Articles

In a recent column, I ascribed our phenomenal infotech success to the opportunities globalisation has opened to Indians with brains and English language skills. Yet that cannot be the full story. People from other ex-British colonies are just as brainy, […]

Most of us regard Indian politics as particularly corrupt and distorted by money-grabbing politicians. We generally view politics in western countries as being much cleaner. Yet a look at spending in the US Presidential election is sobering. Astronomical sums are

For decades, I have opposed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh\’s vision of an Akhand Bharat. This is little more than a vision of India dominating the sub-continent, based on the vague but unhistorical notion that the whole region somehow belongs to

Foreign visitors frequently ask me for myassessment of India\’s prospects. I tell them that economicmanagement is improving, but governance is deteriorating, and beyond a point deteriorating governance can make good economic management impossible. This has already happened in Bihar: Economic

In my youth I first heard of the theory of economic trickle down–that if the rich get richer, the benefits will trickle down to the poor, and so all will benefit. This was supposed to explain why, contrary to Karl

Last week I talked of the concept of social capital–the social glue that enables cohesive communities to pull together, help distressed members, mediate conflicts, penalise deviant behaviour and reward desirable behaviour, far more efficiently and cheaply than government mechanisms. Successful

FIRST, the good news. Environmentalists may tell us that the Indian tiger is getting extinct, but economic data tell us that some Indian states may be emerging as the latest Asian tigers. Take a look at the accompanying table. It

Karl Marx thought that capital was money. Not so, said 20th century economists who said human capital was the driving force behind prosperity, and so emphasised education and health. But neither human nor financial capital can adequately explain why some

LIBERALISERS like Manmohan Singh can take heart from a new Princeton study which shows, contrary to the government\’s statistical methodology, that rural poverty in India declined sharply between ’87-88 and ’93-94. This may influence the debate within the Congress Party

Media reports today talk of drought and water scarcity as though they are the same thing. In fact they are very different. Droughts will come and go, but water scarcity will worsen steadily because of populist policies and poor governance.