Columns

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

The Pulwama terrorist attack was mind-numbing brutality. Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility, and it operates from Pakistan. The deadly attack needed sophisticated planning, logistics, arms procurement, fund flow and sensitive information. All this is not possible without some sort of... read more

The death of 44 CRPF troops in the suicide bombing in Pulwama last week raises many questions and changes many things in Jammu & Kashmir. The anguish and outrage at the suicide bombing has been voiced and felt across the nation. Social media is full of demands for tough retaliatory action.... read more

During the reform period till 2013, the Government took several steps to strengthen the balance sheet of the Reserve Bank of India and added to the reserves. For instance, the excessive cost of sterilisation which normally is borne by the Central bank was shared by the Government to keep the... read more

Ms. Chanda Kochhar is now facing the full brunt of a wide-ranging investigation. Multiple agencies are poised to probe deep into a case that the worthies on the ICICI Board dismissed not too long ago. ICICI Bank has a new CEO since October 2018. The bank under him has moved with full force against... read more

We have a rate cut after a gap of about 18 months. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced on Friday that the policy repo rate, which goes on to influence the rate at which banks lend to customers, stands cut to 6.25 per cent, down from 6.5 per cent. This change came along with a change in... read more

The noted actor, director and producer Amol Palekar is a gentle speaker but can make a powerful point. He was one of the guest speakers for the opening of a retrospective of the late artist Prabhakar Barwe at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai last week. Palekar took the occasion to speak... read more

The recent Union Budget proposals gave generous income support to farmers and lower income taxpayers. Whether this will translate into electoral support for the ruling party, only time will tell. The revised data on GDP shows that the past four years have had exceptionally good growth, putting... read more

The Union Interim Budget which was placed in Parliament on February 01 2019 has broken all the conventions of an interim budget. It has expenditure proposals, tax proposals and above all a vision for 2030. In the interest of prudency in the budget making process, the government should have... read more

There was much drama involving economic data on the eve of the budget. Firstly, the remaining two independent members of the Statistical Commission resigned. Their exit made the constitutional body effectively vacuous, since the Chairman’s post was lying vacant since July. This is an apex advisory... read more

Learned people in various committees and commissions have prepared voluminous reports but why does the agriculture sector continue to be in distress? Why are farmers committing suicide especially after the World Bank–inspired 1992 wave of financial reforms? Let us examine whether we need a second... read more