Columns

The latest data for March shows the inflation rate to be 2.86 percent. The average inflation during the last fiscal year which ended in March is about 3.5 percent. This has been a remarkable success story, the credit for which should go jointly to the Reserve Bank of India and the NDA government.... read more

The headline retail inflation measured in terms Consumer Price Index —Combined (CPI-C) has trended downward since September 2018 and reached 2.0 per cent in January 2019 on a year-on-year basis. This is the floor for retail inflation legislatively mandated under the Flexible Inflation Targeting (... read more

April 13 is a dark day in India’s colonial history. This year, it marks the 100th anniversary of the brutal Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, where Brigadier General Reginald Dyer opened fire on thousands of unarmed Indians, who had peacefully congregated in the Bagh on Baisakhi day as a mark... read more

Yet, somewhere along the heat and dust, unsaid, unmarked and unexplained, the BJP narrative has begun to falter and look tired while the Congress narrative is beginning to look decent if not good and at times even inspiring. This may or may not mean much for the Lok Sabha election results. A host... read more

The Monetary Policy Committee in its first bi- monthly resolution on April 4, 2019 for the current fiscal has reduced the policy repo rate by 25 basis points. Two months earlier on February 07, 2019 the MPC made the same rate cut of 25 basis points. Thus, cumulatively, there has been a rate cut of... read more

There was no surprise this time. As widely expected, the MPC of the RBI cut the policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 6% in its first bi-monthly meeting this fiscal by a 4-2 vote. The policy stance has been kept unchanged at ‘neutral’. Interestingly, the two MPC members who opposed the rate cut... read more

There is much debate on the Indian National Congress campaign promise of NYAY – justice in English but in Hindi an acronym for ‘Nyuntam Aay Yojana’, or the Minimum Guarantee Scheme, under which the poorest 20 per cent households would receive Rs.72,000 per annum if the proposal turns into policy.... read more

The Congress party announced that if elected to form the next government, it would implement a Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), which will transfer Rs 72,000 as cash income annually to the bottom fifth of the poorest families. The acronym NYAY means justice. The implication is that this “injustice”... read more

One of the important objectives of demonetisation was to discourage the use of cash and to check the amount of “currency in circulation” and thus reduce the flow of black money in the system. “Currency in circulation” is an important measure in that sense and has been used by the government to... read more

When Boeing developed their latest-generation B737MAX, to keep their half-century old best-selling single-aisle airliner contemporary, they introduced new technology that was not available on earlier variants, in order to further enhance its air safety. It was called the Manoeuvring Characteristics... read more

The ball has been set rolling for the world’s biggest election. About 900 million voters, will go to a million booths, to elect 545 members of the Lower House of Parliament, from among 10,000 candidates. It’s an exercise which will span 11 weeks, a time during which the model code of conduct will... read more

The MiG-21 has been in the news again – for all the wrong reasons. That aircraft has been the mainstay of the Indian air force’s (IAF) air combat capability for decades. However, current developments bring in focus the urgency of developing and deploying its replacement, the Tejas Light Combat... read more

In the midst of a heated campaign for the upcoming national elections, the death of a local school teacher in police custody in Jammu & Kashmir didn’t make the headlines. In Jammu & Kashmir, it has set off a new round of protests, angered more citizens and made it that much more difficult... read more

The chowkidar is, quite unfortunately, not the most loved or respected entity in Indian society. Examples of this are everywhere. Before the 1980s, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) worked like chowkidars and were regarded as the “watch and ward” staff with weak discipline and uncertain judicial... read more

The story of Nirav Modi leading a rather comfortable life in London appears to have galvanised Indian authorities to action. Reports now say the CBI has sought his immediate arrest, and that a UK warrant could be only weeks away. The swift response after the UK Telegraph’s interview with Mr. Modi,... read more

Cities need investors to finance the building of their concrete infrastructure. But the demands of investors must not overtake the needs of the cities’ poor residents. Twenty years ago, Mumbai began to suffer from Shanghai envy. Shanghai was becoming a ‘world-class city’, moving slums out of the... read more

This summer will be unusually hot. The rising temperature from what still is only the early round of campaigning is already becoming too much to bear. We’ve seen bickering and bitterness before, but all boundaries are being crossed this time. The most unfortunate and dangerous fallout is the... read more

The Supreme Court recently rejected a petition which asked that “criminal” candidates be disqualified from contesting elections. These are candidates who have been charged with criminal cases such as murder, attempted murder, extortion, rape, kidnapping or embezzlement, but have not been convicted... read more

The Prime Minister has spoken about the attacks on Kashmiris, and he has done so not a day too soon. This is good but not good enough. Some shocking snatches of videos have emerged showing Kashmiris being targeted after the Feb. 14 suicide bombing that killed 49 CRPF personnel in Pulwama. Speaking... read more

We all saw the dramatic events unfolding in Kolkata beginning with the CBI raid on Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on February 4 and its dramatic retort by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee which finally ended up with Rajiv Kumar’s questioning at Shillong under Supreme Court orders. However national... read more