China, quid without a quo: 1954 India-China trade agreement was one-sided affair
By any yardstick, the trade agreement was one-sided, in favour of China. Today, any negotiator who agreed to this would be hauled over the coals.
Pests and Law: Drumming up support against locusts
Anything built into legislation has to be formally repealed. Consequently, an anachronism like Section 4(1)(2) remains. The ordinance should have lapsed
Robinson Crusoe’s skills: Because of the virus, some autarky vis-à-vis the external world is inevitable
But Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson (published 1812) are also a metaphor for something else, that of self-reliance, which is why economists coined the expression, Robinson Crusoe economy.
Risk, uncertainty and COVID-19: A stark choice
Risk has a known probability distribution. For uncertainty, the probability distribution is unknown. Covid-19 makes us confront uncertainty, not risk
Covid-19 Pandemic: Why India urgently needs a uniformed statute
The seventh schedule lists health as a state subject, and different states have provisions that aren’t necessarily uniform and harmonised.
Bite that beetle: Entomophagy promises smaller environment footprint, higher food conversion efficiency
Two billion people eat insects today, but for many, they are not part of mainstream diet. With global population soaring, humans will be forces to seek them out as a food source.
Distorted balance of India’s population pyramid: Ageing population creates pressing economic concern
With declining birth and death rates having distorted the balance of the population pyramid, social security for senior citizens has become a pressing economic concern
Indian Railways reforms: A single cadre for Railways management
The newly minted Indian Railways Management service can break down the silos that plague the Railways. But this will not be without its challenges
Indian Railways departmentalism worse than 1905! Reforms to cut Railway Board, merge cadre the right step
Departmentalism plagued the management of the railways, the railway board reform addresses this
Salt bureaucracy pounding salt
With other departments/bodies having assumed most of their functions, the most that Salt departments can do today is to exploit the land they own.
Justice delayed: Are fast-track courts fast enough?
In 2017, Fast-track courts in only six states managed to dispose 50% of their cases within a year.
Swachh Bharat shows how to nudge the right way
Setting up a ‘behaviour insight team’ in the govt, to help different ministries incorporate psychological and cognitive dimensions in public policy, may be useful.
Junk Boilers Act and relook Seventh Schedule
With perceptions about inspections by private companies having changed, the Indian Boilers Act, 1923, and the entire Seventh Schedule, needs a relook.
Restructuring of centrally sponsored schemes cannot be done without consultation with states
A CSS restructuring/rationalisation debate requires relook at the Seventh Schedule, and cannot be done without consultation with states at an appropriate forum.
Giving legal rights to water bodies a great leap forward
Without contesting pollution in Ganga and Yamuna, one should be sceptical of lists and rankings, both because of data problems (there are good data only for OECD) and because of the way numbers are used
India’s economic journey: A fountain-pen story
Though fountain-pens weren’t branded, the ink certainly was. It was, and had to be, Sulekha. Sulekha Works, started initially in 1934 in what is now Bangladesh, was identified with self-reliance and the Independence movemen
GDP revisions and what has been said on growth numbers
Revising GDP series isn't unusual. Nor should one ascribe a malignant motive to a continuous and evolving process.
Arvind Subramanian’s attempt to estimate GDP instead of explaining it through cross-country regression fraught with problems
As the dependent variable, he had heights of actresses on the Bengali stage in the 19th century, with a clear perceptible decline in heights towards the end of the century. Among
GDP estimation: System not perfect, but it’s better than one based on annual surveys
The working paper mentions the National Statistical Commission (NSC). The seeds of NSC were sown by the C. Rangarajan Commission in September 2001. Many people may have forgotten what this report said.
Understanding India’s middle-income trap
Even if one uses this relative notion, the case of a middle income trap existing is not proven. Does that mean there are no issues with the Indian economy? Certainly not
Why formalised training and placement for plumbers is a must
An ordinary graduate earns Rs 10,000 per month. A plumber earns Rs 20,000 per month. There is the broader issue of whether the education system delivers marketable skills.
Hairy politics: There is discrimination between armed forces and police when it comes to moustache allowances
Like discrimination between kings in playing card decks, there is discrimination between armed forces and police when it comes to moustache allowances.
How should India track its time; Office hours in Northeast need to be changed
The existing IST is said to be negatively impacting the lives of the northeastern people as the sun rises and sets much earlier than the official working hours.
At Kumbh Mela, sadhus and akhadas galore, but how many religious mendicants are there?
State-wise, with an aggregate of 81,244, West Bengal leads by a considerable margin, followed by UP. These numbers differ slightly from figures given in the ministry of social justice and empowerment’s handbook on social we
Swachh Bharat: 500,000 volunteers have changed lakhs of villages
On both households’ usage of toilets and open defecation free villages, there is some slippage but not as much as one might have thought
In imagining Make-in-India, focus has strongly been on scaling up and lowering cost
Successful teaching is individual-specific and a successful teacher adapts according to capacity and receptivity of recipient.
Courts must punish false evidence: Bibek Debroy, Chairman, EAC to the PM
In the second, the Court tells us perjury has assumed alarming propositions.
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