Economics & Development

Almost all of the global women’s movements have dried up in the dreary desert sand of disinterest

There are many ways in which decision-making can be structured or planning can be done.There are many ways in which the struggle for the control of the decision-making processes takes place. Ultimately, those who emerge victors in the various competing ways of doing something carry the day. The articulate in the group become cheer leaders and those who care or dare to oppose are either eliminated or left to languish or perish. This happens in matters big and small. The last few weeks have seen the emasculation of an army which was proclaimed to be one of the finest equipped in the world. The current ruling elite in Afghanistan have made no bones about their distaste for matters such as democratically elected governance. They are in control and some of the mightiest powers in the world are ready to encourage this regime. Clearly the jury has not even convened, let alone ‘be out’ for a decision. The international system has yet again proved its ineptness in sufficiently holding out values and making worthwhile moves to […]

Information technology wizards often coin new words and their jargon is confusing. Much of these await handling in a statesman-like manner

We are living in the age of digitisation and now the pandemic has made it much more universal and in a much lesser span of time than would have been otherwise possible. The multiplication of online platforms and transactions of almost every variety has almost divided the world community into categories, depending upon their facility with this process and medium. The “traditional” mom-and-pop set-ups, dealing with maintenance and services, have been speedily eliminated in favour of the do-it-yourself (DIY) culture and by online instructional videos. There would be nothing to grudge that if two things were ensured. First, the basic infrastructure for online communication as and when needed. Second, credible skills at the responding digital end to diagnose the problem and articulate it in comprehensible terms. Both of these clearly need far more attention than currently seems to be the case. This is not to find fault but to emphasise an essential pre-condition for digital maintenance services. The proposition of both infrastructure and skill take time to reach a level of maturity, making them amenable for use. If it is […]

Political rhetoric may be understandable but when it ignores fully the realities of life, it only sharpens the pangs of distress

Staying positive is not the same thing as the inability to read the writing on the wall. The first is as necessary as oxygen is for life. Experiencing the second, is, not recognising the fact that ignoring the obvious can only lead to a roadblock. The situation is compounded in an endemic environment of anxiety about health and receding frontiers of income and opportunity.

Pointing this out is necessary because if debt repayments are necessary for survival of intermediary financial institutions, approaches which are likely to push firms into bankruptcy can be equally dangerous. Under such circumstances, topping it all up with understandable but untenable social objectives is only going to make confusion worse. Consider the situation of ordering Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with less than 100 workers to pay full wages. On the face of it, this appears to be a laudable approach, yet there is a flip side to it. From where will the SMEs find the money to pay when they are not earning anything themselves? If they go bankrupt, the employees will not even get what […]

Why should a taxpayer subsidise IITs when there is no correlation between the outcome of his investment and the welfare of the average Indian?

The world of education is huge. It is one of those few areas where one can enter almost without credentials and claim to be an expert. People still listen to such individuals not because they have any great credentials but because they hold positions of influence and patronage. With these qualifications, it is easy to find admirers. There are always hopes of pay-offs by ingratiating the powerful. It is also equally true that the route adopted by people to gain the attention of icons is sometimes quite the opposite and that is one of denigration. By throwing stones at the powerful one can also gain prominence. In essence, the choice of the route to gaining attention of the powerful is a personal one.

For the sake of a feasible, focussed discussion on the learning-teaching process, which is the foundation of education, it may be useful to focus on one segment. The choice of higher education as the segment of attention may be useful. It is also attractive because that is where the so-called intellectuals are. Plus, in the […]

The writing on the wall is clear. The paradigms of not only growth and welfare but of survival and safety have to be rewritten  

The last 13 weeks or so have been exceptional and unprecedented in experience, reflection and all that goes with it. The dominant theme has been of worry, anxiety and the strange feeling of helplessness, should one be unfortunate enough to be infected with the Coronavirus. The fear of the unknown, coupled with the pressure of several confusing containment operations, cushioned marginally by some precautions, can be a very difficult process to go through. That may be another story for a different day.

The coping experience is yet to be clearly comprehended to be articulated here. A reflection on the time frame mentioned above triggers some thoughts which are a potpourri of notions and emotions, sometimes verging on exasperation. There have been a spate of webinars and obviously this has lubricated the business of communication platforms. They have seldom had it so good. The disinfectant and the medical palliatives industry is booming, the latter particularly on the promises of increasing immunity and giving reserves to combat the dreaded disease. Both the narratives are inductive and in the absence of […]