In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

Read full article (FT, 24 Mar 2014)

Read full article Abstract: Legend has it that 2,500 years ago to the year, when Darius the Great invaded Scythia, retreating Scythians destroyed food supplies and poisoned the wells. Starved and dehydrated, a large number of soldiers in Darius's army died and he eventually conceded defeat. The only plausible interpretation of the actions by Congress in the last several months is that it has adopted this scorched earth strategy as it retreats from government. Its recent actions seem to serve one principal purpose: make the restoration of growth and the task of rebuilding the nation as difficult as possible for the successor government.

The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Read full article Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy dialogue between the United States and India by pharmaceutical lobbies in the US. Big Pharma has convinced the US government that the country's interests are synonymous with its own. With its own list of grievances against trade restrictions in India, the National Association of Manufacturers, a lobby group of the United States manufacturers, has lent its support to the pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma is currently using its considerable clout to pressure the United States Trade Representative (USTR) into designating India as a "priority foreign country" in its 2014 Special 301 Report due on April 30, 2014. The designation is reserved for the worst offenders of intellectual property rights and…

Read full article Abstract: It is widely believed that voter population in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in India will be significantly younger than in past elections. But census data belie this belief. It is true that the share of eligible voters in total population rose by 3.5 percentage points in 2011 over that in 2001 but this is not equivalent to the voter population being younger. An examination of age composition within the voting population reveals that the proportion of younger voters has actually marginally declined between 2001 and 2011. Those above 18 and below 25 as a proportion of voter population have declined from 21.7% to 21% between the two censuses.

Shinzo Abe turned around Japan's flagging economy with bold reforms. India must do the same. Read full article Despite the growth debacle in the last two years, growth has averaged 8 per cent per annum in real rupees during the past decade. Thanks to the steady appreciation of the rupee against the dollar in real terms, annual growth in real dollars has exceeded 11 per cent during the decade. At this pace, India would become the third largest economy in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 8.8 trillion dollars (in 2012 dollar terms) in 15 years. Japan, currently the third largest economy, is predicted to grow to no more than 7.5 trillion dollars by 2027. But such a vast change can't come about automatically. The assumption that India could keep growing at 8 per cent or more without the government doing its bit was the mistake the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government made. Just as the reforms by prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee produced a miracle, their neglect by the UPA has produced…