The Times of India

I have often wondered as a feminist — yes, men can be feminists too — what sparked female empowerment in the 19th and 20th centuries. Why, after millennia of being household drudges, do women now occupy the top ranks of […]

In our era, all idols seem to have clay feet. So too with Amartya Sen, celebrated Nobel Prize winner. Having admired his passionate writings to empower people, I am dismayed by his craven backpedalling in a report for the Pratichi

I have long said that India is not globally competitive in manufacturing. Now, at last, I see limited signs of improvement. I will focus in this column on the auto industry. Ford has decided to outsource car engines for its

Daniel Kahneman has won this year’s Nobel Prize for economics for showing that human beings are irrational. Readers will ask, isn’t that too obvious to merit an award? Answer: an economist is one who observes that something works in practices

For all those who believe that global inequality and poverty have been worsening, here is some dramatic news. In the two decades from 1980 to 2000, the proportion of poor people in the world has fallen from 44 per cent

For all those who believe that global inequality and poverty have been worsening, here is some dramatic news. In the two decades from 1980 to 2000, the proportion of poor people in the world has fallen from 44 per cent

Dear Yashwant Sinha, When you were finance minister, you played an important role in attracting foreign direct investment. Pessimists earlier thought that FDI would dry up if the BJP ever came to power. But you were among those who understood

For most of history, an agricultural crisis in India has meant scarcity. Today it means excess. We have a foodgrain mountain of over 60 million tones, as well as a mountain of unsold sugar. And unsold cotton stocks are so

Green fundamentalists are killers. Their opposition to genetically modified foods is killing people in famine-hit Africa today, and could threaten Indians in the future too. The USA has rushed food aid to southern Africa in the form of maize, the

When Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, decided to launch a Gaurav Yatra (journey of pride for Hindus), it reminded me of another incident which I could not put my finger on. When before, I wondered, had somebody declared that