governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Book Review The Connections World: The future of Asian Capitalism Author: Simon Commander & Saul Estrin Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pages: 253 Price: £74.99 The “Asia” that this book addresses spreads northwards across the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia till the borders of China, North Korea and Japan and westwards to Pakistan on the Indian Ocean, […]
Read More Saving Asia from Stalling GrowthCreativity blooms during periods of extreme turbulence. One such example is the “Doing Business” index, which was initiated in 2003, in the aftermath of the dotcom boom-bust of 2000-2004. Back then, state led development had decisively given way to a preference for an open economy, competition, markets and private enterprise. The Doing Business index benchmarked […]
Read More How creative is the Indian economy?NITI vision 2032 : foggy, disjointed & barely hanging together Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the chief ministers of states spent most of Sunday deliberating over the plans and prospects for India in the next 15 years to 2031-32. The third governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog seems to have been an underwhelming affair, […]
Read More NITI’s vision 2032 disappointsPhoto credit: everettlaw.com Weird as it may sound, despite the rhetoric around innovation and private entrepreneurship being key for growth, this is not the consistent message emanating from government policy and regulations. Here are three examples. Ideological neutrality versus enlarging access to the internet First, consider that TRAI caved-in, in February 2016 to the “shrill […]
Read More Mixed signals stifle innovationR.S. Sharma the new TRAI chairperson and architect of “ersatz socialism” in the www. Photo credit: economic times.com By ruling against Facebook’s Free Basics type of innovation, which offers, hitherto undreamed of, free but limited access to data services, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has regressed to a version of “ersatz Nehruvian socialism”, which […]
Read More TRAI’s ersatz socialism kills innovation(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 Hou(photo credit: http://www.en.wikipdia.com) By polishing shoes at Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, in New Delhi, as “Kar Seva,” the refreshingly ordinary Lt. Governor, Najeeb Jung and his wife, have raised the bar for people in high public office. A “Kar Sevak” is one who volunteers to provide pro-bono service for a religious cause. That a deeply religious […]
Read More The glue of cross-religious Kar SevaAir Asia,the newest aviation kid on the block, got a taste of the heavy hand of Indian regulators even before it starts service on June 12. The Director General of Civil Aviation directed them not to implement their innovative initiative to charge only those passengers with check-in luggage for the service. The normal practice is […]
Read More DGCA kills innovative, consumer friendly pricing by Air Asia
Opinion India 