Sunday, February 9, 2025
Dreams of a Ferrari on India’s potholed roads By RN Bhaskar The picture is courtesy CoPilot The Union Budget should get announced within days of this column being put out in public domain.  There is abundant speculation that the government will pull...
Can the US dollar survive for long? By RN Bhaskar 'In 10 years, there will be no more Israel.' -- Henry Kissinger as quoted in https://nypost.com/2023/12/03/opinion/remembering-my-late-friend-former-secretary-of-state-henry-kissinger/   The US dollar is under siege.  And much of this is on account of three reasons ...
Are there limits to a fudge? RN Bhaskar Both pictures are courtesy Canva -- https://www.canva.com – The term 2+2=5 is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984 where the protagonist wonders if the constant propagation of this foolish formula could lead people to...
What US magic will be on display after 20 January 2025? RN Bhaskar Picture from https://www.canva.com/ The countdown has begun. The world watches with bated breath. All eyes are on the US.  What will it do after January 20, when Trump assumes...
Picture source https://www.canva.com Only jobs and good education can end the desperate times for the poor in India RN Bhaskar Before we get to the article on desperate times, there are two items on the agenda. First, Festive greetings.  My greetings can be...
When money become skittish RN Bhaskar Last week, a Bloomberg newsletter disclosed a very interesting fact.  That as many as 107 companies overseas, accounting for a total value of $16.5 billion had been acquired by Indian entrepreneurs.  This represented the largest...
Property Taxes don’t reflect any maturing of the Indian economy RN Bhaskar On 2 February 2024, the Municipal Commissioner of the BMC (BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation or the erstwhile name Bombay Municipal Corporation) made a formal statement about the Corporation’s annual budget. ...
Much of India is poorer than the sub-Saharan region By RN Bhaskar After all the talk about Viksit Bharat, last fortnight’s developments have highlighted the hollowness of such claims. What is ironic is that instead of focussing on the key economic...
The ghosts of demonetisation By RN Bhaskar On November 25, the Finance Ministry of India made a surprisingly candid statement before the Lok Sabha (https://www.business-standard.com/finance/news/fake-currency-notes-of-rs-500-rs-2-000-surge-threefold-in-3-years-finmin-124112700867_1.html).  It admitted that the number of fake Rs.500 notes was on the rise.  Effectively, it was...
The FM should look at the causes – Interest rates are the symptom RN Bhaskar In recent days the Finance Minister, N. Sitharaman has made public statements about the need for banks to lower lending rates (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/interest-rates-need-to-be-far-more-affordable-fm-nirmala-sitharaman/articleshow/115431945.cms). She said that the...