governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Poor or profligate households are often forced to borrow for meeting current expenditure. But most borrowers ensure that they are able to fund the interest payable from current income. Not so the Government of India. In fiscal 2016-17, interest payments on government loans amounted to Rs 4.8 trillion. The government had to borrow Rs 1.4 […]
Read More Lighting for all by Deepawali 2018All governments game their performance metrics. Smart governments guard against falling for the make-believe themselves. The BJP stumbled in believing that India had earned an entitlement to grow, faster than China, at eight per cent per year. Well-intentioned measures — to end black money, resolve the stressed bank loans and reform indirect taxes added to […]
Read More Recapturing growth with stabilityBimal Jalan exercises the writer’s privilege to box his reflections between three inflection points. The first is 1980, ostensibly because 1977-79 was the first time the Congress lost power at the Centre. The second is 2000, being the start of a new millennium. And 2014 is the bookend when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National […]
Read More Bimal Jalan reflectsViolent crimes against children are grabbing headlines. The latest is the sexual assault and murder of a student in a private school’s toilet in Haryana’s Bhondsi, near Gurgaon. However, Haryana is not the most dangerous state for kids. That dubious distinction belongs to Delhi, with a crime rate (crimes against children per 100,000 population) of […]
Read More Keeping our children safeRajiv Kumar, the new vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog, has made development of an organic, Bharatiya model of development as his mission. He is likely to encounter three problems in this endeavour. A new, local model of development is doomed from the start in a globalised world First, in a post-ideology world, marked by rapid […]
Read More Will NITI get it’s hands dirty?Mughal – e – Azam is a quintessential Indian story. A benevolent Emperor – Akbar – faces the rulers dilemma of how to discipline his wayward son – Salim, who would rather marry his love even if it means relinquishing his inheritance. It does not help that Anarkali – his chosen one is a strikingly […]
Read More The Mughal with a heart
Opinion India 