In every large and diverse country, federalism matters not just for political stability but also for economic development. The decentralisation of ....Read More

Defen....Read More

Conve....Read More

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MYOPIC MICROMANAGEMENT by NITIN DESAI The Union Government must not try and micro-manage what corporate managem....Read More

POLITICAL CULTURE by NITIN DESAI A country as diverse as ours needs a political culture rooted in constitutiona....Read More

Socialising Social Media....Read More

Auctions for Public Resources ....Read More

EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE by ....Read More

Good governance requires good politics, something we are seriously short of now. Today our political process is rife wi....Read More

Keynes said that “If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble competent people on a level w....Read More

There is a great deal of talk these days that the revival of growth will require major policy reforms. Vijay Kelkar and....Read More

When the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman presented her first budget in July 2019, this columnist, like many ot....Read More

The past week has seen the rapid spread of public protests against the NRC and the CAA. Besides the immediate cause, th....Read More

We are now entering the last leg of one of the nastiest election campaigns that we have seen in this country. There has....Read More

In April 1947 the Constituent Assembly of India decided on holding elections on the basis of universal suffrage to fulf....Read More

Over the past few weeks we have heard a lot about the Rafale deal in the political playground and the media. The focus ....Read More

Are coalition governments bad for the economy? This, question has arisen because of the high probability that the comin....Read More

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, the highpoint of a season of goodwill and a time to remember the benign aspects of religious....Read More

The Government has opened up the issue of the relationship between the Finance Ministry and the RBI. The public critici....Read More

Thousands of scientists, academics and students staged a March for Science in August 2017 and April 2018 all over India....Read More

This month  marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, perh....Read More

The recent Supreme Court judgement on the Cauvery waters dispute has provoked this reflection on water governance. ....Read More

Seventy years ago, on this day, was our tryst with destiny. The hopes, articulated forcefully by Pandit Nehru in that g....Read More

The narratives that politicians fashion to project their vision of the past,  ....Read More

The massive demonetisation exercise undertaken by the government has caused widespread disruption of cash transactions.....Read More

The severe drought that has hit many parts of India has reminded us about the vulnerability of rural areas to....Read More

Why are so many economists writing about the current state of politics in India? Clearly they have not run out of thing....Read More

Fifty years ago the American historian, Richard Hofstadter wrote a seminal essay on "The Paranoid Style in American Pol....Read More

The Government's decision to wind up the Planning Commission and replace it with another institution has led to a spate....Read More

In his Independence Day speech the Prime Minister announced the end of the Planning Commission.....Read More

In a days time we will know what the Indian electorate has decided. Opinion and exit polls, media pundits and armchair ....Read More

The Aam Aadmi party's spectacular debut in the Delhi election has shaken up India's political class because it was an e....Read More

The Kelkar Committee Report on fiscal consolidation focusses quite understandably on the next three years because it is....Read More

Why do infrastructure projects in India fall prey to giganticism? Is it the grandiose vision of engineers whose culture....Read More

A new team of the Prime Minister and two trusted lieutenants, Dr. Rangarajan and Montek Ahluwalia has taken charge of t....Read More

The Right to Education law and the subsequent Supreme Court judgement has focused attention on the future of school edu....Read More

The next Prime Minister of India will wield even less authority over his cabinet colleagues than Dr. Manmohan Singh. Th....Read More

In the second half of August the nation witnessed a struggle between constitutional propriety and populist democracy.....Read More

Anna Hazare and Ramdev have taken up a campaign against corruption and black money– out of sincere belief in one ....Read More

The crisis of governance that has hit with the force of a tsunami has been brewing for a long time.....Read More

The nation witnessed a tragedy unfold in slow motion as the Government and the Supreme Court clashed on the appointment....Read More

The role of the government in the operation of land transactions has once again hit the headlines.....Read More

This has been a bad year for the Republic. The economy may have recovered with the revival of growth....Read More

Two months ago this column had dealt with the challenge of the Maoist insurgency in Central India. In that context it r....Read More

The meticulously planned attack by the Maoists on the CRPF in Dantewada has shocked the Delhi Establishment. This episo....Read More

This column has been provoked by a current dispute between two publicly listed companies that has been linked to a fami....Read More

This is the time for saying I told you so.  So here is a quote from my ....Read More

The Indian economy is going to face a difficult time for at least another year and a half.....Read More

The terrorist attack in Mumbai exposed the gross inadequacies of governance at many levels.....Read More

The twenty second Governor of RBI has just been named.  Since 1977, all....Read More

A few days ago a Hindu-CNN-IBN survey came out with results that must have surprised many in the Delhi dinner circuit a....Read More

On 7 May 2005, a well-organized group of leftist revolutionaries attacked and laid waste Hindalco’s mine in Chhattisgarh. Those absorbed in t....Read More

The roots of corruption lie in the way our political system works.  Last months column[i] argued that par....Read More

The 2004 ranking of countries in the Corruption Perception Index prepared by Transparency International places India at ranks 90 out of 145, sharin....Read More

The Indian economy has never been a planned one in a strict sense of the term.  Yes, the Planning Commission has been around for well over fif....Read More