It would be wrong to see the re-making of Asia, much less India,as a revolt against the West. Asia has indeed been re-built on the ruins of colonialism, but not on the ruins of all that the West has come to represent.
Unplanned urbanisation can create urban chaos and trigger urban violence.
While free trade purists have always rejected regional and plurilateral trading arrangements, the WTO's charter chose to be pragmatic and regarded RTAs and FTAs as building blocks of, rather than barriers to, the multilateral trading system.
On the upswing of an economic cycle, workers, consumers, savers, investors, and entrepreneurs imagine a future that is brighter than the past. On the downswing, they imagine a future dimmer than the past.
Like war, economics is more an art than a science.
If wars were won by superior technology alone, the United States would not have been vanquished in Vietnam or waylaid in Afghanistan.
It is unfair to constantly allege that Manmohan Singh's only unfulfilled desire is to visit his birthplace in Pakistan and that his Pakistan policy is defined by this obsession.
Real power in the modern world is determined by a nation's economic capabilities, not just the nuclear warheads it stores.
On climate change, Russia's interests are aligned with the West rather than the South.
Ordinary people understand that the rich and powerful bully the poor and meek.
An important instrument of economic policy-making in a market economy is credible, consistent, and timely communication.
On many key global economic issues, Russia's loyalty is divided between the West and the South. As an energy exporter, it stands opposite energy importing China and India. As a commodity trader resisting the influx of cheap Chinese manufactures, its interests in the WTO clash with those of many of the developing economies.
The role of the media in economic management is not often recognised even by professional economists. Politicians, however, ignore this at their own peril.
Crises are inherent to market economies, but managing them is the key to political success, and the media plays a vital role in getting the policy message across.
The Indian voter will not shy away from sacrificing in the national interest. If the voter is convinced that high oil prices are a national challenge and that the government is doing its best to deal with the challenge, the voter would be willing to bear the burden.
Karan Thapar is an endangered species. They don't make them like him anymore. True, thousands have gone to the Doon Valley School after him, as indeed to Oxford and Cambridge universities. But Karan Thapar is more than the sum of his upbringing. He's a gentleman journalist.
China has, without doubt, become an economic superpower.
There are any number of socially relevant causes that publicly minded individuals may feel strongly about. In a democracy, it is for the government of the day to legislate laws to deal with such issues. Not for courts to issue advisories and declare criminal what may often be normal economic activity protecting livelihoods.
If development is defined in social and economic terms while Hindutva is defined in cultural terms, it should be possible for the BJP to construct a political platform that is reassuring to a large majority of Indians and is respectful to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
Just as the policies and programmes for development have to adhere to the law of the land - respecting the basic principles underlying the Constitution - so, too, must the idea of Hindutva.
