prosaicview

Author - Prosenjit Datta

The GST collections brouhaha

The spat between the union government and the states is obscuring the real questions – what are the implications of the shortfall on the stimulus measures and how will Corona affect projections for the future. Disputes...

The dilemma of central banks

Central banks around the world are being pressured by their governments to ignore inflation and focus on growth and jobs. But can monetary policy help in the latter goals? Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor...

AI Bias

Of Technology Biases and Ethics

How Bias can creep into Algorithms. And why ethics is important in Artificial Intelligence. Technology per se may not have feelings but it can suffer from two human failings – biases and improper ethics. As the Indian...

English vs Mother Tongue

The proposal to teach only in mother tongue or regional language till Class 5 ignores the problems on the ground The Union Cabinet has cleared the New Education Policy (NEP) and while it talks of a number of reforms...

The future of global manufacturing

Flexibility and de-risking are going to be more important than scale and cheap labour in the post Covid world The Coronavirus pandemic and China’s rising tensions with several countries are changing supply chains...

The Policy Problem in Manufacturing

India cannot become a manufacturing hub unless the union and state governments are on the same page. That is a difficult task but not impossible Elected leaders, in general, decide on policies with short term profit in...

Hobson’s Choice

The state of the government’s finances leaves no real option but to go for second generation reforms The daily rise in fuel prices makes the government seem both clueless and callous when crude oil is at a record low...

Bad Data and Policy Making

Policies are only as good as the statistics used for arriving at the decisions – and the Indian government has been found wanting in that respect. For a government that is extremely fond of repeating that Data is the...

The King Can Do No Wrong

The myth of the Great Leader with incompetent followers A recent article in Business Standard newspaper by noted journalist Shekhar Gupta tried to analyse why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s big ideas do not lead to any...