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It is surprising how rapidly some of the most ardent supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have become disillusioned with his government’s performance. It has been barely 15 months since the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power with 31.5 per cent of the popular vote in May 2014. Yet corporate captains, right-wing ideologues, columnists and pubic intellectuals — many of whom were his ardent cheerleaders and welcomed his ascendancy — are today vying with one another to criticise...

Jo mera hai woh tera hai/ Jo tera hai woh mera (What is mine is yours; what is yours is mine.) o run the first two lines of the Airtel “friendship” song for young people written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and set to a catchy tune by Ram Sampath. Catchy indeed, because the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the Government of India’s Ministry of Communications & Information Technology shares such a cosy, symbiotic relationship with the country’s largest telecom group, Bharti Airtel, that these...

Sleight of hand, circumvention of administrative norms, understating revenue to be shared with the government, securing efficient electro-magnetic spectrum for telecommunications at discounted prices or even free, sale of assets and restructuring of company holdings for unconscionable profits. This, according to a draft report of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India – the constitutional body mandated to oversee public finances – summarises the not-so-well-known story behind the incredible...

After the great recession that started in 2008, and eight decades after the first Great Depression wreaked havoc across the world in the 1930s, is Great Depression II in the offing? A day after the media interpreted statements made by the Reserve Bank of India governor, Raghuram G. Rajan, as suggesting that another ’30s-like Great Depression could take place, the RBI clarified that he had not implied that there is an “imminent danger” of the world economy slipping into the Great Depression that...

That the Monsoon Session of Parliament would literally and metaphorically be washed out is hardly a surprise. The political opponents of the Bharatiya Janata Party were determined to use the same tactics deployed by it when the party was out of power for a decade. In the coming three months, attention will be focused less on Delhi’s durbar politics and more on the battle for Bihar. The outcome of the Assembly elections in the state will undoubtedly have a significant bearing on the near-term...

His surname means a girl-child in a number of Indian languages. When asked about his family name, he clarifies that it is a version of Ghori or those who came from the Ghurid kingdom that spanned parts of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent in the 13th century. Varun Gauri, co-director of the World Development Report 2015 of the World Bank, obtained his doctorate in public policy from Princeton University in 1996 after which he joined the World Bank group. He has worked and conducted...

The Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam) or Professional Examination Board scam threatens to destabilise not only the government of Shivraj Singh Chouhan (who has been chief minister of the state since November 2005), but the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue and attempts by BJP functionaries to brazen it out may backfire on the state government in Bhopal as well as the Central government in Delhi. A superficial reading of the...

Laxminarayan yadav is a wealthy farmer. He lives in Ghumanhera village located on the Delhi-Haryana border. He grows wheat and mustard on five-and-a-half acres of irrigated land. Unseasonal rain destroyed 40 per cent of his winter (rabi) crop in March. The grain that remained edible got coloured; its price is down. He is not exactly happy, but far from despondent. Reason: the Delhi government will be paying him Rs 13,999 as compensation. “I will break even this rabi season,” says he. “I won’t...

There was no Night of the Long Knives. This time, it was boringly predictable. All but the most naive thought that an amicable solution would be found to prevent Greece from leaving the Eurozone. As "erratic Marxist" Yanis Varoufakis put in his papers as the finance minister of Greece, stock markets and currency exchanges didn't know how to react: with trepidation or relief, anger or gladness that the worst was over. Only one thing was certain: uncertainty would continue in the near future, with...

Even black humour has its ideological orientation as far as today's Greece is concerned. The capitalist version of the joke goes like this. Going Dutch means everyone sitting at a restaurant table shares the bill while Going Greek means that after everyone has eaten and drunk, everyone gets up and realises that no one has money to pay the bill. In the socialist version of the joke, those who have ordered food realise that those sitting at the next table -- who are owners of the restaurant -- are...

A loss-making company controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who heads the country's biggest private corporate entity, Reliance Industries Limited, has successfully managed to reschedule repayments of its loans to banks. Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Limited, the closely-held firm whose shares are not listed on stock exchanges, has a colourful and controverisal past. According to a story broken by Dev Chatterjee in the Business Standard on June 12, this is the first time...

Seven months after India’s largest bank signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a corporate conglomerate, a big question mark hangs over whether the State Bank of India will advance a first-of-its kind loan of $1 billion or over Rs 6,200 crore to a group headed by Gautam Adani to part-finance what is supposed to become Australia’s biggest coal mining project (and one of the world’s biggest as well). A section within the 14-member central board of directors of the State Bank of India is...

Around this time a year ago the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group took over the Network18 group. Have there been significant changes since then in the popularity of the television channels run by the media conglomerate? The answer varies for the different genres of channels. Going by viewership data CNN IBN has seen a steady shrinkage of its share of viewership, but the business channel CNBC TV18 has maintained its earlier viewership. We did a comparitive review of the ratings of these channels...

What does left, right or centre mean in terms of political and economic ideology in today's India and the rest of the world? Many argue that these words associated with capitalism and socialism have become meaningless. Every politician on the planet will swear that she or he is pro-poor. But in the political economy of nation-states, particular policies either widen the gap between the rich and the poor or narrow this gap. Opportunism and rhetoric often blur the distinction between the...

In less than two decades, (from) what used to be a sleepy suburb of the national capital, Gurgaon has metamorphosed into a megapolis epitomising much that is good and terrible about urban agglomerations in India. As one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and the world, the one-time home of the mythological Dronacharya is a study in extreme contrasts: fancy shopping malls and gated colonies for the rich are a stone’s throw away from one-time villages that have become slums for domestic...

On 8 May 2015, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India tabled a report in Parliament that sharply indicted the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for providing an “undue benefit” to Reliance Jio—a telecom company owned by Mukesh Ambani as part of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). According to the CAG, DoT did so by allowing Jio to offer voice services under the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum it had obtained through the 4G (fourth-generation electro-magnetic spectrum)...

On May 13, 2015, a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2012, ostensibly to ensure that education of children in the 6-14 age group is not compromised. However, certain exceptions laid down in the bill to amend the law legitimise children working for their family and in family enterprises. The dilution of the Act, apparently proposed to preserve the fabric of Indian society, would...

On May 13, before the Lok Sabha passed the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the world is no longer "willing to tolerate tax havens which thrive on secrecy". After the bill was passed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that the new law is "historic". But the government's critics argue that the new law is going to be ineffective at best or an eyewash at worst. The loudest criticism of the new law is that while it is meant...

In their election campaign in 2014, Narendra Modi and many Bharatiya Janata Party leaders had claimed that if elected, they would bring back enough black money to distribute a sum of 15,00,000 (or the equivalent of nearly $25,000) to each and every poor Indian family. Some of Modi's supporters, like Baba Ramdev, even claimed that the money would be brought back within 100 days of the new government coming to power. Having repeatedly asserted that the United Progressive Alliance government had...

The most astonishing aspect of the first year of the Narendra Modi government is how quickly the “honeymoon period” appears to have dissipated and almost disappeared. True, there is no threat whatsoever to the stability of his government. True, many of his critics who were once his ardent supporters are disgruntled. True, those who were expecting “big bang” economic reforms are disappointed with his gradualist approach. But — and there are many “buts” — wait! There is a certain inevitability...

Blues legend BB King, who inspired a generation of guitarists from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, passed away in Las Vegas on Thursday. He was 89. Riley B King, also known as Blues Boy King, best known as BB King, one of the world's greatest — if not the greatest — blues singer and guitar player, is no more. He died in his sleep on Thursday at the age of 89. The great grandson of slaves and having started life as a farm labourer picking cotton in Mississippi, he achieved international fame...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been, and continues to be, ridiculed by his opponents because of his government's inability to bring black money back to the country. He had repeatedly promised during his election campaign that money illegally held by Indians abroad would be brought back and distributed among the poor. A year in power, in order to convey the impression that he still means business, a law has been enacted which seeks to increase penalties on Indian citizens who have concealed...

In the latest round of tussles between India’s two top English dailies, the Times of India and the Hindustan Times, the two have embarked on a publicity overdrive to prove that each is Numero Uno in the market for English newspapers in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR). Delhi is the only urban agglomeration on the planet from where as many as sixteen English daily publications are printed and distributed. But the market is highly skewed or oligopolistic because the top two dailies account for...

A year ago, lawyers engaged by the two richest siblings in India, sent notices to me, my co-authors and my associates. It was claimed that we had defamed the Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, in our book Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis. Over the past 12 months, I have often been asked: “What happened to the case against you?” My standard reaction: “Case? What case?” No legal proceedings Contrary to what some may presume, Khaitan & Co., representing Mukesh Ambani and Reliance...

Why is the long arm of the law as long as it is? Why do the proverbial wheels of justice grind as slowly as they do in India? The phrase “justice delayed is justice denied” has become a well-worn cliché. Why are certain individuals so insensitive to the problems suffered by others? The case concerning Prof. T.J. Joseph, whose right hand was chopped off by a gang of Muslim goons nearly five years ago, has highlighted some of the worst aspects of Kerala society. Yet, it is true that residents of...

Returning to the most recent controversy, the Adani group has been in the news of late after the Australian federal government allowed it to develop what will become that country's biggest (and one of the world's biggest) coal mine, as part of a giant $16 billion (nearly ₹1,00,000 crore) project to build a railway line to export the black mineral from Queensland's Galilee Basin to India and elsewhere through the Great Barrier Reef from an expanded port. The project has been opposed by local...

Has India’s largest bank, the government-controlled State Bank of India (SBI) decided to scrap a memorandum of understanding (MoU) it entered into with one of India’s largest corporate conglomerates led by Gautam Adani? The MoU was to advance a first-of-its-kind loan of US$ one billion or ₹6,200 crore for a controversial coal mining project in Queensland, Australia. One newspaper report suggested that there would be a 'quiet and natural death' of the loan agreement between the SBI and the Adani...