governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Khichdi – Risotto if you prefer the Italian version – is a traditional palliative for Delhi belly. But Delhi’s khichdi style political governance systems are guaranteed to give anybody the runs. So bad is the mess that it is difficult to find out who rules Delhi. The Delhi Government, a contender, appealed against orders of […]
Read More Who rules Delhi?Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and the four judges who went public Justices N. Chelameswar; Ranjan Gogoi; Madan B. Lokur and Joseph Kurian. Photo courtesy Freepressjournal.in ………will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, that I […]
Read More Supreme Court – between a rock & a hard placeManaging winter smog in the National Capital Region (NCR) has occupied the Supreme Court since 2015. Three interim orders — in November 2016, September 2017 and October 2017— each of which changes the status quo, imposing commercial costs, illustrate the limitations of the judicial approach while balancing commercial interests with public health concerns. Joined at […]
Read More A “green” Diwali sans firecrackersBOOK REVIEW Rethinking Public Institutions in India Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Milan Vaishnav (Eds) Oxford University Press 548 pages; Rs 995 Public institutional reform has a stale air about it. There are plenty of options but little action. The sombre packaging of this book adds to this gloom. Possibly, the “monkish”, value-for-money branding is […]
Read More India’s pressured public institutionsRutba, an urdu word, means status or honour. In sarkari parlance it equates to the “shock and awe” evoked by a single determined officer. Some of this is larger than life, the stuff that legends are made of- like a single Sikh soldier equaling 1.25 lakh opponents in battle or a Gurkha mowing down dozens […]
Read More The death of “rutba”Photo credit: NDTV.com: Harish Rawat – the unfortunate Congress Chief Minister, sacked by the President of India for failing to fulfill his constitutional mandate to get the budget approved Nothing illustrates the cost of wantonly discarding democracy and handing over the government to unelected officials (Governor) than the case of Uttarakhand. To recap the turn […]
Read More Disaster sans democracy in UttarakhandThe Supreme Court has struck yet another blow for democracy by protecting babus from politicians. Not bad in itself, but puzzling, in the context of the larger objective of protecting democracy. Democracy is all about citizens electing politicians to manage the “commons” and regulate the markets. A babu is merely an “ahlu” in the sabzi; […]
Read More Protecting Babus From Politicians
Opinion India 