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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
A poorly drafted and rashly implemented order, issued early on into the pandemic, triggered weeks of confusion and badly hit exports of unrelated products before it was reworked.
Editor's note: As Indians continue to grapple with the horrifying consequences of the second wave of COVID-19, it has become clear, and is now globally recognized, that the Narendra Modi government’s efforts to tackle this wave have been ill-thought-out and knee-jerk. But several weeks before the second wave of the pandemic struck India with an unexpected intensity, top functionaries of the central government were boasting about their supposed success in tackling the novel coronavirus outbreak and its aftermath. If Prime Minister Modi promoted the perception that India’s fight against COVID-19 was “inspiring the world”, his health minister Harsh Vardhan declared that the country was already in the “endgame of the COVID-19 pandemic”. Riding on the low number of daily reported COVID-19 cases at the time, these statements sought to bolster the narrative that the central government’s efforts to tackle the pandemic and its consequences had been effective. Whether it was protecting lives or livelihoods, according to this narrative, the imposition of lockdowns and other restrictions by the government had only been helpful. The most obvious example that punctures these attempts to whitewash …
Fiscal discipline holds on paper, but the number is propped up by higher borrowing and revenue sources that are far from stable.
It’s never a good sign when your foreign minister needs a lobbyist to meet US officials. The recent events signal a breakdown in the Modi government’s ability to operate in today’s Washington through its own machinery.
It is the logical consequence of foreign policy built on a decade of illusion rather than the realities of power. The question is whether anyone in the government has the courage to admit it.
