governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Photo credit: huffingtonpost.in Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge to give away 99 per cent of his shares in the company, assessed at $45 billion, is the most recent in a series of over 138 billionaires who have signed the “giving pledge” to donate 50 per cent of their fortunes to charity. The 500 top billionaires […]
Read More Let billionaires manage the global commonsParis cops patrol the streets prior to COP21: photo credit: http://www.nytimes.com The Paris terror attack, days before the COP21 meet, seemed to be the only outlier in the run up to this event. Expectations from the meet were low and procedural, rather than substantive, in terms of doing something concrete and time bound to limit […]
Read More Climate balance sheet post ParisA picture is worth a thousand words. Even the Oxford dictionary has conceded as much by admitting the emoji “tears of joy” as the first ever “pic-ord” which sums up the prevailing worldwide emotion of relief at even small mercies. This emoji must have resonated with the 10 million employees and pensioners of the Union […]
Read More Sarkari pay: Too much loveAdapted from the authors article in Asian Age November 9, 2015 http://www.asianage.com/columnists/bihar-election-red-flag-905 photo: hindustantimes.com Nitish Kumar has decisively won the Bihar election battle, defying the national trend. Why he succeeded against the might of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs deeper technical analysis of the voting trends. But three lessons emerge. […]
Read More Bihars death wishIn sarkari circles, an officer whom no one loves is an outlier — either cruelly termed “sanki” in colloquial Hindi (willful, unreliable) or brutally even-handed since she evenly annoys everyone. But what does one say about a politician in this predicament? Frankly, whilst it is easy for a politician to be so faceless that s/he […]
Read More Why no one loves ModiShared Dreams, Shared Destiny” screams the banner welcoming African delegates to the Third Indo-Africa Forum Summit. Forty heads of state are in attendance, along with dozens of ministers and 2,000 officials. Day one, Monday, got off to a shaky start. The press meet was termed a “damp squib” by one leading financial daily. Most delegations […]
Read More Afro-India: claiming the 21st centuryAfrican heads of State will don Modi kurtas and party in New Delhi, October 27 to 29. The occasion is the third meeting of the Indo African Summit. It would be quite a sight to see Robert Mugabe, age 91, President of Zimbabwe for the last two decades, take a turn or two on the […]
Read More African “big men” in IndiaThe national hype around the “beef ban” issue and the rise in the price of toor daal has done what the combined political force of other parties could not do — humble Narendra Modi in Bihar. Both are self-goals by the Bharatiya Janata Party. photo credit: http://www.arun-wicfy.quora.com Whose duty is it anyway to regulate agri. […]
Read More Beef and Toor fry BJP in BiharDoes the proposed national “beef ban” and the rabid intolerance for “beef-eaters” illustrate a new and disturbing trend in Indian politics? Are we squandering away our “secularism”? India has been a “secular” state in practice all along. All the bells and whistles to ensure equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, have existed in […]
Read More Stop being a bully Statephoto credit: http://www.morror.uk.co So what did the Silicon dudes, collectively representing around $500 billion in purchasing power, think of the case placed before them by the self-made, roughhewn yet charismatic Indian Prime Minister — the man with a penchant for the dramatic? From the looks of it, they thought he was kosher. Someone they could […]
Read More The San Jose window
Opinion India 