Book Review: India’s infra journey: Growth & Gaps

Tarmac to Towers: The India Infrastructure Story Pratap Padode 2024 Westland Business 373 pages Rs 799/- Pratap Rodode is a financial journalist and publisher of Construction Update, a magazine launched in 1996, followed by Infrastructure Today, Power Today and Project Reporter. This book comes favorably pre-reviewed by industry veterans Nandan Nilekani, founder Chairman, UIDAI, S.N. […]

Government appointments: “quick results” scupper deep reforms

The recent, hastily terminated attempt by the Government of India to induct 45 specialists as senior and mid-level civil servants on contract and the earlier agriculture reform legislation, withdrawn in 2022, both point to three generic, weak spots in the government’s reform strategy. Three errors First, scoring a quick win for the reforms report card […]

The Sounds of Internet Silence In Manipur

It is incongruous for a country which is aiming for global digital primacy to also top a list of governments which shut down the Internet the most. According to the data from Access Now, a web-based entity dedicated to preserving access to the Internet, India has shut down the Internet 33 times so far this […]

Decarbonization: Institutionally adrift

The late Atal Behari Vajpayee (Prime Minister of India in 1996 and 1998–2004) had a keen ear for technology. After listening patiently to complicated, technologically correct proposals, he could bring such high-level discussions down to earth by wondering how these “best in class” options could actually be implemented on the ground. Best in class options […]

Indian Civil Services: Steel Frame or Steel Cage

BOOK REVIEW Transforming the Steel Frame: Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform EDITED BY VINOD RAI Rupa 2023 pp. 233; Rs 595 Vinod Rai — the editor — retired as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, one among a handful of constitutional positions that senior civil servants aspire to, if the apex […]

Saving Asia from Stalling Growth

Book Review The Connections World: The future of Asian Capitalism Author: Simon Commander & Saul Estrin Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pages: 253 Price: £74.99 The “Asia” that this book addresses spreads northwards across the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia till the borders of China, North Korea and Japan and westwards to Pakistan on the Indian Ocean, […]

Public Spending: Cut The Fat finance Growth Enablers

Governments are the biggest spenders in national economies. Global expenditure per the IFPRI SPEED 2019 database, in agriculture, communications, education, defense, health, mining, social protection, fuel and energy, and transport for 110 countries in 2015 is estimated at US$ 19.3 trillion in current terms or 26 percent of global GDP. By 2022 the average spend […]

The upside of farm laws repeal

The dominant view is dire on the impact of the proposed roll back of the three Farm Laws, enacted in haste in 2020, even as the pandemic raged. Opinion is divided whether it is proof of the government’s shallow commitment to deep reform or that it proclaims doom for agriculture, which has committed Hara-kiri by […]

Indian cities: Victims of outdated political-economy constructs

Livability in a city, over the past 18 months is strongly influenced by the extent of the ravages unleashed by the COVID-19 virus. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) annual survey done in February 2021, “The Livability Index”, focuses on the pandemic’s impact on city rankings. It is a relief that no Indian city is in […]

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