The Times of India

Foreigners have stopped asking Whether the economic reforms since 1991 are reversible, and instead tend to make gung-ho statements about India becoming the next Asian tiger. Some already regard Mr Narasimha Rao as Deng Xiaoping Jr. They should look at the antics in the current Andhra Pradesh elections, where Mr Rao\’s prestige is at stake. […]

Poverty is declining, rural prosperity is booming and even low-income households are increasingly buying consumer durables. This good news comes from by the biggest consumer survey of recent times, conducted in 1992-93 by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). For years, critics have declared with much passion but no data that the economic

Gandhi Jayanti this year will mark the 125th birth anniversary of Mahtama Gandhi, the father of the nation. What would he have thought of the liberalisation of the economy?? I am certain he would have welcomed it, since he was a committed liberal, firmly opposed to intrusive government. Many politicians and intellectuals have fraudulently called

The Cairo population conference is a good occasion to announce some good news. India is currently enjoying a major breakthrough in curbing population. Most Indians will find this incredible. Despite many decades of family planning, the country\’s population has been growing steadily by around 2 per cent per year since independence, and cynics believe that

The Cairo population conference is a good occasion to announce some good news. India is currently enjoying a major breakthrough in curbing population. Most Indians will find this incredible. Despite many decades of family planning, the country\’s population has been growing steadily by around 2 per cent per year since independence, and cynics believe that

Does democracy help or hinder economic growth? The miraculous growth of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and now China have led many to believe that a benevolent dictatorship is best for economic prosperity. However, recent research by top economists like Mancur Olson, John Williamson and Surjit Bhalla (reviewed in a recent issue of The Economist)

For both its critics and advocates, foreign investment has usually meant industrial investment. This is a narrow, increasingly obsolete approach in a world which is inexorably shifting from manufacturing to services, in both rich and poor countries. In India, the share of services in GNP is almost double that of manufacturing, and still rising. Without

It is now the 50th anniversary of the Bretton Woods meeting which created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Even as the organisations themselves are celebrating the event, there has been an astonishing joining of hands by the far right, far left and deep greens, calling for the abolition of the two organisations.

Are intellectual property rights (IPR) good or bad for farmers? A good answer can be found by treating this as a chicken and egg question. Much has been written about the green revolution in grain. But a much bigger revolution has taken place in the production of eggs and chickens. The per capita availability of

When India embarked on its economic reforms in 1991, leftist critics claimed the doors were being opened for the re-colonisation of India by a new version of the East India Company. They warned that the US multinationals would become instruments of the US foreign policy to subjugate India. During Prime Minister Mr Narasimha Rao\’s visit