Large giveaways, sops to please various constituencies, tax concessions to win the middle class, etc. Nothing surprising in the interim (read election) budget announced a few days ago in India. But when you consider that the ruling party alliance came to power with the largest majority in a long time and on the back of… Continue reading Largesse Oblige Needed
Think of Scandinavia, and images of cold, barren and forbidding landscapes come to mind. Of fjords and ice floes. Of well-inhabited towns in the south and the desolate, arctic north. Then again, as the music of The Beatles and Billy Joel have reminded us, it is anything but. And, if you like Edvard Grieg’s Peer… Continue reading Of Sheltering Scandinavian Skies
As we commemorate India’s 70th Republic Day, I can’t help but think how our politicians have distorted and misconstrued our nation’s great Constitution. And when Election season comes around, we are always prone to resort to populist measures and gestures of grandeur. The illuminated Rashtrapati Bhavan on the occasion of 60th Republic Day celebrations in… Continue reading India’s Great (10%) Leap Forward
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If Britain severs its ties with the European Union, where does it belong? It’s too small to be a continent by itself. Many think it’s too diverse to even be called a country. The Scots and the Irish don’t want out. But the Welsh want to leave. And, most importantly, Brexiteers want out, we are… Continue reading Breaks-it, But Will Britain Make It?
The ignominious exit of Carlos Ghosn from Nissan Motors is making international headlines at the moment, but I would like to focus on something a little different in this piece and then examine the fate of Mr Ghosn in that context. We are all facing the effects of technological disruption in our lives and in… Continue reading Here Today, Ghosn Tomorrow
It had been a while since I ordered a copy of Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari’s second book. I read his first book, Sapiens, sometime in October last year and had reviewed it in a post on my blog. I enjoyed it so much that I was eagerly looking forward to reading Homo Deus. And… Continue reading Homo Deus (sans machina)
We’re a week into 2019 and while we’re in the third week of the government shutdown in the US and just a week away from Britain's parliament voting on Brexit, I thought I would share some positive news with readers of my blog site. What govt shutdown, what Brexit? I was not born in the… Continue reading A New Year, a New Blog Site… and Owl that Jazz!
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom… You never what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” - William Blake. This might be a strange note on which to begin the new year, but not if one looks at the signs all around us. Listening to some world leaders, you might… Continue reading A Decade of Excess, and the Scars are still Visible
What a year 2018 has been. As it draws to a close, I can’t help thinking about how we got from alarm over a third world war breaking out (and worse, a nuclear one) at the start, to a G20 Summit in Argentina at the end. Even if we weren’t listening all the time and… Continue reading 2018: A ‘ear for Music
Peripatetic Perch 