Articles

The government is suffering from schizophrenia. Its Make in India campaign aims to convince global and Indian manufacturers that India is a business paradise. But recent measures (on tax, drug controls and cotton seeds) suggest the government is arbitrary, populist […]

The analysis of Arun Jaitley’s Budget has focused on issues like the fiscal deficit, boost to infrastructure, and sundry tax measures. Yet in terms of life and death, by far his most important proposal is the scheme to provide LPG

Arun Jaitley’s budget has a potentially revolutionary proposal, which he called “asset recycling” in an interview. The government constantly lacks funds for badly needed infrastructure. Jaitley’s solution is for government undertakings to routinely sell existing assets, and use the sale

The aspirational classes who drove Narendra Modi to his 2014 victory may be turning against him. The Jat agitation in Haryana that took 19 lives last week was the latest movement of once-powerful rural elites lagging in the race of

Once the Budget was the biggest event in February. Now it is just another event, not even as important as a student rally in Jawaharlal Nehru University. No longer does the Budget spell out radical economic policy changes. It has

When oil crossed $100/barrel in 2006, I championed mixing ethanol with petrol. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested that ethanol, which has 60% of the calorific value of petrol, was competitive at a crude oil price of $70/barrel. So, mixing ethanol with petrol

It is now 10 years since the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) was enacted with fanfare to save India’s poor. India has just suffered two droughts in a row, so rural works are important to relieve rural

India’s exports have been declining for 13 months. To reverse the trend, the commerce ministry wants to exempt exporters in special economic zones (SEZs) from all corporate taxes, including the minimum alternative tax (MAT). This is a bad idea. It