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As one writes this column in the second week of July, the turmoil in West Asia seems to be intensifying. As if the civil strife in Syria that has been going on for two years and the more recent conflict in Iraq were not bad enough, the armed confrontation between Israel and Palestine portends ill for this part of the world. The United States is no longer importing oil in large quantities after its own supplies of shale gas went up. But China and India have become more dependent than ever before...

Finance minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden Budget clearly indicates that there is little or nothing to differentiate between the economic policies of the BJP and the Congress. The only difference is that the BJP government has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha whereas the Congress led a coalition government and was, therefore, unable to go in for large-scale divestment of shares in PSUs. The UPA government was also unable to increase the cap on FDI in insurance and defence manufacturing because of...

Finance minister Arun Jaitley’s maiden Budget clearly indicates that there is little or nothing to differentiate between the economic policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. The only difference is that the BJP government has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha whereas the Congress led a coalition government and was, therefore, unable to go in for large-scale divestment of shares in public sector undertakings. The UPA government was also unable to increase the cap on foreign direct...

The first budget of the newly-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government seeks to raise revenues by divesting shares of government-owned enterprises and has raised limits on foreign investment in companies providing insurance services and electronic commerce, as well as those engaged in manufacturing defence equipment. While the budget presented on Thursday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is holding this portfolio for the first time, did not contain any big-bang proposals or...

The turmoil in Iraq has the potential to upset all plans that are being drawn up by the Narendra Modi government to revive the Indian economy. Global prices of crude oil have already risen and could go up further. If that happens, the Indian economy will be impacted badly simply because the country currently imports around 80 per cent of its total requirements of oil. With domestic prices of petroleum products creeping up and with a deficient monsoon, the government will not be able to contain...

Despite the fact that India has a vast and varied mass media, freedom of expression has been constrained and restricted from time to time on account of various considerations. Such considerations include intolerance on the part of religious hardliners or fundamentalist groups, pressures exerted by politicians and political parties, as well as the influence of corporate captains who control advertising expenditure which funds the media. Despite the diversity of the media in India, this sector...

As finance minister Arun Jaitley prepares to present his first Union Budget on July 10, there are two big question marks hanging over his head like a Damocles sword. The problem is that neither he nor any of us have precise answers to these questions. Depending on what the answers are, the Budget could be described as “soft”, “hard”, “conservative”, “forward looking” or just a “holding operation” for the next eight months. The first question: How deficient is the monsoon going to be? The second...

A distinctive feature of the recently concluded 16th general elections in India was the manner in which large sections of the mass media extended wholehearted support to the candidature of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who led the rightwing, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, by winning more than a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament in the world’s largest democracy. The media, in turn, was greatly benefitted by an unprecedented advertising...

An academic-turned-politician, Dr Yogendra Yadav is an important ideologue of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He has also made his mark as an astute analyst of Indian politics. However, his first foray into electoral politics was disastrous: he contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Gurgaon in Haryana and ended up fourth, losing his deposit. Yadav, by his own description, is "interested in the promise, practice, and prospects of modern politics". A senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of...