Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
Looking beyond the Budget numbers to see if government schemes really work
Jack Ma story: China’s deep strategic ambition
Earlier this month, the Chinese tech tycoon, Jack Ma, made his first public appearance ever since the suspension of Ant Group’s $37 billion IPO in November. Ant is an affiliate company of Alibaba, the e-commerce giant that he co-founded. The crackdown on Ant followed Jack Ma’s comments in late October during a public event in Shanghai. He had then criticised Chinese regulators for harbouring a “pawnshop mentality,” focusing on pledges and collaterals when it came to finance.
Voting Technology: Time for electoral reforms
The possibility of improving the quality of leadership is the redeeming feature of democracy. Declining standards in political probity, the unrepresentative character of the elected legislatures, corrupt practices like electoral bonds are major concerns and call for reform of the electoral system.According to an analysis of affidavits of winners in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 43% have criminal cases and 29% have serious criminal cases against them including offences where maximum punishment is five years or more. These offences are non-bailable and relate to assault, kidnap, rape, murder, electoral offences like bribery, corruption causing loss to exchequer, and crimes against women. In 2009, it was 30% and 14% respectively, and the present figures indicate that the number of elected parliamentarians with serious offences has doubled over the past 10 years. As excuses, the foisting of false cases and the pathologies of the criminal justice system are touted to prevent reform. Ironically, a weak criminal justice system favours the perpetuation of political deceit. To expect that the narrow self-interests of political parties will let them push for electoral reform that improves leadership quality would be deluding.Read the full article in Deccan Herald
Indians have put their Republic on a pedestal, forgotten to practice it each day
It’s Republic Day. We will celebrate it as usual with a grand military parade in New Delhi, and flag-hoisting functions at government offices, educational institutions, apartment complexes and neighbourhoods. We will sing patriotic songs, honour our soldiers, listen to a speech by a chief guest and enjoy the rest of the holiday. In some of these functions, we will read out the Preamble to the Constitution aloud, a very good practice that started in recent years and one that ought to become more popular. These apart, there are some unusual developments this year with the invited foreign dignitary unable to turn up in New Delhi and uninvited farmers turning up in their thousands instead, for their very own Republic Day parade.Read the full article on ThePrint
Why the Rupee Overvaluation must be kept in check
Signalling a Race against Time
This article was first published in Deccan Herald. Views are personal.As a child of the nineties, I have had the privilege of watching the internet evolve over the ages. I remember rushing back from school and throwing away my bag to switch on the computer and the internet. Back in the day, you had to fire up the internet through a landline connection. And while you were online, if someone wanted to use the landline, the internet connection would be disrupted. But boy was all of it worth it. I would have gone anywhere on the internet (but mostly stayed at Orkut) to chat with my friends.‘Network effects’ made Orkut the place for me, just as they make social media apps like WhatsApp popular today. The basic idea behind network effects is that you are on WhatsApp because your friends are on it, and your friends are on it because their friends (and you) are on it. It’s a simple principle and one that is likely going to be the downfall of Signal.
Why India will not see a big second wave of Covid-19
There will not be a significant second wave of Covid-19 in India.
Last August, using a Cynically Optimistic Back Of The Envelope, or COBOTE, calculation, I estimated that Covid-19 will end its epidemic phase in India by January 2021. Karthik Shashidhar, my collaborator, used the curve-fitting technique to predict that the pandemic will be over in the country by February 2021. It appears that these predictions were not too far off the mark.
Weaning away foreign investment from China
Over the past few years, there has been much discussion about India attracting firms that might be seeking to exit China. Initially, these conversations were driven by changes in the Chinese economy, such as rising labour costs, shifting focus towards new technologies and declining productivity. There was a sense that these changes, coupled with improving infrastructure and ease of doing business in India, would make India an attractive option.
Will Indian Scientific Temper Survive 2021?
(This article was first published in The Wire)2020 was a disaster year for almost everyone – but it was a unique opportunity for Indian science. An oft-neglected enterprise, it received unprecedented attention as scientists tried to innovate in the diagnostics, treatment and vaccine spaces. Taken together, this was an opportunity to demonstrate India’s capabilities and expertise – not just for a domestic audience but the international one as well.The obstacles 2020 brought were a ladder for Indian science to rise up to a leadership position and become a driver of the Indian economy.
But opacity, ambiguity and distrust have squandered this opportunity. Only two weeks into 2021 and India has claimed a major casualty – scientific temper – and the suspects are not the usual zealots or the so-called “lay people” but the very custodians of the ‘temple’ of science. (Read more)
America’s strategic rivalry with China won’t change under Biden
The United States’ Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, an extant policy document declassified and published last week by the outgoing Donald Trump administration, is mostly music to New Delhi’s ears. Assuming that “a strong India, in cooperation with like-minded countries, would act as a counterbalance [to] China", one of Washington’s objectives is to “accelerate India’s rise and capacity to serve as a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner" and “solidify an enduring strategic partnership with India underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States and our partners in the region to address shared interests." Becoming India’s preferred partner on security issues is one of the desired ends of the United States’ policy. Much of this has already been stated by US officials over the past two decades. But mere talk is cheap. The cold hard print of an apex policy document ought to make Washington’s intentions a lot more credible in New Delhi.Read the full article on The Mint
Decoding the Signals Surrounding Signal’s Success
The defining feature of 21st-century innovation has been the reduction of friction.The most successful companies of our times – Google, Facebook, Uber, and so on – follow what economists David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee call the “Matchmaker” business model. These companies make their money by making it easier for one group of people to connect with another group of people almost effortlessly. Uber, for instance, makes it easy for cab drivers and cab riders to find each other, a job that has historically caused great frustration, as anyone who has attempted to hail an auto in Bengaluru in the old-fashioned, “wave-your-hands-frantically-as-if-you-are-drowning” way can attest.Read the full article in The Wire
A small step for Google
If you were to ask a group of a hundred people about their choice of a dream employer, chances are a significant number of them would mention Google. Picture modern offices with Google's theme, which the journalist, Steven Levy, once described as, "decorated in a style that mixed high-tech Dumpster with nursery school". And while Google remains the aspirational employer for most people, all is not well at Google’s campus.Over 200 workers at Alphabet (Google's parent company), including employees and contractors, have decided to unionise to stand up against issues of pay disparity, harassment, and controversial government contracts. The first one is relatively self-explanatory. Let me provide some context for the latter two.In 2018, the New York Times reported that Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, was accused of sexual misconduct by a Google employee. Although Google had asked him to leave in 2014, it had paid him a $90 million exit package and given him a hero’s farewell, it said. It argued that he was one of three senior executives Google had “protected” after they were accused of sexual misconduct at the organisation in 10 years.This article was first published in Deccan Herald, you can read more by clicking on this link. Views are personal.
Cautious Optimism
The welcome to the new year was wishfully cheerful, riding more hope than evidence. Economic data that is coming out is still mixed, yet hopeful. But to have survived the year 2020 is itself a cause of celebration.Read the full article on OrissaPost
DCGI’s Covaxin ‘approval’ is political jumla. It reinforces idea of Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat
Other than to the highly credulous, it is pretty obvious that the Drugs Controller General of India’s ‘approval’ for Bharat Biotech’s indigenous vaccine candidate, Covaxin, was announced for extra-scientific reasons. It has neither completed Phase 3 clinical trials, nor has the safety and efficacy data been published. In fact, the drug regulator has not so much approved the vaccine for general public use, but rather granted permission for “restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode…”.
Again, other than to the highly credulous, it is pretty obvious that such an ‘approval’ was announced alongside that of the Serum Institute’s Covishield for political reasons. The Narendra Modi government did not want to lose the opportunity to score political points: that India has produced an indigenous vaccine under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
No matter what Bharat Biotech says, Covaxin is just not ready for approvals
Bharat Biotech got an approval for its COVID-19 vaccine and along with it came a lot of flak from critics who believe that the process was rushed for no valid reason. Dr Krishna Ella, the founder and chairman of Bharat Biotech, retaliated blaming everyone from the media to rival vaccine makers, except that his arguments hold no water.The drug regulator's approval for any new drug or vaccine is based on the understanding that the drug or vaccine's benefits outweigh its risks. However, considering that he admitted that Phase-III trials are still underway, there is no final estimate of Covaxin’s efficacy, and without that number, the approval should not have been granted.Benefits like how effective the vaccine is in preventing disease, and risks such as high mortality rate if the vaccine is not given or vaccine side-effects, are critical data that inform the approval. (Read more)
Having survived 2020 is in itself a cause for celebration
The welcome to the new year was wishfully cheerful, riding more on hope than on evidence. The economic data that is coming out is still mixed, yet hopeful. But to have survived 2020 is itself a cause for celebration. Disease, death, economic destruction and yet resilience, fortitude and determination is how most people experienced the last year. Most of the country, for much of 2020, was in lockdown mode, which was progressively diluted.The lockdown is still operative in many States. It has affected jobs, income and livelihoods, especially in the informal sector. The plight of the urban migrant workers in the country is now well known, and was even mentioned by the Prime Minister in his radio address. The rural economy turned out to be their saviour. The adverse economic impact on small and medium businesses has been severe. The exact detailed economic picture of India’s vast informal sector becomes clear only with a lag.Read the full article in the Free Press Journal
The big convergence challenge that we face in this new decade
We enter the third decade of this millennium amid rising doubts, risks and worries about technology, markets, nationalism, democracy and the world order. The unqualified enthusiasm for them that we saw in the past two decades has given way to concerns about what their right dosage is, and what, if any, are the antidotes should we have willy-nilly overdosed on any of them. This is good. Societies that try to answer them truthfully and thoughtfully can expect to emerge stronger and more successful in 2030. For public policy, as for investors and value creators, the opportunities and risks lie at the intersection of technology, health, society and geopolitics.Read the full article in The Mint
India, China and the Proverbial 13-year gap that is widening
Why blocking Sci-Hub will actually hurt national interest
Earlier this month, three foreign academic publishers sued two foreign websites for copyright infringement in a case before the Delhi High Court. Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society, among the world’s largest publishers of academic papers, wanted the court to block Sci-Hub and LibGen, the largest providers of ‘free downloads’ of their content in India. This case is important because it can have a significant impact on the broader research, academic and education environment in India.Read More on ThePrint