Cutting corporate tax to accelerate growth could be the first step to structural change Bravo, Nirmala Sitharaman. After becoming finance minister and presenting a second-rate Budget, you have seemed a timid tinkerer, making dozens of marginal changes to try and […]
The Beginning of a Start? Read More »
The government is spinelessly hypocritical in banning the use of e-cigarettes, popularly called vaping because it entails inhaling nicotine-infused vapour from a heated liquid cartridge. Vaping has existed for only a decade, so long-term studies of its health effects are
Why ban vaping but not the more dangerous bidis? Read More »
The Modi government recently amended the Motor Vehicles Act, sharply increasing (up to 10 times) penalties for traffic offences to try and halve deaths and injuries from road accidents by 2020. India has among the worst road accident records in
Heavy fines a way, but crush apathy for road safety Read More »
President Donald Trump’s trade wars may turn out to be political suicide Auto sales are falling, workers are being laid off in droves, and manufacturing is in reverse gear. I am not writing about India but about the US. General
Make America Grate Again Read More »
Gloom surrounds the end of the decade of the 2010s. The euphoria of the 2000s has been replaced by sulky disappointment as the 2010s end. This is not just a cyclical downswing. Something deeper has gone seriously wrong. In the
2010s: The decade is ending on a sour note for Indian economy Read More »
India’s GDP growth slowed to 5% in the April-June quarter, the slowest since the scam-hit days of UPA-2. From 8.2% a year ago, growth has fallen sharply quarter after quarter. This is the combined effect of a cyclical global downswing
Bank mergers and minor policy changes won’t revive economy Read More »
Nitin Gadkari’s proposal to make kulhads at tea stalls mandatory is harmful Nitin Gadkari is one of the best minds in the current Cabinet. Yet, he now seeks to revive an old failed policy. Once, tea in shops was served
How Not to Create Jobs Read More »
Donald Trump has punctured the notion that the US will support India’s rise as the only Asian nation that can credibly check China’s hegemony in the 21st century. Instead, he declared last week that both China and India are unfair
India must join US in seeking reforms to WTO Read More »
In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi said, “Wealth creation is a national service.” He declared, rightly, that wealth creators should be honoured, not pilloried. How does he reconcile this with his absurd new law making it a criminal
CSR spends are no guarantee of corporate ethics Read More »
Tackle the factors that make India uncompetitive, long-term growth’s greatest threat The Indian economy keeps sliding downward. GDP decelerated steadily from 8.2% in the first quarter of 2018-19 to 5.8% in the last quarter. Is this a short-term blip, or
Where’s the Competition? Read More »
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