Showing 1 - 10 of 16
Denials of Sikh separatist plots sound hollow
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 29/11/2023
» Two months ago, relations between India and Canada deteriorated swiftly when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that prosecutors possessed "credible evidence" that the Indian state was behind the assassination of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia. It now looks like -- if Indian intelligence did in fact arrange that killing -- it may not have been a one-time event. The White House has confirmed that it is "deeply concerned" that there was a similar plot to kill another Sikh separatist, this time on US soil.
Investment will not bring peace to Kashmir
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 08/08/2019
» India's parliament has rubber-stamped the government's decision to end Kashmir's 70 years of autonomy and turn it into a "union territory" closely supervised by New Delhi.
Nobody's got a clue on India's poll
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/03/2019
» India's parliamentary elections are like no others in the world. Nine hundred million people are eligible to vote in 2019, for 573 constituencies -- the largest of which contains almost three million voters. The country will take 39 days to vote; some states, like giant Uttar Pradesh with a population of 200 million, will vote in seven stages. And, on May 23, we will get to know who won.
The cost of a Modi election victory
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/12/2018
» Many of us have long argued that, whatever its problems, India is one of the best long-term bets in the world for one simple reason: It has the sort of world-class institutions that can help build and sustain a genuine market economy. Sadly, many of those same institutions are being undermined by the country's own leaders -- most recently the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which Prime Minister Narendra Modi appear intent on subjugating as part of his bid for reelection. Of all people, Mr Modi should recognise that no election victory is worth giving up on India's best chance at becoming a world-beating economy.
Belt and Road hits a pothole in Pakistan
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 12/10/2018
» Pakistan's government has finally admitted it needs help. Finance Minister Asad Umar says he will be meeting officials of the International Monetary Fund in Bali this weekend. There he'll try and work out the terms for a bailout that would cover a US$10 billion (328 billion baht) hole in Pakistan's financing needs.
Worrying days for dissent in India
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 31/08/2018
» Indian liberals are reeling from a shocking set of arrests this week: Synchronised police raids targeted some of the country's best-known civil-liberties activists.
China's Silk Road isn't so smooth
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 12/07/2018
» You may not have noticed, what with the outbreak of trade war with the US and all, but China's economic diplomacy has had a bad few weeks. The country's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is dealing with ever-greater resistance, slowing a momentum that once seemed unstoppable. In fact, I'd argue that the BRI is stalled.
Tiny ad may set Indians free at last
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 16/06/2018
» It was the most carefully examined square of newsprint in recent Indian history. Last week, a small job ad appeared on the inside pages of some newspapers looking for candidates for the post of "joint secretary" in the Indian government. Within a few hours, the ad had gone viral: Opposition politicians had weighed in, Twitter was agog and hundreds of thousands of 40ish Indians wondered if they had one last opportunity to make their parents proud.
Does Modi deserve a second term?
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 30/05/2018
» Four years ago this week, Narendra Modi was sworn in as India's prime minister amid the kind of excitement and expectation not seen in decades. Not for 30 years had a single party won an electoral majority. Mr Modi's success, his rhetoric and his background all seemed like a decisive break with India's past.
Indians' skills don't match up -- yet
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 16/11/2017
» If India is to live up the expectations of its own people and become a successful middle-income country in a few decades, the country has multiple problems to solve -- its sclerotic politics, its clogged infrastructure, its choked judicial system, its lack of investable capital, its interfering and inefficient state. But perhaps the greatest hurdle is its poor stock of human capital. Without better education, health and skills, India won't be able to build a middle class and its efforts to become the next China can't succeed.