governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The Pulwama massacre illustrates how porous our security architecture remains to domestic and external threats. We live in a tough neighbourhood. The geo-politics of containing the enemy through a simmering, low-level, proxy war of attrition is a fine art in South Asia and its near abroad. More boots are no substitute for hi-tech surveillance and […]
Read More Unlock India’s growth potential & make us more secureFormal sector jobs in India are scarce and are highly regarded. The most generous assumption (Economic Survey FY 2018) is that there are only 127 million formal jobs in 10 million enterprises, either registered under GST, the Employees State Insurance Scheme or Employees Provident Fund Organisation. Add another 18 million jobs in the government and […]
Read More A cautionary tale for decision makersDeepak Gupta’s book is not a quickie, neither to read, nor would it appear, to write, from the diligent research that has gone into it. The best read book in this genre has been Phillip Mason’s The Men Who Ruled India (1954) — a racy account of the British administration in India, by one of […]
Read More Book Review : Keeping the barbarians at bayThe galvanising energy – one new scheme a week – which characterised the Modi years is ironically, also the cause of an uncertain victory this year. Too many reform steps pancaked Three simultaneous, mega reform initiatives stand out – reducing the fiscal deficit; implementing the Goods and Services Tax and cleaning out bank balance sheets. […]
Read More Triple whammy spoils BJP fiscal end gameGovernments are “lame ducks” in the last quarter preceding a general election. The future might not be theirs and self-assessment of achievements needs independent triangulation. So, caveat emptor prevails on both counts. Nothing, except convention, stops the government from presenting a full budget New taxes and new expenditure are “haram” in a vote on account, […]
Read More Interim Budget 2019 can voice forward looking ideasThe BJP is known for three tactical approaches. First, taking “bold” decisions as per its brand image — witness the swift rollout of the Goods and Services Tax by 2017. Second, it takes risks big time — consider the sudden November 2016 move on demonetisation, which has paid off only partially. Third, it under-informs the […]
Read More Piyush Goyal, opening batsman FY2020The ritual halwa has been consumed in the cavernous basement of the Ministry of Finance and the budget printing team consigned incommunicado for the next ten days in a Byzantine tactic to maintain budget secrecy. Nothing illustrates the continuing “duality” of India than the fact that meanwhile the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley remains deeply engaged […]
Read More Interim Budget 2019 – style and substanceFour decades ago on January 16, 1979, Iran’s last “Persian” ruler Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi fled his palace near Tehran never to return, thus ending a divisive rule of nearly four decades. The fallout, which occasioned his political demise, was a mass outpouring of anger against entitled westernised elites; State led dilution of traditional cultures and lifestyles; […]
Read More A Shah is born in IndiaNot so well-off upper caste Hindus, Muslims and Christians, who have so far not benefited from “reservations” or quotas, woke up last week to a pleasant surprise — they had all been included! Quota politics The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act 2019, came into force from Monday. It provides for a 10 per cent additional reservation […]
Read More Including the excluded classIndia’s elites – the top 0.1 per cent of families, who only shop overseas and have grown fatter the fastest – have a visceral fear of foreign buyouts. The average Indian couldn’t care less – they only look for lower prices and better quality. There are no sari clad Westestern CEOs India’s politicians, particularly in […]
Read More Stopping foreigners from owning Indian retail e-commerce