Wanted- A Big Bang Budget

These are extraordinary times and we witness extraordinary phenomena. Three weeks before the Union Budget, when finance ministers customarily crawl under their carapaces, the honourable…

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The Big Squeeze

Turkmenistan’s “President for Life” Saparmurat Niyazov erected a 50-ft gold-plated statue of himself in the centre of the capital Ashgabat, eight years before he gave…

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The Enemy Within

Iran’s much-vaunted Islamic revolution appears to have finally spilled over into India. Chanting Allah-o- Akbar and wielding primitive weapons like lathis bristling with nails, bicycle…

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Panic Button

Reading An Account of the Great Fear, or Grande Peur, that swept across France in July and August of 1789, I was struck by the…

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TOO BIG TO FAIL

Independence day is a good excuse for some economic chest-thumping. We should be proud that lndia is a free-enterprise democracy. Imagine the world’s burden if…

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SUFFER THE CHILDREN

The other day, I watched this video of four-year-old Jackson Drew reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) and marvelled…

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