The WTO has been a major weapon used by the advanced countries to roll back the structures that the third world dirigiste regimes which came into existence after decolonization had erected for achieving a degree of self-reliance. The TRIPS agreement…
Though overshadowed by the deep differences over agricultural subsidies and food security and on the rules governing trade in industrial goods, services were an important bone of contention at WTO’s Nairobi Ministerial Conference over 15-18 December, 2015. Developed countries had…
The central government sets up a Pay Commission about once every ten years to recommend what the structure of salaries, allowances and pensions for its current and retired employees should be. The seventh Pay Commission had been set up accordingly…
The remarkable and resounding victory of the Grand Alliance in the recent assembly elections in Bihar may well mark a turning point in Indian politics, after such a comprehensive rejection by the state’s electorate of the politics of hate and…
The closest friend I had in my childhood was a boy who came from a dalit family. He lived in a little bustee near our house in the small mofussil town in Odisha where I spent my early years. He…
At first sight the “Make in India” campaign appears innocuous, a pipe-dream perhaps but a rather harmless one. If the world’s big companies come to “make” things in India for selling all over the world, which is the thrust of…
The award of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2015 to Angus Deaton, has once again revived discussion on the nature and purpose of the ‘Economics Nobel’. According to the Royal Swedish Academy…
It was just over a year ago, on Gandhi Jayanti 2014, that the schoolgirls of the Senior Secondary School of the town of Bhim, Rajasthan, went on strike. The young, fresh-faced and neatly groomed girls were far removed from anyone’s…
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has surprised many by opting for a “bold”, 50 basis points (or half a percentage point, with one basis point equal to 0.1 per cent) reduction in policy (interest) rates. The interest…
Now that the UK is set to stop its foreign aid to India at the end of this year, it is worth considering what message this sends not just to India but to the wider world. It can be justified as…
