News
Modernising India's Military
By far the largest importer of arms in the world, India is poised to spend an estimated $310 billion (Rs 20.8 lakh crore) by 2022 on upgrading its arsenal. Vying for these sweepstakes are global arms vendors as also domestic suppliers who are exploring all viable options such as forming consortia, joint ventures (JVs), public-private partnerships (PPPs), and outright sales.
Read more
Will Saudi Arabia Destabilize global Financial Markets?
At the heart of the matter is 28 pages of the original Congressional report which probed the 9/11 attack on twin towers. These 28 pages were never released since it is supposed to link some members of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as abettors of that crime.
Read more
Banning surge pricing is bad economics
When government intervention is based on a failure to understand the basic tenets of economics and/or to pander to vote banks, it is necessary to call it out. The Delhi government is at it again and by doing so, it is inadvertently signalling to the world that it is clearly not open for business.
Read more
High expectations from China’s G20 presidency
The agenda of a G20 summit is generally set by the country holding the chair. China’s presidency of G20 is being looked at with a lot of anticipation, as it is not only the second-largest economy, but is also the largest trading partner of several countries, including India.
Read more
Modi's Saudi Sojourn : More Significant Than Being Made Out
Prime Minister Modi's advisers have taken to heart the flak from many of his detractors regarding the high visibility of his foreign visits and the media hype connected to them. No other reason why such a significant visit at a most appropriate time should be covered in the inner pages of print media and not even receive a pre-event build up by visual media.
Read more
A new Aadhaar* for Indian diplomacy
Finally backed by an enabling legislation, the Aadhaar project, the flagship of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), has been further bolstered by news that enrolment has touched the one billion mark. The creation of a database of easily retrievable biometrics and other information of a citizen — or of any resident, really — is an enormous help to government and public agencies as well as private users that may want to build applications and programmes on the Aadhaar number.
Read more
Brussels and after: Solutions elude European security
This must commence with a wholehearted condemnation of the terrorist actions against innocent citizens in Brussels and expression of empathy with those who lost family and friends in this continuing madness that the world is witnessing. This is not going to end anytime so soon because we are up against people whose minds are completely warped by irrational thoughts and hatred brought on by cycles of earlier violence and equally irrational responses which have brought entire communities within their ambit. When human beings take it upon themselves not to use God’s gift of rationalism then they become the equivalent of animals in society.
Read more
A dubious index
India has climbed up the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Index from 142nd position to 130th. The Modi government now wants India to rise to the 50th position. This would mean more reforms for attracting foreign investors to India. While it is true that the Ease of Doing Business Index is important for attracting foreign investors as they usually track such indices, it is not true that this index alone reflects the real business environment of a country.
Read more
What Apple versus FBI means for India
Law schools across India illustrate the difference between “culpable homicide” and “murder” through the famous K.M. Nanavati case of 1961. Nanavati, a commander with the Indian Navy, was informed by his wife of her affair with Prem Ahuja and her desire to end the marriage. An enraged Nanavati barged into Ahuja’s house, and after an angry exchange of words, shot and killed him. In the trial that followed, Nanavati’s punishment hinged upon whether his act was premeditated. If it was, he would be guilty of murder. But were the shooting unplanned and truly a “crime of passion”, as the tabloids referred to it, Nanavati would be punished for the lesser offence of culpable homicide.
Read more
Left-Right ideological divide no longer makes sense of today’s world
For those who grew up and came of intellectual age during the Cold War, the left-right binary was fairly simple to comprehend. There was the United States and liberal democracy, which seemed to stand for a market derived system of economic decision making and organisation, and a gamut of civil liberties for the citizen. On the other hand, there was the Soviet Union and the East bloc, which gave the state a much larger role not just in ordering the economy but also allowing it to intrude in the private lives and choices of people.
Read more