India and Bangladesh foreign secretary meeting

India's strategic conundrums and the future of Indo-Bangladesh relations

India’s neighbourhood policy can be tweaked by making conditional every foreign aid, technical assistance, bilateral cooperation and multilateral facilitation. Bangladesh is the largest beneficiary of Indian grants and assistance under the Neighbourhood First Policy. Attaching conditionalities—akin to the Chinese BRI loans— can act as a deterrent to any anti-India adventurism

India a transactional democracy, government beholden to its people

The debate around freebies and promises in a democracy often centers on balancing short-term relief with long-term solutions to societal problems. Often, in these giveaways, economic prudence is a casualty in favour of transactional political advantage.

India Inc. needs to give better compensation to its blue-collar workers

The share of workers in industry has stagnated for far too long. And so have wages. As per a report of WorkIndia, more than 57 percent of blue-collar jobs in India pay less than 20,000 rupees a month.  That is probably justified because of low average productivity.

Forty years after Bhopal gas disaster: Court ruling reveals 'sorry state of affairs'

A strong India is not only about protecting the borders but equally about systems and processes that do not allow companies, particularly giants from foreign shores, to get away with anything less than standards that some of these companies are required to follow in their home countries. Even if the clean up happens, at long last, the other lesson for holding companies to account is yet to be learned.

More on Perspective

India’s ‘weedy and unwieldy’ growth questions its development story

As the world turns more careful and looks to build with caution and care, the Indian State is going berserk in multiple directions with the goal of showing its strength outside India while ordinary Indians are getting the rough end.

Looking back at Kargil: Has India learnt any lessons?

Taking stock of the Kargil War 25 years later, what unfortunately emerges is that most of the important lessons have not been learnt, at least by India’s politico-bureaucratic establishment.

The testing fiasco in India calls for radical reforms in the education sector

This also means unshackling the education sector, allowing greater freedom and autonomy to institutions of higher education in deciding curricula, courses, faculty hiring and salaries, student fees and programs. Otherwise, millions of our youth are wasting the prime years of their youth with a psychological burden, and grueling study with repeated attempts, to crack exams, where the odds of winning are worse than a lottery.

Did the RSS tacitly pull up Modi? Yet the RSS drinks from the same cup of power!

In that light, the words of Mohan Bhagwat signal discomfiture. But his hesitation to name Modi and call him out indicates that the RSS is caught in a trap of its own making. 

Will reforms and development take a hit under a coalition government in India?

There has to be a common thread holding the weave of a multidimensional diverse nation like India. The thread is definitely not how or to which God your pray (or not), what dress you wear (or wear no dress at all!), what you eat or not. 

An agenda for India's new coalition government: Wide-ranging reforms are the need of the hour

Without these reforms, the laudable objective of “India a Developed Nation by 2047” may remain a distant dream.

Naidu's reform and development agenda appealed to young voters in Andhra Pradesh

If India's states seek to compete with each other in a spirit of competitive federalism and use their political clout constructively for economic progress and welfare as several states have done there is nothing wrong.

BJP has a lot of rethinking to do after election losses

The rather curious silence on the part of the government regarding Manipur might have also led to the BJP losing in the state as well as suffering a decline in the overall seat share in the Northeast. 

Will PM Modi now find time to visit Manipur?

Now Angoncha Bimol Akojam, newly elected MP from Meitei-predominant Inner Manipur, has lashed out at the deliberate lawlessness and communal violence induced in Manipur, with both the state government and the Centre abdicating their responsibilities of governance in utter disregard of the Constitution. 

Chandrababu Naidu: India's man of the moment with a history of switching sides

When he came to power, Hyderabad was a backward city with dirty roads, Naidu had his vision of development. Taking a cue from neighboring Bangalore, Naidu began promoting hi tech industries and software skills in Hyderabad. He established Cyberabad and to express his seriousness travelled to Seattle and waited outside the office of Bill Gates of Microsoft for an hour to get an audience with him.

Bilateral and regional significance of Nepal PM Dahal’s India visit

The tri-nation hydroelectricity corridor between India, Nepal, and Bangladesh will likely continue. Given that Modi has pushed for “Neighborhood First” in his interactions with South Asian countries, India’s collaboration with Nepal will be essential to the revival of the SAARC mechanism and the advancement of regionalism in South Asia.

A call for equitable legislation: Why a Uniform Civil Code is a social imperative

The path toward progress does not reside in appending supplementary provisions to existing personal laws. Instead, it hinges on the establishment of progressive, gender-neutral, monogamous practices that are devoid of religious distinctions, achieved through the implementation of a uniform civil code.

Modi and Gandhi: Didn't the world know about Gandhi till the Attenborough film?

Modi should just know that today there are a large number of universities in the world where Gandhian studies are a part of their curricula. Many schools are trying to teach his values. Nearly 80 global cities have Gandhi streets and Gandhi statues installed in prominent places.

The Kerala model: Where migrants are guest workers

The internal migration of workers from the rest of the country to Kerala has created a mini remittance economy, as money flows from savings generated in Kerala to the home states like Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam and Bihar.

Bulldozer demolitions are unwarranted and unsanctioned in Indian law: Need for remedial action

The targeted punitive measures against the Muslim community following religious clashes and the consequent demolitions constitute an instance of "ethnic cleansing", according to the UN's characterization