governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
A common civil code (CCC) dealing with matters of personal law is a good idea in a multi-cultural country like India given the rising number of cross community marriages– although still miniscule in proportion to total marriages. India does not have such a code. A small, Indian hill state becomes the first to legislate a […]
Read More An uncommon civil code in remote UttarakhandAssociating budgetary allocations with cultural tropes is one way of validating them. Consider the case of two Indian states, joined at the hip till 1960 — Gujarat and Maharashtra. The origins of the 1960 split The port city of Surat in Gujarat was the entrepôt for Western India and the link with Arabia and beyond […]
Read More Culture drives how States Spend Public moneyState 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?A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries Author: Pranab Bardhan Publisher: Harvard University Press Pages: 240 Price: Rs 499 An abiding belief in the economic and cultural salience of the democratic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity characterizes Pranab Bardhan’s work. Originally a native of India — an “unlikely democracy”— he […]
Read More A World of Insecurity- Book ReviewGlobal population growth decelerated since 1965, even before “The Population Bomb”, a 1968 best-seller by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, advocated population control if the world were not to starve to death. In 1972, the Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth”, which similarly predicted that the world would run out of its natural resources. […]
Read More Population growth- Ticking bomb or blessingEconomists belabour the point that emerging out of the pandemic–induced economic downturn is qualitatively different from emerging out of a long–drawn economic recession. Simply put, it is easier to get back to where you were. Turning on a light switch and flooding a dark room with light instantly is apt for describing what happens once […]
Read More Unraveling fiscal stress“When you are down and out, on the streets and evening falls hard”, say songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel, friends appear magically like a bridge across troubled waters. That is exactly what 2021 needs to be for the entire world today. A magical bridge across which lies a shinning, clean, healthy and happy […]
Read More 2021 – A bridge across troubled watersThe Modi government has its near-term challenges well defined – containing China, Covid and Congress in the order they are presented. The Congress bogey Of these, the last seems the most doable. The Congress lingers primarily because Indians are habituated to hedge their bets and have a back-up plan. Never put all your eggs in […]
Read More Containing the 3Cs- China, Covid and CongressPolitics 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 Godot
Opinion India 