More than two dozen opposition parties have come together to form an alliance called “INDIA” to fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming national elections.
As many as 26 parties, led by the main opposition party Indian National Congress, met in the southern city of Bengaluru for a two-day meeting and, after much deliberation, declared their alliance on Tuesday.
The name is an acronym of Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.
“We have come together and discussed various points. With one voice, people supported the resolution adopted today. Our alliance will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance," Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said.
Seven Chief Ministers – Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, Bhagwant Mann of Punjab, Hemant Soren of Jharkhand, Siddaramaiah of Karnataka, MK Stalin of Tamil Nadu, and Nitish Kumar of Bihar – attended the meeting.
Ms Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress Party won with huge margins, defeating the BJP in West Bengal local elections earlier this month, said that INDIA will win against the BJP in the elections scheduled next year.
"BJP, can you challenge INDIA? We love our motherland, we are the patriotic people of the country, we are for farmers, Dalits, we are for the country, for the world…INDIA will win, our country will win and BJP will lose,” Ms Banerjee said, referring to the lowest stratum of India's controversial caste system, Dalits.
Mr Stalin said the alliance was committed to protecting the nation's pluralistic values from the clutches of divisive politics.
The opposition parties accuse Mr Modi’s government of damaging India’s secular credentials by resorting to religious and divisive politics, crushing dissent and targeting political opponents.
“History has proven that authoritarians hiding behind the mask of nationalism will ultimately fall,” Mr Stalin said in a tweet.
The alliance will constitute an 11-member co-ordination committee to take up the complex issue of allocating seats for the coalition contesting the BJP.
However, Mr Modi slammed the alliance, calling it a grouping of “corruption, self-interest and promotion of dynasty politics”.
“When an alliance is formed due to compulsion of power, when an alliance is with the intention of corruption, when an alliance is based on dynastic politics, when an alliance is formed keeping in mind casteism and regionalism, then that alliance is very harmful to the country," Mr Modi said.
Mr Modi was addressing a gathering of 38 parties that are in coalition with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, in the capital Delhi.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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