A scandal roiling India’s multi-billion dollar coal industry has made its way into the country’s parliament. A recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General accuses the government of giving out coal mining contracts to certain organizations using questionable accounting practices. By the report, India has lost out on $34 …
Last week’s blackouts illuminate three fiascoes holding India back
The massive, cascading power outages that left the northern half of India in the dark for two days last week bring to mind a telling juxtaposition of events in mid-1998. India had just concluded a momentous series of nuclear weapon tests, code-named …
Whatever Singh’s own faults as a government leader, India’s economic malaise is due to more basic problems.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is on the receiving end of a barrage of slings and arrows these days. The most recent salvo comes from Time magazine, whose Asian edition this week has a
We’ll soon find out whether Prime Minister Singh can salvage something positive from his final two years in office
A previous post focused on the recent political crisis in Pakistan that resulted in Prime Minister Gilani’s removal and in the process further destabilizing the civilian government as well as complicating …
A broad ambivalence about economic reform prevails in New Delhi
My previous post dealt with the mounting criticism of New Delhi’s economic management. Not too long ago, India was feted as the “New China” and a driving force in the BRICS …
Criticism about New Delhi’s economic management reaches a crescendo
Although he claims to have been misquoted, Kaushik Basu, the chief economic adviser at the Indian finance ministry, has only confirmed what has been readily apparent for quite some time. In Washington last week for the annual spring meeting of …
The Singh-Zardari luncheon was more productive than many expected. But the bonhomie will eventually run into stark political realities.
Although the timing was coincidental and neither man professes the Christian faith, it was appropriately symbolic that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari …
The year was filled with missed opportunities but also promising developments in U.S.-India relations. 2012 is shaping up to be the same.
President Obama’s state visit to India in early November 2010 appeared to impart new dynamism to a bilateral relationship that had been listless …
The fireworks celebrating India’s Independence Day on August 15 illuminated shifting political terrain. Appropriating the motifs of the anti-colonial struggle against the British Raj, the anti-corruption movement that has been gathering momentum for months erupted in full force, staging the most widespread popular demonstrations in decades. …
Santosh Hegde blows the lid on another mega-scandal
The latest malefaction to explode in India’s seemingly unending season of scandals concerns the illegal mining and export of iron-ore deposits in the southwestern state of Karnataka. According to an extensive report – some 25,000 pages in length, with …
Two years and one conviction later, Mumbai was once again rocked by three serial bomb blasts last month (apparently to mark the 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab’s birthday). Though smaller in comparison to the 26/11 terrorists attacks that killed some 166 people during a three day virtual …
Things are not going well for Dr. Singh
The contrast could not be starker. Twenty years ago this week, Manmohan Singh, then serving as finance minister to Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, championed a bold slate of economic reforms that has transformed India in ways few could …
Just-concluded elections in five Indian states offer mixed news for embattled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Congress Party.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s budget plan for the forthcoming fiscal year is more noteworthy for what it does not contain – realistic assumptions and a commitment to press ahead with critical items on the economic reform agenda.
Just a few months ago, Manmohan Singh was being lauded by world statesmen and the international media as the very model of political leadership. Nowadays, increasingly beleaguered, he’s reduced to denying that he’s a lame duck or intends to resign from office.
