Wanted- A Big Bang Budget

These are extraordinary times and we witness extraordinary phenomena. Three weeks before the Union Budget, when finance ministers customarily crawl under their carapaces, the honourable…

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The Bhajan Bludgeon

The Sprawling city that Charles-Edouard le Corbusier had designed for bureaucrats and retired people looked like an army encampment girding up for an enemy onslaught.…

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Panic Button

Reading An Account of the Great Fear, or Grande Peur, that swept across France in July and August of 1789, I was struck by the…

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THE DAISY’S PETALS

It’s a NAIL-BITER. I predicted in another column that the Lok pal Search Committee of eight eminent persons might cap a five-year slow waltz just…

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GREAT STRESS TEST

Since you all love acronyms for the Good and Simple Tax and the Grand Stupid Thought, the headline is my humble contribution to your lexicon.…

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HOLLOWING OUT

Privatisation will work only when the government sells more than 50 per cent of a state-owned company’s capital to the public and relinquishes management control.…

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