Mahabali in the time of Baahubali

LONG, long ago, when the sky stretched to meet the earth on the distant horizon so that the gods could step down from their clouds on to terra firma a

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Downturn blues

SEPTEMBER did not begin well for the Narendra Modi government. As it prepared for a makeover in the form of a Cabinet reshuffle with Elections 2019 in

Deras and evangelicals

How do we explain the extraordinary popularity of the bizarrely flamboyant Guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan of the Dera Sacha Sauda, and the deep lo

Sanitation project a sham

HOW many deaths will it take before it is accepted that too many people have died? In just 35 days between mid July and mid August, in New Delhi alone

FL18AMIRTHALINGAM

Deja vu in Colombo

WELL over 30 years later the glare of the July mid-morning sun on the Galle sea face in Colombo was as unchangingly harsh. The blare of the traffic al

All talk and no action

THE media is full of it. Viral Acharya, a recently inducted Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has declared publicly that resolving the pro

Economic Perspectives

The Hamburg fiasco

THE meeting of leaders of G20 member-countries in Hamburg, Germany, in early July was nothing short of a fiasco. Outside the meeting, the massive prot

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On the scam trail

WHEN John Maynard Keynes, in the context of the crisis of the Great Depression of the 1930s, suggested that the government should actually pay people

HAMBURG, GERMANY - JULY 05: Prostestors dressed-up in grey clothes like Zombies attend an arts performance called '1000 Gestalten' demonstration prior the upcoming G20 summit on July 5, 2017 in Hamburg, northern Germany. In a two-hour show hundreds of actors took part in a creative public appeal for more humanity and self-responsibility ahead of the upcoming G20 summit. The G20 economic summit takes place in Hamburg July 7-8. (Photo by Friedemann Vogel-Pool/Getty Images)

Marching to a different drummer

MEETINGS of global leaders, such as the recent G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, increasingly have a ring of farce about them. The inability to come to

Justice in the Age of Finance

THE big news late in June was that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the United Kingdom had charged four former senior executives of Barclays bank, in

Jobs or basic income?

IN a time of short or no historical memory, it is easy to believe that some ideas are completely novel and innovative. So it is with the idea

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 28: People queue for check-in at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 on May 28, 2017 in London, England. Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Computer outages

IT is a truth that should now be universally acknowledged, that everywhere in the world our lives are driven by computers—or more specifically by the