Goa, which gets between 3 and 4 lakh tourists from Russia and 40,000 from Ukraine annually, has seen a drastic reduction in numbers
‘Globetrotter’, a free international syndication, has warned that as 2023 unfurls, “American policy will prolong denial of diplomatic engagement with Russia. It is just a year and a bit since the Ukraine war began. There are those who suggest that the Ukraine war is a product of Russian aggression. An equal number will argue that the war would never have come about if only NATO’s ambitions to spread eastwards and corner Russia had been restrained. NATO wants regime change in Russia because it simply cannot manage a determined Putin. Putin’s political mode has enabled a rallying of an anti-western coalition.
The US has surreptitiously increased America’s involvement in Ukraine. Ukraine’s need to be weaponized with a high-cap has been acquiesced. America’s ambition to weaken Russia and achieve hegemony and rule the world is a lost cause. In the last decade, the rise of China and Russia, and other medium powers like BRICS and assertive Gulf countries, has meant that America’s blueprint of a unipolar world is unfeasible.
The US has fought wars and instigated regime collapses world-wide leaving countries where it intervened in dismal straits. It is now fiddling on the Ukrainian roof. The 20-year escapade in Afghanistan saw it spend $2.313 trillion, only a portion of the estimated cost of the post-9/11 wars. With these trillions of dollars, they still failed to eliminate the Taliban. Afghanistan was devastated and the US only success was its stealth of 7 billion dollars from impoverished Afghan sources.
Soon the USA will pledge ground troops to Ukraine. The military-industrial-economy will guarantee that the rich will benefit and the poor will die. The salivating merchants of war are preparing to lap up profits: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, as well as those companies that are part of the network of “soft-power for-profits.”
Ukraine has lost at least one-third of its GDP in 2022. It has been traumatic for 8 million refugees and an equal number of internally displaced – their normal lives and livelihoods shattered. The war-makers, whether in Russia, Ukraine, and all of Ukraine’s allies in Western Europe and America care two hoots.
Economic sanctions have targeted large parts of the Russian economy, and Russia has responded with sanctions of its own. Both the conflict and the sanctions have had a strongly negative impact on the world economic recovery post-Covid-19. Estimates of a 30-year economic setback are projected for Russia. The war in Ukraine has also resulted in significant loss of human capital, destruction of agricultural trading infrastructure, huge damages to productive capacity, including through the loss of electricity, and a reduction in private consumption of more than a third relative to pre-war levels.
Russia and Ukraine produce a significant share of basic metals such as nickel, aluminum, and palladium. Delays in their procurement are hitting industrial production and the wider supply chain. German car makers have curtailed production due to the shortage of wiring systems supplied from Ukraine. Food production is affected by the region’s important global share of fertilizer production, impacting the global food supply chain.
Investors, market participants, and policymakers expect that the war will exert a drag on the global economy while pushing up inflation, with a sharp increase in uncertainty and risks of severe adverse outcomes.
Shadow over Goa's
tourism season (SUBHEADS)
Wars destroy human and physical capital, shift resources to less efficient uses, divert international trade and capital flows, and disrupt global supply chains.
Because of the Ukraine war, tourist bookings to Goa have tumbled. Charter flights to Goa from Russian and Ukraine are coming with loads of empty seats (or not all) and cancellations are substantial. Russian tourists were in the high-spending category, even though they preferred the SME sector. A shrinking economy is unhelpful to the Russian and Ukrainian conveniences of vacations.
Goan tourism survives on its shacks, small guest houses, taxis. The failure of the Ukrainians and Russians to turn up means there is a painful squeeze. Calangute, the most popular locale for the tourist is hardly able to cope with such high-stakes. South Goa beaches too are feeling the heat. Morjim and Mandrem with its Russian sign boards have entrepreneurs swearing they will have to sell out and find supplementary or alternative livelihoods. Arambol, for example, had tailor-made its village homes for the Russian tourists. Without Russian tourists their rental spaces and vehicles have lost value.
Goa, which normally gets between 3 and 4 lakh tourists from Russia and nearly 40,000 from Ukraine annually, has seen a drastic reduction in those numbers. There have been no flights from Ukraine throughout this season. Ukrainians sought to whip up local support in a protest, only to receive a lukewarm response.
Shun war and
reinstate peace
Ukraine is modern history’s cruellest war. The West has lost its grip to be mediators because they have become part of the problem and seek selfish gains. The UN recently approved an overwhelming vote condemning Russia's actions in the invasion of Ukraine demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine.
China’s foreign ministry has now launched a plan for political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. China’s 12-point settlement plan includes a call for de-escalation and ceasefire. “All sides should show rationality and restraint, avoid fuelling tensions or taking steps to aggravate the conflict, avert further escalation and prevent the situation from spinning out of control, assist contacts between Russia and Ukraine and resumption of direct dialogue, promote gradual de-escalation and detente until the fire and hostilities cease completely.” India is also a candidate to be mediator.
Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to settle the crisis in Ukraine. The war moves into futility and maniacal mindsets of Zelensky and Putin have been warped beyond description.
