Ashoak Upadhyay

One regulator too many?

One regulator too many?

Raghuram Rajan is right in raising doubts about the need for a super-regulator in the financial sector

Manmohan’s mea culpa

Manmohan’s mea culpa

Perhaps it was the economist in him which made the Prime Minister deviate from the time honoured practice of never admitting to anything negative.

Three cheers for democracy

Three cheers for democracy

The Lokpal Bill is the first step to clean governance. Next is devolution of powers.

Slip, slide, belly-aap into politics

From the early promise of a new kind of politics, the AAP has slipped into the routine and rhetoric of vote-culling

Book the law, not the victims

Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code gags freedom of expression. Publishers succumb to it like the rest of us

A rough road indeed to acchhe din

The finance minister has to deal with bottlenecks that may choke growth initiatives. Leveraged India Inc is the chief one

SEZs as gated communities

The recent policy efforts to address the waning enthusiasm for SEZs will burden the exchequer, without stoking growth impulses. SEZs lost their appeal

The crisis behind GDP numbers

The economy has exhausted possibilities of expansion generated by successive waves of reforms over the last two decades. And, the most crucial refo

Slowdown hurts, some of us

India has a two-track economy: the glittering, fast-paced urban sector and a rural sector that has been left behind. Rural India has not known life on

India falls between two stools

India has not seen a neat shift of workforce from agriculture to industry, as in the West. Instead, there’s a vast rural non-farm sector – dominat

Edward Snowden, Noble Savage

Big Brother is alive even after the Cold War. But today, the technology of control has itself spun out of control. Fear and farce are intertwined, as

Why some love a good drought

Maharashtra is going through a searing drought — one that is caused by reckless urbanisation and skewed use of water.

A mandate against the technocrats

The politician won over the expert, as the young yearn for powerful, charismatic leaders

Where have all the jobs gone?

Downturns do cause unemployment. But the larger problem is jobs becoming selective and temporary as outsourcing catches on – to India and within Ind

Now, it’s committee-panel raj

The Prime Minister’s fondness for committees is not showing results. Besides, they short-circuit more democratic methods.

A new deal for public sector banks?

The PJ Nayak Committee wants to shift regulatory functions away from government. Will the new finance minister bite?

A season of superfluities

Initiatives to boost consumption of two-wheelers and curb gold imports show how myopic policymaking has become.

Rahul Gandhi’s tryst with reality

Rahul Gandhi is dismayed by centralisation of power. But that’s how it has always been – development by a few, for a few.

Euphoria of the 5 per cent

Policymakers are besotted by the organised sector, despite its being a mere island employing just a fraction of the workforce.

The loneliness of being FM

The enthusiasm for external sector reforms seems misplaced. Our addiction to external debt and gold and oil imports is here to stay. If one was asked

In banking, don’t ape the West

In its urge to ‘liberate’ the banking sector from government control and throw it open to private players, India seems to have forgotten the lesso

Slowdown — but who cares?

For the majority of the population outside the pale of India’s organised economy, the slowdown or “reforms push” does not really matter. They h

India’s tryst with innovation

‘Disruptive innovation’ in India is creating a digital divide, cleaving it into two halves that do not talk to each other.

India reproduces, US seduces

A Gallup poll shows that a large number of people from populous countries, including India, want to migrate to the US. This only helps the US turn int

New BRICS for old

In economic terms, this seems like a motley collective. But as a civilisational entity, BRICS can acquire another meaning.

The false promise of housing

Contrary to trends, housing is growing fairly rapidly; yet the rest of the economy slumbers.

IMF has lost its relevance

In a world awash with anarchic financial flows, the IMF is a mere bystander. Why is the Finance Minister so concerned about reforming it?

Limited growth, stagnant vision

Falling industrial growth numbers describe more than low GDP; they suggest a failure of the entire ‘development’ project.

‘Interests’ of the growth brigade

Rate cuts will benefit just a sliver of the economy.

Why graft oozes out of every pore

Dealing with misuse of state power requires more than symbolic acts of resignation like Ajit Pawar’s: It calls for new governance institutions. Ragh

Government has lost the plot

It’s not just the economy that is floundering; so are policymakers.

Millionaire or slumdog?

In the early 2000s, a theory, courtesy C.K. Prahalad, gave the rich a way to make money and save the world’s poor. The fantasy did not last. What�

Is the honeymoon over?

New Delhi wants quick even if less regulated growth. Will the RBI oblige? There are doubts.

Corruption has been trivialised

The anti-graft campaign perhaps needs personalities to draw crowds and TV viewers. But the danger lies in the ‘face’ becoming the issue and instit

A week of confused policymaking

Last week, policymakers sent conflicting signals on the government's vision. The Economic Survey pushes for fiscal correction and market-based solutio

Risk-averse banks in a time of slowdown

The hidden worm in inflation

Wastage and rotting foodgrains push up prices, but this is not reflected in official inflation estimates. So, when policymakers attribute inflation to

That non-starter called BRICS

It is India's turn to host BRICS leaders this year. BRICS remains an acronym hoping to acquire a life of its own. Its constituents cling to grandiose

Reforms’ unintended fallout

A recent RBI study showed that formal lending to rural sector fell after 1991; so has the fight against usurious money-lending been compromised by li