Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

The opening of the canal sent shockwaves across the empire and in the civilised world as a whole. Various Southeast Asian kings like Narai, Narathi Hapate, Sorigo Reachea III and others were all shocked by the feat accomplished by the Bharatiya Empire, while the European monarchs like Leopold, Baltasar Charles, Gustav, Williams and others were greatly intimidated by the inhuman massive infrastructure capabilities of the Bharatiya Empire and fell into deep thought whether they could do something similar in their own nations or the colonies they control.

Even within the Bharatiya Empire itself, the buzz was immense; several economists of the empire constantly preached about the economic benefits of the Great South Bharatiya Canal, while the fishermen and sailors almost unilaterally thanked its majesty, Vijay and the government for starting and implementing such a daring and risky project.

All the skepticism, negative views and doubts the people had on connecting various rivers in the north immediately disappeared, and the voices of support, which were not too prominent, now became almost uproarious.

Unfortunately, the news was not all good

" The moment I heard about the canal project, I had a bad feeling in my heart. I knew that by putting the canal in service, it would cause insurmountable damage to the flora and fauna in the Bharatapuza and Kollidam Rivers. Sadly, the project was already approved by the government, and I had no chance to petition for it to be stopped. Now, coming to the present, years later, I went to check out the canal yesterday with a bad feeling, and what did I see, my fears had come true, I could see all the fishes belly up, flowing away in the canal, dead and lifeless, I inspected the plants on the bed of the rivers as well, and unfortunately even they are starting to wither away "

" They simply are unable to handle the salt content in the water. For now, the situation is only seen at the ends of the rivers, where the salt content has increased dramatically, but I suspect by the end of the year, when the water from the East Coast reaches the West Coast, it will be an apocalypse for all freshwater life in the two rivers "

" This is a disaster "

Kavitha Mahalakshmi, a biologist and the dean of Bharatiya Medical Academy, wrote in an article published in the Times of Bharat

The voice of Kavitha raised a lot of discussion from the people, especially people who were living on the banks of the two rivers that are most likely to be affected.

Unfortunately, the voice of criticism did not catch on in the media as the benefits the canal brought are simply too large, and going against all the shipping companies, the voice of opposition did not make any waves.

Furthermore, a few weeks later, it was Yugadhi, which covered up all the news, and a few weeks after that, it was the time for the year-end summit, and in the time of the year-end summit, even the positive news about the canal was suppressed to a large extent.

---

Over seven years ago, Vijay had ordered for a separate entrance and a separate seating section to be constructed within the parliament for the reporters, media personnel, and the journalists, so the reporters of all the major newspaper companies in the empire entered their entrance with practised ease and sat down on their chairs even before the ministers entered the parliament.

Moments later, the ministers of the parliament began to arrive. A red carpet was laid out in front of the parliament building. As each minister stepped down from their carriage, they waved to the crowd gathered outside the gate and walked inside. One by one, more ministers followed, each getting down and entering the building. Around 9 o'clock in the morning, Arjun, the first cabinet minister, arrived. Within the next 30 minutes, all the other cabinet ministers entered the parliament, with the Prime Minister arriving last.

The parliamentary session was about to begin, and, in minutes to spare, the Emperor of the Bharatiya Empire, Vijay Devaraya, finally entered the parliament and sat down in his usual seat.

Guru Ram Shetty, the speaker, brought down the hammer and officially pronounced the commencement of the session.

The Prime Minister himself stood up and took the centre stage.

" Good morning, everyone. I am overjoyed and thankful for everyone's arrival, but since we have a long day ahead of us, I will get right to the point "

" The direct land area controlled by the empire is around 4.6 million square kilometres, excluding the autonomous state of Khalsa Nagari and the overseas territories. The population is over 245,000,000, out of which the Sanatanis occupy 92% of the population, Sikhs 4% of the population, Buddhists 2% of the population, Jews, Parsis and Yezidis combined 0.5% of the population, and Muslims 1.5% of the population, among which over 95% are New Testament or Dharmik Islamists "

" As far as the income spread is concerned, I have very good news, the aspirational class has been reduced to 55%, a decrease of 14% from the year 1662 when the census was last conducted, the middle class has risen to over 38%, the higher class to over 6%, and the elite class to 1% "

" Another important news I am happy to announce is that the income inequalities between the northern part of the empire and the southern part of the empire have reduced by several percentage points, and I would like to add that this is only the beginning. On this issue, we will work extra hard to close the gap even more "

Soon, it was Kiran Poojari who took the stage

" There haven't been any major changes in the military personnel structure; the army is still composed of 1.2 million soldiers in service and over 200,000 in reserve, comprising 5 commands and 27 independent regiments "

" The same could be said to the Navy as well, the gross naval tonnage of all the vessels in the Navy combined is still around 900,000 tonnes, and it is still the three fleets "

" However, the weapon systems of both the army and Navy have been replaced by newer and more advanced weapons systems, the old weapons used in the military have been put in the sales list, and they are being replaced with newer issue Shakti rifles, Dhanush 61 rifles, Vajra pistol, Thirangi carbine, and Simha Astra breech loading rifles, and the classic Shikari C50 and C60 sharpshooter "

" Up to now, nearly 45% of all the arms in the military have been replaced, and in at most a year, we should complete the replacement "

" The artillery is getting an overhaul as well, the cannons in the ships are being replaced with newer production smooth bore cannons called the Jal Rakshak Cannon, Bajaj Mark 5 - 5th Generation Pukle guns, and third generation rifled Culverins "

Next, it was the Minister of Justice who took the stage

" In the last four years, the ministry has added over 5000 new courts to the empire, bringing the total number of courts in the empire to 24,000, comprising circuit courts, civil courts, criminal courts, district courts, high courts, and a Supreme Court. The number of judges employed has also reached over 30,000, while the number of legal firms in the empire has reached 4000 "

Next, it was Minister of Education Raghavendra Bhatt to go, " We have added the BIT University in the newer states, and we have held the examination successfully where a total of 340,000 students graduated from the universities, an all-time record "

" The total number of university aspirants has also increased to more than 2.5 million students, while the number of colleges has increased to over 5600, and the number of schools increased to 72,000 "

" There are currently a total of 42 million students studying in school, with the high school graduation rate increased to over 80% "

" Strides are seen in other professions like law, business, agronomy, arts, and culinary arts as well, where the regulatory body of the Ministry of Education saw the graduation of over 50,000 from the professions "

Next, it was Minister of Agriculture, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who went to report on his achievements, and it was mostly the same. After which Arjun took over and reported about the situation of the police and Coast Guard, where the number of people did not change, the weapons and equipment have been upgraded

Minister of Trade and Commerce Rajesh stood up next

" The last four years we have done trade worth 285 tonnes of gold, with hundreds of companies being opened daily, with millions of transactions in the amounts of several hundred thousand done every week, generating over 5% of the empire's total GDP "

Jitendra Sehwag, the Minister of Industry, came forward with some confidence and reported with his chest puffed out

" We currently have more than 120,000 companies in the empire, among which 23,000 are industrial manufacturing companies responsible for the production of two million tonnes of iron, an increase of 500,000 tonnes from 1670, and the production of 750,000 tonnes of steel, an increase of 250,000 tonnes from 1670 "

" The coal production has directly doubled from 20 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes in the last five years, while the cement production has tripled, reaching a whopping 150,000,000 tonnes from 50 million tonnes five years ago "

Next, it was the Minister of Communications, Kumar, who took the centre stage, " We have continued to expand the number of post offices in the empire, and now, after five years, it has reached 52,000 post offices, 10 million letters and items delivered weighing a cumulative 72 tonnes, 24 million varaha of revenue generated through post alone, 125,000,000 varaha revenue generated through the Arkha Dristhi Communication Channel, whose coverage has reached 42,000 kilometre, consisting of over 16000 towers and 5400 stations "

Nirmal, the Minister of Transportation, soon stood up and presented his report. He spoke about the total length of roads in the empire, including national highways and connecting roadways, and the number of ports—major ports, medium-scale ports, and inland ports—all of which had increased significantly over the last five years. Finally, he reported on the length of railway tracks laid during this period and the total cargo transported, which amounted to several million tonnes in the past five years.

Lokesh, the Minister of Health, proceeded to report on his developments, and so did Rana Bhatia, the Minister of Special Tasks. In the end, the Minister of Finance, Jagannath Mohan, stood up and talked about the economic situation of the empire

" 1 Varaha is currently worth around 0.01511 gramme of gold, same as it was five years ago, meaning a single gold Varaha of 3.4 grammes is currently worth 225 Varaha "

" We had excellent financial years from the year 1670 to 1673, where we had an average of 10% GDP increase every year, but the last year and this year were the biggest ever, with an average GDP increase of 22% and 26.15% respectively "

" Currently, the empire stands at a gross domestic product of approximately 43.12 billion Varaha. A total increase of 120% in the last five years "

With that, the year-end summit ended with a big bang, with the government submitting an excellent worksheet for the people to witness