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Many policy thinkers in India are enamoured by western economic models. If we have to figure out intelligent strategies to lift 250 million Indians from abysmal poverty, let us accept that there are no pro ven western models. Our problem is daunting in scale and baffling in complexity. We need completely new and bold imagination…
Building smart cities the Indian way By Roopen Roy Jul 29 2014 Bloomberg Today more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. The crystal ball tells us that by 2050, only 14 per cent of the people in ‘have-more’ countries will live outside urban agglomerations and the number will be only 33 per cent in…
Should the Big Brother be watching you? Beware, big brother is watching you By Roopen Roy Jul 12 2011 The head of a Western nation, so the story goes, was on a state visit to the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war. As a mark of respect and honour, he and his wife were…
Long on the talk, a little short on the walk By Roopen Roy Feb 29 2016 The most disappointing feature of the Budget is the FM’s inability to bite the bullet of NPAs There is a lot of encouraging words and promises for the agricultural and rural sector, infrastructure, low-cost housing and the containment of fiscal deficit….
There is a firestorm raging in the country over allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail. It is being contended that large format multi-brand retail a.k.a. LFMBR (apologies for the alphabet soup) will wipe out the local kirana shops and destroy the livelihood of millions of people. Excuse me! The LFMBR business model is…
Is it time to remove global poverty? By Roopen Roy Jun 04 2013 AP FINDING FORTUNES: Unless we go to the root causes of inequality and disparity in terms of access and opportunity, we would postpone the goal in 2030 yet again India’s former prime minister Indira Gandhi coined the slogan, “garibi hatao” (meaning remove poverty). She…
The ways in which people connect, discuss, debate, argue and express have undergone fundamental changes in terms of speed, ease of access, time zones and geographic distances. But laws and regulations have not kept pace with these changes. As a consequence, enforcement authorities, politicians and autocratic regimes are trying new methods of censorship and experimenting…
A Knowledge Silk Route to change the world Roopen Roy (Views are personal) The original Silk Routes connected the East to the West —from China through India to the Mediterranean nations. The origin of the Silk Routes can be traced back to 114 BC. Of course, as the name suggests,…
Banks must be kept healthy and solvent By Roopen Roy Nov 10 2015 Very often one hears that a high rate of bank interest in India is the devil, which is holding up our economic growth. Despite several measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the grumbling has not ceased. May I venture to suggest that…
প্রশান্তদা : গরুর রচনা গত রাতে এলো প্রশান্তদার বেশ উত্তেজিত ফোন,” আরে কি হচ্ছে কি রে দেশে ? হিংলাজ নিলেকানি নাকি গরু দেখলেই সেন্সর করছে ?” “না না পোশান্তদা ?” “এই তুই আমাকে প্রশান্ত না বলে পোশান্ত বলছিস কেন রে ?”: “ওটা গণেশ ঠাকুরের আপন দেশের আইন , যদি “পিয়ের” পর “আর” আসে…