Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar
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Posts by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar
WTO becomes India’s protector, not predator
Mar 2nd
When the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in 1995, critics protested that India must not join this vehicle of US imperialism, whose tough patent rules would ruin India’s agriculture and pharmaceutical industry. They could not have been more wrong. Both Indian agriculture and pharma have flourished under WTO rules. And today, the WTO is More >
Why Sonia’s right-based approach was rejected by the aam aadmi
Feb 23rd
Opinion polls predict the worstever defeat for the Congress in the coming election. The party swore by the aam aadmi for a decade, promising him succour through a rights-based approach . Alas, the aam aadmi rejects this categorically. In 2009, Sonia Gandhi created the powerful National Advisory Council with the top names in the NGO/activist More >
FIR against Moily? As absurd as one against Kejriwal
Feb 16th
Aam Admi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has filed an FIR (first information report) accusing petroleum minister Veerappa Moily of conspiring with Mukesh Ambani to raise the price of natural gas, bestowing billions of windfall profit on Reliance Industries Ltd. Now, the Ambanis and Congress politicians have committed a thousand sins over the years. I will More >
Ambedkar vs Gandhi: The risks of village empowerment
Feb 9th
January 30, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, drove home the growing irrelevance of the father of the nation. In West Bengal, not a single state cabinet minister attended the formal ceremony held by the Governor. In Mumbai, mayor Sunil Prabhu clean forgot about the usual ceremony, and blamed the lapse on the bureaucrat who More >
AAP can take a leaf out of Amartya Sen’s book
Feb 2nd
Many analysts and businessmen fear that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), dominated by socialists and Marxists like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, is an extreme Left party. These fears are overblown. The AAP has appointed a seven-member committee to formulate its economic policy. This includes libertarian economist Laveesh Bhandari and business honchos like Meera Sanyal More >
Rupee slide to 65/dollar and shrinking CAD will boost India’s exports and growth
Jan 29th
Once again, emerging market currencies are falling but not nearly as dramatically as in May-August 2013. The episode was sparked by the US Fed indicating it would soon taper and eventually end quantitative easing (QE3). Tapering is now partly priced into markets, but a new problem is GDP slowing and a possible financial crash in More >
The case for offshore airports
Jan 26th
Mumbai’s proposed fourth airport at Navi Mumbai, essential for future traffic, is in trouble. Huge increases in proposed compensation to landowners have raised the project cost to Rs 14,000 crore, almost five times the initial estimate. Some villagers have refused to accept even monumental compensation (in the form of developed land with a floor space More >
How supposed job losses can actually mean rising prosperity
Jan 19th
Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal have one thing in common. Both have said “no” to majority foreign direct investment in retail markets. Modi’s rationale is obvious : the BJP has always been the party of small traders, and so he is backing the aam bania over the aam admi. But why has the Aam Aadmi More >
Falling wheat prices and controls on MSP can rein in food inflation
Jan 15th
Food inflation is a huge problem. It has, in different years, been concentrated in different items: sometimes cereals, sometimes proteins (dairy products, pulses, eggs, meat), sometimes vegetables. Skyrocketing global prices of wheat and maize after the mid-2000s have stoked Indian inflation too. The good news is that global wheat and maize prices have crashed spectacularly. More >
Use wiki-ways to improve accountability
Jan 12th
Dear Arvind Kejriwal, Your Aam Aadmi Party has asked the public to suggest what should be in its national manifesto. This suggests a remarkable openness.You will find thousands of suggestions attractive, especially those appealing to one vote bank or another. Please ignore all except those relating to the one thing for which you have been More >
Time to think the unthinkable: Kejriwal as PM?
Jan 5th
The unthinkable happened in 2013: Arvind Kejriwal became CM of Delhi. What’s the most unthinkable thing that could actually happen in 2014? Kejriwal could become prime minister of India. Readers may laugh incredulously at the very suggestion. But the revolutionary success of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi election shows it’s time to abandon More >
Finding a balanced approach to environment and development
Jan 1st
India Inc is delighted with the exit of Jayanthi Natarajan as environment minister, as also with a proposal for deemed environmental clearances if formal clearances are not given within a stipulated time limit. Natarajan was often castigated for slowing environmental clearances to a crawl, freezing the development process. Businessmen also talked of delays arising from More >
Muzaffarnagar offers chance to rejuvenate Congress
Dec 29th
Dear Rahul Gandhi, When you visited the refugee camps in Muzaffarnagar district last week, you advised the refugees to return to their village homes, saying failure to do so would mean victory for the communalists who started the Hindu-Muslim violence. You also spoke of the need for peacemakers to heal communal wounds. I visited the More >
AAP can scale up like JP, VP Singh movements
Dec 22nd
The recent state elections revealed a big Narendra Modi wave in Rajasthan (vote share up 12 percentage points), and to a lesser extent in Madhya Pradesh. But in Delhi, an AAP wave swamped the Modi wave. The BJP’s vote share actually dropped 2 percentage points. Can the AAP effect beat the Modi effect in enough More >
Runaway inflation can be curbed by reining in food prices
Dec 18th
Runaway inflation caused the Congress debacle in the recent state elections. The latest inflation figure is 11.2%, with food inflation touching 14.5%. Inflation has averaged almost 10% a year for several years, one of the highest inflation episodes in history. All the other episodes (as in 1979, 1974 or 1965-55) were caused by major droughts. More >
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