Passionate About India

Just a couple of months back, the entire global media fraternity was talking about the next probable war between China and Japan over the issue of a small group of islands in the East China Sea. Just when people thought that the issue was cooling down, last month, a delegation of former US officials submitted a report to Hillary Clinton that the dispute could spin out of control and result into a military confrontation; add to that China’s recently declared intentions to deploy marine surveillance drones to track maritime activity around the cluster of islands from where the conflict originated. The entire issue is certainly far from over, with both the nations in no mood to step back. There is, of course, nothing new in the conflict between Japan and China. Through centuries, these two Asian neighbours have been brutal to each other – politically, economically and militarily. The Japanese monarchy before World War II was notable for their imperialistic intentions – they invaded C...

Ever since the American economy went bust and the European economy has been going down, it’s sad to see my favorite magazine, The Economist, frantically trying to defend the wrong and go wrong by criticising the right. Time and again. Just a handful of weeks ago, in their frantic effort to criticize everything Chinese and everything non-market oriented, The Economist did a cover story called The Rise of State Capitalism (January 21-27, 2012). Basically, the story talked about how economies like China and even India are becoming more dependent on large public sector units and how this is bad blah blah. The obvious supposed scare is that public sector corporations are inefficient, have time overruns, invariably have cost overruns, have ingrained corruption and so on! The real scare is the growing might of China, of course! Our group is into almost all kinds of consulting activities and we rarely come across a private sector company where an executive doesn’t ask for a bribe before award...

Growing up in a Bengali neighborhood, in Delhi's C.R.Park, meant even at an early age of ten, there were friends who knew the basic difference between capitalism and communism, and had clear-cut preferences! Of course, these preferences would be heavily influenced by their parents! And my father is perhaps the only Indian who did a full fledged Master’s Degree in National Economic Planning from an erstwhile communist nation, the erstwhile East Germany. Needless to say, my first story books were on Lenin's life and I had been totally charmed by him into believing in the positive aspects of communism, and till date remain so. And on the giant world map that hung in front of his study table, the country that I heard and studied most about till I passed out of my school in 1989 was a country many of my readers today aren't even aware of! A country called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics! Ruled by leaders who followed and most importantly understood to a large extent the ...

The cracks are already visible all across Europe. It was first Greece, then Portugal and Italy, with Spain waiting in the queue. The current situation of Europe reminds me of the situation post World War II – wherein most European economies and societies were in complete anarchy! Since the last five years, European nations have been facing major economic setbacks, which have been triggered by political mismanagement and have impacted their entire social structure to a large extent. Today, fallouts of erstwhile strong economies are leading to a cascading effect and sending tremors across the continent! Amongst all of them, Italy makes an interesting case because as a nation, it has been ranked among the top 25 most developed nations, has one of the best quality-of-life (features among the top ten in the quality-of-life index) and has a per capita GDP at par with other developed nations of the world. This fourth largest European economy is today struggling with a $2.2 trillion debt which...

The strength of the Chinese population can be gauged by the very fact that today around 19.3 per cent of world population is Chinese. But then, such a figure based on the law of averages hides more than what it reveals. The figure that talks volumes about the Chinese sphere of influence, at least with respect to human capital, is that of 50 million plus overseas Chinese who are settled in various parts of the world and playing their bit in accelerating the fast-paced Chinese economy. Today, overseas Chinese not only pump money into the Chinese economy but also facilitate Chinese ambitions of global cultural and political colonisation. Overseas Chinese have made themselves inimitable in almost all spheres of influences – from heading many hard power areas by chairing vital positions in global forums, military and political institutions of many nations to being the face of various soft power areas of influence. One may not be well versed with the Chinese powers-that-be, but at the same t...

Not that it has done everything that had to be done for those who have been deliberately marginalised by the society now for decades and ignored just to fill the coffers of rich industrialists of India. But kudos that it has reached here at least. I, personally, and our media house have both been severely critical of budgets year after year. After presenting alternative budgets for nine years on the trot, I finally see a government that has at least had the courage to come out in the open and present a budget which hardly has any sops worth talking about for the industry. Yes, the advantages that a few industrial houses will derive haven’t gone unnoticed. But as I had written – with a lot of sarcasm and desperation – in our last issue: Let this budget be a ‘Khao Aur Khilao’ budget . And I won’t look at vested interests which got served here and there. I will only look at the good that has happened. After more than four years post the launch of Business & Economy and our media hous...

What do you do when you don’t have solutions to the most pertinent problems devastating the world? Well, you just form a forum of like minded, power hungry and ayesayers, find an exotic resort in Europe and discuss the problems for a few days in the most obscenely luxurious environs and pledge to meet next year again with some new issues to discuss, albeit without any substantial solutions. This is the best way to define a forum most ceremoniously called the ‘World Economic Forum’. From which viewpoint it is a ‘world’ forum, is hard to comprehend. It can be termed a world forum if and only if the world is just about the US and Europe. And since it is not, the World Economic Forum (WEF) is in no way a global forum. So what is it? Well, to begin with, the World Economic Forum is a private entity and not essentially one, which is necessarily represented by all the nation states. Initiated by Professor Klaus M. Schwab (who has been famous for equating the anti globalisation protesters with...

This time, when I was actually thinking about the issue to cover in the TSI editorial, I had initially thought about writing how the Americans exhibited the true essence of democracy and proved that even if the American government might be inhuman in more than one ways, the common American is still left with humanity within himself. But at the last moment, I had to change my plan when I had a chance to glimpse through the latest copy of UNDP’s Human Development Report 2006. Well, for those who aren’t much enlightened about this report (you need not be in any case; after all, this enlightenment brings with it more depressing shadows than any radiance), to tell you in brief, this study essentially ranks the quality of life in terms of life expectancy, adult literacy rate, enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education and GDP per capita of most of the UN member countries on whom data is available. For any concerned Indian to go through this report is an agony since a glance shows...