GDP growth rate is the headline number everyone tracks, to figure out how the economy is doing. It is time we shifted focus to the Gross Value Added, or GVA, which is a more direct measure of the incomes generated in the economy. GDP numbers are affected by random decisions of the GST Council to raise tax rates or by the government’s decision to slash subsidies.
As China continues to rise in economic, technological and military might, and the US, wallows in self-harm, instead of competing, India has to redouble its efforts to build strategic strength at all levels, both in mission mode as it has been doing in key areas, but at a more general, systemic level, as well. In the latter task, India has been negligent so far.
History usually creeps upon you in homoeopathic doses, unless it happens with a bang, such as the 9/11 attacks, or with a whimper, such as when the US exited Saigon, defeated and humbled, and being forced to retreat after having dropped more bombs on Vietnam than it had on the Axis powers during all of World War II.
War is too important to be left to the generals — that statement is attributed to French statesman Georges Clemenceau.
The choice of a Muslim officer and a Hindu officer to brief the world on India’s attack on terror infrastructure in Pakistan was an admission that the politics of Hindutva is not fit to be displayed before the world.
Retaliation is easy, Restraint is better. The terrorists who killed 26 innocent tourists in Pahalgam hoped to destabilise and reverse the return to normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of successful elections and movement towards the restoration of statehood for the territory.