governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Some babies never grow up. Vodafone Idea is one such fat, old, baby which is now crying for help. That the agreements for Telecom Licensees are badly worded is obvious from the unintended Kafkaesque consequences emanating from the strict legal interpretation by the Supreme Court. Indian utility regulation deeply flawed Sadly, this is not the first […]
Read More Indian utilities are babies which should go with their bath waterThe 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 againFormal sector jobs in India are scarce and are highly regarded. The most generous assumption (Economic Survey FY 2018) is that there are only 127 million formal jobs in 10 million enterprises, either registered under GST, the Employees State Insurance Scheme or Employees Provident Fund Organisation. Add another 18 million jobs in the government and […]
Read More A cautionary tale for decision makersClimate change seems inevitable. Risk takers who go long on property should check out locations in Canada, Siberia and Greenland. These hitherto frozen places are expected to become attractive relocation favourites in a rapidly warming world. Collective action a distant dream The international institutional architecture for concerted effort has been negligent in protecting future generations. […]
Read More Acclimatizing IndiaSafeguarding your privacy from government and the use of your data by companies without asking you or paying you explicitly, are current concerns, even in under developed India, where more than one half of the population remains effectively unhooked to the internet because of patchy service in low population density areas. The proposed solutions are […]
Read More Data protection – new challenges but lame solutionsRahul Gandhi alleged, during last week’s doomed-from the-start no-confidence motion in Parliament, that corruption in the 2016 agreement signed by the Narendra Modi government to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France had forced defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to backtrack from her assurance to disclose details of the price of purchase. Parliamentary subterfuge – unnecessary, […]
Read More Secrecy, privacy and property rightsManaging 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 firecrackersViolent crimes against children are grabbing headlines. The latest is the sexual assault and murder of a student in a private school’s toilet in Haryana’s Bhondsi, near Gurgaon. However, Haryana is not the most dangerous state for kids. That dubious distinction belongs to Delhi, with a crime rate (crimes against children per 100,000 population) of […]
Read More Keeping our children safePhoto credit: Zee news Ask any of the 68 government departments in New Delhi, what they are doing about private sector jobs, and each will point at the other for an answer. The truth is that governments have not been held accountable for job creation since the 1980s, when neo-liberalism took root. No one advocates […]
Read More Needed paychecks not pink slipsNITI 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 disappoints
Opinion India 