Articles

All parties in the general elections swear to eradicate poverty. Yet voters know that any party coming to power will adopt policies targeted mainly at the non-poor. Central and state governments have instituted hundreds of subsidies over the years. All […]

This is an election in which the fate of many political giants is uncertain. But when I toured Himachal Pradesh last week, I discovered that one person is regarded by all and sundry as unbeatable—Mr Sukh Ram, the union telecom

Spiritualism is supposed to be on a higher plane than material wealth. Yet there is no shortage of people visiting temples, dargahs or churches to pray for favours form God. The prayers are often buttressed by donations or ritual sacrifices.

What has been the social impact of the economic reforms? What have they done for education, health, employment, poverty alleviation? Many observers look at the data before and after 1991 and make comparisons, some of which are favourable to the

Does India really have a foreign investment policy? This, I believe is the question we need to ask, rather than worry whether the outburst against multinationals from Mr Tarun Das, director-general of the Confederation of Indian Industry, is a protectionist

WE, who sell fish to the public, must protest against the slur cast on us by Justice S N Dhingra during his remarks on TADA detainee Kalpnath Rai. He compared the functioning of Parliament to a fish market. This is

Cricket was at one time an upper class sport of the British. Today it looks the most egalitarian of games. Three of the last four World Cups in cricket have been won by low-income countries-India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The

The annual publication of the World Debt Tables has, for many years, been an occasion for moaning and groaning that India is the third largest debtor in the developing world, after Brazil and Mexico. But the latest edition of World

In the coming election campaign, politicians will promise a thousand new subsidies. Will these really alleviate poverty? In a recent seminar, Mr Deepak Lal argued that there are three sorts of poverty. One is destitution, caused by disease and other

The shock victory of Mr Patrick Buchanan in Republican primaries in the USA shows two things. First, Mr Buchanan is a caricature of the BJP-his campaign, like that of the BJP, rests on the twin pillars of swadeshi and religion.