Showing 1 - 6 of 6
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.
Modi should fear strength of opposition
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 22/05/2018
» As a politician, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is distinguished by his relentlessness. Every vote, every constituency, every election matters. Mr Modi has built his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into an electoral juggernaut that runs 21 of India's 29 states; 70% of India's population is ruled by the BJP at both the state and the federal level.
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.
New tax system all tangled up
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 28/09/2017
» India's new indirect tax system, which for the first time tries to standardise most taxes across this vast country's many states, is proving to be even more difficult and disruptive to implement than first feared. That speaks to the unnecessary complexity the government's introduced into what should have been the simplest of laws.
India and China learn how to turn down the heat
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 30/08/2017
» As summer reached the high Himalayas this past June, one corner of the mountains turned hotter than expected. On a small plateau called Doklam, close to where the India-China border meets the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, two of the largest armies in the world faced off against each other. Chinese soldiers, convinced they were on Chinese territory, had brought equipment to extend a road; Indian soldiers, who viewed the land as disputed, blocked the earth-movers. For three months, the armies camped just metres away from each other, the Indians on the higher ground and the Chinese in a little valley. Neither government seemed to know how to back down.
An age of undiplomatic diplomacy
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 09/05/2017
» What happens when strongmen meet? We know that the world is slowly filling up with populist nationalists, from Manila to Washington. But how do they plan to deal with each other? Will they join forces against the sanctimonious, supra-national powers that dismay them all? Or will they compete, as erstwhile tough guys seem most comfortable doing?