governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman crafted the budget around four key targets of accelerating growth, promoting inclusive development, enhancing private investment, uplifting household sentiments including by income tax reform to enhance income in the pockets of middle-class consumers- those earning up to Rs 1.2 million a year, who account for over 80 percent of the total […]
Read More Budget 2025: Scorecard of Hits & MissesWill India get rich before it turns 100? A reality check Author: Prosenjit Datta Publisher: Aleph Pages: 138 Price: Rs 499 Economic treatises, says Prosenjit Datta, a distinguished Indian editor and business journalist, can be frustratingly obtuse and reader unfriendly. This attractively written book is anything but. It packs a punch despite being deceptively slim, […]
Read More Book Review: Can India be Rich at 100?The government did well to publish the NITI Aayog Report on Multidimensional Poverty (2019-21), highlighting the decline in the poverty headcount from around 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019–2021—showcasing a substantial fall from the earlier survey outcomes. Both are based on the data collected during the standardised National Health Status Reports for the […]
Read More Mapping India’s PoorAn India, more populous than China this year, and growing to 1660 billion people by 2050, is touted as good news by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – an agency which monitors population trends and its implications for the economy. Most Indians though, have mixed feelings about adding 240 million odd people to what […]
Read More Think before you have a babyState government performance is going to matter in the coming months of fiscal and economic stress. The national performance will depend in the near term, crucially, on how the better-performing states pull their weight. One criterion of state performance is the budget allocations for fiscal 2023-24 starting April 1st and the outlook on fiscal rectitude. […]
Read More Can flying geese-Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu-Power India’s growth with stability?India has changed. Gone is the earlier hesitation about being coldly pragmatic while keeping the public interest in mind. Foggy Post-Colonial and Cold-War ideological baggage is being stowed away, appropriately. The clear guard rails developed for dealing with the Ukrainian crisis do the country proud—extending principled support for the continuation of the international mediation effort, […]
Read More Being optimistic on IndiaSummer 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 headwindsIn Hong Kong, British style democracy is being nudged out by Sinicized democratic norms, where the Communist Party of China, and not citizens, determine the limits of democratic conventions. But it is not just China which feels compelled to sculpt the principles of classic, citizen-centric democracy to the objective conditions on the ground. Post-colonial Africa […]
Read More Improbable democracies or impossible benchmarksOver the last three decades, it has become customary to disregard the fears of the “little woman” at the bottom of the income pyramid, as mere misinformed or worse—unenlightened, unreasonable insecurity. Unrequited love for markets After all, markets, if regulated appropriately, have delivered wonderfully and poorer economies have benefited more than developed ones. South Asian […]
Read More Decentralize to empower the bottom of the income pyramidAmitabh Kant the CEO of NITI Ayog got a taste of the underside of celebrity status when his remark on there being “too much democracy in India” created a social media storm of protest. Mr. Kant clarified subsequently that the news coverage had omitted the latter part of his sentence “……. for it to be […]
Read More Democratic overload
Opinion India 