I first met Professor Suresh Tendulkar when I was a student at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). He had also joined around the same time as a teacher at DSE. I have two vivid memories of him as a teacher. First, he would use the blackboard in a particular manner. He would start from one end of the board and write till the end of it. The board was...
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NREGS and the fast disappearing artisan by Nirmala Sitharaman
A thinking government, regional or central, would ensure sustainable wages for skilled artisans and help them market the handcrafted products, instead of letting them join the NREGS queue. The design and execution of the much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) are likely to leave a lasting impact on some areas of our economy. Surely, the prototype version did not foresee that it would act as a catalyst for changes that...
More »South Asia's growing modernity masks women's plight by Nita Bhalla
South Asia may boast a number of women leaders and be home to cultures that revere motherhood and worship female deities, but many women live with the threat of appalling violence and without many basic rights. From forced marriages in Afghanistan and "honor killings" in Pakistan to foeticide in India and trafficking in Nepal, South Asian women face a barrage of dangers, experts say, but add growing awareness, better laws and...
More »A weakness born of bad intent by Siddharth Varadarajan
Like millions of others across India, I have spent the past week repelled by the spectacle of a weak government entering into improbable contortions over the naive and somewhat bizarre demands of Baba Ramdev. And when the “toughness” followed in the early hours of Sunday, it came in a typically cowardly fashion — with police action in the dead of the night against unarmed supporters who did not pose an...
More »Is Ramdev a dhongi baba? by Ramakrishna SR
If nothing else, the Delhi police raid on Baba Ramdev's camp on Sunday has helped clear some confusion. The midnight swoop was unexpected, but we now know that the central government, which treated the yoga guru like an honoured state guest when he first arrived in Delhi, is his enemy. Congress leader Digvijay Singh has described Ramdev as a "thug" and a "fraud". In turn, Ramdev has accused the centre of...
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