Why is the US hell-bent on toppling Saddam Hussein? To install a democracy? Don\’t make me laugh, many will say. Yet all other explanations look equally laughable. Some say Bush Jr wants to finish the job his father started in […]
Can US do a Japan in Iraq? Read More »
Ratan Tata has retired as executive chairman of the Tata group on reaching the age of 65. How good has he been for India’s largest industrial group? I have sometimes criticised him over the years, but my overall verdict has
Let me return to the question I posed at the end of this column last week: Even if India is a net beneficiary from global flows of brainpower, will we not be still better off if skilled Indians do not
Beyond drawing back NRIs Read More »
Prime Minister Vajpayee wants to reverse the brain drain. Learned economist Jagdish Bhagwati views the brain drain as a serious leakage out of India. Many economists in past decades have made detailed calculations on how many billions India has lost
Brain drain is a bogus concept Read More »
The Indian left believes that the US, as the world’s sole super power, simply bombs whom it likes when it likes. Arundhati Roy and others have come out with long lists of countries whom the US has taken military action
What is it that explains US schizophrenia? Read More »
As I explained a fortnight ago, GDP can be regarded as the sum of all incomes, or the sum of all value added in production by citizens. The two are equal. So, we could tax all income through income tax
VAT as a trade weapon Read More »
Indian industrialists are terrified of competing with China. But fears are also evident in the once-miracle economies of south-east Asia. East Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan have long graduated out of labour-intensive goods into high-tech ones, and do not
How to compete with China Read More »
Too many journalists have proved guilty of projecting wishful thinking as analysis. Despite widespread media criticism, Narendra Modi won a landslide victory in Gujarat. Many journalists are now trying to explain lamely why they were wrong, and some hope he
Narendra Modi, future PM Read More »
The Kelkar Committee has submitted two reports. One is on direct taxes, levied on incomes and wealth (eg. income tax, corporate tax, wealth tax). The other is on indirect taxes levied on goods and services (eg. excise duty, sales tax).
The alchemy of VAT Read More »
ONE reason why Vijay Kelkar’s reports on tax reform have encountered so much opposition from so many lobbies is that Kelkar has approached taxation as an economist, not a politician. Since he is an economist, I have no quarrel with
Politics versus technocracy Read More »
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