governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Before the world became flat in 1990 — to borrow the title of Thomas Friedman’s 2004 book on globalisation — developing countries were locked into twin traps of low access to foreign currency and low levels of domestic savings. India’s anxiety about foreign exchange, to fund imports, goes back to those desperate times when export […]
Read More Exports – India’s Achilles heelThe future of work is uncertain. Within this global conundrum, India has a peculiar problem. The International Labor Organization estimates that less women in India are opting to work. In 1990 there two men for every woman in the workplace. Now there are three men for every woman in the workplace. Despite women becoming better […]
Read More How Ivanka Trump can revive our exports and create jobsThe international bond market, with an outstanding volume of around $22 trillion, is the final arbiter of a country’s destiny. Bonds, unlike loans, can be traded, or “marked to market”. This makes trustworthy credit ratings, like Moodys’, critical to give pricing signals. Since there is a market, even discards are recycled. Discards are called “junk” […]
Read More Moody God of bond marketsThe BJP can put India on auto-pilot over the next eighteen months and probably still win the next general election, principally because, things are going well and the combined opposition has still to acquire the characteristics – leadership, resolve and broad agreements – of credibility. This high probability of winning in 2019 should push the […]
Read More Saintliness versus efficiencyThe politics around “demonetisation” — a misused term for what happened on November 8, 2016 — has taken centerstage in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh (that voted yesterday) and Gujarat (which goes to the polls in December). Finance minister Arun Jaitley has added “morality” to the cluster of objectives, that seemingly […]
Read More “Demonetisation” as a morality playWhat was Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley’s press conference on Tuesday all about anyway? If the intention was to gain eyeballs, it succeeded. But if it was to allay fears about the Indian economy, it failed. Here is why. Misguided choice of communication medium First, the optics were all wrong. The finance minister had just returned […]
Read More FM Jaitley’s press meet – more lobs than ground strokesPrime Minister Modi and scores of democratically elected leaders, must envy Xi Jinping the President and “uncrowned emperor” of China. The serried rows of compliant and attentive members of the People’s Congress, seated, as if pinned, to identical red upholstery; displaying endless patience through Xi’s three and a half hour over-long, speech, without once dozing […]
Read More Xi and Modi – joined at the hipRajesh and Nupur Talwar were having an impromptu pre-birthday celebration for their daughter Aarushi, at their Noida residence on the evening of May 15, 2008. Their live-in, trusted house-help Hemraj was about, as usual. Some time before 6 am the next day, both Aarushi and Hemraj were dead — the victims of horrific violence inside […]
Read More Bad police work or “perfect” murdersManaging winter smog in the National Capital Region (NCR) has occupied the Supreme Court since 2015. Three interim orders — in November 2016, September 2017 and October 2017— each of which changes the status quo, imposing commercial costs, illustrate the limitations of the judicial approach while balancing commercial interests with public health concerns. Joined at […]
Read More A “green” Diwali sans firecrackersPoor 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 2018
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