A Good deal of analysis of the recent political upheaval in Bangladesh has focussed on the high-handedness and authoritarianism of Sheikh Hasina’s government; it has either missed altogether, or generally underplayed, the change that has occurred in the economic situation…
The latest controversy in the South Asian University, over an interview with a philosopher mentioned in a student’s research proposal that resulted in severe backlash and eventual resignation of an eminent foreign professor, would appear to be ludicrous if it…
India’s quasi-federal democracy, which was in danger of collapsing into a centralised authoritarianism, seems to be holding up. The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha election that reduced the brute majority of the National Democratic Alliance fronted by the BJP,…
The “demographic dividend” that was so eagerly anticipated in India more than a decade ago has already become a demographic disaster. India’s burgeoning youth population is achieving higher levels of education, and then entering a labour market that simply does…
The French economist J B Say had believed that there could never be a problem of aggregate demand in any economy, that whatever was produced was ipso facto demanded. There could of course be too many safety-pins and too few…
The popular insurrection that ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government offers important lessons for the international community and neighboring India. While the unrest was undoubtedly fueled by the regime’s repressive and increasingly anti-democratic tactics, exemplified…
With the short-term, frenzied interest that accompanies annual budget presentations in India having ended, it is time to raise issues that were largely ignored in the debate. Prime among them is the question as to how much or how little…
There is massive unemployment in the country that especially afflicts the youth; there is a huge and persistent inflation in food prices; there is acute and unprecedented rural distress; there is a crisis in the petty production sector; and income…
The mismatch between the problem at hand and what the Budget offers is stark be it welfare or even taking care of key political allies Just before Nirmala Sitharaman presented her seventh consecutive Budget as Union Finance Minister of a…
In the past three years, global food prices have been on a roller coaster, rising rapidly especially in the first half of 2022 due to a speculative bubble and then falling from July 2022 onwards (Figure 1). The phase of…
