Great Leaders of Modern Times: Vladimir Putin

 

"Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain"

These are the words of the world's most influential and powerful figure, Vladimir Putin, the president of a Russian federation and former KGB Head. After the collapse of USSR, Putin is the most successful and popular politician in the country. In the post-soviet era, he led the crunching state through difficult times and managed to stabilise the crumbling economy of the humungous state. Under his rule, Russia emerged as 2nd most powerful country and dreams to regain the old glory back.

Putin was born on 7th October 1952, in Leningrad. Putin's mother was a factory worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. At the age of 12, Putin began to practice sambo and judo. He wished to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen. He studied German at Saint Petersburg High School and speaks fluent German.

Putin studied law at the Saint Petersburg State University in 1970 and graduated in 1975. Putin's thesis was on 'The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law'. While there, Putin was required to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and remained a member until December 1991. Putin met Anatoly Sobchak, an Assistant Professor who taught Business Law (khozyaystvennoye pravo) and was influential in Putin's career.

In 1975, Putin joined the KGB. From 1985 to 1990, Putin served in Dresden, East Germany, using a cover identity as a translator. During 1990-1996 he served as head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office. His Moscow career began as Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Department. During his tenure, Putin was responsible for the foreign property of the state and organized transfer of the former assets of the Soviet Union and Communist Party to the Russian Federation. During his early Moscow career, he was appointed as deputy chief of Presidential Staff and later chief of Presidential Staff by Boris Yeltsin. On 9th August 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed as one of the three First Deputy Prime Ministers, and later on, that day was appointed acting Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Yeltsin.Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor. Still later on that same day, Putin agreed to run for the presidency. On 31st December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation,While his opponents had been preparing for an election in June 2000, Yeltsin's resignation resulted in the Presidential elections being held within three months, on 26 March 2000. Putin won in the first round with 53% of the vote.

During his first presidential term, the notable achievements were the alignment of oil giants with government and neutralising the threat of Chechen rebel movement through extreme measures. In 2003, a referendum was held in Chechnya, adopting a new constitution which declares that the Republic of Chechnya is a part of Russia. On the other hand, the region did acquire autonomy. He was reelected for the second term for period 2004-2008. Putin was barred from a third term by the Constitution. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected as his successor. On 4th March 2012, Putin won the 2012 Russian presidential elections in the first round, with 63.6% of the votes, despite the widespread accusations of vote-rigging. During this term, he is notoriously famous for attacking Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. As a result, several countries imposed sanctions on Russia. The economic development of Russia experienced a significant setback due to the sanctions and the concurrent fall in the world price of oil.

His relations with the West was somewhat sweet and bitter, Under Putin, Russia's relationships with NATO and the U.S. have passed through several stages. When he first became President, relations were cautious, but after the 9/11 attacks, Putin was quick to support the U.S. in the War against Terrorism and the opportunity for partnership appeared. However, the U.S. responded by further expansion of NATO to Russia's borders and by unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The relations worsened when Edward Snowden was given political asylum by Russia. Recently, o protect the interests of Russia in the Middle East and to maintain military dominance in the region, on request of the Syrian government, Russia intervened in the country to help it fighting jihadist and other externally backed anti-Assad groups.

Putin always wants himself to be projected as a tough guy and he always tries to maintain that image by flaunting his bear chested macho man activities.

To summarise, Putin has given Russia a much needed stable and strong leadership which helped the country to maintain and spread the geopolitical and military stronghold in the region. his leadership deterred U.S from establishing a uniaxial system in the world after the collapse of USSR and also helped countries like China and India to grow simultaneously.

No doubt Putin is one of the greatest leaders of today's politics, his decisions will have a great effect on the future of the entire world.

- Paritosh Nene

References:
 1. Wikipedia
 2. Putin's Klyptocracy

Struggling China And The World

This year started with a 'Black Monday'. There was a huge dip in a stock exchange index(Sensex as well as NSE). This was accompanied with a depreciation of rupee by 0.47 (which is too much for a day). It is speculated that investors lost a huge sum of rupees 150 billion. In fact, throughout the last year, the world has witnessed multiple Black Mondays. These facts compelled us to discuss the antagonist of this tragedy: Economic Crisis in China.

From 1949 to 1978, China had Soviet-style centrally planned economy. China was experiencing an economic downturn, until the time its new president Deng Xiaoping began the economic reforms. China started economic liberalization in 1978 and moved towards market-oriented mixed economy under one-party rule. Its model was similar to that of Japan and South Korea. Like Japan and S. Korea, for nearly 30 years China has been growing at an average rate of 10%, thrusting its goods across the world. The growth of China was unprecedented in both duration and scale. It became the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP and largest economy by purchasing power parity(PPP) according to IMF. China accounts for 17% of global economic activity. As the second biggest economy in the world, its has the huge impact on global economy. This implies slowing down of China will slow down the world.

The growing streak of the Chinese economy was finally slowed down in 2015. The world was alarmed on 24th August when Shanghai main share index lost 8.49% of its value in a single day. Repercussions were seen in India's stock market as well as stock markets all over the world. As a result, billions of pounds were lost on international stock markets. Even media in China called it 'Black Monday'. It was followed by 'Black Tuesday', losing more than 7% again.

WHAT HAPPENED IN CHINA:
In the 1980s, China established 'special economic zones' to attract foreign investment. This allowed the influx of foreign investments into China helping its industrialization and reformed the export based economy. Growing economy and growing foreign investment kept increasing the stock exchange index. With government controlled media, China encouraged its people to invest in stock market. Many Chinese families borrowed their money to buy shares, hoping that share prices will eventually grow in value. As millions of investors started investing borrowed money into the stock market, share prices were pushed to inflated values. (This is similar to how subprime lending in the USA led to housing bubble in 2007-8)

Chinese government realized that allowing people to buy shares with borrowed money is a bad idea. They put the ban on purchasing shares with borrowed money. In the panic, investors sold off their stocks to pay back the money they had borrowed. Mass selling of shares plunged the share prices to even lower. The equivalent of $3 trillion was lost as a result of the drop in share prices.

WHY IT AFFECTS INDIA AND THE WORLD:
As no external index for China's growth is available (figures published by Government is the only source), their stock market index signifies their economy. When stock index went down, even foreign investors pull out their money creating the situation even worse. The economy is also driven by psychology. When investors fear that market is going down, they pull out their investment and the market really goes down. When the economy of China slows down, investors fear of the global slow down and pull out investment from other countries also. So investors fear that Indian economy will also go down and start selling their shares in Indian stock market. This resulted in the dip in Indian stock exchange index on 'Black Monday and Tuesday'.

Only 1.5% Chinese shares belong to foreigners, but still their stock market crashes are affecting the financial markets in the UK, Europe, and the USA.

WHAT HAPPENED ON 4 JAN 2016:
In 2015, the growth rate of China dropped down to 7.1% from 10% and was surpassed by India with a growth rate of 7.5%. These figures ratified the slowing down of China's economy. In July of 2015, China had imposed a restriction on selling the shares. These restrictions were until the end of 2015. As 2016 started, skeptical share-holders sold out their shares which decreased the stock market index by 7% withing two hours after which transaction was stopped. First Monday of 2016 became the 'Black Monday'. And this, of course, forced Indian stock market index to go down.

Today, economies of all nations are inter-dependent and when one economy starts sinking, it carries the entire world to the bottom.