Three stories caught our attention this week. three different trends. Question is which of these trends will continue for the next 15 years into 2030?
Trend One
The first is the survey from Forbes of the Highest Paid Actors in the World in 2015. This has been an All-American list since it began. After all, films began in Hollywood and Hollywood films are adored all over the world. America, the home of Hollywood, is the richest country in the world. Hollywood is dominant in Europe, the richest region in the world.
That is why we were surprised to see that 3 of the top 10 actors in this list were Indian – Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan & Akshay Kumar each with $33-$32 million in 2015. This is indeed surprising – Bollywood is mainly a film industry for India and the global Indian diaspora. And their resources don’t compare with the financial resources of US & Europe.
The key we think is growth. Indian incomes are growing faster than in any regions in the world and Indians are great spenders. The growth of Indian Television has been meteoric and Bollywood actors dominate it. For example, a large part of Amitabh Bachchan’s income in 2015 came from his role in two super hit TV shows.
This is one trend that is truly secular and its growth trajectory is likely to higher as well. After all, almost 50% of Indians don’t yet have running water or electricity. As that changes rapidly over the next 15 years, incomes and consumer spending of the 1.25 billion Indian population will grow at one of highest trajectories in the world.
So we project that by 2030, the three highest paid actors in the world will be Indian.
Trend Two
In the fourth edition of the Indo-UK air combat exercise Indra-Dhanush (Bow of Indra), Indian pilots flying Sukhoi 30-MKI fighters scored a resounding 12-0 win over British pilots flying Eurofighter Typhoon, the mainstay of the British air force. This exercise featured intense air combat that was as close to the real thing as possible.
For the Royal Air Force, the chance to train against the Russian designed Su-30 MKI, arguably the finest fourth generation fighter aircraft in the world, is rare. India is the largest international operator of the super-maneuverable fighter and was equally keen to pit the skills of its Top Guns against the RAF’s new Eurofighter Typhoon, the mainstay of the RAF’s fighter fleet.
(In all dog fighting exercises, IAF Sukhois were able to turn sharply into the extremely agile Typhoons (on top)).
What is the secret of the success of IAF pilots, we asked retired Wing Commander Rajesh Khosla, a veteran of the Indian Air Force. His reply:
- “As regard pilot skill, TACDE ( Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment) must take the credit. This is a collection of the finest fighter pilots in the Country who disseminate their knowledge to the rest of the Air Force. The Nursery for the IAF has been the Mig 21, the finest aircraft in the world in its day. An excellent dog-fighter. In the 71 war all the Pakistani F104 Star Fighters were shot out of the sky by the Mig 21. The dog-fighting tradition endures in the IAF.”
Indeed! This is one trend that will continue well into the future.
(The IAF team which participated in the air combat exercise)
This week, the much ballyhooed deal for French Rafaele was cancelled by the Indian Government. This has been a complete waste of the past 7-8 years when another fighter could have been acquired to meet the pressing needs of the Indian Air Force.
But why go after a plane like Rafale when the IAF has superb fighter like the SU-30. Wing Commander Khosla answered in terms that even we can understand:
- “Air Combat is also somewhat like a game of golf, you drive for show but you putt for dough. Air Forces by themselves achieve nothing since you cannot build forts in the air. … The Sukhoi 30 is the No 1 Driver in the bag. It gets you close to the hole. It is an air superiority fighter whose primary purpose is to drive the enemy out of the sky. Having achieved that the Rafale, LCA, Mig 21,23 or the Eurofighter etc comes into play. Their primary task is to reduce enemy capability through bombing ( putting for dough). This bombing may be in the form of Counter Air (destroying enemy air bases, economic/strategic assets and the ability to wage war ) Interdiction ( isolating the battlefield) or Close Air Support ( removing obstacles in the Army’s way). Having achieved Air Superiority, the Sukhoi, like the driver becomes pretty useless except to ride shotgun on the stage coach of bombing missions.”
This, as readers may recall, was proven true in the 1999 Kargil combat against NonPakistan. NonPak troops, disguised as terrorists, had built bunkers at the top of Himalayan peaks on the line of control between India & NonPak. The Mirage 2000 fighter-bombers of the IAF with their laser-guided bombs proved instrumental in destroying these bunkers and enabling the Indian Army to recapture the peaks.
As Wing Commander Khosla points out – “Combat capability is a combination of the aircraft’s performance and pilot’s skill“. Unfortunately in India, the decisions to acquire, purchase, or build combat aircraft are taken, not by the air force, but the civilian bureaucrats of the Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD). As Lt. Gen. Prakash Katoch has pointed out in his comments on this Blog , the bureaucratic MoD is arrogant and unresponsive to the needs of the Indian Military.
This trend of MoD’s inefficiency and bureaucratic disregard for the needs of the Indian Military is one trend that must end and soon.
Trend Three
This week, terrorists from NonPakistan’s Lashkar-i-Toiba infiltrated a remote Indian post and attacked Indian civilians and border guards. One of the terrorists was captured and explained why he came:
- “It’s fun doing this … I came to kill Hindus, .. Had I been killed, it would have been Allah’s doing. There is fun in doing this “
Indian reporters described this attitude as chilling because they don’t understand it, because they don’t know their own history, and because they are Hindus. This was the prevailing trend from 998 CE to 1761 CE. It was revived in 1999 by NonPakistan when they realized they could not succeed in a war against the Indian military. So, like wolves, they planned attacks against the soft Indian civil society.
This is a trend that we fear is secular. Not just secular in its duration but also in its growth trajectory. We discussed this in some detail in Section 7 A look ahead to 2030 of our article What If The India-NPak Situation Was Reversed?
Simply put, the population of Afghanistan-NonPak will grow to about 300 million by 2030. The regimes will be an economic mess and the people, especially the young, will remain poor, aggressive and hungry for success. They will look south to richer India and to Indians who will remain fat, dumb, happy & without any desire or ability to fight violence with violence.
Since the beginning of our species, young men have been aggressive, prone to violent combat and willing to attack for fun and to get what they want. This is especially true of the Afghani & NPak Pashtuns who have boasted of killing Hindus for the past 1,000 years and for enslaving Hindu women. Now they have the model of ISIS in front of them as well as the history of their ancestors who massacred 30,000-40,000 Hindus in every invasion and carried off thousands of Hindu women to be used or sold as slaves in richer markets.
Wolves kill not just for food but because it is their natural tendency. Wolves don’t attack lions but do they attack & kill sheep for fun. That is what this week’s NPak terrorist said candidly. In that, he spoke what is the basic attitude of his hardy people.
You don’t wait for a pack of wolves to attack you in their fury. You have to find them and attack to kill them in their own lair when they don’t expect it. And when you attack them, you have to massacre them. This is what Ala-ud-din Khilji did to the Mongol armies that invaded Northwest India (today’s NonPak). He massacred them as they were leaving after their loot. Two massacres of two successive invading Mongol armies and Mongols forgot about invading India. Unfortunately for India, Ala-ud-din was himself an Afghan-Pashtun invader of India and he massacred countless Hindus during his conquests of North India and South India.
This, as we said, has been 1,000 year trend in India, in Indian psyche. Never in the past 1,000 years did North Indians ever attack Afghanistan or today’s Northwest Pakistan to kill Pashtuns in their own lair. Forget attacking. Indians could not even think in this way. This trend continued after India’s independence from the British. Not once in the past 67 years have India’s politicians ever thought about going into Afghanistan or Northwest NonPak to kill the terrorists in their own lair. Not even once. Forget going there, they have not even built the military infrastructure needed to do so.
Unless India’s mindset changes, the trend of Pashtuns infiltrators entering India to kill Hindus for fun will not only remain secular but increase in size and trajectory.
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