Kiln, Mississippi     So when we read on reputed news agencies like Forex Academy on all the big whoops worrying about their 10ks, plummeting stocks on Wall Street, and whether or not the Fed raises interest rates in Wyoming, what are the rest of us supposed to do? We have grown men and women believing in unicorns and giving them billions. What’s up that that? I thought only very small children and Rainbow Brite believed in unicorns?

No one seems to have a grip on China and one report contradicts another. The economy is collapsing, they are laying off 300,000 soldiers even while they are motor boating into international water space when President Obama is hiking in Alaska, and still more people are buying Apple’s gadgets over there. Somehow China owns a big hunk of America, but it’s a daily mystery to most of us. So, let’s take a break and take a look at India. There’s a democracy of sorts and a country maybe we can understand.

Here’s what we know: India is somewhere between topsy-turvy and turmoil!

Prime Minister Modi took office in a rightwing rout as the BJP, a conservative communalist party swept the long serving Congress Party out of office. Modi had been the governor of Gujarat and, pretending it was Texas, he had campaigned on the supposed economic miracles in the state. Others were less sure. There was still the persistent question about his role in not stopping the slaughter of Muslims in the state some years ago which had been serious enough to deny him a visa for entry into the United States up until like yesterday almost. Much of his platform seemed to be economic development or else, and it is hard to ramrod such a program through a country with even a semblance of democracy.

Attempts to gut the nation’s labor laws to pave the way for business were met this week by a general protest strike called by ten unions that organizers estimated involved 125 million workers. Al Jazeera quoted ACORN India and our hawkers’ union organizer, Dharmendra Kumar, saying

The Modi government has turned a blind eye towards the problems being faced by the labor class. The government must rethink its labor policies. Modi has made a mockery of us by telling the world to come and manufacture in India because it has the cheapest labor.

Kumar also repeated the call for an increase in the monthly minimum wage “from $72 to $226 be extended to the informal sector.”

Ok, you say, but maybe this is just us. Well, I don’t think so.

This week the Modi government also withdrew its proposals for seizing agricultural land for either government infrastructure projects or corporate economic development, which had been a centerpiece of his program to jump-start the economy and make the country more business friendly. Land issues have been wildly contentious in states throughout the country. Modi got a reminder that rapidly urbanizing India is still almost half rural and agrarian.

And, then there’s the mess in Gujarat. Friends volunteering in Gujarat’s largest city had offered to help out while in the state, and I’d demurred saying we continued to not be comfortable working in Gujarat, but thanks all the same. We got an email saying that demonstrations of 300000 to half-million people in the city had led to them being housebound for days as the military was mustered and the state feared a return of communal violence. The issue was triggered when one of the major castes totally almost 15% of the total state population known as popularly as the Patels hit the streets demanding either an end to the reservation or quota system of affirmative action in employment and education for long discriminated against groups or that they should be made a registered caste themselves and allowed to compete for the reserved slots. Reading the story in the Times, Journal, or other western sources and you are clueless, but this is the “fire next time” in India, and it is hard to believe that managing such a crisis is Modi’s strong suit given his history in Gujarat.

Good luck with figuring out China and believing in unicorns, but keep an eye on India. There’s a reason that Obama has established a “hotline” to Modi in India now. Something big is boiling there!