governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Deepak Gupta’s book is not a quickie, neither to read, nor would it appear, to write, from the diligent research that has gone into it. The best read book in this genre has been Phillip Mason’s The Men Who Ruled India (1954) — a racy account of the British administration in India, by one of […]
Read More Book Review : Keeping the barbarians at bayGovernments are “lame ducks” in the last quarter preceding a general election. The future might not be theirs and self-assessment of achievements needs independent triangulation. So, caveat emptor prevails on both counts. Nothing, except convention, stops the government from presenting a full budget New taxes and new expenditure are “haram” in a vote on account, […]
Read More Interim Budget 2019 can voice forward looking ideasThe ritual halwa has been consumed in the cavernous basement of the Ministry of Finance and the budget printing team consigned incommunicado for the next ten days in a Byzantine tactic to maintain budget secrecy. Nothing illustrates the continuing “duality” of India than the fact that meanwhile the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley remains deeply engaged […]
Read More Interim Budget 2019 – style and substanceMoin Akhtar Querishi a suave Delhi businessman, educated at The Doon School – India’s Eton and St Stephens College – India’s Oxford, was our largest meat exporter in the noughties. His has been an enduring legacy at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – India’s premier corruption and big fraud investigation agency, which is regulated […]
Read More CBI the “caged parrot” sings out of tuneEven as the #MeToo onslaught against M.J. Akbar ground to an interim conclusion with his resignation from the council of ministers, we have before us the case of a Uttar Pradesh politician’s son who felt it necessary to openly brandish his pistol, to bolster his stature, in an argument during the wee hours of the […]
Read More Darning India’s stressed social fabricToday we found the grandfatherly chief minister of Haryana Mohan Lal Khattar smiling at us out of a half-page advertisement, paid for by taxpayers, announcing an “unprecedented decision” of his government. From October 1, 2018 onwards, electricity customers consuming less than 500 kilowatt hours per month would pay between 16 to 47 per cent less […]
Read More Electric subsidy – Haryana’s burden of richesArun Jaitley has returned to take charge as finance minister well before those who care for him would have advised. So what was the haste all about? The uncharitable view would be that power abhors a vacuum. Politicians and film stars — no wonder the two often overlap — are most vulnerable to the prolonged […]
Read More Jaitley returns as FMRahul Gandhi alleged, during last week’s doomed-from the-start no-confidence motion in Parliament, that corruption in the 2016 agreement signed by the Narendra Modi government to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France had forced defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to backtrack from her assurance to disclose details of the price of purchase. Parliamentary subterfuge – unnecessary, […]
Read More Secrecy, privacy and property rightsThis is not a glib account of mobilising the rural poor, penned by a peripatetic babu or a drive-in-fly-out development expert. It is, refreshingly, a record of activists, who elected to spend the better part of their working lives making a difference, bottom upwards, and three decades later remain rooted in their karmbhumi — village […]
Read More Lives dedicated to change IndiaIf the term nationalism and the sight of the national flag generates a warm, comforting feeling in your heart, your government is doing a great job. If, however, this term and the flag, leaves you cold, clammy and resentful, there is something the government is not doing right. Nationalism – an abstract construct – acquires […]
Read More Getting nationalism right