PM Modi's popularity remains unmatched, as does his flair for dramatic gesture. But his govt and Indian bureaucracy aren’t set up to develop a consensus behind liberalising reforms.
The reforms were undertaken exactly 30 years ago, at a time when India was facing its worst economic crisis. Here’s a look at what led to the crisis and how India weathered it.
Exactly 30 years ago, the historic 1991 economic reforms freed up the private sector and removed many trade barriers, unleashing India’s growth potential.
India’s turn to a centrally planned economy began in the 1950s under PM Jawaharlal Nehru. But by 1991, the economy came to a grinding halt and faced a massive crisis.
When a predatory state used to treating citizens as captives behaves in the same manner with external players, it gets a push-back that it does not usually experience domestically.
The defence of Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi’s foreign policies are both disjointed, and reflect the confusion at the heart of India's foreign policy.
A day before, the former PM and Congress leader had written to PM Narendra Modi suggesting ways to deal with Covid crisis in India. He had taken both the doses of Covid vaccine.
There are many things we must do to fight the epidemic but a big part of this effort must be ramping up the vaccination programme, former PM Manmohan Singh wrote.
In the capitals that will now be the unhappiest, a Kamala Harris victory was presumed, and a lot of actions and calculations were predicated upon that.
India-US trade in first 3 yrs under Biden was $122 bn, while it was $83 bn in Trump’s first term. Average trade surplus in India’s favour grew from $18 bn under Trump to $31 bn under Biden.
The Chinese aircraft has uncanny similarities to the American F-35 jet. There are claims that China copied the design. Cyber theft of F-35 design data was reported in 2009.
While we talk much about our military, we don’t put our national wallet where our mouth is. Nobody is saying we should double our defence spending, but current declining trend must be reversed.
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