governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The import of cheetahs from Namibia to diversify the fauna in our national parks, seven decades after it became extinct in India in 1952, is a tiny reminder of the many benefits of linking ever closer with Africa- the last frontier of abundant natural resources with the highest potential for future growth. Importing diversity This […]
Read More The cheetah returns: Rewilding IndiaEconomic decision makers face a problem. They make tradeoffs between alternative solutions but very few are win-win. Most involve optimizing for economic harm against benefits. Sadly, quantifying tradeoffs remains captive to data and computing constraints in these pre-quantum computing times. The fallback is to rely on gut instincts, ideology, or copycat solutions- none of which […]
Read More India: Taming inflation without hurting growthAfter inflation levels off, hopefully in the first quarter of the next fiscal year, after the Ukraine crisis becomes dormant, yet again, through exhaustion or accommodation (as in 2014) and thinking beyond the growing domestic political contestation, as India prepares for the quinquennial national electoral contest in April 2024, the problem of low growth is […]
Read More India: Export for GrowthState Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) constituted under state level legislation in seven states from 1995 and subsequently under the Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act 1998 (since subsumed into the Electricity Act 2003) have failed, to uniformly tackle the twin problems of high operational cost and distorted retail tariff structures not reflective of the cost of supply. […]
Read More Amending the Electricity Act 2003- Getting the regulatory incentives rightPrime Minister Narendra Modi advocated India becoming a developed nation by 2047, as the new national aspiration, on Independence Day this year. This brings to the fore the chicken and egg question – is the relationship between development and becoming rich sequential, does one lead to the other, and if so, which one comes first? […]
Read More Can India become developed before it becomes rich?The annual address from the ramparts of the Red Fort is Prime Minister Modi’s prime vehicle for mass outreach, other than via his Twitter handle. His style—discursive, evocative, and expansive—suits the occasion where substance must needs take a back seat to rhetoric. All these are good reasons for not looking too deeply into the substance […]
Read More Independence day 2022: Looking AheadGlobal population growth decelerated since 1965, even before “The Population Bomb”, a 1968 best-seller by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, advocated population control if the world were not to starve to death. In 1972, the Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth”, which similarly predicted that the world would run out of its natural resources. […]
Read More Population growth- Ticking bomb or blessingIn the noticeably short term, say less than five years, decision paths and trade-offs are clearer than in the long term, say more than ten years. This is why governments make sensible short-term bets but like most individuals, flounder whilst taking decisions from the long-term perspective. Covid-19 management – a triumph of short-term decision making […]
Read More Bridging The Public Policy gapsFlexible supply arrangements are replacing permanence and rigidity — as in the “gig” economy — to align with an uncertain world. The Union government is experimenting with applying these “start-up” human resources management principles to the military. The scheme titled “Agnipath” (trial by fire) requires those keen to become soldiers /sepoys to go through an […]
Read More Agnipath-The Gig-Economy comes to the Indian MilitaryFor all the brouhaha around the hydrogen economy at Davos and the competition amongst the Indian ministries to garner a piece of the regulatory action around this future energy business, it is hard to find any authentic, consistent information on the state of play in green hydrogen (GH) from government websites of the concerned ministries. […]
Read More Green Hydrogen -Pie in the sky or Game changer
Opinion India 