Ever since Gunnar Myrdal’s ASIan Drama, which castigated India as a “soft state”, western observers, as well as many members of the Nehruvian wing of Macaulay’s children, have failed to understand the anarchical society which has existed in India for millennia. A recent review (Journal of Economic Literature, September 2009) by Lant Pritchett (a former World Bank official in Delhi) of Financial Times’ former India correspondent Edward Luce’s book In...

As an Indian, and one who has held high ministerial office, it is only right that I begin by portraying the reality of my own country before drawing comparisons with my South ASIan neighbours. The World Food Programme tells us that half the world’s hungry live in India. Which is the more significant reality: Our being the second-fastest growing economy in the world, or that, notwithstanding that extraordinarily high growth...

An astonishing 200 million children under the age of five, almost all in Africa and ASIa, suffer from the debilitating impact of stunted growth resulting from a lack of food and the right nutrients, a new United Nations report warned today. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition, also stressed that undernutrition contributes to a third of deaths of all children under five each year,...

With inter-state relations getting increASIngly focused on integration, the impetus for summits and meetings has been on the increase. However, there is also the resounding feeling that these are becoming more rhetorical than real. Almost every month we hear of a summit or a meeting of states, but the actual progress towards resolution of issues and problems in inter-state relations has been less effective and focused. This was clearly evident...

India has blocked entry to a former US naval ship heading for break-up at a scrap yard on its west coast, citing environmental and pollution concerns. The ministry of environment and forests said it inspected Platinum-II and found the ship contained toxic material.   There are also concerns that the ship has been brought into India with false documentation, the ministry says. The ship reached Indian waters last month, but was...