Publications : Opinion & Commentary
Topic
Interview | Should corporates be allowed to own banks?
Rakesh Mohan talks about the proposal to allow corporates to own banks and the state of the economy.A new map for the end of Oil Age: Technology is answer to energy...
How should India, an economy dependent on fossil fuels, navigate future energy transitions? A new book has some pointers.Coal power plants need an integrated approach
The three issues — retirement, pollution control, and making plants flexible — are inter-related. They need to be addressed in an integrated fashion by distribution companies.Joe Biden will need healing superpowers to get through his first hundred...
Joe Biden inherits a divided nation, government, party. Economy, foreign relations also need immediate healing.Make way for connectivity projects
Nepal and India should focus more on the strategic objective of developing infrastructure.How India can take the lead in reviving tourism in South Asia
The pandemic provides an opportunity for India to take the lead in promoting regional tourism, an important metric of soft power.Post-COVID, lack of social security has made many migrants consider...
A stark manifestation of the two-track development of our socio-economic polity is the ubiquitous spread of digital technology.India’s DisCom stress is more than the sum of its past
There must be an overhaul of the regulation of electricity firms and their deliverables using common sense metricsLeague of nationalists
How Trump and Modi refashioned the U.S.-Indian relationship.The war over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy may overtake all other...
Battle over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy, her Supreme Court seat, may overtake all other issues — pandemic, economic collapse, fires and floods — in US presidential polls.Antitrust isn’t the solution to America’s biggest tech problem
The pandemic has revealed the most fundamental of our digital vulnerabilities.Make surveillance capitalists pay their dues
The world is now facing many technology crises: limited choices of search engines, social media platforms, and e-commerce sites; digital misinformation, concern about which is heightened this year.India needs to invest in regional disaster relief mechanisms
Building capacities through training and joint exercises and coordinating comparative advantages for collective action will help India leverage goodwill among its neighbours through its disaster relief programmes.Domestic concerns still shape India’s foreign policy
It is a truism that foreign policy begins at home. But how does this work in India’s case? Five forces are at play — economic development, geographic reality, ideological positioning, transactional necessities and its place in the international order.Why Jagat Mehta would have seen Xi in the Mao mould, not Deng
I know my father would have advocated India find a diplomatic solution to the current imbroglio. But given his experience of Maoist China, he would have also urged that our velvet glove of diplomacy must now cover an iron fist of resolve.South Asia must now build resilient supply chains
Facilitate cross-border flow of goods and services by reducing tariffs; improving logistics, infra and digitisation.How COVID-19 might impact India’s renewable energy transition
India, like other countries, had an ongoing energy transition, but the question becomes will COVID-19 create a pause or a shift in the trajectories? Or, will it induce radical change? No one can know for sure, in part because we don’t know what the “new normal” will be, but also because timeframes ...Indian Economy is in Structural Slowdown Since 2012
Cutting of rates won't have as much of a response. One does not know what in some sense ought to be the resting point for the rates, says Rakesh Mohan.India’s biggest challenge: The future of farming
India has enough food; does it have too many people working in agriculture? The country needs a different set of solutions for agriculture and for those working the land.Is Modi’s balancing act a reworking of India’s classic...
How many acronyms can one invent to signal a country’s foreign policy interests? Many, if you are Narendra Modi. The Indian prime minister recently spoke about an India-France “In-Fra” alliance. Last year he reportedly coined or popularized the JAI (Japan, America, India) and RIC (Russia, India, China) trilaterals. There’s also his SAGAR ...The debate over jobs in India is missing the point
As nearly a billion Indians go to the polls this month and next, no one doubts jobs will be central to their vote. We just can’t agree on whether the employment picture is rosy or dark. While the government cites payroll data to claim significant job creation, the opposition holds up a leaked preliminary ...100% electrification: Assessing ground reality
The past five years have seen a significant flux in India’s electricity sector. A number of policies have been adopted that have fundamentally transformed the sector. On the upstream side, renewable energy is not a pipe-dream with the sector seeing the fastest growth amongst all other competing energy sources, auction-based processes have ...Some steps towards escalating the ambition on Universal Electricity Access
Whether full household electrification is achieved by March 2019 or later, India’s efforts at electrifying its rural population since the turn of the millennium have received universal recognition. However, several observers have noted that the presence of requisite infrastructure in a village to officially deem it ‘electrified’, or even wire to households ...India needs to change the thermal power story to survival of the fittest,...
The proposals for solving the current stranded capacity crisis should start a process of big picture thinking to achieve better collective outcomes on multiple long-term objectives. Doing so requires some decisive changes to the status-quo. How we got here: The chronic factors behind recent woes Contrast the following energy and peak deficits ...Can natural gas be a catalyst to build a lower-carbon world?
The short answer to the question is yes; natural gas can be and has already become a catalyst in some countries, which are transitioning to a low-carbon economy. The more important question though is can this model be replicated in other countries with gas as a catalyst? Several factors have been responsible ...Preserving the independence of the RBI
If proposals to set up an appellate body to review RBI’s regulatory and supervisory decisions were to be implemented, the whole supervisory process would get mired in constant litigation. The last decade has witnessed an almost constant attack on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), emanating sometimes from within the government, sometimes ...Here’s why Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia are trying to...
Asia is in a state of flux. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is reshaping the region’s geography, with roads and railways traversing Eurasia and new ports dotting the Indian Ocean basin. Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea continues, despite negotiations towards a code of conduct. Japan has found itself in an ...India rising: Soft power and the world’s largest democracy
Arguably, few phrases are as misused in international relations as “soft power.” When he coined the term, Joseph Nye captured the important and (at the time) poorly studied phenomenon in international affairs of “getting others to want the outcomes that you want,” predicated on the attractiveness of one’s culture, political values and ...India attempts to empower BIMSTEC after realising its limitations
Diplomats and foreign policy experts are puzzled by the absence of a “big announcement” or a major breakthrough from the fourth summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). How will Prime Minister Narendra Modi claim victory from a bland declaration? Sometimes, no news is good ...Here’s why central and eastern Europe may become an area of promise...
In a rare high-level engagement by India in an increasingly pivotal region, President Ram Nath Kovind is on a visit to Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Long seen as an area of competing Russian and western interests, central and eastern Europe (CEE) has not always featured prominently in India’s foreign policy agenda. ...Why health doesn’t get the media attention it deserves
Shamika Ravi spoke at The Media Rumble about making health political and democratised. “No country can develop on the back of poor human capital.”What India can do to build, bridge and bolster digital trust
There are more mobile phones than people on this planet, Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users, and over 93 per cent of India’s adult population now has access to a unique Aadhaar identity. With critical data pools lying with governments and social media networking sites, building, bridging and bolstering trust in ...What can be expected from a Trump-Kim meeting?
In keeping with his reputation as the global disrupter-in-chief, US President Donald Trump’s unprecedented acceptance of a face-to-face meeting with North Korea’s strongman Kim Jong-un in May has created a political whiplash. While most experts have only focused on the nuclear dimension, this initiative, if it is to materialize, is likely to ...Is the National Health Protection Scheme good public policy?
India recently announced an ambitious plan called the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) to provide government-sponsored insurance to roughly 500 million people or nearly 40% of India’s population. Since the announcement, there has been much debate about two issues. First, does this plan make sense? Second, if it is a good idea, ...Donald Trump’s trade war: A disruptive approach to trade policy
US President Donald Trump has changed the whole landscape of political discourse, especially with respect to trade policy. This began with the exit of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and continues with the repeated threats of leaving the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), explicitly introducing non-trade objectives in trade ...Budget 2018: Does the absence of energy from the finance minister’s...
I did not participate in the post-budget reflections on TV. I declined all invitations, in part, because it was not a novelty and in part because I knew that I would spend most of the time staring at the camera, mute and captive. I also declined because I acknowledged that I would ...With the incursion of fake news, here’s what Facebook could do to...
Facebook has a world of problems. Beyond charges of Russian manipulation and promoting fake news, the company’s signature social media platform is under fire for being addictive, causing anxiety and depression, and even instigating human rights abuses. Company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to win back users’ trust. But ...Three un-Davos men: How the culture of contradiction infused the speeches...
The Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington, is most well-known for the idea of a clash of civilisations: Post-Cold War conflicts, he anticipated, would be between clashing cultures rather than between ideologies or sovereign states. Not as well-known is another idea from Huntington: The rise of the Davos Man, a new breed of ...India does not have the luxury to develop now and “clean up”...
New Year’s Day is an opportune occasion for reflection and re-emphasis. I summarise below 10 energy-related suggestions that I made last year, in part to remind and in part to influence the government’s agenda. One, the energy conundrum is how to square the circle between the government’s commitment to provide universal access ...The year of being in denial
The act of denial is a psychological defence used by humans to reduce anxiety when they feel particularly disturbed by events. Nowadays, this phenomenon, where even seemingly rational people will vehemently deny truths, is exacerbated by the advent of alt-facts, which sometimes make the gap between reality and unreality difficult to discern. ...WTO and food stock holding row: Why India must strengthen world body
WTO’s 11th Ministerial Meeting ended on December 13 in Argentina, without any negotiated agreement on substantive issues. The Ministerial Decisions taken are on continuing work in certain areas, and renewal of two previously agreed Decisions which have been reiterated every Ministerial meeting. The negotiations on agriculture, including food stockholding, were blocked by ...Here’s how opening up the gender gap in internet usage would create...
We have all heard about a gap when it comes to participation of women in the tech industry. Facebook, Google, and Apple have 17%, 19% and 23% women in their technology staffs, respectively. Multiple surveys, such as the “The Elephant in the Valley,” have documented systematic discrimination against women. And there’s a ...Why Donald Trump must grab the opportunity to get US trade policy right
US president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office left the TPP highly uncertain. After several attempts to clarify the way ahead, the rest of eleven TPP economies (TPP11) have recently agreed to continue the momentum to conclude the agreement, with some amendments. In ...China’s Frankenstein: ‘Rocket Man’
The successful test of the Hwasong-15 missile by North Korea has triggered several consequences, intended and unintended: First, Kim Jong Un has demonstrated the capability to potentially strike the US mainland with nuclear weapons. Second, the achievement has made the moniker of ‘Rocket Man’ (disparagingly used by US President Donald Trump) a ...An uncertain energy future
The government faces a renewable energy trilemma. It has set itself a target of quadrupling the generation capacity of solar energy by 2022 and shifting the production of new automotive vehicles from the internal combustion model to electric vehicles (EV) by 2030. In parallel, it wants the clean energy industry to develop ...World Bank’s league table: India makes it to the top 100 nation for...
Pop the champagne and pass the mithai for it is, indeed, the epoch of belief, the season of light in the world’s largest democracy. After languishing in the World Bank’s league tables, India is, finally, getting its due: It has been admitted to the top 100 nation club for Ease of Doing ...The emerging Indo-Pacific architecture
The term “Indo-Pacific” has long been in vogue among marine biologists and ichthyologists to define the stretch of water from the tropical Indian Ocean, through the equatorial seas around the Indonesian archipelago, the South China Sea, and to the western and central Pacific Ocean. The term entered the geopolitical lexicon only in ...Demonetisation: A year after India killed cash, here’s what we can...
Almost a year ago, the Indian government rolled out an unprecedented policy move. Arguably, it was a time when the country was poised for economic success. With $9.49 trillion in purchasing power parity, it was the third-largest (in PPP terms) and the fastest-growing large economy in the world. On November 8, with ...What’s changed in the Trump administration’s approach to Asia?
Let us give credit where credit is due. For all the talk of dysfunction and policy incoherence in Washington under President Donald J. Trump, his administration has started to get some things right, especially when it comes to Asia policy. It helps that some of the key positions in the U.S. government, ...Warring over disarmament in the UN
For most people the UN is the venue of an annual kabuki theatre where world leaders come to make sonorous speeches and snipe at each other to score points with populations back home. While these theatrics, played out every September from the UN General Assembly (UNGA), make for high entertainment, they do ...Can the Saubhagya scheme work?
The government’s recently announced 100 per cent household electrification scheme, Saubhagya, aims to tackle the next link for electrification, where until now most efforts focused at the village or hamlet level. The good news is that most villages are now connected to the grid, and remote locations far from the grid are ...Tillerson’s visit opens a window of opportunity that India must...
In 2000, in the midst of a US election, George W Bush’s top foreign policy adviser Condoleezza Rice wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs that outlined the candidate’s worldview. Among other things, it recognised the importance of India, and the need to facilitate its rise as a balancer in Asia. The US ...The rise and rise of Xi Jinping: At 19th Party Congress, he consolidates...
The National Congress of the Communist Party, held every five years, is the closest thing authoritarian China has to an election. The most recent Congress – the 19th – was held October 18-24, and was an occasion for the over 2,000 delegates to deliberate and agree on policy matters guiding the nation. ...Putting industrial policy experience to use
The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) has released a substantive discussion paper on industrial policy which identifies several key policy aspects, constraints on industrial growth, and a range of objectives and policy targets. The paper provides a basis for the government’s consultations to “formulate an outcome-oriented actionable industrial policy that ...Donald Trump’s Iran folly and India’s dilemma
On 13 October, US President Donald Trump, in a much-anticipated move, declared Iran a “rogue regime”, a sponsor of terrorism, and an aggressor in the Middle East. Although none of this relates to the hard-negotiated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear programme, Trump announced that he would no longer ...Even Nobel economists make ignoble mistakes
I try to teach people to make fewer mistakes,” said the newly-minted economics Nobel laureate, Richard Thaler, in an interview earlier this week. “We need to take full account of the fact that people are busy, they’re absent-minded, they’re lazy.” Congratulations to Professor Thaler; I think his brilliantly accessible work is part ...Can insecurity in Asia be managed?
Since the end of World War II, Asia-Pacific has been the locale of direct and indirect military confrontation (in Korea and Indo-China, respectively) between the two superpowers; experienced unprecedented economic growth, which did not translate into closer integration (particularly among the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or Asean); witnessed ...Saubhagya programme: The next bold step for electrification – necessary...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a new scheme called Saubhagya to ensure electrification of all willing households in the country in rural as well as urban areas by 2019. The focus is on last mile connectivity and poor households would be provided electricity connections free of cost. Is Modi’s new electricity-for-all-homes scheme Saubhagya ...Challenges ahead for clean energy
Who doesn’t want clean or ‘green’ energy? But what if this costs a bit more? We might quickly find many people’s appetite for renewable energy (RE) is lower, especially if the worry cited is something as invisible, long-term, and global as CO2 emissions that impact climate change. RE is making enormous progress ...Enhancing the India-Japan partnership
There has been much ado about the advance in India-Japan relations following the recent summit between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe, which the India-Japan joint statement heralded as a “Special Strategic And Global Partnership”. Doubtless, the relationship has evolved to a level that might have been unimaginable just a few ...India reforms health: A compendium of writings
Restructuring the Medical Council of India to eliminate corruption By Shamika Ravi NITI Aayog has proposed replacing the compromised Medical Council of India with a new National Medical Commission (NMC), outlined in a draft Bill known as the National Medical Commission Bill of 2016. We look into this proposed Bill, refer to ...The need for reforms in healthcare finance
The Centre and state governments are experimenting with several new and exciting ideas in healthcare reforms. What is missing, however, is a serious reform agenda for health financing. The last big reform was expanding the coverage of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) from Rs30,000 to Rs1 lakh, reinforcing insurance as the ...Who knew healthcare was so complex
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors Of Socialism. NITI Aayog’s recommendation to improve access, reduce out-of-pocket expenditure, create infrastructure and augment capacity at district hospitals for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), ...What Uttar Pradesh tells us about health infrastructure
The death of children in the recent Gorakhpur tragedy has drawn significant attention towards the state of public health institutions in Uttar Pradesh (UP). While much of the focus remained only on Gorakhpur, our analysis shows that within the state, the public health infrastructure is far worse than Gorakhpur in most districts. ...Restructuring the Medical Council of India to eliminate corruption
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has been repeatedly criticized for providing opaque accreditation to aspiring medical colleges in India. Many of its members have been accused of taking bribes in order to fast-track accreditation. Bribes reduce the legitimacy of all accredited colleges and thereby compromise medical college quality overall in the ...BRICS: From a big bang to a whimper
The 9th Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Xiamen began dramatically with a big bang, but it was not the kind of noise that host China would have wanted: the unannounced sixth and biggest nuclear test by China’s enfant terrible ally, North Korea. This test literally and politically ...China miscalculated how to handle India, allowed face-saving exit
To the considerable relief of all parties involved, India and China agreed yesterday to end a 74-day stand-off by their security forces near the trijunction with Bhutan. India initiated the announcement with a short statement that simply said that an “expeditious disengagement of border personnel…has been agreed to and is ongoing.” China ...Afghanistan and a new hyphenation
US President Donald Trump’s much anticipated speech outlining his administration’s approach to the quagmire in Afghanistan was uncharacteristic. It was cogent, coherent, logical, even compelling, and stayed on message. It was what one would expect of any significant foreign policy initiative but unlike most of the speeches that have become the hallmark ...Beware the Trump effect
This is a tale of two septuagenarians; I hope they never meet. One is the country of India as an independent democratic nation. The other is the American president, a reminder that independent democracy provides no guarantee for its product. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington DC, he extended an invitation ...Is the draft national energy policy for India actionable?
One cannot envy the task given to the NITI Aayog to produce a National Energy Policy (NEP). Almost all projections for future energy needs, worldwide, have not panned out, as this space is very dynamic and assumption-driven. The erstwhile Planning Commission did focus on broad energy issues beyond the line-item ministries with ...Why are China and India in a border standoff?
The standoff between Chinese and Indian forces near the trijunction with Bhutan is a live, and sensitive, issue for all three countries. It has also given rise to considerable misinformation. The facts of the matter are that on June 16, Chinese forces attempted to extend a road southwards in territory that China ...A patchy green – energy policy in India
Arvind Panagariya did not list the “draft national energy policy”, prepared by the Niti Aayog and circulated for comment on June 27, as one of the important achievements of his tenure as Deputy Chairman in the various interviews that I read, on the day he announced his resignation. Perhaps, because the document ...For a greater global role, here’s why India should take SDGs...
On 19 July, India presented its first voluntary national report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the UN. Although India was just one of 43 countries to do so this year, it was, doubtless, the most anticipated report; there is broad consensus that the success or failure of the ...The birth of the new Nuclear Prohibition Treaty
The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is based on three myths: first, that nuclear weapons are an entitlement bestowed upon only a handful of countries that had tested a nuclear weapon before the treaty entered into force in 1970. Second, that the security of most of the world’s nations indeed world order ...TPPs for success: Here is how India can use this gamechanger agreement
Three years ago, when the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was seen as a game-changer in the evolving international trade regulatory regime, there was some discussion in India on whether the country should join TPP. Given the prevailing political constraints, it was evident that India would find it difficult to accept a number ...Even as India attempts to ‘Act East’, it is ‘Thinking...
Not that long ago, the words ‘Not valid for travel to South Africa or Israel’ used to be clearly written on all Indian passports. Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Israel, the first by an Indian prime minister to that country, brings a long diplomatic arc to its natural conclusion. Since normalising relations ...Rethinking the budget in a post-GST India
The goods and services tax (GST) is finally here, so perhaps now is the time to reflect on how the budget can be updated for a post-GST India. Just as the GST aims to create national uniformity in taxation, rethinking budgets can also push efficiency. A bold step the government can take ...An energy warning and lessons
There is clarity and purpose in the management of our energy policy. Oil policy has been well defined and while it is difficult to attract private capital into exploration in today’s low oil price environment, there is no uncertainty regarding the government’s intent. The fiscal and contract terms are competitive and the ...When Narendra Modi played the Trump card
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first meeting with US President Donald Trump was, by most accounts of Raisina Hill and Washington, DC beltway watchers, a success for both countries. From an evenly matched handshake to the deft signature Modi baby bear-hug (a notable feat given Trump’s germ phobia) to the joint statement, the ...Making a smart energy grid work for India
Newspapers are showcasing the dramatically lower costs of solar power, reportedly cheaper than coal power now, and we are told that smart grids (and smart cities) are just around the corner. While enormous strides have been made in making these solutions both available and cheaper, we have to focus on the next ...On China, Modi Won Unexpected Support From Trump
There is a lot to analyse, and possibly over-analyse, about the recent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump. There were some notable surprises, including the strong language used when condemning Pakistan for its refusal to crack down on terrorist groups operating across borders. There were also some ...Important lessons for the Smart Cities Mission
With the 26th UN-Habitat governing council conference (GC26) held last month, the new urban agenda (NUA) has once again come to the fore. As the world moves towards a globalized policy discourse, one wonders if the NUA is an improvement on the existing unratifiable global documents. India’s minister for urban development, Venkaiah ...Better data needed on job scenario
“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics,” the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli famously said. Today, his description of questionable data may be applied, somewhat facetiously, to Indian labour statistics. The problem is not that they are “fake”, but rather that they give only a partial and sometimes inaccurate view ...Book Review: Man on the Run
BRITISH INVESTIGATIVE journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy have established themselves as specialists in fast-paced, densely-researched, narrative non-fiction books about the shadowy security of South Asia. Nuclear Deception was an account of the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network. The Meadow told the tale of Western backpackers taken hostage in Kashmir in 1995. ...Realizing the India-US trade potential
There is significant scope to develop a cooperative India-US trade relationship that expands bilateral economic ties. This is something for US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep in mind when they meet in a few days from now. Making progress on trade, however, will not be easy. ...If Trump, Modi talk climate
As is now well known, President Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. This “Trexit” had all the hallmarks of a scorched earth strategy. Trump bashed not only the agreement, calling it “less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a ...Advancing cooperation in higher education
It is that time of the year when India struggles to meet the educational expectations of its youth. An increasing number of school graduates are enrolling in college but the shortage of quality institutions has led to unreasonable entrance requirements. Despite recent visa restrictions, the US remains a favoured destination for resourceful ...Clean energy can cement Indo-US ties
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Washington, US President Donald Trump and he will find numerous areas of disagreement. High on that list will be climate change. Early this month, Trump put a stick in the eye of the world by announcing that he will pull the US out of the ...Moving forward on defence and security
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets US President Donald Trump for the first time, the focus will be on establishing a good rapport between the two leaders. There remain concerns that their two governments’ objectives are not compatible: that Trump’s “America First” approach, which conceives of US interests in narrow, transactional terms, ...Narendra Modi goes to Washington, again
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans for his fifth visit to the US in just four years and his first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump, there is a perception that the two polarizing and uber-nationalistic leaders could determine the future course of India-US relations in two diametrically opposite ways. On the ...Brace Yourself, South Asia’s Geopolitics Is Becoming More Complex,...
As in other parts of the world, the geopolitics of southern Asia is a result of its geography and history – and of its international context and domestic politics. Interestingly, the southern Asian sub-region has a bounded geography only to the north, where the high Himalayas mark a clear geographic, cultural and ...Donald Trump’s friends and foes: a role reversal
Since the US took to the global stage during World War I, two categories of countries have mattered to its world view: allies and adversaries. Both sets of countries garner great attention from Washington, though sometimes the latter commands even more consideration than the former, who are often taken for granted. Countries ...Donald Trump’s friends and foes: a role reversal
Since the US took to the global stage during World War I, two categories of countries have mattered to its world view: allies and adversaries. Both sets of countries garner great attention from Washington, though sometimes the latter commands even more consideration than the former, who are often taken for granted. Countries ...Over The Barrel: A note to the class of 2017
I was in the US last week for Commencement Week when students receive their degrees. The tradition is to surround this occasion with speeches by luminaries, faculty and staff, and to have much revelry. As I have two daughters studying in the Boston region and one of them was graduating, I had ...‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ for the 21st century
From Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, India’s leaders have often evoked the phrase vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world is one family), taken from the Maha Upanishad, to elucidate the country’s global outlook. While the term has become a mantra of India’s diplomatic lexicon, it has remained ambiguous and rarely elaborated. Indeed, despite their ...India doesn’t have a lot to lose by boycotting OBOR. Read why
What does India want from the world? It’s quite clear, really: international partnerships to accelerate its domestic development, a stable and conducive periphery, a multi-polar Asia, an end to cross-border terrorism and a sufficient role in global governance to enable it to meet these goals. Today, each of these objectives relates in ...New Delhi’s efforts at ICJ may just have won Kulbhushan Jadhav a...
On May 18, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the principal judicial arm of the United Nations – ruled on the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, whom Pakistan alleges is an Indian spy. The court unanimously declared that Pakistan must take all measures at its disposal to ensure that Jadhav is not ...The art of curry diplomacy
Infosys plans to curry favour with the Donald Trump administration with a promise of creating 10,000 new American jobs. We should note that the first of four “Technology and Innovation Hubs” promised by Infosys will be in Indiana. No doubt, this is designed to charm Vice President Mike Pence by bringing tech ...Joint Doctrine for Armed Forces: the single-service syndrome
Last month the three service chiefs released the latest iteration of the Joint Doctrine for the Indian Armed Forces. In the foreword the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Sunil Lanba, wrote that that the Joint Doctrine “provides foundations for greater integration and interdependence, to achieve higher inter-operability and compatibility ...Should India Inc. bid for Westinghouse?
George Westinghouse and the company he founded in 1886 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pioneered the commercial production and transmission of a scientific marvel called electricity, which has since powered and revolutionized the modern world. With the dawn of the nuclear age, Westinghouse Electric Company went on to develop pressurized water reactors (PWRs) for ...Coming up Trumps
As Donald Trump completes 100 days as US President, what has it meant for India? The short answer is, nobody knows, not even Trump. But in an era of greater uncertainty, it is important for India to identify the key variables triggered by Trump’s election. They relate, essentially, to four broad areas: ...Why is today’s oil market, a ‘no mans’ land?
The oil market has never been easy to call but these days it appears to be in “no man’s” land. Why is that the case? A few weeks back American Tomahawk missiles took out a Syrian airfield. The price of the North Sea Brent crude jumped up by 2% to $56.08/barrel, but ...Donald Trump’s tumultuous 100 days
As Donald Trump lunges towards 100 days of his presidency with the elegance of a raging bull in a china shop strewn with nuclear trip wires, he has notched up several dubious “firsts” in this brief period: the first to lose a hand-picked national security adviser to scandal in a mere 24 ...Delhi’s inefficient electricity subsidies
Who doesn’t like discounts or freebies, especially from the government? Subsidies aren’t inherently wrong they can help keep goods and services affordable, and encourage “good” things like education. The challenge is making them efficient and focused, so that they help the poor and deserving the most. The Delhi government offers substantial subsidies ...Can unarmed states prohibit nuclear weapons?
Guess what terrifies nations armed with the most powerful weapons ever invented? Believe it or not a mere UN conference to ban them, which began on 27 March in New York. This gathering of nations without nuclear weapons to negotiate a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total ...Can unarmed states prohibit nuclear weapons?
Guess what terrifies nations armed with the most powerful weapons ever invented? Believe it or not a mere UN conference to ban them, which began on 27 March in New York. This gathering of nations without nuclear weapons to negotiate a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total ...View from India: Pak may want to think twice about US mediation
Donald Trump, deal-maker. That’s how the president of the United States has long branded himself. But his tenure as deal-maker-in-chief has not gotten off to a great start. Whether it is the defiance of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in conducting missile tests or Syria’s Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons, Trump has ...Over The Barrel: Democrat’s dilemma
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a government big enough to give you everything you want is also strong enough to take away everything you have “. Seen through a contemporary India-centric lens , this statement could read, “people want a strong government for development and stability but not so strong as to compromise their ...China benefits from nuclear disorder
The rise in global nuclear disorder and its increasing disconnect from world order is epitomized in the nuclear weapon programmes of two weak and potentially failing states Pakistan and North Korea. While both these countries might understandably perceive some advantage to having acquired nuclear weapons, the real beneficiary is China. Beijing’s ...Why EVMs are win-win
Free and fair elections to choose political representatives are a cornerstone of a democracy, and a fundamental human right of people. Voting procedures play a significant role in the conduct of free and fair elections in a democracy: These convert voters’ preferences into a political mandate, which forms the basis for policy ...How Companies Can Champion Sustainable Development
Given political climates around the world and a new wariness around international cooperation, the private sector could find itself in the hot seat: trying to pick up the slack on big issues from climate change to sustainable development. This demand for taking on a larger role may come not only from advocacy ...North-East Asia goes dangerously ballistic
If there was any doubt that North-East Asia has become the most dangerous place on earth, with the prospect of a nuclear exchange, then recent events provide ample evidence that the region has attained this dubious distinction. Additionally, a new UN report, which went practically unnoticed, revealed that North Korea has continued ...A sentinel’s censure
The latest collection of P. Chidambaram’s articles is an indictment of India’s evolution as a liberal democracy I was a panelist at a function in Mumbai recently to discuss P. Chidambaram’s latest book Fearless in Opposition: Power and Accountability. The book is a compilation of his weekly articles written in 2016 ...Indo-US naval cooperation: steady as she goes?
The US and Indian navies could carry out ‘benign naval and maritime activity’ during periods of diplomatic strain. In the ever-expanding universe of Indo-US cooperation, perhaps the brightest and most alluring star is the deepening partnership between the Indian and US navies. Consider two recent pronouncements: First, admiral Harry Harris, the commander ...Trump’s new trade tax in uncharted territory
The proposed border tax adjustment policy deviates from the conventional WTO-consistent regime. US President Donald Trump is expected to announce his new tax policy, with lower corporate tax and a border tax adjustment (BTA) scheme. In addition to recent Bills pertaining to BTA introduced in the US Congress, the Republican Party’s House ...No such thing as a perfect renewable energy contract
India’s 175 GW renewable energy (RE) targets by 2022 are ambitious, to say the least. Compared to RE targets in Europe, China, or California that require 4-5% growth in RE capacity annually, Indian targets require 25% growth. This translates to enormous capital investment (well over $100 billion), including from global investors. RE ...India is an average low-tariff economy, there are misconceptions otherwise
India is widely known as a country with high import tariffs. This view, however, is incorrect. Changing this view is important for several reasons, both within India and outside. But first, the facts. World Trade Organization estimates of India’s applied most favoured nation (MFN) tariffs, i.e. tariffs applicable in general, are 13.4% ...Can Trump really value a strong, independent India?
The US capital is a strange place these days. The District of Columbia’s coffee shops are running a brisk business, attending to a steady stream of ex-Obama administration officials and patient federal government employees awaiting policy direction from on high. Many members of the Republican policy firmament appear alienated, some bitterly so. ...A disrupter’s guide to India’s defence budget
While India’s defence budget is now the fourth largest in the world, it is not providing adequate bang for the buck The latest Union budget unveiled on 1 February by finance minister Arun Jaitley has been widely commended as a “defining” and “watershed” moment, as providing “stability and predictability”, and as being ...2016, the year of inflexion for the oil industry?
India hasn’t yet joined the global move towards clean energy. But for how long can it hold out? A large part of my working life was spent with the Shell Group and I accumulated shares in the company. Last year, I decided to reduce my holdings of these shares. This was because ...“Finance Minister is looking to present a budget against the...
Brookings India Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta speaks to journalist Karan Thapar on whether the Finance Minister should be cautious or bold in this year’s Fiscal Budget. How has demonetisation been viewed by foreign investors? Has it made India a more inviting destination or has it raised concerns and made them perhaps pause and ...What Trump’s TPP withdrawal means for India
In one of his first acts upon assuming office, Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum confirming the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This move did not come as a surprise. As a presidential candidate, Trump had vociferously campaigned against what he described as bad or unfair trade agreements that the ...Demonetisation – thereafter proposing a new abnormal
Now let’s try demonetisation without denouement, perpetually preserve the uncertainty A little over two months has passed since the Narendra Modi government’s ambush on its own currency. In keeping with the unexpected nature of its launch, the manoeuvre has had some unexpected consequences. There are at least three ways in which the ...Passing the baton: what to watch in the Donald Trump regime
With Donald Trump taking over as US President from Barack Obama, what legacy does he inherit? How could the change in administration in Washington affect India, directly or indirectly? Bilateral Issues Immigration: Trump campaigned on anti-immigration sentiment, but sometimes tried to make an exception for high-skilled immigration, which includes the H-1B visa ...A tradeoff between growth and social objectives exists for microfinance...
Senior Fellow Shamika Ravi was a panellist at the 5th Plenary of Day 2 at the Inclusive Finance India Summit 2016, held on December 6, 2016. Shamika Ravi described why most microcredit borrowers are women. She shared a story of the Grameen Bank from a gender perspective. When Grameen Bank started, 40 ...Global trends: discontinuity and disruption – risks and challenges...
Key global trends include rising income, climate change, growing cyber dependency, ageing population, artificial intelligence, and the changing nature of conflict Last week, two events held the world spellbound: one featuring outgoing US President Barack Obama was a cerebral, dignified and solemn affair while at the other guttural, farcical and burlesque circus, ...Barack Obama leaves a mixed legacy: impressive handling of the US economy...
Eight years ago, on a freezing January morning, I stood with over a million people on the National Mall in Washington DC to watch a 47-year-old African-American senator become the 44th US president. There was a pervasive sense at the time, particularly among young, highly educated and urban Americans, that Barack Obama ...The fight against hidden hunger: targeting the first 1000 days of a...
India faces an invisible public health crisis in the form of widespread maternal and child undernutrition. One-third of Indian women (of reproductive age) are undernourished, and close to 60 million children (under five years of age) are at risk, that is, they are either stunted (low height-for-age) or wasted (low weight-for-height). Women ...Data management: India needs agency for energy data
India has no central body for maintaining and disseminating energy data, let alone analysing it. We propose the creation of a national Energy Information Agency to replace the current patchwork of systems. This would collect, standardize and analyse data across energy domains and make it publicly available. A lack of robust data ...Finding the sync: connecting the fragmented liberal and democratic...
Last year raised questions over relevance of liberal democratic processes, called for a review. 2016 has been a dramatic year. I am not sure about the others but the developments over the past year have made me reflect on four issues. The relevance of the current system and process of democratic politics ...How India can meet its ambitious renewable energy targets
A systemic approach that focuses on enabling the environment for more renewable energy will help India to meet its target of generating 175 gigawatts of energy by 2021. At the recently concluded Marrakesh Conference, most countries stood by their commitments made in Paris at COP21 for reducing carbon emissions. India’s ratification, on ...Demonetisation push to labour reforms: molding the future of the markets
Demonetisation has the potential to facilitate an environment that will develop a formal culture in India’s labour markets Among the loudest critics of the demonetisation policy are those who predict doom for India’s informal sector as a result of this exogenous shock. Numerous anecdotes are being forwarded to highlight the suffering of ...The government’s ‘little mistakes’ can have a high cost
A relative passed away recently… or should I say in the future? See the official government death certificate issued, which shows a particular date. What do you interpret that date as? In India, as we follow the British system, most people would interpret this as 9 December, 2016 (09/12/16). But she passed ...How Donald Trump may re-negotiate the TPP
In a recent video message, US president-elect Donald Trump announced certain actions he would take on the first day of his administration. On the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he said: “I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we ...Trump’s decision on Trans-Pacific Partnership gives India some...
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a landmark trade deal driven by US which spanned 12 Pacific Rim countries, excluding China. It was viewed as President Barack Obama’s strategy to set more ambitious trade rules and preserve US dominance. In keeping with his election promise, President-elect Donald Trump said he would undo TPP on ...How to tame a dragon: To deal with Chinese muscle in a post-American...
The election of Donald Trump as US president has unleashed further uncertainty on a world already in considerable flux. Trump has promised economic protectionism, reversals on immigration and militarism against terrorists, but has outlined few concrete policies. Much will depend on his cabinet appointments and his ability to work with US Congress ...‘India should be less worried about trade with US than others’
Dhruva Jaishankar, Fellow, Foreign Policy, Brookings India, tells Aditi Phadnis of the Business Standard that India should take advantage of Donald Trump’s election as US President and shape an outcome to its advantage. Edited excerpts: After a long hiatus, a Republican has become the President of the United States. And it is ...Demonetisation: Effect on interest rates, inflation and policy action
Dr. Shamika Ravi (Senior Fellow, Brookings India) and Dr. Eswar Prasad (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution) participated in a debate about the demonetisation issue in India. Dr. Ravi responded to comments on inflation and interest rates: There is a problem of an information void within which estimates are being made, including the government ...India, meet President Trump
For India, there are naturally opportunities in Trump’s election, but concerns over his Asian policy cannot be brushed aside With the election of Donald Trump, we have seen the biggest shock to US politics in 70 years. Trump was given only a slim chance of victory. He had no previous experience as a public servant and few detailed ...Uncertainty and unpredictability about Trump’s presidency
Dhruva Jaishankar spoke to Quint and BloombergQuint on what having Donald Trump as the next U.S. President means for India. The election of Donald J Trump as the 45th President of the United States was a surprise to many people in America and around the world. While there will be a lot of ...With Trump’s victory, American exceptionalism came to an end
Fifteen years ago, I came to the United States as an undergraduate student. A few weeks after my arrival, I watched the World Trade Center’s twin towers collapse live on television from my dormitory in Minnesota. Two years after that, stuck in a snowstorm in Colorado, I watched America plunge headfirst into ...Shamika Ravi on implications on govt’s demonetisation move
Speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to demonitise Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes, Senior Fellow Shamika Ravi in this Facebook Live says the next few months will be painful, and should be seen as teething troubles for an economy trying hard to reform its corrupt self. As an economy we should aim ...Demonetization is a net positive move
Scaling back large bills will not end crime, but it will force the underground economy to employ riskier methods In a special broadcast on 8 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a positive exogenous shock to the country. He declared that in less than four hours, Rs500 and Rs1,000 bills would be ...To keep good company
There are many other questions, but the larger point is that the time may have come for a broad-based introspective review. Reams have been written on l’affaire Tata. I cannot add much more of substance. And I certainly do not wish to add grist to the mill of speculators. The reason I ...Over the barrel: A swadeshi index
World Bank rankings on ease of doing business ignore the complexity of the Indian landscape. An indigenous framework is needed. WAS IT A mistake for the prime minister to set his government the target of improving India’s rank order in the World Bank’s “ease of doing business” index from 131 to 50 ...Brics Summit overshadowed by “how to isolate Pakistan” agenda
Instead of using the Brics summit to push for greater economic growth and a greater global governance role, India sought to use it more for dealing with Pakistan Hosting international summits inevitably offers a country the opportunity to lead the agenda and provide leadership to the meeting; enhance the institution’s role in ...Progress must be made to corporatise railways: Rakesh Mohan
Rakesh Mohan, distinguished fellow, Brookings India, has said that while scrapping the separate Railway Budget is a positive move, the government has not yet clarified what it plans to do to make the railways more efficient. In an e-mail interview to Business Standard newspaper, Dr Mohan said little improvement has taken place ...Pew survey results heartening for government but should not lead to...
What does India think? This is a question that those of us who work on policy issues outside of government are often expected to answer. A country as big and diverse as India is naturally home to a wide variety of views. Often, we tend to reflect the positions of our peers, ...India’s bid for “regionalism” in South Asia and what it...
The killing of 18 Indian soldiers on Sunday, which New Delhi blames on Pakistan-based militants, is just the latest incident to drive a wedge between the two countries. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spent his first two years in office engaging his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. In an unprecedented move, Sharif was ...Municipal bond market could be the answer to financing woes of Smart...
As India considers more flexible and reliable ways of paying for the improvement of smart cities, the largely untapped municipal bond market can serve as a significant source of financial capital. As India continues to experience rapid urban expansion, public and private leaders at the national, state and local level are looking at ...Save me, technology; for I have (energy) sinned
Many things demand a balance, energy being one of them. Electricity, in fact, must always be in balance as grid power cannot easily be stored. Unfortunately, in recent times the emphasis has shifted from reducing the demand of power in India through efficiency to increasing its supply. Except for limited examples such ...“Govt’s ambitious power capacity target may lead to huge...
The Economic Times on our latest IMPACT Series paper, ‘India’s Updated (2016) Renewable Energy “Guidelines”: Bold targets, but can we meet them?’. Download the paper here. The article says, “The numbers for renewable energy, coal-fired capacity and power demand don’t quite add up upon triangulation. The targeted 1,500 million tonne of coal by ...India’s Updated (2016) Renewable Energy “Guidelines”:...
The government has announced a number of targets and support mechanisms for renewable energy (RE). Almost two years ago, the central government announced plans to grow to 175 GW of RE capacity by 2022, more than a five-fold growth in just seven years. RE has since been supported through a number of ...Why Hillary is a safe bet for India
The field is set. With the formal anointing of party nominees at the Republican and Democratic Party conventions in July, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is certain to be the next U.S. president. This match-up is remarkable for several reasons. Trump would be the first U.S. leader in over a half ...For smart cities to succeed, strengthening local governance is a must
The lack of effective devolution of power to local governments is a major bottleneck in the essential transformation of urban India. India is in the midst of an ‘urban revolution,’ but the current state of municipal services across the country is found wanting. According to Census 2011, 31.16 per cent of the Indian population (377 ...How India reformed its petroleum sector
Political compulsions ensured that the process was done slowly, steadily and stealthily Indian newspapers have carried a series of interesting recollections by bureaucrats and technocrats of their involvement in the economic reform programme of 1991. None talked about the energy sector and, in particular, petroleum. This was understandable as their focus was ...Think you’re being eco-friendly by using cloth bags? Think again
The most important factor for cloth bags to actually be “eco-friendly”: reuse 171 times. That’s how many times one reportedly has to reuse a cloth bag to justify the extra energy consumed for its manufacture compared to a disposable plastic bag. While the exact number may vary with the thickness of the ...China’s reaction to Hague ruling could have negative impact on other...
China’s shrill and bellicose response during and after the ruling has only served to heighten alarm over Beijing’s intentions and behaviour among all the major powers, including India The ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague against China’s claim on the South China Sea in a case brought ...Is the struggle between China and India a struggle to secure their energy...
India will need to import the bulk of its fuel for this decade and the next. In another four years, India is expected to become the world’s largest coal importer, overtaking Japan, the European Union and China. The Chinese attempts to dominate the South China Sea is, from the Indian standpoint, far more ...The South China Sea arbitration ruling, and why it matters to India
The future of the South China Sea has global implications, as jurisdiction over a few seemingly minor islands legitimises control over vast amounts of sea On Tuesday, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague released its much-awaited ruling on a case brought by the Philippines against China on the South China Sea disputes. ...As China’s Pakistan ties deepen, India needs a strategy to mitigate...
Much of what we have seen in the strengthened China-Pakistan alignment in the last decade is a reaction to the rise of India. Andrew Small, a former journalist who is now a fellow at the German Marshall Fund in the United States, has written a detailed and well researched book on a ...Here’s how the future of the South China Sea will have global...
On Tuesday, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague released its much-awaited ruling on a case brought by the Philippines against China on the South China Sea disputes. The decision marks the most high-profile development concerning the overlapping and intensifying territorial disputes, which directly involve China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, ...Brexit, missile control and India
A diminished England, sans nuclear weapons, coupled with a fragmenting Europe, is unlikely to play its traditional role of shaping norms Two recent though unrelated events are likely to significantly impact the evolving global order and India’s role in it. The first was the unfortunate and histrionic referendum, which will lead to ...Divided, volatile world ahead
Brexit could not have come at a worse time. The world is a risky place, and many problems can only be addressed through global institutions and international cooperation. On the face of it, Brexit will not materially impact the energy market and, in particular, the efforts to weaken the linkage between fossil ...Brexit: The first major casualty of digital democracy
In the aftermath of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, we are left with more questions than answers. Dhruva Jaishankar writes that with all the questions about what happens next, there's a bigger question worth asking: What are the implications of Brexit for democracy? Arguably, Brexit represents the first ...
India has done little to bridge energy supply-demand gap
India has done very little in the last few decades by way of harmonizing its governance structures to secure its energy needs despite a surging demand to fuel its growing economy, and the crisis may worsen in the coming years, Brookings India chairman Vikram Singh Mehta said at a policy discussion forum ...Critical Seoul NSG meet will have reverberations for India’s...
NSG meeting is no less important, for the potential implications it could have for relations between India and China writes Dhruva Jaishankar A decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on June 23-24 – as to whether to include India as a member – may be overshadowed in international media by other ...A game changer: Electricity feeder monitoring
The Government of India is proposing a bold and major scheme for monitoring, visualizing, and analyzing feeder level power supply across the nation, monitoring all the 11kV distribution feeders. In conjunction, a parallel scheme, Urja-Mitra, aims to notify consumers of outages, via SMS and online apps. Put together, these should be a ...Indian economy set to soar irrespective of PM Narendra Modi’s...
The caveats are many. But there are compelling reasons to believe that the economy will slowly but surely pick up momentum writes Vikram Mehta There have been a spate of meetings to discuss two years of the Modi government and I have attended several of them. One question that has been asked ...India-US relations: Energy and environment
The energy market has undergone a major structural change since 2015. The most dramatic manifestations of this change are Saudi Arabia’s decision to forego the role of “swing producer,” the consequential drop in the price of oil, and the recent pronouncement in Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030″to reduce its dependence on petroleum. Underlying ...India-US relations: Higher education
Over the past decade, college tuition fees in the United States have skyrocketed, making it extremely difficult for average Americans to invest in higher education. Within the same time frame, the country has fallen from being ranked number one in college degree attainment to number 12 globally. The rising costs of higher ...India’s underpowered foreign policy
Narendra Modi government needs to work with several other constituents, including state governments, corporate sector, think tanks and civil society writes WPS SIdhu At the end of its second year in office, the foreign policy performance of the Narendra Modi government resembles that of a gleaming Ferrari powered by a frugal Ambassador ...Sustainable development goals must be linked to energy and environment
Niti Aayog needs a sharp focus on weakening the link between energy demand and environmental degradation writes Vikram Mehta Niti Aayog has placed on the internet a 25-slide presentation entitled “Creating a movement for change”. It has set out a thematic roadmap for quintupling the GDP from the current $2 trillion to ...Can India’s Think Tanks Be Truly Effective?
If there is one big challenge that all think tanks face it is measuring their effectiveness writes Dhruva Jaishankar I have worked for much of the past decade in, or with, think tanks in both the US and in India, and am regularly confronted with misperceptions and misapprehensions about the sector. What ...What the Nuclear Security Summits mean for South Africa
WPS Sidhu provides an in-depth analysis of South Africa’s nuclear position and the ramification of Nuclear Security Summits on South Africa The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) process – to prevent non-state actors, particularly terrorists, from acquiring nuclear material – was launched with fanfare in 2010 by US President Barack Obama with a single ambitious objective ‘to ...The Urgent Need For India To Build A Design Economy
The “Make in India” initiative aims to create 100 million new jobs in the coming 10 years in the manufacturing sector and boost its contribution to GDP from 15% to 25%. (Globally, manufacturing accounts for 34% in Thailand, 32% in China, 31% in the Philippines, and 24% in Malaysia and Indonesia.) Yet, ...Updating Aadhaar for better privacy
Privacy with Aadhaar isn’t just an abstract issue, but related to the fundamental view of how data are to be accessed and used writes Rahul Tongia To its proponents, Unique Identification (UID, branded Aadhaar) is the solution to citizen empowerment. To its opponents, UID is a violation of not only citizen privacy ...The Brussels syndrome
There needs to be an international consensus on zero tolerance for all terrorism, as advocated by India and several other countries writes WPS Sidhu. “What we had feared has come to pass,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel on 22 March. Like the Stockholm syndrome a phenomenon in which hostages express sympathy ...Next step in PM Jan Dhan Yojana is to help people start using their new...
A recent article in Global Government Forum quotes a Brookings India research paper on financial inclusion which calls for a model of financial inclusion which specifically caters to the need of the poor. (Global Government Forum is a publishing, events and research business that helps civil servants around the world to meet global challenges by building their expertise, ...Dr Barack versus President Obama
Barack Obama’s foreign policy reflects a moral duality that has befuddled friends and enemies alike Barack Obama’s foreign policy, like the main character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, reflects a moral duality that has befuddled friends and enemies alike and will complicate ...Planning for Accelerating Smart Meter and Smart Grid Rollouts in India
The Electricity Policy has taken a bold move to kick-start Smart Meters in India. This discussion note discusses roll-out the options. Many HT consumers are already on digital metering, that too with downloading of data (even if via a handheld instrument). Making such users’ metering “smart” will be analogous to AMR (automated ...How Make in India can be bad news for trade deal with Australia
Brookings India Chairman Vikram S Mehta explains the reason for tensions over India’s trade and manufacturing policy. In a story in the Australian Financial Review on why Australia’s prospects of negotiating a trade agreement with India are being threatened by differences within the Indian government over how to implement Make in India, ...Tie women’s reservation bill to sex ratio of constituency
Our existing political system is unlikely to throw up solutions for deep rooted gender inequality. The Women’s Reservation Bill has been doing rounds of the Indian Parliament in various forms since 1996 failing each time to pass. While we celebrate International Women’s Day, as a stroke of remarkable irony there is yet another 15-year-old girl, raped ...Budget fails to lay out a clear roadmap for petroleum industry
Petroleum industry is in terrible shape. Brookings India chairman and former CEO of Shell Vikram S Mehta details what the Finance Minister can do to put it back on track. I am one of the quick-fire commentators who complimented the finance minister on budget day for both affirming fiscal rectitude and addressing the ...A tale of an election and a selection
Unless the P5 recognize that a weak and inept leader challenges their own legitimacy, the UN will be encumbered by a powerless leader writes WPS Sidhu This year will witness at least two leadership transitions of great international significance, including for India. The first is the election of the 45th president of ...Union Budget: FM has chosen stability over growth
In the face of a sluggish global economy and volatile global markets Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had to convey a message of continued macro stability while also striving to accelerate growth. Budget 2016-17 is a complex and comprehensive document touching on many different areas which finance minister (FM) Arun Jaitley has categorised into ...Marginal revolutions from Budget 2016
There are numerous small announcements in finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget that must be lauded comments Shamika Ravi Most television channels track the stock market as the finance minister’s budget speech unfolds in Parliament. This is done to capture the announcement effects from the speech. Yet, it also reflects the gross mistake ...Budget 2016: Reduce & refocus power & diesel subsidies
Brookings India Fellow Dr. Rahul Tongia’s energy wishlist for Budget 2016 may be difficult to pull off in a single budget, it gives a pathway to energy sustainability There’s a budget around the corner, and energy scholars/economists/etc. all have a number of wishes they hope can be announced, often related to pricing, ...Women who rose to the top and shattered stereotypes
Skard harbours the belief that it is women at the very top who make any sort of substantial change, but in India women have performed leadership roles even at the panchayat level writes Shamika Ravi In Women of Power, Skard examines ‘Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide’, and ...Over-Ruled: Why Maximum Governance Must Start With Minimizing Certain...
Some time ago, I missed my grandfather’s funeral because an airline’s manager hid behind rules. No, I wasn’t asking him to break any rules, but he didn’t let me fly despite there being empty seats, my pleading to please charge me any price he wanted, and my being at the airport almost ...The Data Is Unambiguous: The Odd-Even Policy Failed To Lower Pollution In...
The Delhi government’s two-week-long odd-even rule ended on 15 January, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announcing that the plan will return in a revised form in the near future. There have been several commentaries and opinions on this policy in the national and local media, while ordinary citizens have enjoyed some side ...Xi Jinping’s strategic Middle East gambit
The Chinese president’s visit to Iran (after summits in Saudi Arabia and Egypt) is of strategic significance. What is the difference between India and China’s strategic partnerships with Iran? Over $35 billion per year (the gap between India’s and China’s annual bilateral trade with Iran, which stands at $15 billion and $50 ...“Withdrawal of sanctions on Iran a huge opportunity for India to...
Watch Vikram S Mehta on Macros with Mythili on ET Now. There’s been a dramatic collapse in the price of crude oil in recent weeks. Price of the Indian basket has more than halved since the Modi government took over in May 2014 – from 108 USD a barrel to just below ...Looking forward to a big bang budget
The global economy is in trouble, but India is attracting positive comment. The finance minister must make the most of the moment. The finance minster was sensibly measured in his response to the chatter in Davos that India is in a sweet spot. He accepted credit for the fact that India ranked ...Support research as corporate social responsibility in India
India must build a culture of knowledge creation by fostering public support for research. Research is like defence, a pure public good which the private sector can directly support only in limited ways. There are no sustainable market solutions for research, the government therefore should provide the necessary support for this. Research is ...The global implications of Barack Obama’s speech
The US president’s swan song has eloquently, though incompletely, spelt out an ambitious but essential vision for a new world order The annual state of the union (SOTU) address by the sitting president to the US Congress is invariably a laundry list of the government’s legislative agenda aimed primarily at a domestic ...What drives South Asians to peacekeeping?
Germany’s international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), quotes Brookings India Non-Resident Senior Fellow WPS Sidhu extensively on how Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nepal are among the top contributors to UN peacekeeping missions across the world. What are the factors driving these “relatively poor” nations to send troops to work under the UN flag? Waheguru ...Delhi’s odd-even policy unsustainable
There is tremendous interest in the new experiment that Delhi government is running on the roads of the national capital. To complement efforts at curbing the number of cars, there is a barrage of advertisements on local radio extolling the virtue of sharing rides. It immediately makes you wonder: Why aren’t the ...End of the oil age
Oil will diminish in significance in a reconfigured energy system. Decades hence, 2015 might well be seen as the year the oil era entered the phase of terminal decline. For during this period, there was a convergence of action and sentiment against oil products and oil companies. The Paris summit on climate change ...India has played a significant role in shaping 3 key deals in 2015
2015 will be remembered for bold initiatives at the bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral level As 2015 draws to an end, it will be remembered for bold initiatives and done deals at the bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral level, which will flourish or flounder depending on how successfully they are implemented. Almost all of ...Avoiding a cop out in Paris
Three of the most exciting initiatives have emerged on the sidelines of the official deliberations, and Indians have played a prominent role in all of them Ever since Charles Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Field at the end of his epochal maiden solo, non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris in ...Interview | India warns country’s coal consumption to double in...
Rahul Tongia, Fellow, Energy and Environment in an interview with James Bennett, AM, ABC News, Friday December 18, on India’s coal consumption in the coming years. KIM LANDERS: As celebrations subside following the Paris climate accord, the world’s third-biggest emitter India is warning its coal consumption will still double in coming years. ...India and Climate Change – Spoilsport or just late to the party?
India may have been late to the emissions party, but with innovation and rapid development, it can make a disproportionate contribution to emissions reduction. India’s carbon reduction pledges (the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs) have been labelled as medium or even weak by many global observers. Global op-eds talk of India ...Delhi’s bar on cars: Using a sword instead of a scalpel for surgery
Enough has been written (mostly against) the idea to limit cars in Delhi, by license plate. Will it work? Can you enforce it? Will it lead to more sales of alternate number of cars? And, most importantly, are alternatives such as public transport ready, especially considering issues of first/last mile? Much of ...Initiatives needed from India to reduce the import of oil
Recently, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan spoke at the release of the IEA’s India Energy Outlook about cutting down of the country’s import dependence for domestic energy needs by 10 per cent by 2020-21. How can this be done? There are three initiatives that the government needs to take when it comes to ...Any progress on climate change will depend on innovation and global...
The climate-change relevant question is, how will the continuing compounded advance of technology impact the energy sector? How do we square this circle? On the one hand, the world has come together to tackle the threat of global warming. More than 150 countries have set out their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) ...Chennai floods: A ‘Smart City’ must also be a ‘Resilient...
One of the most important ambitions of modern India is the 100 smart cities project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We want to make our cities smarter by using IT and digital infrastructure, by managing our energy and water use and by creating an intelligent transport network. In the midst of all ...Will India accept legally binding agreements at COP21?
As world leaders gather for the global COP21 climate negotiations. Many may feel it is now or never. But the question remains, who is supposed to contribute how much toward emissions reductions? India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) submission has targeted a measurable (33-35 percent) improvement in emissions intensity (per GDP) versus ...Smart city initiatives should recognise differences between Indian cities
Indian smart city efforts need to recognise the economic differences between its cities. Off-the-shelf technology solutions are not viable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bold commitment to build 100 smart cities throughout India is a worthy centrepiece of his urban agenda. The promise of this tech-savvy approach is greater livability, sustainability and improved ...Subir Gokarn signs off addressing four broad economic themes
A change in roles means that this will be the last column of this series. Looking back over the almost three years of “Muddy Waters”, I see four broad themes that have taken up much of my attention. I will use this opportunity to reflect on the current state of affairs in ...Over the past two decades, every fifth suicide in India is by a housewife
The most disturbing trend to emerge out of the National Crime Record Bureau data is that consistently for over 2 decades, every fifth suicide in India is by a housewife. And though significant in numbers, farmer suicides, in comparison are a much smaller fraction. But more encouragingly, while farmer suicides have witnessed ...Will oil remain the bulwark of global energy system in the long-term?
“The Future of Oil” is headed towards an interesting crossroad. The pathway will not be signposted; there will be many twists and turns. Oil is headed towards a future in which it will lose its pre-eminence in the energy landscape. Key Highlights: Over the next five years: Oil, along with coal and ...Cities become battlefields of terrorism as world continues to urbanise
The recent series of dastardly and heinous attacks in places as dispersed as Baghdad, Beirut, Bamako, Kabul and Paris by myriad terrorist outfits ranging from the Taliban to Islamic State and al-Qaeda hold several important lessons for international efforts to counter terrorism. First, cities, especially those with a significant international presence (such ...Leveraging the CSR mandate
Some institutional arrangements that can maximise the collective impact of individual contributions The Companies Act of 2013 mandates a contribution of two per cent of post-tax profits of companies to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. There was much debate about the merits of this mandate, with critics seeing it as a back-door ...Africa: The indispensible continent for India?
Despite the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy hyper-activism, Africa has remained a neglected continent for India. When the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS), originally scheduled for December 2014 in New Delhi, was postponed ostensibly on account of the deadly Ebola crisis sweeping West Africa, this perception was confirmed for many Africa-watchers. However, the ...India Inc worried about rise of religious, social intolerance
Is India liberal, tolerant and democratic, or is it conservative, atavistic and authoritarian? Investors want to know Key highlights: It takes a long time to build a brand, but just one dissonant message to kill its appeal. The conversation today in academic circles, corporate boards and urban drawing rooms is not about ...How to make government missions more successful
The recent behaviour of tur dal prices suggests that the National Mission on Protein Supplements set up in 2011-12 has remained largely unsuccessful. Subir Gokarn suggests three components of a budgetary approach that can help increase the prospects of such missions succeeding. Key Highlights: A large mission requires contributions from multiple agencies at all ...UN missions bedrock of India’s military engagement and assistance to...
India must have a serious dialogue with African countries on its role in future peacekeeping operations on the continent. India’s participation in the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) is probably without parallel; it has been one of the largest contributors of peacekeepers and has suffered the most casualties in the process. Eighty per ...Private sector, state government, civil society can take India-Africa...
With over 40 African heads of governments and states attending, the third India-Africa Forum Summ (IAFS) being held in New Delhi is the biggest foreign policy event hosted by India in more than three decades. While this process was partly in response to initiatives by other emerging powers, particularly the Forum on ...Africa, the indispensable continent for India
Four ways in which India and Africa matter to each other The third (IAFS) in New Delhi this week, with over 40 African heads of governments and states attending, will be the biggest foreign policy event hosted by India in more than three decades. While this process was partly in response to initiatives ...Average rural consumer ends up subsidizing power for urban residents
An article in the Scientific American quotes Brookings India Fellow Rahul Tongia’s research. Rural homes regularly experience rolling blackouts during times of peak demand as utilities move available power to commercial operations and energy-hungry cities. That means the average rural consumer ends up subsidizing power for urban residents by 240 to 510 ...Tur travails – Three components of a structural solution to the pain...
There is no better way to understand the spike in the price of tur dal than through simple supply and demand factors. Let’s look at the supply side first. There are three ways to increase the availability of tur, or, for that matter, any commodity: increase the area sown; improve productivity; and, ...Great power dance at the United Nations
Coupled with the re-engagement of existing and emerging powers with the proceedings, the UNGA is becoming an important venue for a great power dance Time was when the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) jamboree in New York was an entertaining but worthless talkfest used by leaders such as Hugo Chavez, Muammar ...Depression drives maximum farmers to suicide, not debt, finds Brookings...
Depression, and not debts, is responsible for the decades-long tragedy of farmer suicides in Maharashtra, said a paper by an American think-tank after analysing suicide-related information provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The paper, written by Brookings Institution India fellow and Indian School of Business Professor Shamika Ravi, held illnesses ...Simplifying bureaucracy should be PM’s new mantra
The needle of change must be shifted more sharply, democracy is not an acceptable cover for non-performance. There is a telling vignette in Arun Maira’s interesting new book, An Upstart in Government. Maira was a member of the Planning Commission in the rank of minister of state between 2009 and 2014. A ...Matters of valuation
The government’s multi-pronged approach, labelled Indradhanush, attempts to address a number of structural problems of public sector banks, including asset quality, writes Subir Gokarn. The condition of the Indian banking sector’s balance sheets, more specifically that of the public sector banks, is a serious threat to reviving and sustaining growth. Bad assets ...Subir Gokarn on RBI Monetary Policy review
Brookings India Director of Research and former Deputy Governor of the RBI, Subir Gokarn, answers questions on the RBI Monetary Policy review in Business Standard. Read the full transcript of the webchat here. Is the Reserve Bank of India immune to political and India Inc’s pressure for rate cuts as Governor Raghuram Rajan is suggesting? ...Shaping the Asian financial architecture
A new financial architecture that replicates the Bretton Woods framework is being built in Asia, with China playing a pivotal role. Subir Gokarn identifies opportunities and challenges for this new financial architecture.How Far Can IndraDhanush Go?
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently announced the Indradhanush framework – a reform structure for transforming the public sector banks. Subir Gokarn (Director of Research, Brookings India and former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India) spoke to the Swarajya Research Team to find out what he thinks of this new initiative of the government. How ...SGDs: India’s potential path to global power
Fact: India is home to more than 30% of the world’s extremely poor people Fact: Uttar Pradesh accounts for 8% of world’s population living in extreme poverty Fact: 8 Indian states have more poor than 25 of the poorest countries in Africa Fact: There are 66 million poor people in UP alone, more ...Why inequality needs a radical agenda
INEQUALITY: WHAT CAN BE DONE? Anthony B Atkinson HARVARD BUSINESS; Pages 400, Rs 1,250 Inequality is back in fashion, thanks to Thomas Piketty. Yet, before Mr Piketty, there was Tony Atkinson, his teacher, who has been at the forefront of research on the topic since the 1960s. Over the last few years, ...Cleaning coal instead of wishing it away
The World Bank recently announced that short of exceptional circumstances, they would no longer fund coal in developing regions. The U.S. and other nations are also contemplating, if not making, similar choices, driven in part by concerns about climate change. This view may be impractical, if not myopic, given that at least ...Narendra Modi’s class act on Teachers’ Day
But the challenge in education lies in enabling teachers to innovate and individualise pedagogy. Key takeaways from the Brookings India publication, Accelerating Access to Education If you would like to request a copy of the book please email us on info@brookingsindia.org In his second address to students around the country, Prime Minister Narendra ...From Pittsburgh to Antalya
The G-20 may have to revert to its crisis management role, but in more complex conditions The G-20 finance ministers and Central Bank governors meeting took place last Friday and Saturday in Ankara, Turkey. The group’s summit meeting will be held in Antalya in mid-November, seven years after the 2008 summit in ...VIDEO: 7% GDP suggests economy not recovering with domestic investments
Subir Gokarn pushes for government reforms in infrastructure and ease of doing business This interview first appeared on ET Now on 31 August 2015. Watch the full video here. The numbers are out – first quarter fiscal gross domestic product (GDP) at 7% and gross value added (GVA) at 7.1%. Do these ...Space: securing India’s final frontier
The launch of the GSLV–D6 powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine is a game-changer Even as the country was agog with a salacious society murder and an indefensible regional protest over reservations, which hogged the electronic bandwidth and the print media, an event of strategic import crucial to secure India’s space frontier ...VIDEO Yuan depreciation: India needs to protect domestic producers
Subir Gokarn says our ability to withstand shocks is greater than it was three years ago Watch his full interview on CNBC Awaaz here What is your assessment of the depreciating Chinese currency? Do you foresee currency wars taking place? We saw the Chinese yuan depreciate by about 3% last week and ...VIDEO: To avoid market freeze, central banks have to act
More disruptions in financial and other markets unless central banks take necessary actions to ensure markets do not freeze Watch the full interview on CNBC here What is your own assessment of how this core problem of slow growth can be resolved because you can inject liquidity how much ever you want but ...Chinese tremors
China’s path to global economic leadership is bound to be marked by episodes of turbulence Recent developments in the Chinese financial sector have raised concerns globally about another looming crisis. Fears about a currency war have been expressed and equity markets in both emerging and developed economies have plunged. These views are ...UNSC: Misreading an opportunity
Recent news reports would have us believe that India’s chances for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have been scuppered even before they began by the very countries that promised to support its case when the reality is the other way around. This is tantamount to reading a ...Health care – how, where & how much?
In my previous column, I wrote about some patterns emerging from the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO’s) household survey on expenditure on education. The same round also queried expenditure on health by households. This column explores some findings from the 71st Round survey of social expenditures by households, carried out between January ...Smart is as smart does
A few years ago, smart grids were all the rage Amitabh Bachchan was even on the cover of a business magazine in 2010 with a Smart Meter, and was dubbed “Power Genie”. Given, however, the low percentage of Smart Meter rollouts across homes, we have to be wary of Gartner’s famous Hype ...CSR: Corporates Should Reach out
India Inc can no longer limit its CSR involvement to the new Companies Act. It has to forge partnerships with the beneficiary community. Corporates have scrambled to meet their corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligations under the new Companies Act, 2013. This is not a surprise, as most companies have not regarded CSR ...Women voters can tip the scales in Bihar
This column first appeared in The Hindu, on July 28, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. As all political parties pull up their socks before the Bihar elections, they must recognise ...Educational reach and grasp
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on July 26, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Over the past few weeks, new data releases have provided a wealth of information about ...Revealing the real strategic significance of BRICS
The recently concluded twin summits in Ufa – the summits of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – are a strategic milestone for the emerging global order. The outcomes of these summits also hold significance for India’s future role in it. While ...Profiling and targeting
Big data provides both companies and governments the ability to differentiate sharply and productively between customers and beneficiaries of welfare programmes. Used effectively, organisations delivering products and services can leverage large databases about customers/beneficiaries to combine economies of scale with the benefits of precision targeting. Further, since data about the target group ...India’s Suicide Problem
For over a decade, farmer suicides in India has been a serious public policy concern. More recently, this has led to a shrill media outcry and much politicking. The government response to the crisis of farmer suicide has mostly been simplistic and sometimes aggravating. The main issue with offering “special packages” to ...Strategic Importance of Ufa Summits
The recently concluded twin summits in Ufa, Russia of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) are a strategic milestone for the emerging global order and India’s role in it for several reasons. First, host Russia sought to use the summits to vindicate ...The art of distraction
I recently returned to Delhi after several days at my home in Binsar. Binsar is a remote forest and wildlife sanctuary in the Kumaon hills. It is almost totally cut off. There is no electricity, and although some of us who can afford the upfront capital costs of solar have brought lighting ...Brics: Shaping a New World order, Finally
From the 6th Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit at Fortaleza to the forthcoming seventh Brics summit in Ufa this week, this unlikely grouping first conceived as an investment portfolio is increasingly reflecting the desire and limited ability to shape a new world order. This is a significant feat ...Key Policy Insights
Quality Focus on Learning Outcomes: There is an unequivocal need for the education system to shift its focus from access and infrastructure to improving learning outcomes for all students in the country. While some basic standards for infrastructure are needed, greater priority should be given to learning outcomes in the school ...Keeping peace among peacekeepers
The word peacekeeping does not appear anywhere in the Charter of the UN. Yet, ever since the first peacekeeping operation was launched in May 1948 in the Middle East, that one word evokes the very raison d’etre of the world body. Since then the UN has deployed 70 peacekeeping operations with some ...Think Beyond Health Insurance
Budget 2015 was creative on several dimensions but fresh thinking was completely missing in health financing. This budget, like several in the past, reinforced insurance as the strategy for health financing in India. As the experience of many countries has revealed, this is a perilous path which will take India towards an ...Looking ahead: The next 365 days
By most accounts Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has notched up a good year in the foreign policy realm, with Modi himself being the principle planner and implementer of the most significant initiatives. Even his most ardent political critics have acknowledged the energy and vigour he has displayed while globetrotting around capitals ...The one-year scorecard
As the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government approaches its first anniversary, the assessments have ranged from congratulatory to critical, depending on the observer and the criterion. Here is my contribution to the kitty. A year ago, I had written a column entitled “Three national missions”, in which I had argued that the ...Shaping India’s energy future: Ambitions, actions and obstacles
Multi-domain, multi-scale, and multi-stakeholder efforts are needed to overcome the combination of acute and chronic challenges facing India’s energy future. Analogies aren’t perfect, but a number from the healthcare domain could apply to energy. Doctors often characterize diseases or conditions as acute or chronic – energy faces both sets of challenges. In ...Re-starting infrastructure
While the government has taken several steps in the right direction, these measures do not add up to a credible strategy to re-start infrastructure. Building up on action already taken, a strategy needs to be formulated around three dimensions. The Background For the past couple of years, there has been widespread and ...A new energy
A year ago, I was requested to make recommendations on a 100-day action plan on energy for the new government. In response, I offered the following suggestions, which I hoped might define the roadmap for the following year. Steps should be taken to institutionalise the formulation of an integrated energy policy. The ...Rainfall and the economy
The first forecast for the south-west monsoon this year caused concern. It projected aggregate rainfall during the June-September period to be 93 per cent of normal, somewhat below the conventional range of 96-104 per cent. This projection would not have attracted much attention, but it comes after a succession of rain-related problems. ...The inclusion project
A little more than a week ago, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), which he called an “extraordinary effort” at financial inclusion. According to the Union finance ministry, India has attained 99 per cent financial inclusion, measured as households’ ...What the Iran nuclear deal means for India
The Iran deal or the “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program”, to use the wordy official moniker has been evaluated by most experts in only nuclear terms and measured in the number of centrifuges and Tehran’s break-out timeline to build a ...The great oil circle
Oil prices have played a huge part in global economicdynamics over the past several years. They rose sharply in the couple of years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008. They crashed during the crisis, but recovered quite quickly. In late 2010, they surged past the $100-a-barrel mark and, with a few, ...Big problem, small solution
Achhe din sparked hope. The black market bill, whilst laudable in intent, has, however, raised fears of reinvigorated “inspector raj”. The labyrinthine maze of bureaucratic approvals, the tax charge on Cairn petroleum, the abrogation of the winning bid by Jindals for two coal blocks on the charge of cartelisation, and the reluctance to allow the market freer rein have ...Having your cake…
We are told early in life that we cannot both have our cake and eat it, too. Of course, this is taught to us before we take our first economics course. There, we are introduced to the “production possibility frontier”, which traces the combination of goods that an economy can produce when ...Band-aid solutions for health problems
The Draft National Health Policy of 2015 released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, is a comprehensive document. So comprehensive, in fact, that it says too little by saying too much. A National Heath Policy is commonly read as a political statement which is meant to provide ...Brightening the future with the sun and wind
India received commitments for over 260,000 MW of renewable energy during RE-Invest. While this is a great supply-side achievement, there are several issues in terms of handling this, and implications for the grid, both technically and financially. The Renewable Energy (RE) Global Investor’s Meet inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February ...Trysts with e-governance
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on February 8, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Soon after we moved to Mumbai a few years ago, we were informed that our ...The Green Budget
This column first appeared in the Indian Express, on February 2, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. In the aftermath of the Republic Day India-US summit and against the backdrop of ...The Big Deal
This column first appeared in the Indian Express, on January 29, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Nuclear cooperation between the United States and India, starting with the July 18, 2005 ...The Bilateral Imperative
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on January 25, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. During the five-year period 2003-08, even as the world economy was barrelling along, three countries ...Greek tragedy – Act II?
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on January 11, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Developments in Europe have dominated the headlines over the past couple of weeks, and not ...Over the Barrel: Oilpolitik
This column first appeared in the Indian Express, on January 5, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. A frequently asked but futile question is: Where are oil prices headed? The question ...Tipping points and Goldilocks conditions
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on December 28, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Many, if not most, observers of the Indian economy see 2015 as a year of ...Enjoying the capital flows ride
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on December 13, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the authors. The last 10 years have been a roller coaster ride of sorts for emerging market ...The Main Thing…
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on December 14, 2014 . Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Many years ago, at an offsite that I participated in, I heard a message ...Workfare as an effective way to fight poverty: The MNREGA
This article first appeared in Ideas for India, on December 11, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. While developed countries are increasingly leaning on workfare programmes as a means to reduce ...Learning the art of deal-making
This column first appeared in Mint, on December 8, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Three recent bilateral agreements have the potential to dramatically change India’s relations with major powers and ...Saarc: building a constellation of stars?
This column first appeared in Mint, on November 23, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. With squabbling members and embarrassingly poor integration there are few expectations for the 18th summit of ...Can our banks finance the economic recovery?
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on November 16, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. There is little question now that the Indian economyis steadily climbing up from the bottom. ...Over the barrel: On oil, let’s play the ‘what-if’ game
This column first appeared in Indian Express, on November 3, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Now is the time for the government to ask the question, “What should we do ...War, peace and international order
This column first appeared in Mint, on November 9, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year will mark ...You can’t kill two birds …
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on November 2, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. The economic parallel of the popular aphorism about the limitations of using one stone is ...A five-year baseline scenario
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on October 20, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. At the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this month, headlines ...Modi’s delivery challenges
By all accounts Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US was triumphal: both in purely investment terms and in terms of the lofty rhetoric and unprecedented public buzz that his outings generated. The former, according to the US-India Business Council, will yield an investment of over $41 billion over the next ...Rhetoric signifying something
This column first appeared in the Indian Express, on October 6, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the authors. Only the most churlish would argue that the prime minister’s visit to the US was ...Electrified, but without electricity
No one would believe that simply owning a smartphone would be enough to go online and get connected one would still need a data connection for that to happen. Similarly, it is time that we added a similar level of service to define electrification, a focus area for the government. A decade ...A capital ladder for infrastructure
This column first appeared in the Business Standard, on October 5, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the authors. A look at how businesses have traversed the path between start-up and the stock market ...Modi’s prayer at the multilateral altar
This column first appeared in Mint, on September 29, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the authors. The inevitable hype over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, particularly the impressive line up ...