TheJaggi

The eruption of protests among general category (GC) students over the new University Grants Commission (UGC) equity regulations speaks poorly of the kind of thinking that goes in the supposedly “Hindutva-oriented” government of Narendra Modi. In particular, it shows Union HRD Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, who has to own up these guidelines, in a very poor light. Either he is complicit, or he was sleeping on the job. It is pointless to mouth political slogans like “ batenge to katenge ” and “ ek hain to safe hain ”, when actions like the UGC guidelines achieve the exact opposite. These guidelines will not only promote inter-caste conflict, but will do nothing to eliminate the real discrimination that some castes face, whether in society or on campuses. It is nobody’s case that discrimination is a thing of the past, but it is counter-productive to pretend that discrimination will end by tilting the scales against GCs. As this Swarajya report points out, the guidelines, which single out...

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, made a remarkable speech at Davos, where the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been in session. Shorn of nuances, it sounds almost exactly like how India would frame its choices and actions in today's world - or even the one that was gradually emerging before Donald Trump took over and made things nasty. The three main points Carney made were the following: One , there is no point pretending that the rules-based order still prevails. The rules-based order exists only to the extent one is willing to subordinate one's will to that of the hegemons. He said it simply. We must accept reality and "stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is - a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their own interests, using economic integration as coercion." (Read the full text of his comments here ). Two, while it would be sensible for all countries to...

Vodafone Idea, the beleaguered telecom operator, received a strong lifeline from the government earlier this month. Under the relief package, 95 percent of the dues of Rs 87,695 crore owed to the government will be frozen for a decade. Vodafone will pay only Rs 124 crore per annum for six years starting March 2026, and then Rs 100 crore for the next four, before paying up the balance 95 percent in six equated monthly instalments after the department of telecom recomputes what Vodafone owes it on account of adjusted gross revenues (AGR).In a judgment delivered in September 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the government’s definition of AGR, which meant that telecom companies had to shell out massive amounts for past dues. While all telcos were impacted, Vodafone Idea was the worst affected, thanks to its massive debts and accumulated losses.  In the quarter ended September 2025, Vodafone reported losses of Rs 5,524 crore, and its total debt amounted to Rs 2.39 lakh crore....

The recently-concluded municipal elections in Maharashtra, where the BJP-led Mahayuti won 24 out of 29 civic bodies, including the all-important Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has catapulted Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (Deva Bhau to his political fans) as one of the front-runners in the race to succeed Narendra Modi, whenever that happens.  Of the three potential contenders for the top job in Delhi, assuming the BJP remains in power in 2029 and beyond, Fadnavis is 55, Yogi Adityanath 53, and Amit Shah 61. All have age on their side since there is unlikely to be a vacancy at Lok Kalyan Marg in the near future. Of the three, Fadnavis has the additional advantage of being from Nagpur, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Sangh is favourably inclined towards him, though it is also warming up to Yogi. Shah’s strength is his indispensability to the organisation as its main election strategist, and by virtue of his indirect control of the organisa...

Among India's many policy failures, the failure to emphasise public transport over private is surely one of its biggest. In calender 2025, thanks to goods and services tax (GST) cuts, Indians bought 4.5 million four-wheelers and over 20 million two-wheelers , adding to urban congestion and pollution at a time when urban living conditions are worsening. Put simply, the GST reforms - while welcome for breathing life into automobile assembly lines - have a clear downside. This does not mean the tax cuts should not have been done, but that the negative social and economic effects of forcing people to depend more on private transport must be dealt with as an urgent issue. There are two ways to tax private vehicles: one is to tax them at source though indirect taxes (like GST), and the other is to tax them at local levels through registration charges, higher parking fees and tolls. While tolls are a ubiquito by us feature on highways, they don't exist inside cities, which are at the...

Despite all the focus on US trade tariffs, what is being missed is the slow and deliberate recrafting of India’s (still evolving) geopolitical strategy one trick at a time. Some of these moves predated the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, but his entry has speeded up things. While the Narendra Modi government has attracted a lot of criticism for the seemingly pusillanimous way in which it is handling the crisis in India-US relationship, it is now possible to discern the faint outlines of  a new template for foreign and trade policy.  Not surprisingly, the central element of this new template is derisking the relationship with the US, but it is also clear that we are derisking our over-dependence on Russia as well, though domestic critics may claim that this is coming under US pressure. The tell-tale signs have been there for quite some time, both before the Ukraine conflict began in February 2022, and later, as Donald Trump showed how capricious he can be with frien...

Earlier this month, an intense verbal pow-wow was sparked in social media, later followed by comments in print and TV, about the nature of gig work and the plight of workers doing this kind of job. The debate was prompted by the gig workers’ strike on 31 December 2025, when deliveries by the likes of Zomato, Blinkit, Swiggy, Zepto and Big Basket, among others, were to have been affected on a day when orders tend to peak. In reality, more deliveries were made that day than before, indicating that strikes in the gig economy are difficult to sustain, thanks to the large pool of unemployed youth in need of some form of income. The arguments were polarised between those who were completely on the side of “exploited” gig workers, especially the pressure under which they work to make “10-minute” deliveries in crowded traffic conditions, and those who were more sympathetic to the company’s point of view. The latter asked, quite pertinently, whether these workers would have been better off if g...

India’s Pakistan strategy needs a rethink, with some kind of engagement becoming more necessary in a world where all rules are being broken. Currently, our policy towards this terror-sponsoring state rests on two formally stated pillars: one holds that terror and talks cannot go hand in hand; and the second, enunciated after Operation Sindoor by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in mid-2025, holds that any act of terror will be treated as an “act of war”. A third pillar, that no third party can seek to mediate between India and Pakistan, is the national consensus. But with Donald Trump shouting from the rooftops that he mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May 2025, and, more recently, with China claiming the same thing, the Modi government has been forced on the defensive. While strenuously denying any third party role in ending the four-day conflict, the claims by Trump and China cannot be wished away. While neither the US nor China may have actually “mediated” a ceasefire, ...

  The other day, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested in a podcast with a Sri Lankan venture capitalist that India lost the possibility of a quick trade deal with the US because Narendra Modi did not call Donald Trump during the time window allotted to him for signing up.  This may at least be partially true, but it is ridiculous nevertheless. A trade deal, where diverse interests and multiple concerns have to be reconciled, is not like a real estate deal between two people where one party or the other can set a take-it-or-leave-it deadline. A trade deal is signed by two nations (or trading blocs) and not between an individual and a country.  It is true that the US’s allies have done so, signing up with Trump by agreeing to his absurd conditions. But these deals are unlikely to stand the test of time. For example, the European Union (EU) agreed to buy $750 billion of US energy and invest $600 billion in the US by 2028 - which is just two years away - but how i...