governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Social roles evolve over the long term. Today’s “mother” need not be a female and a “father” not necessarily male. In the context of increasingly degenderized institutional roles, recent social policy reversals in Russia, China and the United States come as surprises- not least because equality is a central tenet of both Socialism and Liberalism. […]
Read More Global Illiberalism is rolling back gender equalityIf the term nationalism and the sight of the national flag generates a warm, comforting feeling in your heart, your government is doing a great job. If, however, this term and the flag, leaves you cold, clammy and resentful, there is something the government is not doing right. Nationalism – an abstract construct – acquires […]
Read More Getting nationalism rightRajiv 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?President Trump’s implicit assessment of the value of the G20 Hamburg summit was best illustrated by letting his daughter replace him, whilst he was away from his seat at the summit and to spend double the budgeted time, holding President Putin’s hand. We should take note. Did Trump try and devalue the G20, President Xi […]
Read More G 20 summit: Not India’s turn to eatJaved Akhtar’s response to the “Bharat Mata ki Jai” controversy stoked by Asaduddin Owaisi — the member of Parliament from Hyderabad — was just what was needed to pour oil on the dangerously choppy course our politics has taken. And there is no joy to be had in justifying this trend by pointing to the […]
Read More Owning IndiaParis in December is not quite what it is in springtime. But who cares if someone else is footing the bill! Paris is the venue of the next Conference of Parties (COP), from November 30 to December 11. An annual jamboree that has been trying, since 1992, to limit carbon emissions and save the planet […]
Read More Climate “warriors” head for the December 2015 Paris joustFor rational people, if this breed actually exists other than in the imagination of economists, the most logical way out of the Grexit logjam was for Greece to vote “yes, we can”. Just by agreeing to take the pain of austerity measures, they would have got the amount required for this year, estimated at around […]
Read More Barbarians in the temple of DionysusPhoto: Sarah Ahmed: Indian. Pilot. July 4, 1995 — America’s Independence Day — Islamist militants take six tourists hostage in Kashmir. They decapitate a Norwegian and kill the rest, including two Americans. There has been no letup in the orgy of violence since. But now Islamists — Sunni and Shia militants — are eliminating each […]
Read More Will the Indian “Malalas” please stand up(photo credit:www.junglekey.fr) Ursula Von Der Leyen, the scarily efficient and glamorous German Defence Minister, who is also incredibly mother to seven children, ticked all the required boxes for soaring rhetoric on a bilateral strategic partnership with India. Democracy, freedom, an open society, diversity and religious plurality being the ground for shared values. Of course, she […]
Read More Indo-German Defence Pact- New beginnings for subaltern states.(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”
Opinion India 