important reason is Chinas wealth and power per capita GDP rising 80 times in the last 40 years has lifted 800 million Chinese out of poverty.

But this astounding success seems to be making China overconfident. Recent policy border disputes with neighbours, asphyxiating Hong Kong, withdrawing the Ant IPO, and savaging the Didi IPO calls into question the long rope China has received since Henry Kissinger flew secretly to Beijing from Pakistan in 1971. US investors who have bought shares in the roughly 250 Chinese companies listed on US exchanges with a $2 trillion peak market capitalisation dont actually own equity. They own pieces of a Cayman variable interest entity, which has a contract with the parent company. Under Chinese law, foreigners cant own Chinese shares directly. Like most things in opaque China, its one of those things that works great until it doesnt.

Chinese overconfidence creates an opportunity for India. Prosperity for all Indians by India@100 a precondition for a country where the mind is without fear and the head is held high needs bold reforms in the next 25 years. These reforms are best measured by the wholesome and achievable goal of the rupee becoming a global reserve currency by 2047. The journey is the reward.

This column first appeared in the print edition on August 4, 2021 under the title A rupee wish for India@100. Sabharwal is co-founder, Teamlease Services and Vishwanathan is a former Central Banker.

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A goal for India@100: Reserve the rupee - The Indian Express