Building a New India

When the UPA came back to power in 2009, with what seemed to be a stronger and more reasonable coalition structure, I was very optimistic. The global economy had dodged the bullet that might have wounded it critically. India had managed to grow robustly, even in the throes of the global crisis. There was a chance for experienced leadership to return and continue its work. Halfway through the government’s term, things appear much less rosy. What has happened and why?

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Diaspora, Development and Democracy

The title of this column is the title of a new book by Devesh Kapur, head of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. The book is about how Indians who have emigrated have influenced the country they left behind. It is a fascinating study, broad in scope and full of new insights. Kapur argues that the economic, political, social and cultural consequences of international migration imply a richer framework for thinking about globalisation and related ideas such as ‘openness’, than just focusing on movements of goods and capital. He asks, “Is a country with substantial trade, but with few citizens who move around the world, really more ‘open’ in a broader … sense than a country where trade is more limited but whose citizens live and travel internationally, thus remitting foreign exchange and ideas to a much greater extent?”

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