governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The annual address from the ramparts of the Red Fort is Prime Minister Modi’s prime vehicle for mass outreach, other than via his Twitter handle. His style—discursive, evocative, and expansive—suits the occasion where substance must needs take a back seat to rhetoric. All these are good reasons for not looking too deeply into the substance […]
Read More Independence day 2022: Looking AheadTwo burly, senior citizens – Prime Minister Modi and President Xi doing a tango on the beach at Mamallapuram doesn’t quite evoke the carefully synchronised but fiercely intense passion of this Argentinian dance form. Even the cool looking, athletic Barrack Obama was left with two left feet when he was led onto the floor for a […]
Read More Tango in MamallapuramThere is something universally uplifting about independence — be it for a teenager, a city, a village, a province or an entire country. Coming into your own is empowering. But only if opportunities exist to break free of the inevitably skewed nature of endowments and constraining regulations. The warm feeling around cooperative federalism has faded […]
Read More An opportunity called Independence- use it or lose itDeepak Gupta’s book is not a quickie, neither to read, nor would it appear, to write, from the diligent research that has gone into it. The best read book in this genre has been Phillip Mason’s The Men Who Ruled India (1954) — a racy account of the British administration in India, by one of […]
Read More Book Review : Keeping the barbarians at bayIndia’s elites – the top 0.1 per cent of families, who only shop overseas and have grown fatter the fastest – have a visceral fear of foreign buyouts. The average Indian couldn’t care less – they only look for lower prices and better quality. There are no sari clad Westestern CEOs India’s politicians, particularly in […]
Read More Stopping foreigners from owning Indian retail e-commerceA single event gives rise to asymmetric consequences- intended or otherwise. If you fall down the stairs and hurt yourself – it’s an unintended disaster for you and your family. But to the doctor and her staff patching you up, it’s an entirely expected consequence. For a colleague, who steps in for you at work, […]
Read More Elections and the law of consequencesHistory is written by the victors because they are the ones who survive and have “the force” with them. Last week the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the Union government set the Yamuna on fire — not very difficult really, since it has more chemicals than water — by releasing the back series of the […]
Read More Politics, lies or just GDP statisticsThe breakdown of a working relationship between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of the National Capital Region and its officers is a seminal moment. On February 19, AAP legislators heckled, abused and allegedly assaulted Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, the Delhi government’s topmost bureaucrat, at the residence of the Chief Minister (CM). Both CM Arvind […]
Read More Delhi babus – between a rock & a hard placeThe introduction of a 10 per cent tax on capital gains (with effect from April 1, 2018), accruing from the sale of equity, after holding it for at least one year, has generated a great deal of angst. But it is unconscionable that stock market investors who have earned windfall gains of 30 per cent […]
Read More Union taxes are scraping the bottomThus far, the BJP has played to a core script of development; a more effective State and muscular nationalism, fanned by Hindu revivalism and an assertive foreign policy stance. This has resulted in a “tick all the boxes” type strategy, with the central focus being on winning elections. This strategy has paid rich dividends politically. […]
Read More BJP’s new script – defending the losers
Opinion India 