governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Governments are the biggest spenders in national economies. Global expenditure per the IFPRI SPEED 2019 database, in agriculture, communications, education, defense, health, mining, social protection, fuel and energy, and transport for 110 countries in 2015 is estimated at US$ 19.3 trillion in current terms or 26 percent of global GDP. By 2022 the average spend […]
Read More Public Spending: Cut The Fat finance Growth EnablersCinema buffs know that the dream sequence ends when the lights come on. But politicians and economists can spin national dream sequences over long periods to captivate ordinary folk in a make-believe world. Two decades of post WWII peace The end of World War II in 1945, paradoxically, through a diabolical nuclear explosion at Hiroshima […]
Read More India’s choices amidst great power rivalryThe annual address from the ramparts of the Red Fort is Prime Minister Modi’s prime vehicle for mass outreach, other than via his Twitter handle. His style—discursive, evocative, and expansive—suits the occasion where substance must needs take a back seat to rhetoric. All these are good reasons for not looking too deeply into the substance […]
Read More Independence day 2022: Looking AheadFor all the brouhaha around the hydrogen economy at Davos and the competition amongst the Indian ministries to garner a piece of the regulatory action around this future energy business, it is hard to find any authentic, consistent information on the state of play in green hydrogen (GH) from government websites of the concerned ministries. […]
Read More Green Hydrogen -Pie in the sky or Game changerTamil is an ancient language which jostles Sanskrit on antiquity but remains in vibrant, modern use. It is also a cultural identity. Post-Independence, in 1947, the erstwhile Madras Presidency became the Madras State within the Union of India. In 1956, its borders were redrawn to shed the non-Tamil speaking peripheral areas of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, […]
Read More Tamil Nadu needs an economic rebootMission “Karamyogi”, the Modi governments first stab at public sector capacity development, was unveiled during the pandemic in September last year—a reminder that whilst the rest of us worked languidly from home, bureaucratic wheels continued to churn albeit with reduced physical presence. The name of the Mission derives from the Bhagawad Gita—a lively, ancient, masterclass on […]
Read More Feeding the beast- civil service trainingThe tragic snafu over making sufficient oxygen available to meet the spike in demand from COVID-related morbidity is a red flag for an underlying malaise—of overlapping mandates, state governments enfeebled by decades of Union government spoon feeding, and under capacitated local government. Sadly, state governments have voluntarily accepted this hollowing out of their core functions. […]
Read More Repurposing governance- trim the fat in state governmentsIndia spends around just under 2% of its GDP on managing external threats as a core sovereign function of the Union government. By all accounts, this arrangement works well. Two generations of Indians since 1965, have never known war personally, except those brave hearts, who chose to take upon themselves, the weighty task of protecting […]
Read More Who’s in charge here?A bill approved by both houses of Parliament last week March 2021, will sharply reduce the Delhi’s Government’s ability to act independently of the Lieutenant Governor (LG), an appointee of the President of India (ergo the Union government). Every executive decision has now to be referred to the LG. Similarly, whilst the Delhi Assembly can legislate, […]
Read More Is Delhi democratically enfeebled?Finance Ministers have an uncanny way of figuring out what makes the fish bite and neutralizes the sceptics. Nicely rounded words in the budget speech – like phonetic “quick wins” – come in handy to send the roosters crowing a new Dawn. A three pronged paradigm shift in the budget? FM Sitharaman’s salad dressing for […]
Read More Budgetary provisions matter more than the speech
Opinion India 