Tag: Editorial

On 1st anniversary, polls show Trump as ‘ least popular’ president in modern history

Ajay GhoshCommunity 0

US President Donald Trump ended his first year in office more unpopular than any President in modern history, various polls have said.   Among many other polls, NBC and the Wall Street Journal released data last week show that Trump’s approval rating was 39 percent in their poll, lower than the figure at the end of Barack Obama’s first year (50 percent), George W. Bush’s (82 percent, thanks to 9/11) and Bill Clinton’s (60 percent). This was the lowest figure the poll has found for a modern President completing one year in office, according to NBC News.

Figures from Gallup’s historic polling show something similar. The most recent figure for Trump has his approval at 39 percent, same as the NBC-Journal poll. That’s eight points lower than Ronald Reagan or Clinton, who were each at 47 percent around the time of their first anniversaries as president.

Trump’s approval ratings have maintained a steady low across different polls during his first year in office. This, despite the booming economy — which, Gallup noted last week, may be because Americans still give Obama more credit for how the economy is doing.

Though Trump’s overall grade was low, his marks improved on a few specific topics. According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll, 42 percent of voters gave him an “A” or “B” on both jobs and the economy. Trump split the vote on fighting terrorism, with 39 percent saying he deserved an “A” or “B” and another 39 percent giving him a “D” or “F.” The rest, 14 percent, graded him a “C.”

Trump’s fewest positive marks came on his campaign promise to “drain the swamp.” Just 22 percent gave him an “A” or “B” there, while 42 percent gave him a “D” or “F.” His lowest grades were or climate change (49 percent “Ds” or “Fs”).

Fifty-seven per cent of respondents to the NBC/WSJ poll said they disapprove of Trump, including 51 per cent who said they “strongly disapprove.” According to the poll, 46 per cent of men approve of Trump while just 33 per cent of women responded the same.

A new Economist/YouGov poll that was also released last week showed every adult member of the Trump clan with “underwater favorability” ratings. However, there was one exception: First Lady Melania Trump.

Trump remains a deeply politically polarizing figure. He continues to enjoy support from Republicans—72 percent gave him an “A” or “B.” Just 10 percent of Republicans gave Trump a “D” or “F”, while 79 percent of Democrats did. Only 8 percent of Democrats gave Trump high marks. Trump didn’t fare much better with Independent voters: about 27 percent said he deserved an “A” or “B” and 45 percent gave Trump a “D” or “F.”

Trump’s unpopularity has been one of the factors cited for predictions that the Republicans could face a bloodbath in congressional elections this November. Another factor that plays a role in those predictions are the numbers from the so-called generic ballot question: Who will you vote for in your local House race, the Democrat or Republican?

But there’s an important caveat for any Democrats popping champagne bottles at Trump’s unpopularity. Over the past month or so, his numbers — and the GOP’s — have improved. In mid-December, the Democratic advantage on that question hit a remarkable 13 points in the RealClearPolitics average. But since then, the gap has narrowed. In its most recent iteration, the average shows only a 9.1-point gap.

He is the only US President since Harry Truman to have a negative net approval rating after 12 months in the White House – some 24 points below Barack Obama at the same time in his presidency.

The year since Donald Trump’s inauguration has been packed with controversy and intrigue – during which there have been persistent allegations over Russian connections. He has fired the head of the FBI, launched tirades against the media, failed to push through healthcare reform and has escalated his rhetoric surrounding North Korea. All of this led to a slump in approval ratings, with Trump achieving a majority disapproval rating in a record of just eight days since his inauguration. And, it stayed the same for the rest of his first year in office.

Rakesh Kochhar: India’s middle class underperformance

Ajay GhoshEditorial 0

It has proved hard for most Indians to better the global middle-income standard. Perhaps more than ever, India aspires to be a global economic powerhouse. This hope may have been behind the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose victory is tied by many to public faith in his economic agenda. Mr Modi, in fact, has launched a “Make in India”campaign that aims directly to boost investment and manufacturing in the country. The focus on economic issues is evident online: a Google search for “Narendra Modi and India’s middle class” yields more than one million results.

But exactly how big is the Indian middle class? And how does its size and growth compare with the rest of the world’s? The short answers to these questions are “not so big” and “not very well.” These findings emerge from a recent Pew Research Center study that looked at the size and the growth of the global middle class from 2001 to 2011 by analysing data for 111 countries.

India lags in key respects. Only 3% of India’s population in 2011 — 32 million people — fell into the middle-income bracket. Some eight million, or about 1%, were upper-middle income or better off. The vast majority of India’s population is estimated to be either poor (20%) or low income (77%), about 1.2 billion people in all.

By contrast, 13% of the world’s population could be considered middle income in 2011, more than four times the share of India’s population that is middle income. India also falls behind in higher-income brackets: 16% of the global population lives at the upper-middle income level or better. Like most Indians, however, most people worldwide were also either poor (15%) or low income (56%) in 2011.

In the Pew Research study, people living on $10-20 a day are considered middle income.There is a growing consensus among economists that the $10 threshold is sufficiently removed from poverty — $2 or less per day by the global standard — and represents a modicum of economic security. At the same time, the threshold is modest by the standards of advanced nations, in many of which median incomes are greater than $50 per day per capita.

To Indians, the global middle-income threshold of $10 means living on Rs 150 per day. For an Indian family of four, attaining middle-income status requires bringing home more than Rs 18,200 monthly or about Rs 220,000 annually. (The conversions are done at 2011 purchasing power parity rates, which are exchange rates adjusted for differences in the prices of goods and services across countries, and expressed in 2011 prices.)

It has proved hard for most Indians to better the global middle-income standard. Leaving aside the Pew Research study, India’s National Sample Survey, whose 68th round was conducted in 2011-12, found that, on average, a rural family of four lived on Rs 5,720 per month. In urban areas, a family of four lived on an average of Rs 10,519 per month. These data confirm that the typical Indian family lives on budgets that are mere fractions of the global middle-income threshold.

To be sure, India cut poverty dramatically. The share of India’s population living on $2 or less daily fell from 35% in 2001 to 20% in 2011, which meant that 133 million Indians were pulled out of poverty. But this mainly resulted in an increase in the share of its low-income population (daily budget of $2-10) from 63% to 77%.

Even as prospects for a sizable Indian middle class appear to languish, China’s surged from 2001 to 2011.The sizes of the India’s and China’s middle classes were close at the start of the 21st century: In 2001, 1% of Indians were middle income, compared with 3% of Chinese. But by 2011, the share of Chinese who were middle income jumped to 18% while the share of Indians in the middle-income bracket inched up to only 3%.

India trails China in part because the economic reforms Delhi launched in 1991 came more than a decade after Beijing’sin the late 1970s. Analysts also note that reforms cut deeper and reached farther within China’s economy, resulting in superior outcomes.

How does India compare with other BRICS in building its middle class? Not favourably. Russia leads the group, with the middle-income bracket accounting for 37% of its population in 2011. Brazil, with 28%, and South Africa, with 14%, also lead India by substantial margins. Compared with India, these countries, and China, also have higher shares of their populations living in the upper-middle income ($10-50 daily) or high-income (more than $50 daily) brackets.

It is possible that the size of India’s middle class is underestimated. Alternative estimates suggest that the middle class may account for between 5% and 10% of India’s population. Like the Pew Research study, these estimates use the $10 threshold for entry into the middle class. But they also encompass people living on as much as $50 per day and draw on other data sources. Even if as many as 10% of Indians are in the middle class, about one billion are still aspiring to join it. Many Indians remain optimistic that Modi’s economic agenda will deliver success in the near future. No one has a crystal ball. But whether the goal is “Make in India” or “Make for India,” the magnitude of the challenge is clear.

70 Years After Hiroshima

Ajay GhoshEditorial, Environment 0

70 years ago, on August 6th, 1945 the city of Hiroshima in Japan was destroyed with an atomic bomb. In a few minutes, thousands of people lost their lives in the attack. Three days later the city of Nagasaki, also in Japan met the same fate. The Second World War ended six days later. Our world changed forever.

Within a single flash of light, Hiroshima, a city with a population of 360,000 — largely non-combatant women, children and elderly became a place of desolation, with heaps of skeletons and blackened corpses everywhere. As of now, over 250,000 victims have perished in Hiroshima from the effects of the blast, heat and radiation. 70 years later, people are still dying from the delayed effects of one atomic bomb, considered crude by today’s standard for mass destruction.

According to the Red Cross, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of atomic bomb survivor deaths in the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital until March 2014 were caused by cancers. The most deadly cancers were lung (20 per cent), stomach (18 per cent), liver (14 per cent), leukaemia (eight per cent), intestinal (seven per cent) and malignant lymphoma (six per cent). Over this period, more than half of all deaths at the Nagasaki Red Cross hospital (56 per cent) were due to cancer.

As many believed, Hiroshima was targeted because of its strategic significance as a military headquarters, a major trading port and one of the main supply depots for the Japanese army. It was also largely untouched by previous bombings. However, the Stop the War Coalition points out that over 95 per cent of the combined casualties of the two cities were civilian. As the first country to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations, the US was in direct violation of internationally agreed principles of war, writes Professor Rodrigue Tremblay for the Global Research Centre. “Thus, August 1945 is a most dangerous and ominous precedent that marked a new dismal beginning in the history of humanity, a big moral step backward.”

After the first bomb fell, co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis said: “My God, what have we done? How many did we kill?” The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also changed the course of history by launching the global race for nuclear proliferation. Today, there are more than 16,000 nuclear weapons around the globe with landmines, biological and chemical weapons threatening the very existence of humanity.

Currently, just nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the US, the UK, France, Israel, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The recently completed negotiations with Iran are only the latest attempt to keep the list at nine, says author and historian James Kunetka. “But realistically, the fight to halt the further spread of weapons will no doubt continue far into the future.”

These nine nations believe strongly in nuclear deterrence, arguing that by possessing a range of weapons, foreign states will refrain from attacking due to the fear of retaliation and “mutually assured destruction”. “In a world in which a rogue state like North Korea, a dysfunctional state like Pakistan and an increasingly bellicose state like Russia all possess the bomb, what major power is going to lead the way and unilaterally disarm?,” asks The Guardian‘s Andrew Anthony.

American journalist Eric Schlosser, says,”The problem with nuclear deterrence is that it requires secular rational thought on both sides of the equation,” he said adding that there are now groups like Islamic State with ideologies that glorify and celebrate the slaughter of civilians as well as militants who are not fearful of death. “That makes this technology even more dangerous.”

Most experts agree that nuclear weapons are more dangerous now than at any point in our history. The risks are too many and too huge. “Geopolitical saber rattling, human error, computer failure, complex systems failure, increasing radioactive contamination in the environment and its toll on public and environmental health, as well as the global famine and climate chaos that would ensue should a limited use of nuclear weapons occur by accident or design. Yet few people truly grasp the meaning of living in the nuclear age.”

The death of innocents that has been the driving force for millions of people around the world continues to inspire the struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. In a speech at a Washington DC university President Obama said the agreement is publically supported by every country in the world, except for Israel. Obama described it as the “strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated”. President John F Kennedy in 1963, spoke at the same Washington DC area university in support of diplomacy with the Soviet Union.

The Iran deal is considered a signature achievement of Obama’s foreign policy legacy. The nuclear deal calls for Iran to reduce its enrichment in exchange for the releasing of millions of dollars in frozen assets. Unfortunately, today, 70 years after the world witnessed the most horrific event in human history, humanity continues to live with the daily threat of nuclear weapons.

It’s time for action to establish a legally binding framework to ban nuclear weapons as a first step in their total abolition. Every peace loving citizen of the world must urge and work to join the growing global movement. And let us make the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal: to abolish nuclear weapons, and safeguard the future of our one shared planet earth. It’s time to rid the globe of the most destructive weapons of all and make sure there’s never another humanitarian tragedy like Hiroshima.’

You may send in your comments to the Editor at: ajayghosh1@aol.com

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