Columnists

P Chidambaram

P Chidambaram is former Finance minister of India.

Unpreparedness has been the hallmark of Modi government since the first Covid-19 case

Sun, Mar 29, 2020

Not only was the country not prepared for a nationwide lockdown, even the Central government was unprepared. How can one otherwise explain the fact that the Economic Task Force announced by the PM on March 19 has not been constituted so far?

Fighting COVID-19 and beyond

Sun, Mar 22, 2020

Given that scale of expenditure, it is possible to find, say, Rs 5,00,000 crore towards mitigating COVID-19 over the next 6 months. This is a moral and economic imperative and we must find the money and spend it.

RBI and govt are poised to implement a rescue plan for Yes Bank that can be only described as bizarre

Sun, Mar 15, 2020

The people and Parliament must demand that the names of borrowers (especially the big defaulting ones) be published and the individuals or committees that approved the loans be asked to explain.

Economic growth in 2020 may decline further if coronavirus disrupts more production

Sun, Mar 08, 2020

India has cause to worry. As the Prime Minister said a few days ago, we must prepare, not panic. Very true, but how prepared is the country? More pertinently, how prepared is each state of the country?

Many suspect that BJP wants people to take to the streets and polarisation to be complete

Sun, Mar 01, 2020

There is growing suspicion that the BJP is working to a plan. The BJP is emboldened to pursue its partisan agenda owing to the massive majority it enjoys in the Lok Sabha and the fact that Lok Sabha elections are four years away.

P Chidambaram writes: The magic words ‘national interest’ do not signal correctness but finality

Sun, Feb 23, 2020

The magic words are ‘national interest’. They do not signal correctness, they signal finality. Because the PM has declared that the decisions were taken in national interest, he expects that all criticism should cease and all debate should end.

P Chidambaram writes: May the tukde tukde gangs grow stronger until they achieve their Constitutional goals

Sun, Feb 16, 2020

There is nothing unusual or inherently wrong about a right-wing ideology. It is only when right-wing leaders politicise their religion and attempt to divide people on the ground of religion that the Constitution is violated and social harmony is disrupted. The BJP has done just that.

Faced with severe challenges to the economy, the government has proved to be clueless and timid

Sun, Feb 09, 2020

From demonetisation to GST, from Swachh Bharat Mission to electrification of homes, from Ujjwala Yojana to UDAY, every programme has serious shortcomings. Unfortunately, the government lives in an echo chamber and hears only adulatory responses.

Brace yourself for an economy that will grow at an unsatisfactory rate in 2020-21

Sun, Feb 02, 2020

The take-away from the Budget speech and the Budget numbers is that the BJP has given up on reviving the economy or accelerating the growth rate or promoting private investment or increasing efficiency or creating jobs or winning a greater share of world trade.

Budget 2020: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

Sun, Jan 26, 2020

P Chidambaram writes: The economy is not the main concern of the BJP government; it is the Hindutva agenda. On the other hand, the people are concerned with issues tied to economic growth such as more jobs, better producer prices, wages and incomes, relative price stability, access to better education and health care, and improved infrastructure.

SC order gives govt a way to retreat from its militaristic approach to Kashmir issue

Sun, Jan 19, 2020

The SC judgment also gives hope to the seven million people of the Kashmir Valley that their freedoms will be restored — although there is no sign yet of that happening seven days later

Across the aisle: Students have sensed that something is ‘terribly wrong’ in the way country is being governed

Sun, Jan 12, 2020

The ferment that we witness in the campuses of Indian universities and colleges bears a striking resemblance to the events of 1968. Students and youth have sensed that something is ‘terribly wrong’ in the way the country is being governed.

Constitution is breached every day, denying to millions of people minimum justice, social, economic and political

Sun, Jan 05, 2020

When Nani Palkhivala propounded the theory of an unalterable and unamendable “basic structure” of Constitution, legal experts scoffed at the argument. How can the power of a sovereign Parliament to amend the Constitution (Article 368) be curtailed or subjected to a review by judges appointed by the Executive, they asked.

What will force Mr Modi to change course will be the outcome of the state elections in 2020-21

Sun, Dec 29, 2019

In the last two months, BJP was dented in Haryana, denied in Maharashtra and defeated in Jharkhand. This success can be taken forward if non-BJP parties rally around the strongest party in each state. That would mean Congress in Puducherry, Assam and Kerala; DMK in Tamil Nadu; and state-specific arrangements for Bihar and West Bengal.

The woes of the FM are not over with the reversal of her prized announcements in the Budget

Sun, Dec 22, 2019

Budget 2019-20 is unique. I know of no budget in recent memory where, after making the Budget, the Finance Minister consciously unmade the Budget.

CAA has introduced a new route to acquire citizenship — by executive fiat

Sun, Dec 15, 2019

Project Hindu Rashtra is gaining speed. The engine is the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi; at the wheel is the Home Minister, Mr Amit Shah. The designer/engineer, the RSS, is watching with great interest.

In an economy sans economists, ministers resort to ‘bluff’ and ‘bluster’

Fri, Dec 13, 2019

Chidambaram writes: The government has acknowledged that the economy is in a slowdown, but denied that there were ‘structural’ issues that need to be addressed. The government has described the problems as ‘cyclical’. It is a small mercy that they did not identify the causes as ‘seasonal’!

Economy seems to be the last of the concerns of the government after operation J&K

Sun, Aug 18, 2019

The economy is one area where muscular nationalism will not work. On the contrary, it may work to the detriment of the economy.

J&K is no longer the same J&K. It has been dismembered

Sun, Aug 11, 2019

If the precedent is followed, it is only a matter of time before Darjeeling will be carved out as a Union Territory out of West Bengal. The routine will be to ask the state Assembly to “express its views” or impose President’s rule and dissolve the Assembly.

Across the aisle: BJP has used every trick in its bag to pass laws in Rajya Sabha

Sun, Aug 04, 2019

The BJP government’s commitment to federalism can be gauged by the manner in which Bills are passed in the Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha is the House of the People while the Rajya Sabha is the Council of States.

Opinion & Edits