Considering 2025 was supposed to be the year for ending the two wars that have raged on, taking countless lives with them, we are sadly saying goodbye to the year without being able to bring about peaceful settlements to both conflicts. Instead, we seem to be ending the year with even more uncertainty about the… Continue reading Ending 2025 Without Ending the Wars
I have been writing on the travails of the advertising industry on my blog for the past couple of years at least. These are based on my observations from the outside, since my career in advertising in India was wrecked over two decades ago by unprofessional organisations. These problems have now reached an existential crisis… Continue reading How the Advertising Industry Can Reinvent Itself
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
The year is ending with Trump doing a whistle-stop tour of several Asian countries – Southeast Asian and East Asian this time – signing several trade agreements along the way. Of course, the highlight at the ASEAN conference in Malaysia was the peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, one of Trump’s many showpiece peace treaties… Continue reading Asia Becoming Theatre of US-China Competition
It’s almost 20 years since I left New Delhi for my aged parents’ home in Chicalim, Vasco, Goa in October 2008. When I watch scenes of the smog-filled air in Delhi-NCR play out on English news channels at this time of the year, year after year, I count myself lucky to not be living or… Continue reading Time Indian Cities Promoted Metro Rail Travel
Sounds like a crazy statement to make about the world’s largest trading bloc, comprising 400 million people, you may think. But not if you consider the EU’s own aspirations and ambitions, captured in Mario Draghi’s voluminous report. The EU’s own predicament faced with the raging Ukranian conflict with Russia on the one hand, and with… Continue reading The EU Needs to Look Beyond Trade for Growth
It was too good to be true. China’s economic growth powered by its exports sector delivered annual rates of real growth between 10% and 14% for years together in the 1980s and 1990s. Something the world watched with awe and admiration, as the Middle Kingdom surged to become the world’s second largest economy in GDP… Continue reading Are the Chickens of China’s State Capitalism Coming Home to Roost?
It was long overdue. In fact, GST should have been launched in 2017 with no more than a couple of slabs. Ideally, it should have been just one at 18%. But in a country like ours where most of the population can barely afford even the daily essentials, perhaps a rate of 5% on some… Continue reading How Car Companies Should Make the Most of GST Rationalisation
The Indian economy is growing at a reasonably rapid pace, though nowhere near the 8%-9% growth recorded in the early and mid-2000s. Still, considering the two huge shocks the world economy has faced in the past two decades – the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic – we have to say that India has… Continue reading It is Time to Build Brand India
In an earlier blog post on media brands, I had written that BBC’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza was found wanting, and that I was particularly disappointed because I happen to be a regular BBC World News viewer and because I had done some advertising work for BBC when they were launching India-specific programmes… Continue reading How the BBC Can Become More Competitive
Peripatetic Perch 