The Times of India

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 […]

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

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

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

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

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

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

The big picture emerging from the budget is substantial continuity in economic policy, notwithstanding rhetoric about a new electoral mandate. The Left Front has not captured the government, as was feared by investors fleeing the stock market on May 17.

Will finance minister Chidambaram produce another dream budget? Will he transform bears into bulls on the stock market? Such questions leave me smiling at two major illusions pervading our society. The smaller illusion is that the stock market is the

Of all the surprises to come out of general election, the most delightful one is that Narendra Modi might be ousted as chief minister of Gujarat. Two years ago, when he won the Gujarat state elections by a landslide, Modi