governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
(photo credit: fundamental.bogs.com) How justified is Mr. Kejriwal, the Chief Minister (CM) of Delhi in assuring auto rickshaw (tuk tuks) owners and drivers -his niche supporters numbering around 100,000 – annual rate revisions in tandem with rising costs, when he denies a similarly supportive regulatory regime to the three private companies which supply power to […]
Read More CM Kejriwal’s plunging popularity(photo credit: http://www.financialexpress.com) Reposted from Asian Age May 15, 2015 http://www.asianage.com/columnists/modi-s-trilemma-1 India’s bland foreign policy has traditionally been based on the principle of “please all and offend none”. Things changed under Indira Gandhi when we pivoted to the Soviets and teamed up against the “capitalists” in the West. But post-1990, once the Soviet dream evaporated, […]
Read More PM Modi’s Foreign Policy “Trilema”(photo credit: india.com) Arun Shourie- minister in the earlier NDA government and senior BJP leader was being strategically alarmist when he went public on May 1 warning Prime Minister Modi against succumbing to the seductive spell, which the Chinese put on Pandit Nehru (India’s first Prime Minister) eagerly accepting his diplomatic largesse and support whilst […]
Read More Prime Minister Modi says Ni HouReposted from The Asian Age May 5, 2015 where it first appeared http://www.asianage.com/columnists/shrimatiji-awaits-achche-din-800 India is on a roll. The “helicopter-top down” view looks good. Growth is to be 7.5 per cent this fiscal and 8 per cent by 2018 (World Bank’s India Development Update report 2015) outdoing China, which cannot but be a matter of satisfaction. […]
Read More Shrimatiji awaits achche din(photo credit; namakkal.tn.nic.in) Prime Minister Modi, addressing the civil service officers, last week, made three telling points. First, he asked the bureaucracy to shrug off the inhibitions of the past and think big and assured that resource constraint would not limit them. Second, he exhorted the bureaucracy to change citizens’ perception of babudom by personal […]
Read More PM to babus: Learn to work with “plentiful resources” for social and human developmentPhoto credit: http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com) Netizens- citizens who participate in public debate from the comfort of their broadband enabled “home” space- are a furiously engaged and vocal lot in India. 800,000 of them voiced their support for the nebulous concept of “net neutrality” in an outpouring of outraged emotion, similar to the 2011 Arab Spring which put […]
Read More Telecom Service Providers: neutered by the “Indian” Spring(Photo credit: http://www.intelligent-eneregy.com) Now that the Spectrum Big Bazaar auctions are over, it’s time to sift through the smoke and dust of the financial battle and figure out who lost and who won. But before the juicy part, here are the bare facts for those who don’t spend their lives following spectrum auctions. Limited spectrum […]
Read More Selling spectrum: Telecom’s Kohinoor (Reposted by the author from http://swarajyamag.com/)Mihir Sharma’s book (Random House 2015) is the one for you if you are a policy wonk but at a loss for arresting sound bites; a businessperson looking for bright and engaging things to say at your next meeting; a student of economics, politics or sociology grappling with the question why things are so difficult […]
Read More Restart: The last chance for the Indian Economy(photo credit: http://www.firstpost.com) Imagine if FM Jaitley had admitted in his budget speech of February 28 that of the Rs 17.77 lakh crores (US$ 287 billion) of expenditure he was tabling in Parliament, less than one third was really available for innovating on the past trends and the bulk of the funds relate to liabilities […]
Read More FM Jaitley’s conundrum: Fat wallet but empty pocketsphoto credit: http://www.dw.de Forty Eight years ago on March 23, 1977 India emerged from the darkness of a 21 month long “national emergency (Article 352 of the Constitution)” into the light of full restoration of fundamental rights. Indira Gandhi- the then Prime Minister, a feisty mother, tired of the excesses of her son- Sanjay Gandhi, […]
Read More Lest we forget our “dark” non-democratic past
Opinion India 