I have long been allergic to mainline political parties. On election day, I typically go to the polling booth, look at the photos of candidates, and vote for the bestlooking independent. I did not...

The stock market boom is a broad vote of confidence in Modi govt. It is a broad-based boom that has especially benefited small and medium companies.

The stock market boom is a broad vote of confidence in Modi govt. It is a broad-based boom that has especially benefited small and medium companies.

Does Narendra Modi actually have a great Gujarat model, or just wellpackaged hype? Critics say that Gujarat has grown fast, but some others have grown faster.  The Raghuram Rajan Committee on...

Collapsing economic growth, high inflation and corruption explain why the Congress is heading for its worst defeat ever. GDP growth averaged 9% for much of UPA rule, but has halved to 4.5% in its...

Shortly after the Gujarat state election, Swaminomics argued that Narendra Modi would not be able to make this a launching pad for the prime ministership. I need to qualify that judgement heavily...

Last week, I wrote on how not to catch corporate and political crooks. Readers naturally asked, what is the right way?  Some analysts say India has only 1.3 policemen per 1,000 citizens against 2.5...

New Delhis intellectuals cannot forgive Modi for the 2002 mass killings of Muslims. But for most voters in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, that is a forgotten event of the distant past, irrelevant for...

The Indian price of gold has risen sixfold in the last decade, fuelling a record speculative import spree. Soaring gold imports have hit $42 billion in the first ten months of 2012-13 , pushing the...

The Supreme Court seeks to ensure a strong, independent Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to check corruption. Sadly, the CBI is using this enhanced power to pursue frivolous charges against...

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...

How much does a poor man's meal cost? One politician said Rs 5.

A new global trading system is being erected, almost unnoticed in India. One of its unstated aims is to check China’s rise through economic discrimination. But it could end up discriminating against...

People ask me, will the exchange rate go to Rs 70 to the dollar? I reply, why not Rs 80? Indian analysts are in denial. They don’t dare face up to the full consequences of...

Runaway inflation caused the Congress debacle in the recent state elections. The latest inflation figure is 11.2%, with food inflation touching 14.5%.

Most opinion polls predict a seriously hung Lok Sabha in 2014. A Third Front government, supported by either the BJP or Congress Party, looks very possible. This will be reminiscent of the Third...

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation , and Resettlement Bill introduced in Parliament is a terrible piece of work. It is a Luddite proposal that threatens all economic development. Some critics have...

FM P Chidambaram wants people to invest, but the coming recession will induce every corporate to postpone investment, says SA Aiyar.

Poverty has declined much faster for dalits and tribals than for upper castes or the overall population. And it has declined faster for Muslims than for Hindus or the national average.

BJP has done well in the assembly elections, but AAP has done even better. Starting from scratch, it has captured almost a third of the popular vote.

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,...

The world is staggering under multiple problems, but economists of all stripes have failed to come up with convincing remedies.

Asking Marxists, socialists and libertarians to come up with an agreed formula may produce a messy compromise rife with internal contradictions.

Are stock markets irrational, driven by greed and fear, subject to euphoria and panic? Or are they highly efficient indicators of intrinsic value? Both, says the Nobel Prize Comittee for Economics,...

During the period of fast economic growth in the 2000s, how did poor minorities fare? Some heartening answers have been provided in a Columbia University paper by Panagariya and More (Poverty by...

The latest employment data for 2011-12 show that India’s much-hyped demographic dividend has not yet arrived. The proportion of workers in the population rose slightly from 40% in 1980 to 43% in...

Kerala is not a success of welfare socialism. It is a success of globalisation, private provision of education and health, and rapid growth.

Critics say rising inequalities in India are sparking mass resentment and Maoist insurrection. Really? Tribals in the Maoist belt certainly hate those who are growing rich by exploiting them. But do...

The UPA government’s theme song for eight years has been that we have achieved record GDP growth but not been inclusive enough-poor people and backward states have not benefited enough. The very...

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on coal block allocations highlights the mess in the coal sector, but has led to very faulty interpretations of what exactly has gone wrong. The...