Change in Malaysia, opportunity for India

Mahathir Mohamad, who has created history in Malaysia, must understand that the India he will be dealing with now is very different from the one he dismissed in the 1980s and the 1990s

When Narendra Modi met his Malaysian counterpart Datuk Seri Mohammad Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak — who has just been ousted from power in an upset election defeat — on April 1 last year, they spent 20 minutes of their one-on-one meeting discussing Goods and Services Tax (GST). 

The GST has been an albatross around Najib Razak’s neck ever since he introduced it in Malaysia in 2015. That the difficulties the GST posed for Malaysians played a significant part in the historic defeat of the ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) on May 10 was obvious from one