The feel-good factor suddenly seems back again. Stock markets are booming, and foreign institutional investors are pouring dollars into India again. Despite a deficient monsoon, many forecasters predict GDP growth of 6-6.5 per cent. This implies that, with a normal […]
Power: India\’s Achilles\’ heel Read More »
The feel-good factor suddenly seems back again. Stock markets are booming, and foreign institutional investors are pouring dollars into India again. Despite a deficient monsoon, many forecasters predict GDP growth of 6-6.5 per cent. This implies that, with a normal
Power: India\’s Achilles\’ heel Read More »
The Census Commissioner has been castigated, rightly, for distorting the population growth rate of Muslims in the decade 1991-01. The correct rate is 29.3 per cent, not 36 per cent as originally announced. Still, why is the Muslim rate so
Muslims, learn from Bangladesh Read More »
During the Uruguay Round talks on trade in the early 1990s, India fought tooth and nail against two new trade rules proposed for the World Trade Organisation. One was to make intellectual property rights (patents, copyright, trade marks) an integral
Patents as a retaliatory weapon Read More »
I cheer the upsurge of microfinance in the last decade. Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh first demonstrated the value or organizing poor women into self-help groups (SHGs), with the group guaranteeing repayment by any member. These microfinance groups
Microfinance: directed lending that works Read More »
Indian visitors to China are overwhelmed by skyscrapers, flyovers and expressways. China is leaving India far behind. Yet, in one unexpected respect, India is far ahead. Both countries have a proud architectural heritage. India\’s pride is the Taj Mahal, a
Democracy saves Taj Read More »
Remember the book Every-body Loves a Drought, exposing how many vested interests benefit from drought relief? We need another book titled Everybody Loves Farm Suicides. Politicians love suicides. These helped the Congress to win the recent Andhra Pradesh election. They
Everybody loves farm suicides Read More »
For months, the media have been replete with reports of suicides of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, and now in Maharashtra too. The unstated assumption is that suicide hardly occurs unless caused by acute financial distress. Not so. Suicide is frighteningly
Does poverty or debt cause suicide? Read More »
Three years ago, I suggested in these columns that India should import electricity rather than gas from the Gulf. The logic of that has strengthened with the rise in oil prices, and technological improvements in undersea power cables. The petroleum
Import power from the Gulf Read More »
Armchair theorists in Delhi and Mumbai interpret the last general election as a revolt of rural masses bypassed by the information technology (IT) revolution. They voted for a new regime with a human face. This theory owes much to the
Democracy as mafia warfare Read More »
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