Passionate About India

What is the role of a ruling government, after all? I'm sure my answer doesn't consolidate all views, and might even be considered too simplistic for the eco-politico geeks; yet, aren't the elected group of politicians in any democratic nation supposed to ensure that there is continual social, economic and cultural uplifting of citizens through dynamic, focused and objective oriented policies and measures? If you agree to this, then you would also agree that on each and every such aspect, Indian politicians have had minimal and insignificant contributions, if not nil. India's pockets of improvements have either occurred because of the spirit and perseverance of its civil society, or in specific cases, because of a conspiratorial connivance of the political class with the business class. In either case, the impact of any advancement has not benefited the majority of India's population. How can one justify the fact that India still has such a massive population of pe...

In a recent comment, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi expressed grave concerns on the outcome of a little known Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that the Indian government is hastily attempting to sign with the the European Union. His concern was that the impact of this proposed EU FTA on the domestic dairy and animal husbandry industry in India would be debilitating if cheap European dairy products supported heavily by EU subsidies get inroads to Indian consumers. His fears are not unfounded. Indeed, if top European multinational dairy brands like Lactalis, Friesland Campina or Arla Foods with turnovers of $12.7 billion, $11.2 billion and $8.7 billion respectively get access to the Indian market on the backs of zero or minimal import duties, India’s biggest dairy brand Amul (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) providing livelihood to more than 1.5 crore dairy farmers in rural India might not survive for long. True, Nestle, one of the world’s biggest food products compani...

The opening of the first Starbucks outlet in South Mumbai in October last year triggered quite some frenzy among Mumbaikars, with long queues of venti-mocha-frap verve translating into a major rock concert hysteria. And it was all for a coffee shop! Imagine the burst of marketing energy from Starbucks to take advantage of this excitement. Within five months of opening its first outlet, four each were opened in Mumbai and Delhi (taking the footprint of the coffee chain to nine outlets in India). It reminded me of the kind of madness that was witnessed during the launch of Pepsi and the relaunch of Coke in India, way back in the early 1990s. Here’s the simple truth – our craze for foreign brands has never ceased, despite our progress in almost all dimensions of socio-economic parameters. Why? Because as a nation, experience has taught us that our brands have never quite had the gumption of American, British, European or even Japanese brands. The halo was and is missing. This lack of uni...

For almost a decade, Dr Manmohan Singh has failed to deliver the goods when it comes to decent economic policy making governed by common sense. Given his background and past experience, this has come as an unpleasant surprise to all Indians. This coming budget is perhaps his last opportunity to stamp his authority and secure his place in history. He can still remain silent; but his policies must do the talking for him “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” “Leadership is about solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded that you do not care. Either is a failure of leadership.” “This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two differe...

Dear Muslim Brothers, I first thought of writing an open appeal to our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. But then I realized that it would be worse than banging my head against a granite wall. I also thought of making an emotional appeal to the President of the Congress Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi. But then, people far more powerful, important and experienced than me have tried doing that. When I read about the riots in Assam, I was slightly perplexed. Why now? And then I was bewildered when riots broke out in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, a town that was spared communal violence and divide even at the peak of the Babri Masjid crisis. I was shocked when I saw visuals of a mob rampaging in Mumbai, desecrating and destroying even the Amar Jawan Jyoti. I was boiling with anger and helplessness by the time I read about how bona fide Indian citizens belonging to the Northeast felt so threatened that they were fleeing cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. And I ...

It doesn’t require the world to point out that Manmohan Singh is a puppet Prime Minister! The question actually is, who is the “real” Prime Minister? Unlike the perception of many, I don’t believe that Sonia Gandhi is or was the “real” Prime Minister. It was Pranab Mukherjee, the man who was virtually running the entire show of running the nation, while Sonia managed Manmohan and a large part of party politics. Can you believe it that out of a list of 40 plus EGoMs (Empowered Group of Ministers), Pranab Mukherjee was heading almost a whopping 66%? Yes, that’s the truth; Pranab Mukherjee was not just Congress’ crisis man, but also the man running the government and its intricacies. No wonder then that Congress was so nervous about announcing his candidature. And had it perhaps not been for the Mamata jolt, Congress might have still tried to think about alternatives! Now that the man – who should have been Prime Minister in place of Rajiv Gandhi long back, and definitely in place of his ...

Five very important things happened in the month of May for India. They have actually made an impact on our destiny. I will write just in a while about what those events are and how they affected India. Two words seem to have become very popular in popular media: governance and leadership. From America to Greece to Venezuela to India, the big journalists that I know and the media that I read and watch seem to complain that the world faces a crisis of governance and leadership. Even during my recent trip to America, I sensed a public cry about great leadership. I think almost all of us will agree that there is indeed a crisis. People across continents are angry and the media is doing a wonderful job of highlighting that anger. Frankly, I am more concerned about India. In my last editorial, I wrote that the Indian media seems to have forgotten its purpose and mission as the fourth pillar of our democracy. In fact, I often call it a demonocracy! But perhaps, it is also time to remember le...

Barack Obama came, he spoke and he conquered. At least that’s what some of the biggest media houses would have you believe. Nothing could be more misleading for the Indian public. Here are the reasons why the trip was only of feel-good value, that too for dumb people. 1. Obama had a clear cut mandate. And that mandate was to show Americans that he was taking back jobs for them. He took away business worth 10 billion dollars and 50,000 jobs. These 10 billion dollars could have been used in India to create 200 times more jobs, because for every American job we create in America, we can roughly create about 200 jobs in rural India. It was a classic game of begging that the new America is now seen playing in India and China. With India, it’s about access to its markets and deals with the government. And with China, it’s about the revaluation of the Chinese currency to reduce their foreign debt and make Chinese products uncompetitive in American markets! I would even say that it was indee...

It seems that the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is all set to gift away a comfortable victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in the forthcoming Union elections, with the latter doing nothing much to earn it. Looking at the way things are happening, it is as if history is repeating itself. It was not very long ago that onions had taken away the sheen of whatever good work that the then National Democratic Alliance had done. The electorate had then ruthlessly stripped them of their power, showcasing the crude fact that the Indian electorate posses extremely short memories, particularly when it comes to elections. And this time, none else is realising it more than the ruling UPA. They realise that gone is the euphoria they created by gifting the huge Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers in this year’s annual budget, and that too barely two months ago. And gone along with it is the positive sentiment that was created by the increase in the non-taxable income fr...

A few days back, at the fourth International Conference on Federalism, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, voiced his concerns over the dangers posed by narrow political interests (on account of regional politics) that are coming in the way of the larger national interest. No doubt, our honourable Prime Minister has learnt the harsh realities of coalition politics the hard way, which was evident from his speech. In fact, a classic metaphor of such coalition compulsions was evident in the manner the Centre has been handling the Nandigram issue. The Centre’s stance amply vindicates its sheer helplessness on account of its dependence on CPI(M). All that the Centre did was to send one battalion of CRPF from Dhanbad...And that’s it! As the CPI(M) cadres continued with their victory procession and made sure that the entire Nandigram was reconverted into a red bastion, the CRPF contingent was kept strangled at Tamluk. The reason why something like this happened is no secret, as it is all ...

Immediately after Rahul Gandhi was appointed as the General Secretary of the AICC, he – along with a dozen other appointees – demanded to the Honourable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that the ‘iconic’ National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) be extended to the entire nation. This is a quantum jump considering that the scheme encompasses only 330 districts currently. Well, how much of this calibrated action would eventually help the Congress Party in the forthcoming elections is a matter of debate, but the bigger contention is the scheme in itself, which – though brilliant in theory – in practice, has failed to deliver as tangible benefits for the poorer masses of the country in its current form. The NREGA has been drawing flak for long. And surprisingly, the criticism of this scheme has not just been coming from liberal economists and market analysts alone, for whom the fiscal health of the government is more important than anything else. In fact, the more vociferous protest...

While year after year, strange economists keep getting the Nobel Prize for Economics for equally strange and meaningless impractical formulas, the man who has been redefining traditional economics and taking it back to where it should belong – the people, especially the poor – has been denied the same and given the Nobel for Peace instead. Though it is irritating, yet, perhaps we could try to find a deeper meaning and rejoice. At a point of time when Muslims are being looked at with suspicion, it sends a clear message to the world – that if you want to have peace, you’ve got to remove the massive poverty that still exists in the world by empowering the poor, especially women... I don’t think there can be a better message for global peace at a point where perhaps the biggest clash of civilizations – that between the Muslims and the Christians – is erupting across the globe.The erstwhile Professor of Chittagong University is a great example of a man who does believe in walking the talk.....