Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor of usindiamonitor

For revelers in India, the United States, and elsewhere in the world, I don’t want to make this retrospective look at 2016 too long.  I figured a few key thoughts in bullet points would suffice.  And then, carry on with your champagne!  Party like it’s the last time you’ll party, ever!

• The United States is not only in decline, but in accelerating decline.  The real danger to Americans is not any external threat, but how much Americans hate one another.  This hatred is being openly exploited.  The new enemy is the enemy within.  Facts are rarely agreed upon any more.  This has made it exceedingly easy for external threats to damage the United States with minimal effort.  Then they sit back and laugh without firing a single shot.
• 2016 was the best year ever in US-India government to government relations.  This relationship will only improve in 2017 regardless of the changes to be made under a new US administration.
• We are heading closer toward the new world order of three fighters left in the ring: the United States, China, and India.  Europe has folded and is no longer in the game.  The United States is now the aging boxer who has gotten hit in the head one too many times (Rocky) who will hopefully train the young dark-skinned prodigy India (Creed) for the coming bouts of the future with another, stronger up-and-coming boxer named China.  Leadership of the mid-21st century world is now at stake.
• India’s biggest 2016 paradigm-shifting event, demonetization happened on the same day as the 2016 US election, November 8.  DeMo is unquestionably an unmitigated and cruel short-term disaster, though this aggressive and authoritarian move may prove to have some benefits in the long-term, especially on the forced transition toward a cashless economy, and a steady increase in tax receipts.  Time should tell.
• Despite the angry nationalistic tendencies sweeping across practically every white-majority country in the world with a vengeance, power is fast devolving from the nation-state to the city-state.  This massive devolution of power from national capitals towards cities such as Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Rio, San Francisco, and New York means that there is still hope for peace, inclusion, and climate change reversal on this earth despite bumbling national governments.

And with that usindiamonitor will leave you to your devices, on that relatively high note.  Happy new year, dear reader.  I would be pleased to see you back here in 2017.