The first Africa-India Forum summit was held at New Delhi earlier this month. There were several other events organised on the sidelines of the Summit: the first ever India-Africa Editors Conference, joint performances by Indian and African cultural troupes a seminar of intellectuals from Africa and India on India-Africa Partnership in the 21st century, a […]
Raj Chetty, an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the winner of the The American magazine’s 2008 Young Economist Award, a research grant of $100,000 provided by the Searle Freedom Trust.
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To be eligible for the award, economists have to be featured in the magazine’s bimonthly column entitled “The Young Economist,” […]
The Indian Finance Ministry has launched an internship programme.
More details available here - link
Sounds fascinating. If you’re interested, apply soon, since the deadline is nigh — 15 Jan.
A courtesy salaam to Ajay Shah.
Q) Is this the first such internship programme in the Finance Ministry?
Demolishing the myth of “historical ties” and “strategic partnership that has stood the test of time”.
Noted defence analyst Ajai Shukla, in his column for the Business Standard (reproduced on his blog Broadsword ), has highlighted the changing paradigm of the Indo-Russian relationship. He also suggests that India has been unable to come to terms with […]
While declaring the emergency on 3 November, the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf lamented -
I am observing that Capital and Business that was flowing into the country is now stopped - they are now questioning whether to invest here or not Pakistan will remain stable. Our economy, the livelihood of our nation which improved over the […]
The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) is the largest student-run business plan contest in the world, which provides mentoring, exposure and prizes for social ventures from around the world. GSVC started off at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, and since then, Columbia Business School, Yale School of Management, London Business School and the […]
A report in the Khaleej Times highlights the unattractive nature of a military career in India; not only for the young aspirants, but also for those who have already served for a significant period in uniform.
Officers and men are deserting the Indian armed forces — the second-largest in the world after China — in droves. […]
I then asked her what she wanted me to do.
She said, “I want you to enter Pakistan.”
And I responded, “That means war!”
She said, “I do not mind if it is war.”
“Have you read the Bible?”, I said.
The Foreign Minister, Sardar Swaran Singh asked, “What has Bible got to do with this?”
Chris Zook, director of global strategy at consulting firm Bain & Co., highlights certain facts from Bain’s analysis of Fortune 500 companies over last two decades. He contends that only one-in-three from the Fortune 500 companies in 1994 survived intact, i.e., without bankruptcy, without acquisition by or integration into another company, or without fundamental changes […]
Daniel Altman in his IHT blog opines
Not so long ago, there were only two countries that collected client states around the world: the United States and the Soviet Union. These days, it seems like anyone with some economic clout can join in the fun. China has Sudan, Venezuela has Bolivia, and now Japan has India.
It […]
The Military Balance 2007 estimates world military expenditure in 2005 to have been approximately $1.2 trillion. A plausible estimate for current world spending is $1.35 trillion. By contrast, the SIPRI yearbook estimates 2006 world expenditure to have been around $1.2 trillion. The estimates differ largely because The Military Balance relies more heavily on Purchasing Power […]
Sri Aurobindo was born on this day, Aug 15th, in 1872.
Among the intellectual and spiritual giants born in this land, Sri Aurobindo has a special standing. Go read about Sri Aurobindo and lament the fact that dwarfs rule the land today.
Here’s Sri Aurobindo on Indian spirituality:
Spirituality is the master key of the Indian mind. […]
The DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu state promising a free colour television for every household, regardless of income or the number of television sets already owned. And now it is setting up a company to provide cable television. Bad? Not quite. As Badri Sheshadri writes, it is probably the only way to inject […]
Pragati - The Indian National Interest Review is a monthly magazine on strategic affairs and public policy; and is devoted to promoting economic freedom, an open society and realism in international relations. It regularly features articles and essays from many IEB bloggers.
You can download and subscribe to the free digital community edition of the […]
I have worked in India and in Indian organisations abroad for a large part of my professional career. However when I think back I cannot recall more than 2 physically disabled colleagues during that entire time. Mind you, I am a sociable kind of person so my visual - and conversational - range extended beyond […]
…and the twain shall never meet. It was a gathering of retired, about-to-retire and planning-to-retire Indian military officers - an amorphous rendezvous, where most of the participants were attempting a successful transition from the uniformed to the corporate life. Atanu Dey was also there and he addressed them in his usual manner – luculent, frank, […]
Nitin Rao, who blogs at Next Billion sent us this guest post
I recently met a senior teacher at a small private school in Hyderabad. What differentiates her school from the neighboring schools, she proudly told me, is the superior IIT Foundation coaching. Schools charge premium tuition and teachers higher pay for IIT Coaching.
As I came […]
Res ipsa loquitur
The official figure for the shortage of officers in the Indian army is 24.1%, a shortfall of 11238 officers against an authorization of 46615.
Imagine the impact on the army budget, if all the deficiencies in the officer cadre were to be suddenly made up. The current revenue to capital expenditure ratio of […]
Safety in numbers
Indian Army’s record has many parallels with that of the Indian cricket team; one unmitigated disaster (1962), one unqualified success (1971), two stalemates (1948 and 1965), a cataclysmic foreign policy blunder (IPKF in Sri Lanka) and a pyrrhic PR victory in Kargil (1999). The pusillanimous display by the top brass and their strategic […]
Budgeting- ‘Guns versus Butter’
The Indian budgeted defence expenditure (DE) for the current year (2007-08) is Rs. 96,000 crore and the Indian Army’s share of this pie is approximately 47%. The DE is 2.07% of the GDP; the corresponding figures for Pakistan and China are 3.4% and 2.8 % respectively. But there is a […]