TheJaggi

One has said this before, and one must say it again: there is no rogue state more roguish than the United States of America. No global laws or rules apply to it, but all laws and rules it seeks to impose on the rest of the world will apply to everybody, unless the other party happens to have the power to say no. At this point, only China and Russia seem to have this ability. India’s first focus must be to achieve this degree of sovereignty based on underlying national economic and political power. India found out, again to its discomfiture, that the US will impose its will without even feigning to be diplomatic about it. After killing three Indians on a vessel that apparently did not comply with the US blockade on Iran, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not so much as express regret over the loss of lives. India’s relatively poor power position vis-à-vis the US is primarily the result of a few weaknesses and dependencies: One, our dependence on the vast US goods and service...

If you are an investor in shares or equity mutual funds, there are basically two approaches. One is the safety-first rule, where you spread your risks over a diversified list of shares or funds. In short, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. But if you have a higher risk appetite, there is Andrew Carnegie’s maxim: put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch the basket. The simple takeout is that diversification reduces risk, but also returns. Concentration increases risk, but offers higher rewards. None of this is about investment alone, but about every individual, state or organisation understanding the tradeoffs between risk and reward. If you are going to take huge risks, you must watch the basket very closely. Now, coming to the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), which is the gateway to a course in medicine, the central premise about the concentration of risk in one examination is that the rewards in terms of reduced student stress are high: lakhs of students ...

Indians demonstrate the correctness of Murphy’s law repeatedly: if something can go wrong, it will. If it, miraculously doesn’t, we will find new ways to screw things up. While this is an unflattering view of the average Indian’s (and officialdom’s) chalta-hai attitude, let us step back and ask a different question: what is the single thread (apart from our own follies) that may (or may not) connect the NEET paper leaks, the CBSE exam paper mess (and denial-of-service attacks on the portal), the sudden appearance of the Cockroach Janta Party a few weeks ago, the Bangladesh and Nepal street protests of 2024 and 2025 that sent two incumbent governments packing, the crash of a Tejas aircraft during an airshow in Dubai last year and the endless delays in the delivery of engines for the Tejas programme by GE, the death of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff in a helicopter crash in 2021, and the failure of two PSLV launches - both carrying critical security and surveillance satellites -...

The Narendra Modi government, after 12 years in power, needs a significant (and non-cosmetic) makeover. While it has recovered after the 2024 setback by registering huge wins in West Bengal and Assam, following on the heels of Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar earlier, these political successes are not an end in themselves. Despite a good macroeconomic record so far, there is no guarantee that the government will be able to guide the economy through the current global and technological disruptions unless it has competent people manning the operations. It should work on the assumption that it may take only one major failure for the entire political narrative around its successes to start unravelling. The NEET paper leaks and the ongoing loss of public confidence in the CBSE exam results (which have been badly managed when new technology needs a prolonged period of testing) show that someone is either sleeping on his watch or not very competent. The needle of accountability points ...

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that she is willing to listen to investors on what they have to say about reducing taxes on long-term and short-term capital gains (LTCG and STCG). No harm in listening to anyone, but she would do well to listen to others as well, and not just equity investors who are any way mollycoddled in all tax jurisdictions. There are two things we need to understand. Capital infusion is vital for productivity and growth, so there is a case to be made for giving equity investment some preferential treatment on taxes. The question is how much preferential treatment. Long-term capital gains on equity are taxed at 12.5 percent and short-term at 15 percent provided the transactions are done through stock exchanges on which securities transaction taxes are paid. Now compare this to how debt is taxed. Debt is also capital, and it is taxed in the investor’s hands at his or her tax bracket. At the top end that means a gross tax of over 30 percent, when ...

In all the euphoria over the BJP’s massive win in West Bengal, the Modi government should not forget that good ties with Bangladesh are important. It’s not that New Delhi has been asleep at the wheel. Well before the West Bengal results were out, it had chosen Dinesh Trivedi – a politician – as its new envoy to Dhaka, signalling that ties with that country will be parsed through the political prism as well. After the disastrous tenure of Mohammad Yunus, who was at the helm as chief advisor to the interim government, the elections last February brought in a new majority government headed by Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. From all indications, Rahman wants to improve ties with India, a country that surrounds it on three sides. Any improvement in Bangladesh’s economic situation depends on cooperation with India. Anti-India elements believe they can also tap American and Chinese investments for growth, but geography says something else. It is in India’s interests t...