Israel has announced that it is pulling out its troops from Khan Younis, the scene of bitter battles between the IDF and Hamas for several weeks. Some reports suggest that Israel has withdrawn all but one of its brigades from Gaza. Israel claims its job is substantially done. The claim has little credibility. Hamas is still standing and the remaining hostages are yet to be returned. So neither of the two objectives of the war set by the government of PM Netanyahu have been met.  Two well-known blogs, A Son of the American Revolution, and Moon of Alabama, both known for their incisive mili ..read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his party to a huge win in 20014 and repeated it in 2019. Going by most forecasts, he is set for a third consecutive win. Many have been puzzling over the amazing electoral success Mr Modi has had. Fund manager Ruchir Sharma provides his own explanation. He says Mr Modi has provided growth with relatively low inflation. For that reason, the electorate is willing to overlook things such as his alleged going after opposition parties on charges of corruption or the supposed curbing of civil liberties. The electorate has done a deal of the sort East Asian economie ..read more

Inequality today, perhaps, draws more comment than poverty if only because extreme poverty has been successfully tackled in most parts of the world. There are many studies that document increases in inequality (notably the book by Thomas Picketty). Many of these findings are contested- some dispute the contention that inequality is rising. But the fact that there is substantial inequality is not disputed. Now, we have two books that propose radical solutions. One wants a cap on wealth or savings of $ 10 million. Another argues that nobody should earn more than the current threshold for enterin ..read more

All of understand that a nuclear war will wipe out much of the planet, that there are enough nuclear weapons with the US and Russia to kill the world's population several times over. But how exactly would a nuclear war unfold?  The Economist reviews a couple of books that sketch out the nightmare. Let us say North Korea launches a nuclear attack on the USor a Russian submarine fires nuclear missiles off the West Coast of the US.Then, here is a possible sequence: The American satellites which pick up the North Korean launch have sensors “so powerful they can see a single lighted match fro ..read more

It is three months now since the Gaza conflict erupted. The slaughter continues. We have had several developments over the past few days. One, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has announced a withdrawal of some of its forces stationed in Gaza. Two, the number two person in the Hamas leadership was assasinated in Beirut- nobody doubts that is the work of Israel. Three, an Israeli strike killed a senior Iranian commander in Syria. Four, the US has announced the withdrawal of its aircraft carrier, USS Gerald Ford, from the Mediterranean. What do we make of all this? Well, the Israelis clearly want ..read more

 Financial Express carried an interview with me earlier in the week ..read more

How will Israel's assault on Gaza pan out? Will it lead to the ethnic cleansing of vast portions of Gaza, a repetition of what happened when Israel came to be founded? Or will the world rouse itself to put an end to the suffering of a helpless people? Here's  a somewhat bleak view penned by a former UN official: To date, only Bolivia has severed diplomatic relations with Israel to protest against the ongoing war crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. Unless Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Morocco sever their diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv as their people demand; unless countries such as ..read more

The government has notified new rules for the IIMs consequent to the IIM Bill 2023 being passed in Parliament last July, that is, within four months of the Bill having been passed. That is quite striking. It is not common for bills to be passed or notified so quickly. In the case of IIMs, any changes to rules would take a fairly long time to happen. First, there would be consultations with the directors of the leading IIMs, if not all IIMs. Then a discussion paper would follow with the public invited to respond. After that changes would be negotiated with the IIMs. Not so with the IIM Bill 202 ..read more

 An article in Aljazeera has an interesting take on some of the top people in Israel's government starting with PM Benjamin Netanyahu: Kimhi, who teaches at Tel Aviv University, has studied Netanyahu’s mind for almost a quarter of a century. In 1999, the same year that Netanyahu’s first term as premier would end, Kimhi’s behavioural analysis of the leader found a concerning pattern of behaviour. Some of his conclusions: Netanyahu was narcissistic, entitled and paranoid, and he reacted poorly under stress. Kimhi revisited Netanyahu as a subject in 2017 but found not much had changed. As p ..read more

 An Israeli professor who resides in the US has kicked off a storm by writing an article that asks Israel to stop 'weaponising the holocaust' in its conflict with Palestinians. Segal argued, as many including the UN Secretary General have, that we should not be mindful of the background to the Hamas attack on Israel, which is no way to overlook the atrocities that happened. Simply to portray Palestinians or Hamas as barbaric or as animals is not helpful: The context of the Hamas attack on Israelis, however, is completely different from the context of the attack on Jews during the Holocau ..read more