January 30, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, drove home the growing irrelevance of the father of the nation. In West Bengal, not a single state cabinet minister attended the formal ceremony held by the Governor. In Mumbai, mayor Sunil […]
Ambedkar vs Gandhi: The risks of village empowerment Read More »
Many analysts and businessmen fear that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), dominated by socialists and Marxists like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, is an extreme Left party. These fears are overblown. The AAP has appointed a seven-member committee to formulate
AAP can take a leaf out of Amartya Sen’s book Read More »
Mumbai’s proposed fourth airport at Navi Mumbai, essential for future traffic, is in trouble. Huge increases in proposed compensation to landowners have raised the project cost to Rs 14,000 crore, almost five times the initial estimate. Some villagers have refused
The case for offshore airports Read More »
Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal have one thing in common. Both have said “no” to majority foreign direct investment in retail markets. Modi’s rationale is obvious : the BJP has always been the party of small traders, and so he
How supposed job losses can actually mean rising prosperity Read More »
Dear Arvind Kejriwal, Your Aam Aadmi Party has asked the public to suggest what should be in its national manifesto. This suggests a remarkable openness.You will find thousands of suggestions attractive, especially those appealing to one vote bank or another.
Use wiki-ways to improve accountability Read More »
The unthinkable happened in 2013: Arvind Kejriwal became CM of Delhi. What’s the most unthinkable thing that could actually happen in 2014? Kejriwal could become prime minister of India. Readers may laugh incredulously at the very suggestion. But the revolutionary
Time to think the unthinkable: Kejriwal as PM? Read More »
Dear Rahul Gandhi, When you visited the refugee camps in Muzaffarnagar district last week, you advised the refugees to return to their village homes, saying failure to do so would mean victory for the communalists who started the Hindu-Muslim violence.
Muzaffarnagar offers chance to rejuvenate Congress Read More »
The recent state elections revealed a big Narendra Modi wave in Rajasthan (vote share up 12 percentage points), and to a lesser extent in Madhya Pradesh. But in Delhi, an AAP wave swamped the Modi wave. The BJP’s vote share
AAP can scale up like JP, VP Singh movements Read More »
Having been smashed in the recent state elections, how will the Congress try to recover ground before the general election in May 2014? Fixers within the party may argue for new populist giveaways. Why not have another farm loan waiver,
Why Congress should ditch desperate populism before 2014 elections Read More »
At last week’s ET Now conclave, finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram defended India’s poor growth performance, ascribing it mainly to a global slowdown. Many will dismiss this as the whining of a ruling party that has messed up badly and may
Global slowdown exacerbates India’s follies Read More »
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