governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The “non-development expenditure” of state governments – the cost of keeping their government apparatus going amounted to Rs 10.5 trillion or 27.5% of their total receipts in 2019-20 (RBI Public Finance Data) versus 20% of receipts for “establishment” expenses in the Union government (Union Budget Documents). Too top heavy by half Putting the two together, […]
Read More Indian States as Regional Ecological Managers“Ghasiram Kotwal” Vijay Tendulkar’s brilliant Marathi satire on the predilection of the powerful to subvert ideology to their own survival, was penned in 1972. It faced rough weather in getting permissions to be staged. The Shiv Sena raged against it, presumably because it portrayed Nana Phadnavis, a prime minister of the Peshwas, in a bad […]
Read More Holding a mirror to IndiaSouth Asians integrate the least with each other as a region. Joyeeta Bhattacharjee of ORF, who studies the region, puts it down to fear of Indian domination (India accounts for 80% of the combined GDP and 74% of the combined population), historical mistrust (a colonial legacy) and targeted terrorism (a recent innovation of war by […]
Read More Fracturing South Asia into actionPolitics is heating up. Elections in Bihar loom in November with Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu* and West Bengal tightly packed together in May next year, just after the FY 2021-22 budget. Bihar remains rural at heart. Luckily for the BJP, agriculture is the bright star in the Indian economy with expected growth of 3%. Doesn’t […]
Read More The price of fiscal exuberance“Waiting for Godot”- a play by Samuel Beckett in which a fictional Godot never arrives. The title has now become a code or allegory, to describe waiting forever for something which never happens. The 2014 “election jumla” of Rs 15 lakhs of recovered hawala money to be deposited into each bank account, quickly acquired this […]
Read More Fiscal stimulus – Waiting for GodotGovernments reveal their true character under stress. China, by design or accident, showed the world how national interest comes first, by ruthlessly stamping out the disease within Wuhan itself – at a high and possibly underreported, cost to the folks who live there. Strong willed, independent minded United Kingdom, addicted to significant anal behavior, fiddled […]
Read More Unpacking India’s response to the COVID aftermathLinks are tenuous between India and Mexico. This marginally upper-middle-income economy (per capita income $10,500 about the same as China) with a population of 126 million (about the size of the state of Uttar Pradesh) doesn’t matter much geopolitically. It is tied at the hip to its powerful neighbour- the United States. No reason, therefore, […]
Read More Mexico can teach us COVID 19 managementThe money this deal could fetch the Union government is just the tip of the iceberg. Government owns just over 53 per cent of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). Valued at 20 times the earning per share (the same as Reliance Industries) the fair price for handing over strategic control of the company should be […]
Read More Privatizing Bharat Petroleum is a big dealGood governance day aka Christmas and the late Atalji – India’s poet politician’s – birthday, dawned with some good news. The government unleashed two initiatives to signal its commitment to “jointness” a clumsy European synonym for better teamwork. Both initiatives, curiously, relate to the breaking down of self- sufficient silos in administration to promote better […]
Read More Governance reform baby stepsDelhi has yet to overcome its Raj inheritance. The capital exudes the complacence of satiated imperialism, decades after the rest of the country has been democratized. The most egregious twin dogmas Two particularly deep-seated Raj dogmas plague Delhi. First, that India has an entitlement to lead the world and second, that our long-term foe is […]
Read More India’s Raj inheritance