It is the story of the exoneration of A Raja and the conviction of a metaphorical raja (Lalu Prasad used to call himself a raja of Bihar) that reveals a complex web of governance in India. Raja’s exoneration in the 2G scam was quickly followed by Lalu’s conviction in the fodder scam. Of course, in both cases, the respective CBI courts delivered verdicts which are con
Seventy years of independence and the questions and issues raised have not changed and the most astounding fact is that neither are the answers! So this Good Governance Day (December 25), as a woman I ask what has been done for that huge section of the population that I represent. Had governance been truly effective then there would never be a need to demand reservation for women. The women&rsq
This one definitely isn’t the typical fight witnessed within defence circles. The high-profile fracas over the Tejas fighter aircraft and the more subdued skirmish over the Arjun tank carry with it the potential to define what India is going to do over the next 50 years on its quest for growth, development and prosperity. For over a decade there has been an intriguing war fought in the by
The BJP is set to form the sixth government in Gujarat. Not counting a bump in 1996-98 thanks to its own rebel Shankarsinh Vaghela, the party has been in power since 1995, and shows no signs of anti-incumbency. What we are witnessing is comparable only to the long CPM rule in West Bengal. There are, of course, other states with a long period of one-party rule, or on
More often, a colloquial proverb sums up a complex political situation more aptly than scholarly formulations. If one looks at the Gujarat verdict, nothing summarises it more perfectly than the adage: “Jo jita wohi Sikandar (the victor is the one who has won).” Of course, there is no denying that the victor in Gujarat c
Assembly elections in Gujarat, since 2002, have been like Churchill’s description of Russia – with a little twist: wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but eventually a non-riddle. They have been following the same script. When the campaign begins, the outcome looks utterly unpredictable. As the electioneering progresses, as Narendra Modi gets aggressive, his criti
Rahul Gandhi has become the president of India’s grand old party. Nobody else wanted to, since none contested. By any parameter, it is not a welcome move in a democracy. Regardless of your views on his leadership abilities, the fact remains that there was no contest, no election for the top post. The only justification, that not even one among the tens of thousands of Congress members was
The ‘Ease of Doing Business’ report of the World Bank could not have come at a better time for the NDA government. The first anniversary of demonetisation, where everything from planning to execution went wrong, and whose impact had broken the back of the economy as never before, was only a week ahead when the report was released on October 31. It was just a week after announcing th
Gujarat has always been a riddle for those who tend to apply conventional academic or intellectual tools to unravel the mystery. When confusion gets confounded, such analysts invent subterfuge to cover up their failures. Nothing illustrates this dilemma as starkly as the projection of the Gujarat assembly election as a Narendra Modi versus Rahul Gandhi battle. And ironically some
As terror mastermind Hafeez Saeed walked free in Pakistan, Rahul Gandhi tweeted to ridicule prime minister Narendra Modi’s diplomacy, and in response BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao called him a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) sympathiser. Suitably chagrined by the BJP’s counterattack, the Congress once again played the emotional card. Congress leader Anand Sharma recalled the contribution
There is today a huge uproar about a film produced by Mumbai film-maker Sanjay Leela Bhansali that is rumored to contain scenes of a dream romance between Padmavati, the Rajput queen of Chittor, and the ferocious Muslim sultan Allauddin Khilji of Delhi. Paradoxically, there are a number of conflicting versions of the mythical story of Padmavati over the past 700 years. Now, an obscure Jaipur-ba
Is China behind the fall of Zimbabwe’s longest serving leader Robert Mugabe? The whole African region and the European continent are abuzz with speculation that toppling of the Mugabe government occurred at Beijing’s bidding. It took place soon after army commander Constantino Chiwenga`s return from China, which is not only a major arms supplier to the Southern Africa
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) celebrated its fifth anniversary on November 26. AAP has been a unique phenomenon in our politics: it’s the only startup of its kind, it’s the only party in recent decades to emerge out of a popular agitation, it’s the only party (outside Sikkim) to win nearly all seats going to the polls. Five years ago, AAP stood for all the hopes tha
Policy planners may already be engaged in analysing why the country does not look cleaner than it was three years ago. The central government has launched several schemes from time to time – Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC, Vajpayee, 1999), Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA, Singh, 2012), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA, Modi 2014) – for cleaning up the Augean stables, but they have not worked w
The United Nations General Assembly recognized November 20, 1954 as Universal Children’s Day to promote and celebrate the rights of children. On this day in 1959, the UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the day is celebrated with a lot of enthusiasm worldwide, let’s go beyond ceremonies today and t
In October, during yet another of his visits to Gujarat, prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a curious range of projects in Vadodara: a transport hub and multi-level parking facility as well as a waste-to-energy plant of the municipal corporation. If there were no elections coming closer, it would have been the mayor who would’ve cut the ribbon. This, amid a rush of launching several
Traditionally, finance has been ‘global’ in character. Over the centuries, frequent changes of regimes, combined with evolution of administrative systems, have restricted free movement of capital and discouraged free markets. With the passage of time, free trade almost became imaginary. Financial integration among industrialised nations was fast-tracked in the last t
One year has passed since the Modi regime applied shock therapy to improve the functioning of the Indian economy through demonetisation on November 8, 2016. Thus, legal tender to rupee notes worth 1,000 and 500 denominations was withdrawn and 86 percent of the currency went out of circulation. It was claimed that the policy was designed to fight black money, counterfeit currency, corruption and
The Nobel Prize in economics of 2010 that went to Peter Diamond and colleagues. Their work on search costs in labour markets provided the theoretical justification for government-operated employment exchanges. The 2012 Nobel Prize that went to Alvin E Roth and Lloyd S Shapley took things even further: their work demonstrated that design is important, because equity markets provide clear analysi
Back in the 1980s, television viewers were familiar with the multicolour, barcode-like strips that used to appear on our screens when transmission used to go off. That was probably the only colourful moment on TV at that time. At a time when Krishi Darshan and Chhayageet used to greet viewers through the sole terrestrial state-owned network Doordarshan, they did not have much of a choice. Or, r
