governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Every passing day, America plays the truculent, ageing diva on the wane, whilst China exudes a quiet, confident gravitas. Their chosen global roles, however, do not reflect the fundamentals of either country. America is one of the few developed countries with a robust economy, relative to its overwhelming size. It grew smartly at an average […]
Read More India’s geopolitical choices till 2040Rajiv 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?Javed 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 IndiaR.S. Sharma the new TRAI chairperson and architect of “ersatz socialism” in the www. Photo credit: economic times.com By ruling against Facebook’s Free Basics type of innovation, which offers, hitherto undreamed of, free but limited access to data services, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has regressed to a version of “ersatz Nehruvian socialism”, which […]
Read More TRAI’s ersatz socialism kills innovationParis 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 joustPhoto: 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; http://www.mrwallpaper.com) China has “bested” its way onto the big boys table through three critical initiatives which bore fruit since President Xi took over as China’s numero uno in 2013. The first was the founding of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered at Shanghai. Symbols speak louder than words. The logo of the […]
Read More Socializing the Dragon(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: 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: http://www.smithsonianmag.com) India has negligible resources of oil and gas in the context of our future needs and from the perspective of the currently available extraction technology. Oil markets are liquid and sufficiently deep not to worry about oil availability so long as one has the USD to purchase it with. Oil, gas and […]
Read More Give Us Energy Mr. Putin
Opinion India 