Timing is everything, and with a number of state elections soon, leading to the general election next year, cynicism and opportunism are manifest. The Congress-led government now in power will be remembered as the most corrupt in our history. I remember visiting the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s house in Isla Negra, west of Santiago, a…
They say nothing sharpens our minds as much as high danger or a threat to our survival. We are prepared to stand and fight when we are cornered. Twenty-two years ago, when we were staring into the abyss, we pulled a reformist rabbit out of our socialist hat. But it took just about five years…
From the Editor When I stepped into this role in mid-2010, it seemed India was unstoppable. Gross Domestic Product growth had averaged 8.5 per cent since 2004, when the United Progressive Alliance won power. The financial markets in the United States and Europe were in disarray after the US sub-prime crisis laid down a napalm…
From the Editor I remember sticking an aluminium one-yen coin and a copper one-US-cent coin to my computer screen in Tokyo around the mid-1990s and watching in fascination Las they became equal in value, with the yen appreciating to 100 to the dollar. It was nice for frequent travellers like me- when I paid my…
The Jan Lokpal Bill may need to move from idealism to realism; the solution may also lie in granting independence and teeth to existing agencies created to fight corruption. The three men stood up, glowered at me, and began shouting in chorus. They ignored the business card I had introduced myself with. How dare I…
The US is on life support, and Asian creditors led by China, which holds $1.16 trillion of US treasuries, control the intravenous drip. Asian central banks will not be dumping their dollar assets, but there is no doubt that US power is waning. For a while there, it looked like we would all, lemming-like, race…