Are elections bad for the rupee?
In a short post over at the Economist’s Banyan blog, I try to evaluate the relationship between the rupee and India’s electoral cycle.
Notes
A prayer for a daughter
I stumbled on this today on Facebook, and it has to be one of the sweetest things I’ve read in a while. Tina Fey’s prayer for her daughter begins thus… First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches….
A rupee reading list
Ajay Shah, one of my favourite writers on the subject of the Indian economy, has a column in the Economics Times this week on why the Ministry of Finance needs to be reformed. His blog post on the subject was a lot more trenchant and expansive, but sadly has since…
A Sisyphean Task
At the time of writing this post the Indian rupee has lost 17% of its value against the US dollar since early May, while the Nifty has dropped by around 14%. The RBI and the government have undertaken a series of mostly short-term measures to curb the rupee’s fall, from…
A great relationship?
Some notes on David Cameron’s visit to India and the Anglo-Indian bilateral relationship in the Huffington Post. Last week the UK prime minister, David Cameron, was in India making a strong pitch for bilateral trade, talking of the potential for a “great relationship” to be formed between the two countries….
Whither Pakistan
2013 promises to be a year of big transitions in Pakistan, including a historic change of guard in the civilian government, and the retirements of General Kayani and the CJ, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The World Tonight on Radio 4 aired a special on Wednesday that highlighted some interesting differences of…
Trivial Pursuits
An interesting tidbit from Ram Guha’s masterly book, India after Gandhi. I wish we were taught more of our post-Independence history in school. For some reason the NCERT seemed to believe that history ended in 1947, with everything that came after relegated on the civics and economics textbooks.
Long Reads
Last week I got to pick my favourite piece of long form journalism for LongReads‘ weekly newsletter, and went with Caravan’s in-depth profile of Narendra Modi – The Emperor Uncrowned It’s a compelling, well-researched portrait of Narendra Modi, an Indian politician and the chief minister of Gujarat. During his watch,…
While I sit here..
While I sit here eating bagels with cream cheese and drinking coffee too fast, it is 6.30pm somewhere in the world. Someone, somewhere is playing hip-hop loudly while getting dressed for a third date. Someone is tumbling out of bed with a crick in their neck and promising to restart…
Chennai Calling..
A guest post by my sister, on coming home.. Coming back to this city always delights me. I revel in the familiarity that home brings; the comfort of amma’s food, the constant churn of people in the house, the amazing ability to imbibe copious amounts of cardamom laced tea. Even…
Girls and Toys
Whenever my dad or relatives came back from trips to London, the trademark thick white plastic bag with its pictures of soldiers in red coats and black bearskin hats meant only one thing – a gift from Hamleys. In my case this usually meant a box of magic tricks, more…
Carnival
A lovely weekend, topped off by the Carnival – Europe’s largest and second only to Brazil (I am faithfully informed by the interwebs). The riots have meant that the carnival, much like London in recent weeks, was slightly more subdued than in the past. But good cheer, colourful costumes and…
Sunny Spring Mornings
Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight. Equilibrium is pragmatic. You have to get everything into proportion. You compensate, rebalance yourself so that you maintain your angle to the world. When the world shifts, you shift. – Tom Stoppard
New Zealand Economic View
On BBC’s World Business Report (10 Mar 2011), discussing the rate cut announced by the RBNZ, and New Zealand’s prospects following last month’s earthquake.
Revolutionizing Renewable Energy and Fashion
I went to the Earth Awards last week, and got to see some innovative ‘green’ solutions.. And, got to blog about it at the paper.. David Wendell wants to revolutionize renewable energy by taking a page out of nature’s book, and improving it. His new technology captures carbon and transforms…
Life is..
I make plans, dream little dreams, dream bigger ones. Think of how I’ll be when I finally grow up.. Of all the things I want to do, places I want to see, people I want to be. But life? Life doesn’t care so much about the five year plans and…
Ten Years Ago
I did not own a mobile phone. This was probably a good thing, since mobile phones were the size of a ham radio – not including the extendable antenna The computer I used had a CRT monitor, as did my television There was no Facebook There was also no broadband….
Sam’s Story by Elmo Jayawardena
Earlier this month, Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times about the price of war, and why it continues to be easy to wage The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few…
Once Again to Zelda by Marlene Wagman-Geller
Just finished reading this rather cute collection, which traces the stories behind some of the dedications in books. As the author says, some of these back stories are as, if not more, interesting than the works themselves. It tells tales of love, intrigue, lust, failure, heartbreak and the search for…
Where have all the Big Ideas gone?
Science (and Social Science, by extension) has its rightful place in the trenches, at the borders of human understanding. Yet, I’m trying to reconcile the meaning of daily activity – reading of papers on 18th century mercantilism, and the endless debating of merits of Large-N studies, with the ‘Big Picture’….
Hamlet – The Clown Prince
I was initially skeptical of Hamlet, arguably one of Shakespeare’s finest tragedies, being re-imagined as a comedy. In case you don’t remember the storyline, Atul Kumar (playing a clown who plays Hamlet), helpfully summarizes the plot for the audience at the beginning Hamlet dies, Ophelia dies, Gertrude dies, Claudius dies…
Plus ça change
I first started blogging in 2004. I was twenty years old, in my last year of college and had no idea what I was going to do once I grow up. Since then, I’ve lived in two countries, in three different cities, moved four apartments and now, five years later,…
Grocery Shopping
Every year, usually around January, I realize that there is a wide gap between who I am and who I want to be. Nowhere is this more evident than in my grocery shopping. Like most people I’m rather fond of junk food. One of the semi-cheap thrills of moving to…
Merseyside
Welcome to Liverpool, home to the Beatles, scouse, a Tate and a football team that apparently never walks alone. One of this year’s European Capitals of Culture (the other being Stavanger in Norway), the city seemed to be gearing up for a summer influx of tourists with scaffolding everywhere and…
Moorish Escapades
My only knowledge of Morocco comes from the movie Casablanca, which I later learned wasn’t even shot there. Before we left, I had mental images of Oriental splendour and deep dark intrigues in narrow alleyways. I wasn’t disappointed. The Riad – A home away from home We spent most of…