RESEARCH

Hopefully, readers won’t find the comparisons Greek. The European country is a typical example of the ultimate fate socialism and populism meet . India, beware! I n terms of economics, this is the chronology that unfolded in Greece, which the whole news media is talking about today. Greece enters Eurozone in 2001. Unfortunately Europe goes into recession around 2008. Greece being poor, suffers more with 28 per cent unemployment. Being part of Eurozone, Greece can’t print more drachma to reduce its value in international market and make Greek exports attractive. The German-dominated European Central Bank is right for a robust Germany, does not work for a weak Greece. Debt burden on Greece today: 177 per cent of its GDP. Greece must come up with a loan payment of $1.8 billion to the IMF by yesterday, literally — 30 June — to avoid a default. Constant government borrowing to fund promises by politicians causes Greece...

Liberal economic thinker Surjit S Bhalla speaks to me after being cut short during a televised debate T here is a concerted effort on the part of the Congress to project the current NDA government as UPA-3, and the media is playing by its script — well known commentator on economic affairs Surjit S Bhalla believes. His appearance on NDTV on 25 June made him stand out as a panellist who was speaking on technical grounds. Since he was not lent a patient ear, I thought of getting his opinion fully on l’affaire Lalit Modi. This is beyond what is written in his article in The Indian Express that says what Swarajya had said some time ago: Legally, the former IPL commissioner is not a fugitive. There are so many citizens, including otherwise innocent ones, who have been served notices by the Enforcement Directorate (ED); that does not make them criminals or fugitives, Bhalla says. Economist Surjit S Bhalla I began by asking Bhalla why he did not protest on be...

On the Emergency Day, I present an untold story of India’s pacifist, media-shy right wing organisation in the backdrop of Indira Gandhi’s despotism I have been sympathetic to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh because it is a nationalist organisation. I am not a supporter; there are aspects of its belief system — chiefly science and economics — that I disagree with. This is the first time I am dedicating an article to its wisdom and heroism. For, this is what I learnt over the past few days; it is true, but nobody has told this story before. Even the most extensive of reports on the political developments of the 1970s in WWW has the RSS’s role no more than a paragraph or a footnote. Since the early 1970s, as Indira Gandhi’s popularity waned swiftly after the resounding success in carving a Bangladesh out of Pakistan, a plan to fight for democracy was brewing in the ranks of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS. Unlike the popular belief, Co...

The recommendations are not driven by a doctrinaire free market philosophy. It’s a pragmatic approach towards making the department viable. I   have procured a copy of the recommendations of the “ Committee for Mobilization of Resources for Major Railway Projects and Restructuring of Railway Ministry and Railway Board” headed by eminent economist and NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy. Bibek Debroy In the report, the advisers recommended an overhaul of the entire system from decision-making structure to accounting systems, from human resource management to budgetary relationship between the government and Railways, from financing to regulation and implementation of policies and programmes. Advocates of liberal economics who must have turned ecstatic over the talk of trains by private companies in this morning’s newspapers must note that even the existing private domains are functioning below par because of confusion over returns on investment and the unce...

But the NDA government entertains them because of a chequered history of the BJP and India's own inability to appreciate genuine secularism A Sikh youth challenges another to prove the latter’s commitment to Sikhism . How? ‘Vandalise that church!’ the first guy allegedly provokes his friend. The excitable friend obliges. “Narendra Modi to blame!” Burglars steal Rs 12,000 from a convent’s kitty, leaving religious symbols of Christianity untouched . “RSS is responsible!” Antisocial elements who infiltrated the country from Bangladesh ‘rape’ an elderly nun. “BJP’s ‘saffron’ agenda!” The last sentence in each paragraph above does not obviously reflect this columnist’s opinion. During the reported incidents, such was the tenor of headlines in a large section of the media that has been betraying acute discomfiture since the BJP-led NDA government took charge of the country last year. Unfortunately, the government is buying it — no questions asked! In February, Home Mini...