governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Some pictures may be worth a thousand words. But when the two are put together, as in a video, they evoke deep emotions and convey subliminal messages. Watch the master of the spoken word — Barack Obama, in his January 2016 address on the mundane subject of gun control in the United States and you […]
Read More Budget 2017 – say what you meanFinance Minister Jaitley thinking. The Election Commission has expectedly kicked the “postpone the budget” ball -rolled out by the opposition- to the government for comments by January 10. This is smart, because it offers the government an exit strategy from the ill-conceived plan to fast forward the budget to February 1 just two days […]
Read More Postpone budget 2017Shashi Tharoor’s latest book originated in a debate at Oxford on whether Britain should pay reparations to its erstwhile colonies. The YouTube clip of Tharoor systematically demolishing the opposition, his brilliance evident in the thrust and parry of debate, has been watched by more than three million viewers. But the author says he felt a […]
Read More Book review: Tharoor, An era of darknessRamchandra “Ram” Guha’s latest book- Democrats and Dissenters – a collection of sixteen essays – is a meandering but delightful read. Part one explains India. Part two is about the scholars who have helped Ram do so. The link between the two parts is a stretch unless part two is the marshalling of a scholastic […]
Read More Book Review: Ram Guha’s latest soupPopulism, buttressed by dodgy economics, has become the fashion statement in politics. Last year, the Union government approved handsome “real” increases in government salary. There was little justification for doing so since the government salaries were already fully indexed to inflation and the largesse couldn’t have been justified as a reward for higher productivity. The […]
Read More A new “living wage” f0r DelhiStar Wars episode VII tells it like it is, in reel life. The small guys — with fire in the belly and a higher moral purpose as their force — always win in the end. In this universe, big is evil. Thomas Picketty, the celebrated French economist, agrees. The bigger you get the further behind […]
Read More Small guys always winGraphic credit: chloesimonevaldary.com Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage — playing in Mumbai and Delhi — makes us laugh at ourselves by stripping bare the self-serving hypocrisy underlying socially acceptable roles. Bleeding-heart Indian social liberals would do well to see themselves in the mirror via this play. Admittedly, we humans must get beyond our basically brutish nature. […]
Read More Bleeding heart liberals are social hypocrites
Opinion India 