governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
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 ReviewIf development, or the promise of it, won the BJP its imposing political dominance in 2014 and again in 2019, is it now destiny which will maintain the inertia of electoral endorsements? Sustainable Development metrics “Development” is best measured by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals under which there are 169 targets to be achieved by […]
Read More Forget elusive growth, focus on developmentPut it down to the heavy snow in Davos or to a rare case of blunt honesty by an international agency. Whilst sharing the good news of the revival of the world economy in 2017 and its expected continued growth till 2019 at 3.9 percent, Christine Laggard – the IMF Managing Director, cautioned that 20 […]
Read More Sustaining growth in an unfriendly worldThe four years since 2014 have been chock-a-bloc full of fiscal and financial reforms. India needs a rest from such frenetic reforms. It’s time to take a deep breath, consolidate and pull all the loose strings together. One hopes that fiscal 2019 (April 2018 to March 2019) is devoid of breaking news, dull as ditchwater […]
Read More Fiscal 2019 -what the tea leaves foretellRajiv Kumar, the new vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog, has made development of an organic, Bharatiya model of development as his mission. He is likely to encounter three problems in this endeavour. A new, local model of development is doomed from the start in a globalised world First, in a post-ideology world, marked by rapid […]
Read More Will NITI get it’s hands dirty?(photo credit: guns.com) An inequitable sharing of power and the “glass ceilings” of “closed order” societies, devised to keep the status quo intact, are ripe pickings for terrorism. Apologists of terror focus on this underlying social explanation for the breeding of terror. But this is cold comfort for the victims of terror who, generally, are […]
Read More Taming TerrorUnlike monkeys, it is not in the nature of humans to huddle though we take to cuddling quite easily. The instinct to explore new frontiers and the excessive demands which we impose on natural resources; both push us to put space between each other. The ancestors of today’s Indians trekked all the way from Africa […]
Read More Mega-cities are inhuman
Opinion India 