Opinion

Brahma Chellaney The world's largest dam is rising in one of the world's most geopolitically treacherous and seismically unstable regions. Just a few kilometres from the heavily militarised border with India, China is constructing an unprecedented hydropower project in Tibet on the Yarlung Tsangpo, the...

Melvin Durai Scientific studies are among my favourite things to read. Let me be more precise: I like reading about scientific studies that make me feel good about my bad habits. I love scientists who say to themselves: “What poor habits do people have? Let...

Shivaji Sarkar The Nepal floods are a grim warning for not only India, but the entire region. Afghanistan to Tibet, the Himalayan region is one territory – continuous and contiguous geographical unit – that has to share happiness and more than that turmoil together. Each...

Ajit Ranade The Reserve Bank of India recently gave a small but revealing lesson in economic policymaking. On 5 August, Governor Sanjay Malhotra was asked whether the special FCNR(B) scheme, designed to attract foreign currency deposits from non-resident Indians, might be closed before its scheduled...

A very strong Super El Niño is currently brewing in the tropical Pacific, with sea surface temperature anomalies expected to exceed the 2°C threshold by late 2026. Climate scientists predict a high likelihood of this becoming one of the most powerful events on record. Models...

When governments impose economic sanctions, like the "economic D-Day" US President Donald Trump is now imposing on Iran, they portray them as a precision instrument—a scalpel rather than a sword—capable of pressuring ruling elites while sparing ordinary citizens. This narrative has been used to justify...

On 24 August 2024, the Trump administration started “Operation Economic Outcast” in order to totally isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with any country that enables Iran’s economic survival in the global economy. This is not merely an economic onslaught against the Iranian regime...

By publishing a recent article smearing the Nobel laureate economist Daron Acemoglu, The Economist has demonstrated bad judgment, overweening arrogance, and bad faith. The magazine engages with Acemoglu’s academic work disingenuously, quoting the snarky comments of unnamed economists interviewed over drinks to support its argument...

At the governing council meeting of NITI Aayog earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for district-level GDP estimates to shift economic measurement from top-down national aggregates to decentralised, grassroots assessments. Aggregates are neat headline numbers, but they often hide the messy details underneath....

Recent Reserve Bank of India surveys reveal stagnation in income growth with the net response on current income falling to 0.9 from 3.0 while overall spending sentiment moderated to 74.5 from 78.4. At a time when unemployment and even underemployment has emerged as a crucial...