governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The “One Nation, One Election” (ONOE) proposal of the BJP is in the best traditions of zero-based budgeting, where nothing is off the table, so long as it makes sense and is profitable. Clearly, the BJP sees gains in the conflation of national and state-level elections, before four large states precede the Lok Sabha to […]
Read More Creative Disruption or Murder of Democracy?The Union home minister has said he wants to unshackle India from its colonial legacy by proposing to repeal three long-standing laws and to substitute them with three bills that were tabled in Parliament last week. Lest the public be misled into believing that this is just old wine in new bottles, he hastened to […]
Read More Unshackling Indian Criminal Law or Rebranding it?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 […]
Read More The Sounds of Internet Silence In ManipurAssociating budgetary allocations with cultural tropes is one way of validating them. Consider the case of two Indian states, joined at the hip till 1960 — Gujarat and Maharashtra. The origins of the 1960 split The port city of Surat in Gujarat was the entrepôt for Western India and the link with Arabia and beyond […]
Read More Culture drives how States Spend Public moneyWhen is a bill only a “half bill”? The answer (borrowing from Chetan Bhagat’s bestseller Half Girlfriend) — when it just tables good intentions but defers real benefits till later- like the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill circulated recently for comment by the ministry of electronics and information technology. In these lean times, as […]
Read More Personal Data only Half Protected by new Digital Data BillElections are to democracy what financial markets are to the economy. Elections channel the flow of political power, from the people to the government via political parties, which act like asset management companies in financial markets, enhancing market contestability and assuring stability. The absence of an omnibus law to regulate elections and political parties in […]
Read More Regulating Political Parties and Opaque Election FinancePrime 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?Summer used to be a languid period, of taking time off from the hectic activity of the fiscal year closing, schools shutting down for long vacations, job relocations and new beginnings. No longer. And it is not just because the BJP works all year around at remaining the number one political entity. Annual ministerial jaunts […]
Read More Summer blues: Working Through the headwindsThe 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 […]
Read More The upside of farm laws repealThe tremors from the fall of Kabul are likely to be felt far and wide – most keenly in nations transiting away from traditional identities to modern forms of nationalism. Dampening conflict through developmental assistance as a carrot for winning hearts and minds and measures to empower national governments, have been standard international tools for […]
Read More Picking up the pieces in Kabul
Opinion India 