Ajai Shukla: The shadow of Xinjiang
The recent brouhaha over Beijing’s refusal to issue a regular stamped visa for an official visit to China by Lt Gen B S Jaswal, India’s top military commander in J&K, bore the familiar stamp of our public overreaction to Chinese provocation. But there was something remarkable this time. Alongside the “dragon is coming” rants on TV news, [...]
Sanjaya Baru: Diplomat’s business
It is probably a first of its kind. A press release issued by an Indian embassy abroad in support of an Indian company and a very Indian brand. Last week, the Indian embassy in Nepal was constrained to issue a press release alleging that sections of the media in the neighbouring country were seeking to malign an Indian company and suggesting that [...]
Evan A Feigenbaum: Challenge of a changing Asia
It’s been a rough six months in East Asia, as tensions ratchet up in Korea, navies drill, and governments, from China to Vietnam, trade barbs, claims and counterclaims to the South China Sea. But even as anxieties grow, it is economics, not security, that still defines the essential strategic reality of Asia today: China is fast becoming the [...]
Prashant Jha: India and the Kantipur saga
The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu is in the middle of a controversy. It stands accused, yet again, of ‘gross interference' and ‘attacking press freedom in another country', and faces censure from a parliamentary committee, politicians across the spectrum, and civil society groups. Last week, sections of the media, including Kantipur television [...]
Get the macro numbers right
The Central Statistics Office’s estimates of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the June quarter were widely criticized as soon as they were released, since GDP growth measured by the supply-side data and by the demand-side showed a huge divergence. GDP is measured on the supply side by adding up the cost paid to the factors of production [...]
Madhukar Sabnavis: The Indian middle class
A few years ago, my wife and I were returning home in a Honda City, after watching a Manna Dey concert and dining in an Italian restaurant in a five-star hotel, to our two bedroom owned apartment in central Mumbai when my wife innocently said, “We are very middle-class people”. It made me wonder that if we are middle class, who is upper class? [...]
China’s presence in POK
Rajinder Puri Credible media reports from America have revealed China’s latest thrust in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). China has tightened its grip on this region that was illegally ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963 in violation of UN Resolutions on Kashmir. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has [...]
An Alpine haven disappears
India has done well to rework its tax treaty with Switzerland to obtain information on Indians hiding their money in Swiss accounts. However, the new openness will come into force with prospective effect. Past transgressors cannot be brought to book with the new double taxation avoidance agreement that complies with the norms prescribed by rich [...]
Elusive balance against China
Until recently, India viewed Japan, South Korea and Vietnam as prospective investors (the first two) or old friends (the third). Relations with them were “cordial”, diplomatese for boring. Now, suddenly, that is changing and defence ties have acquired new salience. The danger of the South China Sea being turned into a Chinese lake, [...]
Kanika Datta: Second-hand self-esteem
The flutter of interest and comment over Anshu Jain’s candidacy for the top job at Deutsche Bank highlighted just how much India Inc loves to applaud every time any businessman or executive of Indian origin makes it to the top in the developed world. The fortunes of Lakshmi Mittal, baron of the world’s largest steel empire, Arun Sarin, who [...]