governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The debacle in Jharkhand for the BJP will hopefully resonate more loudly in Nagpur, the RSS’ headquarters, than did the labored breathing of the economy over the past six quarters. After all, politics is the life blood of India. And political dominance follows economic growth and well-being. This was the message of development and jobs […]
Read More Stoke “animal spirits” to let India breathe againDo Indian voters remain deeply aligned with caste, clan and community (read religious) interests, as reported in the ongoing state elections? Possibly, yes, they do. Continued allegiance to traditional identities makes sense, if new ones never had the chance to take root. Industrial work was one such silo-buster, as is urbanisation. Both, have had a […]
Read More New social compact : wooing the underdogs(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: india.com) The annual ritual of the government’s budget with allocations of money in billions is just gobbledygook for the average citizen. It is the “tone” of the budget which people tune into first and foremost. What must Finance Minister Jaitley do to get the tone right? First, clothes make a man, as they […]
Read More Packaging Budget 2015Indians are affably argumentative (Amartya Sen, 2005). Less likably, the Indian State is intensely hypocritical. It remains very medieval despite its veneer of modernism. Examples of medievalism abound. We value Indian lives very low. No minister has ever resigned because citizens, in their charge, starved to death or died due to lack of emergency […]
Read More Hypocritical IndiaIndian diplomacy was at its worst last week. It conducted the PMs visit to the US as if he was attending a seminar on economics, in Neemrana. If India is a superpower (perennially waiting to happen), it came across, on the one hand, as a country sapped of all energy and squabbling about petty […]
Read More Indian Blood is Expensive
Opinion India 