Chile, an authentic laboratory for democratic experiments

In a referendum held yesterday, 56 percent of the Chilean voters defeated a draft centre-right constitution.
 
Last year, the voters defeated a leftist constitution, which was drafted by the constitutional assembly which was dominated by social activists and idealists. 
 
The Chileans decided in a referendum held in 2019 to go in for a new constitution to replace the existing constitution imposed by the military dictatorship of Pinochet. Although this has been amended many times, still it perpetuates inequality and social injustice. The students and masses had risen in violent protests in 2019 seeking reforms in education, health care and pensions. It was because of these protests that it was decided to change the current constitution.
 
Both sides have now realized that they cannot impose their agenda on the other. So there is need for compromise and mutual give and take. 
 
The voters have also learnt that neither Left nor the Right has the exclusive solutions. So they have exercised smart choice in the presidential elections of the last two decades. They have voted the Left and the Right to power alternately in each of the last five elections since 2006. 
 
The current President Gabriel Boric, a Leftist, is the youngest to be elected at the age of 35. He was one of the student union leaders who lead the protests for equality and justice. He is trying his best to advance his leftist agenda but has only limited success due to the strong opposition of the conservative forces. He has also realized that he needs to be more pragmatic and realistic.
 

The Chilean constitutional experiment is a lesson for many other democracies of the world which are also struggling to balance the demands and interests of the haves and have-nots.
 

Panama’s economy doing fine without a Central Bank in the last hundred years.

Panama’s economy doing fine without a Central Bank in the last hundred years.
 
Javier Milei, the President-elect of Argentina, has promised to close the central bank and dollarize the economy to get the country out of its crisis. Many people consider this as yet another crazy proposal of the Mad Milei. 
 
But there is a Latin American country whose economy is doing well without a Central Bank. It is Panama. It does not have a Central Bank since its independence in 1903. Panama is the only country in Latin America that has not experienced a financial collapse, high inflation or currency crisis in the last hundred years. On the other hand, the economy has experienced stable and resilient growth with low inflation and interest rates. This is even more amazing in view of the fact that the country has suffered with political crises and corruption cases. Panama’s unique economic management without a central bank is an intriguing case in global economics. 

The country does not print currency and has adopted US Dollar as de facto currency. The absence of a central bank has resulted in a completely market-driven money supply and interest rates. There are no capital controls despite the presence of a large number of foreign banks. There is no deposit insurance and no lender of last resort, so banks have to act responsibly at their own risk. No bail out or rescue by government. 
 
Of course, Panama is a small country of 5.5 million people with a special historical link to United States which built and controlled the Panama canal for a long time. Panama’s model may not work with large economies and it might be complicated for Argentina which has its own unique crisis with excessive external debt and severe shortage of foreign exchange.
 
More in the article… https://mises.org/library/panama-has-no-central-bank
 

Argentine voters have made smart choices in the elections of 21 October

 Argentine voters have made smart choices in the elections of 21 October
 
Before the elections on 21 October, there was a hype by the anti-left western media that Argentina was going have its own Bolsonaro/Trump by electing Javier Milei, the far right radical anti-establishment candidate as President. But the Argentine voters proved to be smarter. They shocked Javier Milei and his choreographers by humbling him into the second position with 30% votes. Sergio Massa, the leftist candidate of the ruling coalition came first with 37% votes. The centre-right candidate Patricia Bullrich came third with 24%, She is out of contention for the second round of elections to be held on 19 November between Massa and Milei.
 

Argentina is going through yet another cycle of crisis with three digit (138%) inflation, steep currency depreciation, increased poverty and unemployment, shortage of foreign exchange reserves and huge unbearable burden of external debt. Part of the blame lies with the leftist Peronist governments in power for most part of the last two decades.  So, the voters elected the centre-right Mauricio Macri as President in 2015. However, his government also failed to arrest the deterioration of the economy. Macri made it worse by sinking the country in a huge debt trap by taking a 43 billion dollars IMF loan towards the end of his term. These billions were not used for any productive or revenue generating projects. The money simply disappeared, leaving the country with a severe burden of debt. During the Peronist rule between 2003 and 2014 the country was virtually debt free since the Wall Street cartels and their Washington DC accomplices kept Argentina isolated from the international capital markets. They wanted to punish Argentina for its audacious debt structuring on its own in 2002 ignoring IMF, the US Treasury Department and the Wall Street. President Nestor Kirchner pulled off a financial coup by making the creditors (over 93%) agree to receive 30 cents to a dollar. This way he reduced the debt from 90 billion to 30 billion dollars. He and his wife Cristina Fernandez, who succeeded him as President, refused to be blackmailed by the American vulture funds who did not accept the debt restructuring formula and insisted on full payments. So the Wall Street mafia blockaded Argentina from the western financial capital markets. This was a blessing in disguise. Argentina remained free from external debt since there was no one to extend credit except for the Chinese who came to the rescue occasionally with some credit and financial swaps. Argentina struggled but remained free from the curse of external debt, which had caused many crises in the past. But this situation was changed by the pro-US Macri who made a deal with the vulture funds and took the disastrous step of taking in 43 billion loan from IMF. This was irresponsible and unpardonable. This IMF debt of 43 billion dollars has become an unbearable burden for the country which has severe shortage of foreign exchange reserves. This has aggravated the economic crisis of the country. This is the reason why the voters punished Macri and defeated him in the 2019 elections when he sought reelection. His candidate Bullrich was given the same punishment in the 2023 elections. The electors are not yet ready to forgive the grave sin of Macri.
 
Obviously, the country needs a change from the leftist Peronists who have failed in economic management and the rightists who worsened the crisis by adding the the debt burden. It was in this context that the situation was ripe for an outsider. Javier Milei, the Libertarian candidate, was the natural choice at this time of anti-incumbency. Milei, a professional economist, promised a shock treatment and radical free-market reforms. His angry attacks against the political caste which got the country into the mess, resonated with the public. He got the most votes in the primaries held in August this year. This boosted the confidence of Milei who went overboard with extremist statements, crazy outbursts and attacks against those whom he did not like. He derided Pope Francis as “a malignant presence on earth,” “filthy leftist”, “a donkey”, “a jackass” and “a leftist sob”. This has not gone well in the catholic country which is proud of the first Argentine who has become Pope. 
 
Milei proposes to close down the Central Bank, dollarize the economy, shut down 10 of the 18 ministries and cut social expenditure. He has taken disturbing and unrealistic foreign policy positions. He attacks President Lula and admires the disgraced ex-president Bolsonaro. He is critical of Mercosur, the regional economic bloc as well as China, the most important economic partners of Argentina. He considers global warming as a “socialist lie”.
 
The masses struggling with poverty and economic difficulties realized that Milei has no agenda for them. Their situation would only worsen with Milei’s proposal to cut social expenditure. So they have ditched Milei and voted for the leftist candidate Massa, a known devil. In any case, Massa is a pragmatic and moderate leftist unlike the Kirchners who were extremists and confrontational.
 
Milei has got the message of the voters now and is toning down his rhetoric. He has realized the need for support of the moderate centre-right voters. 
 
I believe that Argentina needs a change from the traditional left and right.  An unconventional shock treatment by an outsider would be good at this time. So  Milei is a natural choice. But he needs to moderate himself and become more realistic and pragmatic. Only then he has a chance in the second round of elections on 19 November. 
 
In any case, even Milei gets elected as president he cannot impose his crazy proposals and become a monster like Bolsonaro or Trump.. His party does not have the legislative majority. In the Congressional elections held simultaneously  with the Presidential elections on 21 October, the leftist Peronist coalition has won the maximum seats. They got 34 seats in the House of deputies and 12 in the Senate. Milei’s party got 8 deputies and 8 senators while the centre-right coalition got 24 deputies and 2 senators. With these results, the new (Lower) House of Deputies will have 108 leftists, 38 Libertarians and 93 rightists out of a total of 257. In the Senate of 72 members, the leftists will number 34 while Libertarians will be 8 and rightists 24. So, Milei will need the support of the moderate rightists to pass his legislative reforms. He will have tough time in contending with the Leftist coalition which has the largest number of Deputies and Senators.
 
Milei would also have to live with another reality. The leftist incumbent candidate Axis Kicillof has been reelected as governor of Buenos Aires, the largest province with 17 million people out of the total country’s population of 45 million. There are also several other provinces with leftist governors. 
 
If Milei gets elected as president, the country would get a much-needed shock therapy. At the same time, he would not be allowed to become disastrous like Trump or Bolsonaro since the voters have built firewalls of opposition with their smart voting. It would not be bad either if the leftist Massa wins.  He is mature, balanced, pragmatic and has the much needed political experience of crisis management in recent times. 
 
 

Ecuador elects a well-qualified and wealthy but millennial and moderate Daniel Noboa as President

 

Ecuador elected Daniel Noboa as President in the elections held on Sunday. 

At 35, he is the youngest to become the President of the country.  His wife Lavinia Valbonesi, age 25, will be the youngest First Lady. She is a Social Media Influencer with interests and investment in health food, fitness and fashion. The dashing young, athletic-looking, entrepreneurial and successful couple have attracted the votes of the youth.

Noboa has an MBA from Kellogg School, Masters in Public Administration from Harvard and another Masters in Political Communication and Strategic Governance from George Washington University. He started his own company at the age of 18, before joining his family business later. 

Noboa is born into one of the wealthiest families. His grandfather became a millionaire exporting bananas and other products. His father expanded the business and built a large group with dozens of companies in various areas including in exports, logistics, fertilisers, fishing and real estate.

In fact, his father Alvaro Noboa was a presidential candidate five times in the past but unsuccessfully. Even in this election he put up his candidature but withdrew it in favour of his son. 

Predictably, Daniel Noboa is pro-business, but not at the expense of inclusive development. He wants to increase social spending on poverty alleviation, employment, healthcare and education. His wife is in favour of allowances for single mothers. While his conservative father used to call his leftist opponent Rafael Correa as “communist devil”, the son avoided harsh words, confrontation and hate speech. His calm and responsible comportment and pragmatic approach during the TV debates endeared him to the voters. 

Noboa’s opponent, the leftist Luisa Gonzalez got more votes than him in the first round with 34% as against his 23%. But in the second round she got 48% while he had secured 52%. She took the defeat gracefully and issued the following statement, “To those who did not vote for us, also our congratulations, because the candidate they chose has won and as Ecuadoreans we also embrace them. And of course to the candidate, now President-elect Daniel Noboa, our deepest congratulations because it is democracy. We have never called to set fire to a city nor have we ever gone out shouting fraud. Enough of hatred, enough of polarization, Ecuador needs to heal. And count on us for a common agreement for our country,”.  

What a graceful gesture in comparison to the ugly and undemocratic shenanigans of the defeated candidates of Brazil and US in their recent elections. Even during the campaign and election debates, the two candidates did not indulge in hate speeches, indecent comments or or lies like those of Trump/Bolsonaro. The discourses of the two candidates were civilized and proper.  

This kind of democratic maturity should be a lesson for the rest of Latin America and the US. 

Noboa will assume office in November 2023 and govern until May 2025, completing the shortened term of President Guillermo Lasso who resigned as President in a confrontation with the National Assembly which proposed to impeach him on corruption charges. He dissolved the Assembly and his presidency as provided in the constitution. 

Noboa’s top priority is to tackle the unprecedented high level of violence and crime unleashed by the drug cartels which use Ecuador as a hub to ship drugs to Europe and US. Two weeks before the first round of elections in August, the gangs  assassinated  a presidential candidate Fernando Villavicenio who promised tough action against them. They went on to murder five more politicians. Later they killed all the seven who were in jail accused of involvement in  Vicenzio’s murder. Noboa was wearing bullet-proof vest during his campaign.

His second priority is to revive the economy which has not yet recovered from the pandemic hit. The main income of the country is oil exports but part of the oil shipment goes to service the Chinese debt. Ecuador is a dollarized economy since 2000. After the severe economic crisis of 2000, the country abandoned its national currency 'Sucre' to deal with hyper inflation, fall in exchange rate and capital outflow. Even the extreme leftist anti-US Correa did not try to change the system of using US dollars as the national currency. This means that Ecuador does not print its own bank notes. Panama and El Salvador are the other two Latin American countries which are also dollarised. 

 

Noboa’s main challenge would be lack of legislative support. His party has only 11 members in the 137 strong unicameral National Assembly. The leftist party of Gonzalez, Revolución Ciudadana (RC), is the largest with 42 members. The party is controlled by ex-President Rafael Correa who ruled from 2007 to 2017. He is in exile in Belgium with his Belgian wife. He has been convicted to prison on corruption charges. He calls the charges as politically motivated and wants a Presidential pardon to get back to the country. It was he who was responsible for the downfall of the centre-right President Guillermo Lasso. He will continue to cause instability until  he is rehabilitated. This will be the biggest challenge for the young President Noboa who has political experience of just two years as member of the Assembly in 2021-22. Rafael Correa turned around the country during his ten-year rule with his successful Inclusive development policies and programmes. But he was a polarizing figure within and outside the country. 

 

Noboa would be the toast of Washington DC which is desperately looking for centre-right leaders in Latin America which is dominated at present by leftist Presidents. In 2009, President Rafael Correa kicked out the Americans from the Ecuadorian military base in Manta, in the Pacific Coast. The Americans used the base for drug interdiction and surveillance of the region. But Correa’s successor signed an Agreement with US for resumption of American airforce activities in Ecuador. The US started cultivating Ecuadorian armed forces with supply of equipments and training. The US will push Noboa to open more doors. 

Although Ecuador is a relatively small market of 17 million people, India’s bilateral trade was substantial at 1.4 billion dollars in 2022-23. Crude oil is the main item of imports out of a total of 1016 million from Ecuador. India’s exports were 400 million dollars and there is good potential to increase the exports. Given the high level of trade, there is a need for India to open an embassy in Quito. Ecuador has one in New Delhi. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mexican choice for President between two admirable women; one a scientist and the other an engineer

Mexico has two leading candidates for the presidential elections to be held in June 2024. Both are women.  Claudia Sheinbaum is from the ruling Morena party and Xochitl Galvez is from the opposition coalition.
 
Sheinbaum is a scientist. She has a PhD in energy engineering and is the author of two books and over one hundred articles on the subjects of energy, environment and sustainable development. She is from a family of scientists. Her father is a chemical engineer, mother a biologist and brother a physicist. She has proved her competence in governance as mayor of Mexico city and as secretary of the environment in the federal government.

 
Galvez is an engineer and entrepreneur. She has a degree in computer engineering and founded two tech firms. She is a senator and was head of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples during the administration of Vicente Fox (2000–2006). Ideologically she is a free-spirited independent with a mix of conservative and progressive policies.

 
She is an indigenous Mexican from a poor family. She used to sell tamales in the streets as a kid.  Her father was an Indigenous Otomi schoolteacher. She learned to speak her native ñähñu language as a child. She rides E-bikes in Mexican streets wearing the loose embroidered indigenous blouse known as a huipil. She has a sense of humour and enjoys engaging with the public.

According to opinion polls, Sheinbaum has better chances than Galvez.
 
Both the Mexican candidates  are mature, cultured and competent. They talk sense, use proper language and respect opponents. Both the candidates have similar agenda such as poverty alleviation, employment, women’s empowerment, clean energy and sustainable development. 

The Mexican choice is agreeable and pleasant in contrast to the ugly choice faced by the Gringos between the obnoxious Donald Trump and the senile Joe Biden. The Mexican political discourse is serious, polite and civilized unlike the American campaign smeared with lies, hate speech and fake news. 
 

 

Guatemala’s election result is a good sign of the health of democracy

In the elections held on Sunday, the Guatemalan voters elected Bernardo Arevalo as president with 58% of the votes. This is significant for three fundamental reasons in the context of the Guatemalan and regional political history.

 
Firstly, this clear and decisive election of an anti-establishment outsider is a victory for democracy. The current ruling establishment of President Giammattei had tried a lot of dirty tricks and prevented some candidates from contesting in the elections. They even went after the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement) party of Arevalo with accusations of irregularities. Sandra Torres, the rival of Arevalo was favoured by the incumbent administration. This situation lead to fears that the elections might be derailed or Arevalo himself might be prevented from contesting in the second round. These concerns went beyond the borders of the country to regional and international levels. The Organization of American States and the US State Department as well as the Congress members had  issued statements. It is against this backdrop that Arevalo’s election with a convincing margin of 16% (against 37% of Sandra Torres) has given a clear message that democracy in Guatemala is safe, healthy and resilient. The elections were held peacefully without any major incidents. President Giammattei has already congratulated the winner and has invited him for talks for a smooth transition. 

More importantly, there has been no violent attacks against the electoral system or outcome as done by Trump and Bolsonaro and their thuggish followers in US and Brazil, the largest democracies in the hemisphere. 

 
Secondly, Arevalo is a centre-left progressive leader. He has promised to give priority for elimination of poverty and inequality. He proposes reforms in education and health care to make them more accessible and affordable for the poor. This is essential since a large part of the population is poor. Most of these are the indigenous people. The country has still not recovered from the 36-year civil war which ended in 1996. Several hundred thousand people were killed by the security forces of military dictatorship in the name of fighting left-wing guerillas. Criminal gangs have taken over many slums and indulge in murders, extortions and crimes. Poverty, insecurity and lack of economic opportunities are the main drivers of illegal migration of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to to the United States. Although Sandra Torres is also left-of-centre candidate, she had started moving to the right aligning more with the ruling oligarchy. 
 
Thirdly, Arevalo’s election is a boost to the anticorruption movement.  Corruption and impunity have been the major issues after povery and insecurity. The common people accuse the elites of having a "Pact of the Corrupt".  In 2015, the Guatemalan justice had sent a sitting president Otto Perez Molina directly from the Presidential palace to jail on corruption charges, In December 2022, Molina and his Vice president President Baldetti were sentenced to 16 years in prison.
 
Arevalo has an excellent resume for the job. He has a cosmopolitan background of studies and living. He was born in Uruguay where his father and ex-president Juan Jose Arevalo lived in exile after the 1954 military coup in Guatemala. His father was the first democratically elected president of the country in 1945. His family moved later to Venezuela, Mexico and Chile. He was in Guatemala for the first time at the age of fifteen. He went to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel for his graduation in sociology. His father was ambassador to Israel at that time. He got his doctorate in philosophy and social anthropology from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He became a diplomat in the Guatemalan foreign ministry and had served as ambassador in Spain. He left the diplomatic career to work with regional and international organisations.  He has written a number of books on history, politics, sociology and diplomacy. He joined a group of intellectuals to form Semilla, a think tank which became a political party. He was elected to the Congress in which he served from 2020 to 2022. When he started his presidential campaign in 2023 his polling rate was in single digit. But he succeeded in getting the second position in the first round of elections and became eligible to run in the seond round on 20 August. 
 
In foreign policy, Arevalo is pragmatic. Although he is left-of centre, he has condemned the leftist regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as authoritarian. He seeks more business with China while maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
 
The clean election process and the clear outcome in Guatemala should be an inspiration to other countries in Central and South America some of which also face similar political situations. Anti-establishment outside candidates would feel encouraged to take on established and entrenched political parties which control political power.
 
While Arevalo has a serious agenda for reforms of governance and socio-economic development, he does not have enough votes in the Congress to pass progressive legislations. His party has only 23 seats in the 160 member Congress. President Giammattei’s conservative party Vamos has 39 members and the UNE party of Sandra Torres has 28.
 
Sandra Russo, who has lost the presidential race for the third time, has an interesting history. She was the wife of Alvaro Colom when he was President in the period 2008-12. She manipulated and intervened in the administration to raise her profile and image. She was seen as the real power in the presidential palace. She acted like Evita of Argentina. She became head of a charity organization and got plenty of government funds to distribute to poor people, as Evita did. Sandra wanted to be seen as protector of the poor with her leftist agenda.
 
There was a constitutional obstacle to Sandra’s dream to become President after her husband. The Guatemalan constitution prohibits immediate family members of sitting president from contesting presidential elections. So what did Sandra do? She tried Magical Realism. She divorced her husband a few months before the election and proclaimed that she was “the first woman in history to divorce husband to marry the country”. Hmm..she was already divorced before marrying Colom for whom she became the third wife.
But some judges in the constitutional court had the courage to reject her claim saying that her candidature was a violation of the spirit of the constituition even if she was technically correct. After the disqualification of her candidature in 2011, Sandra waited four years and contested against the comedian Jimmy Morales in 2015. . His promise to the voters was, “I have made you laugh for so many years. I promise I will not make you cry as President.” But his government had some corruption scandals and he left the office crying. He beat her to presidency with his jokes and promise. Later Colom was arrested on corruption charges in 2018. 
 
Guatemala was the first country in Latin America to be destabilized by US in the so called war against Communism during the Cold War. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a coup against the democratically elected leftist president Jacob Arbanz and installed a military dictatorship. While the coup was carried out in the name of the war on Communism, the real reason was to protect the interests of United Fruit Company which owned  hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land. The company was likely to lose some land to the land reforms initiated by Arbanz government. It had absolute monopoly in banana plantation and trade and pursued exploitative labour policies with impunity. Its revenue was bigger than that of the government of Guatemala. John Foster Dulles, the CIA chief, had close business ties with the company. When the rightist military dictatorship was resisted by the leftist political movements, the regime unleashed a wave of terror, with the support and encouragement of US. The civil war continued till 1996 in which over two hundred thousand people were killed. In March 1999, President Clinton made a formal apology for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Guatemala by the US-backed military dictatorship. But those who got US weapons to fight communism took to gangsterism and criminality after the end of the civil war. To escape this US-supported violence and crime, Guatemalans started emigrating to US, which has a moral responsibility to give asylum to the victims of its past sins.
It was in Guatemala that Che Guevara got to see first-hand the excesses of the empire and became an anti-imperial leftist guerrilla crusader. Thereafter he joined Fidel Castro and succeeded in liberating Cuba from another military dictatorship supported by US.
 
Guatemala is the largest and most important market in Central America. In 2022-23, India’s exports to Guatemala were 465 million dollars, The exports were 552 million dollars in 2021-22. This more than India's exports to some neighboring countries such as Cambodia or Kazhakstan. Motorcycles, cars, generic medicines are the leading items of India’s exports. India is the #2 supplier of medicines to Guatemala. Some Indian IT, pharma and motorcycle companies have established successful operations in the country. There is good scope for increasing India’s business with this country of 18 million people. 

Venezuelan novel “It Would Be Night in Caracas”

  
 
                   Venezuelan novel “It Would Be Night in Caracas”
 
This is the first novel by a new Venezuelan author Karina Sainz Borgo, who has escaped from the misery of Venezuela and has settled in Madrid for the last several years. While the Latin American writers who were in exile from their countries during the sixties wrote Magical Realism novels, Karina Sainz has written a realistic account of the difficult life of Venezuelans under the Chavista regime.

 
The author has given a graphic account of the ongoing political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela. She has narrated the struggle of ordinary people amidst the shortage of food, medicines and other necessities. The Chavista gangs do a roaring business of selling goods in the black-market. The militias control the streets and unleash violence at will. The author calls the gangs as " Sons of the Revolution". The security forces and intelligence services harass, detain and torture the opponents of the regime. 
 
The protagonist Adelaida Falcon has no other option but to go to the black market to buy medicines at exorbitant prices for her mother undergoing cancer treatment in a clinic. Since the Clinic has perpetual shortage of essential items, she has to buy from the black market everything from syringes and saline bags to gases and cotton buds. Her apartment is taken over by a Chavista female gang, who throw  her out brutally. They beat her up and threaten to kill her if she returns to her apartment. Her friend’s brother is kidnapped during an anti-government protest march, detained, tortured and eventually killed by the Intelligence Services.
 
After losing her apartment, Adelco moves into another apartment which becomes vacant after its owner dies unexpectedly. She takes over the Spanish identity of  the owner and escapes from Venezuela to Spain. 
 
The author brings out an important part of the Venezuelan character which attaches too much importance to appearances. She says, “Nobody wants to grow old or appear poor. It is important to conceal, to make over. Those are the national pastimes: keeping up appearances. It does not matter if there is no money, or if the country is falling to pieces: the important thing is to be beautiful, to aspire to a crown, to be the queen of something … of Carnaval, of the town, of the country. To be the tallest, the prettiest”
 
Venezuela, which has the potential to be one of the richest countries in the world, is in a deep political and economic crisis in the last two decades. The crisis has got aggravated by the US sanctions and attempts for regime change. More than four million Venezuelans have gone out of the countries as refugees. Although the economy seems to be turning a corner, it will take some time for the country to return to democracy and normality. Till then, there will be a boom in the novels of Venezuelan exiles like Karina Sainz.
 
 
 
 

Mexican muralist Diego Rivera

 Mexican muralist Diego Rivera – biography by Gerry Souter
 
Diego Rivera is an iconic artist of Mexico. He is celebrated for his famous murals which drew inspiration from Mexican indigenous culture and the ideals of Communism. He was also controversial for his personal adventures and misadventures. The author of the book Gerry Souter gives an objective narration of the evolution of Rivera as an artist and the circumstances and trends which shaped his art.

Rivera’s art and personality were influenced by the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and the Russian Revolution (1917-23). Mexico, which was going through a crisis of identity after the Revolution, started recognizing and becoming proud of its indigenous culture. The country wanted to strike out an image of its own, free from the European inheritance and North American shadow. Secondly, Communism was becoming a fashion among artists and intellectuals of the country. Rivera became a believer and activist. Besides these external influences, Rivera’s own personality as an adventurer had guided his destiny. His life was filled with many women and scandals. But there was one woman who had the most decisive impact on him. It was Frida Kahlo who matched his adventures and recklessness with her own. She married him, divorced and remarried him.
 
Like other artists of his time, Rivera went for art studies and tours in Spain, France, Italy and Netherlands where he saw European art and interacted with his counterparts. He came across famous contemporaries such as Picasso and imbibed various styles and schools of thought. Rivera visited Picasso’s studio in 1914 and was awestruck by the quantity of Picasso’s paintings scattered around the walls. They had long conversations over lunch and dinner. Later, Picasso came to see Diego’s work, approved of what he saw and made Rivera part of his circle  Rivera lived the typical austere and struggling life of an artist in the Left Bank in Paris. After this, he came back to Mexico which offered him opportunities to try out mural and fresco work in public buildings. His success in Mexico had opened the doors for commissions in US in cities such as San Francisco, Detroit and New York. 
 
Besides having an extraordinary artistic talent, Rivera put in long hours of hard work in his projects. The scaffolding in front of the panels became his home where he worked, ate and often slept. Once he fell asleep, rolling off the scaffold and plummeting to the concrete below. The plastering crew found him unconscious with head injuries. 
 
Rivera was fascinated by Communism and let it influence his paintings and murals. He was a life-long believer in the ideal of Communism and mostly in denial concerning its ruthless reality. He joined the Communist party and their activities and meetings. He visited USSR where he was initially celebrated as a communist artist and was promised a mural work to be done in Moscow. However, the hosts turned hostile to him because of ideological and power struggles within the party. Later, Rivera was expelled from the Mexican Communist party accused of betraying the proletarian ideals. His membership was eventually restored. Rivera hosted Trotsky when he took refuge in Mexico and put him up in his own house for two years.
 
Rivera considered himself as a “people’s artist”. He was critical of the easel paintings which ended up in rich people’s homes. He believed that murals were the true People’s Art, painted where the public could see them. But he realized that he needed to make paintings for living. So he made lot of paintings and sold to rich people and took commissions of work from American capitalists. But his work with Rockefeller ended up as a failure. He was commissioned to make a mural work in the iconic Rockefeller building in Manhattan, New York. Rivera’s inclusion of Lenin in the murals incensed Rockefeller who got the half-finished mural demolished, although he paid Rivera the full amount as contracted. 
 
In his personal life, Rivera lead a colourful and adventurous life. He spent six months in the Mexican civil war fighting at the side of Emiliano Zapata and his southern army. Diego’s specialty was blowing trains off their tracks with explosives. For many years, he used to carry a large-calibre Colt revolver ostensibly to fight off attempts on his life. 
 
Many women had passed through his life including Russian, Mexican and American. He had numerous affairs with his models and even with the sisters of two of his wives. But one woman matched and impacted him the most. It was Frida Kahlo. In her first meeting with him she told him, “I haven’t come here to flirt, even though you are a notorious ladies’ man. Some of your good friends have advised me not to put too much stock in what you say. They say that if it’s a girl who asks your opinion and she’s not an absolute horror, you are ready to gush all over her. I just want to show you my pictures and seek your comments and advice”.  Frida was eighteen and Diego forty-three when they got married in 1929.  Frida had many affairs with both women and men including Trotsky. She used the house of her sister to meet Trotsky while the sister had an affair with her husband. 
 
Diego Rivera is part of the three greatest "los tres grandes"  Mexican muralists along with José Clemente Orozco and David Siqueiros. 
 
Satish Gujral, the famous Indian painter, received a Mexican government scholarship to study for two years (1952-54) at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico city, where he was apprenticed to Diego Rivera. Gujral worked with Rivera in the mural painting of “ Teatro de los Insurgents” in 1952-53. Later Gujral joined the studio of Siqueiros and collaborated with him in his mural works. After his return to India, Gujral had arranged an Indian government invitation to Siqueiros to visit India in 1956. The Mexican influence is evident in many of Gujral’s murals and paintings. 
 
Gujral was one of the earliest beneficiaries of the Mexican Cultural Exchange Programme started by their embassy in New Delhi established in August 1951 with ex-president Emilio Portes Gil as the first ambassador. The interview board of the embassy which interviewed various Indian artists including Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral had included the famous poet and writer Octavio Paz, who was the cultural attache in the embassy.

 

Isabel Allende’s latest novel “The wind knows my name”

                    Isabel Allende’s latest novel “The wind knows my name”
 
This novel is about Anita, a girl child from El Salvador and Samuel, a Jewish boy from Austria who are orphaned because of the violence perpetrated by Mara gangs and Nazi thugs. The Salvadorean kid suffers further physical and emotional trauma in the American border security system of separating the children from their parents who try to enter US illegally. 

Anita’s family has a precarious and dangerous life in a slum in El Salvador where rival criminal gangs fight and cause misery to the residents. Anita’s mother is harassed by a security guard involved in human trafficking. She escapes taking  Anita with her. She tries to enter US through the Mexican border. The US authorities catch her and separate the mother and daughter. They put the daughter in a detention centre and deport the mother to Mexico. The mother is eventually killed by the security guard. Anita suffers abuse and ill-treatment by the guards and the private contractors who run the detention centres. She is rescued by Selena, a volunteer working with such separated kids. Anita gets asylum to stay in US.
 
Anita is sent to her aunt Leticia, working as house keeper in a large mansion in San Francisco. Leticia was born in a remote Salvadorian village called as El Mozote.  When she falls sick in the village, her father takes her to the hospital in the city. When he returns, his family and the other villagers have been massacred brutally by the military which wanted to teach a lesson to the indigenous people for their alleged sympathies  to the leftist guerilla fighters. He then decides to leave the country and tries to enter US illegally carrying his daughter on his back. He is caught and deported to Mexico while Leticia is lucky to get asylum. She finds work as a house keeper in the San Francisco mansion.
 
Samuel’s parents in Austria are sent to their death in concentration camps by the Nazis. However, they let the boy go to England, arranged by a charity organization along with other kids separated from their parents. The boy goes through series of foster homes and ultimately ends up with a caring family. He studies music and goes to US to join the San Francisco orchestra. The hippie daughter of a rich family marries him but later she divorces and dies leaving a large house for Samuel. His house keeper Leticia is the aunt of Anita. Samuel who has suffered as an orphan is moved by the story of Anita, lets her stay in his house and teaches her music.
 
Isabel Allende, the author has fictionalized the real life tragedies suffered by Jews under Nazis and the sufferings of the indigenous people in El Salvador during the civil war in the eighties during the Reagan era. El Mozote massacre happened actually in December 1981. Allende rightly blames the US which supported the military dictatorship in El Salvador and trained their security forces to fight ruthlessly against leftists. 
 
The US is responsible, to a large extent, for the civil wars in Central America. To protect and promote the commercial interests of the American corporations in the region, the US administration had converted the Central American countries as ‘banana republics’ by undermining democracies and encouraging and installing right wing military dictatorships. In 1954, CIA overthrew the democratically elected leftist government of Arbenz in Guatemala and installed pro-US military dictatorship. The immediate reason for the coup was the Guatemalan government’s land reforms which affected the interests of United Fruit Company, the single largest land owner in Guatemala and which had over three million acres of land in Central America. Incidentally, Che Guavara got his anti-imperialistic revolutionary inspiration after seeing personally the destruction of the Guatemalan democracy by the US. Using the pretext of anticommunism, the US had forced the governments and security agencies of Central America to persecute leftist parties and liberals. When Sandinistas came to power in 1979 after defeating the US-supported Somoza dictatorship, the Reagan administration turned its guns against Nicaragua and involved the other Central American countries too in the dirty and illegal “ Contra War” against the Sandinista government. The US sent arms, trained local militias and paramilitary death squads and waged an all-out war to hurt Nicaragua and tried to bring about regime change.  These atrocities of US destabilized Central America causing deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
 
During the civil war, over a million people had fled to US to escape the violence. Many of them went to Los Angeles. Unable to fit in the social milieu, the poor and marginalised illegal immigrant youth joined the criminal gangs in LA. The Reagan administration denied refugee status to these Central American immigrants, who were forced into clandestine lives. In the nineties, the US authorities cracked down on the gangs and deported thousands of the gang members to Central America. But many of the deported, who were born or brought up in US, found it difficult to adjust in Central America and continued with their LA gang culture. They regrouped themselves locally with guns smuggled from US and scaled up their crimes, taking advantage of the weak law enforcement and justice system of these countries.
 
El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala in Central America have the highest homicide rates in the world caused by gangs such as Maras and Barrio-18, who originated from Los Angeles. The rivalry between these two became so violent at one stage in 2012, the government of El Salvador intervened and brokered a ceasefire between the rival gangs. In order to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, the government relaxed conditions in the prisons in which the members of the two gangs were held. Following this peace deal, the murder rate had dropped immediately. But this truce broke down in 2014 and crime has gone up again.  Earlier this month about 50 women prisoners were killed in the fight between female gangsters in a prison in Honduras. 
 
The Central American  gangsters and Mexican cartels use guns illegally trafficked from the US. But the US, which complains about trafficking of drugs from Latin America, does not do anything to stop the trafficking of weapons to Mexico and Central America. There are about 7000 gun shops in the US side of the 2000 mile border with Mexico. These are the sources of guns which kill hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans every year.
 
The flood of illegal immigrants from El Salvador as well as Guatemala and Honduras is the harvest US is reaping for sowing the seeds of destabilization and violence.   

Colombian novel “Retrospective” by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

                    Colombian novel “Retrospective” by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
 
This is a novel about guerilla wars, revolutions, dictatorships, communism and ideological fanaticism with many heroes and villains in three continents. It starts with the Spanish civil war and goes on to cover the Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic, Colombian guerilla wars, the Soviet communist outreach, the Chinese cultural revolution and the 1968 student protests in Paris. The Columbian guerilla war is the center-piece and Sergio Cabrera is the protagonist.
 

The wars, struggles and movements are woven into the story of the family of Sergio Cabrera, whose grandfather is a Spaniard who fights against the Fascism of Franco. He escapes to Dominican Republic but the Trujillo dictatorship is as bad as Franco’s. He moves on to Colombia where he settles down. The violence unleashed by the deadly conflict between the Colombian liberals and conservatives is as deadly as the Spanish civil war. Sergio’s father is attracted to communism and jumps at the opportunity to teach Spanish in China. After some years, he returns to Colombia and joins the EPL (Popular Liberation Army) the Maoist guerilla group. His wife from a rich and respected family helps the guerilla group secretly. Cabrera leaves his teenage son Sergio and daughter Marianella in China to continue their education in Beijing. They take fancy to Maoism and volunteer to work with peasants and factory workers and eventually undergo even military training with the Red Army. They are caught up in the cultural revolution but they are not discouraged by the atrocities committed during the cultural revolution. They return to Colombia and join as fighters in the Colombian jungles for the EPL guerilla group. Their day to day life in the jungles is marked by hardship, diseases and dangers. This is aggravated by the petty rivalries, jealousies and dictatorial decisions of the EPL commanders who mistreat and punish the cadres according to their whims. Ultimately, the two leave the guerilla group disappointed and disillusioned. Marianella gets married to a fellow guerrillero and settles down to a normal life. During his return to Bogota from Beijing, Sergio stops for some days in Paris and witnesses the student protests against the Vietnam war among other issues.  After leaving his guerrillero career, he studies film making in London and becomes a celebrated director of films in Colombia. He goes to Barcelona for a retrospective show of his films when he gets the news of death of his father in Colombia. During this time, Sergio looks back on the adventures, misadventures, sufferings and idealism of his family members.
 
In Beijing, Marianella, the teenager falls in love with Carl Crook, the son of David Crook  a British communist. He joins the fight for the International Brigade  against Fascism in Spain. There the Soviets recruit him as spy to report on the Trotskyites, which included George Orwell. Later they send him to Beijing on a spying mission. He settles in China as an English teacher and marries Isabel, the daughter of Canadian missionaries. Isabel is born and brought up in China. During the cultural revolution Crook is arrested and jailed for some years and eventually released. While the Chinese Communists welcome and encourage foreigners to learn and spread the Chinese model, they also cultivate a strong anti-foreigner sentiment among their people and cadres. The families of Cabrera and Crook are caught in this contradiction and the Crook family becomes  victims despite their fluency in Chinese, adaptation to Chinese culture and unswerving loyalty to Mao.
 
The author Vasquez has based his novel on the real life stories of the families of Sergio Cabrera and Peter Crook. He has interviewed Sergio Cabrera himself besides members of both families. He has quoted from their biographies and archives. While fictionalizing the actual stories, Vasquez has given vivid details and political and social comments on the resistance against Fascist Franco in Spain, the Colombian guerilla wars and the upheaval in China during the cultural revolution. He has brought out the emotional struggles and personal feelings of the guerrilleros and fanatic party cadres who are manipulated and controlled  by the ruthless guerilla commanders and communist leaders. 
 
Here are some examples of Vasquez’s vivid narration..
 
-The Red Guards consider the red colour  as their symbol and that of the Cultural Revolution. For them, red is the colour of progress. They argue,“the red of our flag symbolizes the blood of our heroes, don’t you? The blood of millions of comrades who gave their lives for the Republic. Think about what a revolutionary feels when he sees that someone else, in another country, has decided on a whim that the colour red, the colour for which we are ready to give our lives, should become an order to stop. And if we accept it, if we accept that red should be the signal for cars to stop, we would also have to accept that pedestrians should stop at red . . . at pedestrian crossing lights. And we are not just pedestrians, we are revolutionary  combatants! And we cannot accept foreign interference in the Revolution!”. So they change the traffic lights to red for ‘go’ and green for ‘stop’. 
 
-Marianella writes in her diary, “ Oh, great Chairman Mao! Your ideology has thrown a brilliant light on my heart. Oh, beloved Chairman Mao! You really are the reddest red sun of my heart!!!! I am determined to always obey your words! To take your great ideology to Colombia. To propagate it, because it is the greatest truth, our Colombian people will never turn away from it!!! Chairman Mao, I love you most! I can do without my father and mother, but I cannot do without your great ideology!”.
 
-Colombia was sinking in a sea of blood. The guerrillas were killing, the paramilitaries were killing and the army was killing. When the 1992 peace negotiations in Mexico failed, a guerrilla leader stood up from the table and said,  “We’ll see you after another ten thousand deaths.” 
 
“Retrospective” is the fourth novel of Colombian Juan Gabriel Vasquez, I have read after " The Informers", "The secret history of Costa Guna" and “ The sound of things falling”. 
 
The real life Sergio Cabrera is a successful film maker after quitting from EPL. He was also an elected member of the Colombian Congress. He has made some remarkable films on the guerilla wars and social issues of Colombia. I enjoyed seeing one of his films “ Golpe de Estadio” in which the guerilleros and the police forces agree to a few hours of ceasefire in order to watch a football game between Argentina and Colombia. 
 
Sergio is now the Colombian ambassador to China since 2022, appointed by President Gustavo Petro, another ex-guerrillero. 
 
  
 

India’s exports to Latin America increase by an impressive 19% in 2022-23

 India’s exports to Latin America increase by an impressive 19% in 2022-23

India’s exports to Latin America reached a record high of 22.41 billion dollars in 2022-23 (April-March), according to the Commerce Ministry of India.  The exports have increased by an impressive 19% from 18.89 billion dollars in 2021-22, exceeding the 6.86% increase of India’s global exports.

There is more good news: 

India’s exports to some of the distant Latin American countries are more than the exports to neighboring countries or traditionally important trade partners. This is a trend of the last several years not just a one-year-wonder. Examples:

-India’s exports to Brazil (9.9 bn) are higher than to the traditional trade partners such as Japan (5.46 bn), France (7.6 bn), Italy (8.7 bn) and neighbors such as Thailand (5.7 bn), Nepal (8.01 bn) and Sri Lanka (5.11 bn)

-Exports to Mexico (5.2 bn) are more than the exports to Russia ( 3.15 bn), Canada (4.11 bn), Spain (4.66 bn) and Egypt (4.1 bn)

-Exports of 273 m to the remote Honduras are more than the exports of 220 m to nearby Cambodia. 

-Exports of 465 million dollars to the distant Guatemala are more than the exports of 437 m to Kazakhstan

-Exports of 1.45 billion to Colombia and 1.17 billion to Chile are also higher than the exports to some other neighbors and traditional trade partners.

 

Car exports

Car exports to Latin America were 2225 million dollars (up from 1793 m in 2021-22). This was one third of India’s global car exports of 6.68 bn dollars. Mexico was the second largest global market for Indian cars with 973 m.  Other major destinations: Chile 357 m and Peru 203 m, Colombia 110 m, Ecuador 97 m, Panama 75 m and Guatemala 50 m.

 

Motorcycles

Exports of motor cycles were 921 million dollars. This is 33 % of India’s global exports of 2.79 bn.

Colombia was the # 1 global market for Indian motorcycles with 308 million dollars. 

Other major destinations in the region were: Mexico 195 m, Guatemala 89 m and Peru 45m. 

India is the second largest supplier of motorcycles to Latin America.

 

Pharmaceuticals

Pharma exports were 1.45 billion dollars.  

Major destination of India’s pharma exports:  Brazil 345 million dollars, Mexico 130 m, Chile 117 m, Venezuela 87 m, Colombia 75 m, Peru 67 m, Guatemala 54 m, Dominican Republic 53 m and Ecuador 34 m.

India ranked as #6 supplier of pharmaceuticals to the region. But India was # 1 supplier to Nicaragua, # 2supplier to Guatemala, # 3 for Honduras and # 4 for Chile.

 

Major exports

Petroleum Products   4.7 bn (up from 2.1 bn last year)

Vehicles     4.33 bn (increased from 3.84 billion dollars last year)

Chemicals  3.4 bn ( India is # 3 top supplier to Latin America)            

Machinery  2.73 bn                   

Pharma      1.45 bn  

Iron and steel  763

Aluminum products  662 m               

Textiles       630 m   

Rubber products 470 m            

Cotton.         431 m                

Plastics.         409 m               

           

Imports 

India’s imports from Latin America were 25.59 billion dollars, marginally lower than 25.62 bn 2021-22. Major suppliers were: Brazil 6.67 bn, Mexico 3.87 billion, Argentina 3.93 bn, Colombia 2.63 bn, Bolivia 2.55 bn, Peru 2.25 bn, Chile 1.44 bn, Ecuador 1.02 bn and Dom Republic 360 m, Panama 283 m and Venezuela 253 m

 

Main import items: 

 

Crude oil  7.6 billion dollars

Gold.        6.6 bn  

Vegetable oil 5.7 bn 

Copper    1.87 bn 

Machinery  245 m

Wood        562 m

Chemicals 392 m

Iron and steel 321 m

Fruits& vegetables 210 m

 

Crude oil imports which reached a peak of around 15 billion dollars in 2013-14 has come down drastically due to US sanctions on Venezuela and the bounty of less expensive Russian crude.

 

Main sources of crude oil imports: Mexico 2.8 billion dollars, Brazil 1.9 bn, Colombia 1.8 bn, Ecuador 775 million and Venezuela 123 m. 

 

Venezuela used to be the major source of oil imports in the region for the last fifteen years. But the US sanctions have drastically cut down the Venezuelan supply from its peak of around 10 billion dollars in 2013-14

 

Gold import sourcing: Bolivia 2.54 bn, Peru 1.79 billion dollars, Brazil 744 m, Colombia 675 m, Dom Republic 272 m, Argentina 254 m, Mexico 163 m and Ecuador 128 m. The imports are  unrefined raw gold.

 

Latin America is the main source of soy oil imports of India. Argentina, as usual, was the #1 global supplier of soy oil with 3.3 billion dollars, followed by Brazil 2.4 bn. 

 

Chile, the main supplier of copper and other mineral concentrates from the region supplied 1.03 bn, followed by Peru 391 m, Panama 204 m and Brazil 141 m. 

 

Main suppliers of wood from the region: Uruguay 177 m, Ecuador 103 m, Brazil 76 m, Argentina 53 m, Panama 49 m and Costa Rica 25 m. 

 

India was the eighth largest destination for the global exports of Latin America. The region exported more to India than to Germany, UK, Italy and France.

 

 

Trade 2022-23

Figures in millions of US Dollars 

 

Country	exports	imports	Total trade
Brazil	9920	6673	16593
Mexico	5196	3868	9064
Argentina	960	3929	4889
Peru	866	2251	3117
Colombia	1448	2634	4082
Chile	1166	1436	2602
Venezuela	178	253	431
Bolivia	77	2550	2627
Ecuador	400	1016	1416
Dom Republic	330	360	690
Panama	315	283	598
Guatemala	465	21	486
Uruguay	155	199	354
Honduras	273	15	288
Costa Rica	193	61	254
Paraguay	156	20	176
El Salvador	127	2	129
Nicaragua	109	11	120
Cuba	79	5	84
Total	22413	25587	48000

 

 

Trade from 2010-11 to 2022-23

 

The annual India-Latin America trade in 2022-23 is the highest ever in Indo-Latin American trade.

 

India’s exports had increased from 10.04 billion dollars in the beginning of the decade to 13.7 bn in 2014-15. But the Latin American recession and economic difficulties caused a dip in India’s exports in 2015-16. Since then the exports have increased steadily and in 2021-22 spectacularly.

 

India’s imports reached a peak of 31.38 billion dollars in 2012-13 due to the high crude oil prices and large volume of India’s imports from Venezuela. 

 . 

 

Year	exports	imports	Total trade
2022-23	22.41	25.59	48.00
2021-22	18.89	25.62	44.50
2020-21	12.74	14.92	27.66
2019-20	13.18	20.67	33.85
2018-19	13.16	25.7	38.89
2017-18	12.1	24.4	36.45
2016-17	10.4	19.6	30
2015-16	10	19.7	29.7
2014-15	13.7	29.3	43
2013-14	12.77	31.31	44.08
2012-13	12.48	31.38	43.86
2011-12	11.33	18.42	29.75
2010-11	10.04	14.01	24.05

 

 

 

Target - 50 billion dollars

 

Latin America is a substantial market with 19 countries, population of 620 million and GDP of 6 trilion dollars with a per capita income close to 10,000 dollars. The Indian exporters are still in the early stage of discovery and exploration in the last two decades. In 2022, Latin America’s total imports were 1.4 trillion dollars. The imports from India were just 1.6%. 

 

India could set a target of 50 billion dollars in the next five years. This is easily achievable if the Indian exporters, export promotion councils, industry bodies (such as CII and FICCI) and the government intensify their export promotion seriously and systematically with adequate investment. It is good to see the emphasis on trade and business made by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar during his visit to the region last month. He has visited more countries in Latin America than any of his predecessors.

 

Latin America contributes to India’s energy and food security as well as minerals needed for “ Make in India”. The Lithium Triangle of South America can supply Lithium and other minerals such as Cobalt and Nickel for India’s ambitious Electrification of Vehicles Plan.

 

The Latin Americans seek to reduce their overdependence on China with which there is a huge trust and trade deficit. As part of their diversification strategy, they attach importance to the benign, large and growing market of India. 

 

India should open embassies in Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Uruguay which accounted for 1.33 billion dollars of exports.  Opening of embassies in these seven countries can be done with a mere one percent of the total export earnings from these countries. 

 

India should join as member of the Inter-American Development Bank to enable Indian companies to participate in the projects of the Bank. In recent years, Indian companies have started making entry in projects in the region in sectors such as power transmission and renewable energy. For example, Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd of Mumbai got a single EPC contract of 431 million dollars In Chile. More such contracts will be possible if India becomes member of the InterAmerican Bank.

 

The upcoming India-Latin America Business Conclave to be hosted by CII in August this year should be organized in scale to reflect the growing trade and the large potential for more.