The Bharatiya Janata Party, which promised us "maximum governance, minimum government" ought to make the annual Budget less of a national drama than it is today, says Rahul Jacob.
The overhang of corporate debt is the primary straitjacket that ties our firms down, not the bottlenecks created by our alternately slothful and interventionist courts and bureaucrats.
The building of the metro in south Bangalore has represented, to borrow a line, not the building of a city, but the sacking of a city.
Consider the credentials of our pro-farmer governments: almost half our rural households lack electricity connections, says Rahul Jacob.
Relatively unnoticed in India is that China is going through its own high-profile battle with corruption.
The ripples of the Chinese property slowdown could be felt far and wide across the world.
A nation touted at places like the World Economic Forum in Davos a few years ago as an economic superpower in the making is only just beginning to address the problem that only 27 per cent of children in class 5 in its village schools can subtract.
'The rate of transmission of COVID-19 in Hong Kong was 0.7 -- anything below 1 suggests the epidemic is receding.' 'The city-State achieved this without the de facto police-State curfew that India has resorted to,' says Rahul Jacob.
'As we gird ourselves for rising infections, India's harsh lockdown remains an epic tragedy,' observes Rahul Jacob.
Listening -- really listening -- to advisers in the government and outside would help. India has plenty of wise economists who have worked within the bureaucracy during previous crises, points out Rahul Jacob.
'The world and India likely won't have a vaccine that is widely administered till the end of 2021.' 'In the meantime, clear communication would help,' observes Rahul Jacob.
Despite the Congress having nearly four times as many members in the Rajya Sabha as the TMC (48 to 13), Derek O'Brien has been informally leading the coordination of Opposition parties, rallying other parties to demand a discussion on electoral reforms and to protest the government's disinvestment plans, report Rahul Jacob and Archis Mohan.
Does an invitation to visit India bring bad luck to majoritarian demagogues? asks Rahul Jacob.
As with the Spanish flu, the world must be ready for a second and third wave as this start-stop-start-stop response plays out, recommends Rahul Jacob.
Do a straw poll of any business friends and you will laugh and weep at what they go through, points out Rahul Jacob.
'The prime minister's announcement of a nation-wide shutdown was eloquent, but should have been more clearly phrased to avoid police overreach.' 'Migrant labour should have been allowed adequate notice and transport options to get home,' notes Rahul Jacob.
'Our government's claim that there are no undetected cases of infection that happened within our bustling cities because of exposure to infected international travellers are not credible,' notes Rahul Jacob.
'The lessons from tiny New Zealand about mobilising to prevent an environment going up in flames around us and combatting the feral Whatsapp politics of hatred are in many ways Gandhian,' says Rahul Jacob.
'Without bold action to deal with our banking crisis, count on the economy's doldrums to continue for much longer than most of us anticipate,' says Rahul Jacob.
Great chefs are alchemists. They put ingredients and flavours together in ways that are sometimes unfathomable, says Rahul Jacob.
'There are different ways in which some are lucky through their lives. My great boon has been serendipity,' says Subir Roy.
'In this season of inspired mean-spirited campaigning, it still seemed remarkable that we are more likely to learn civics lessons from school children than our leaders,' says Rahul Jacob.
Given Indian corporates's high indebtedness, new credit will be used for servicing loans rather than building factories. This is setting us up for more companies on life support and more zombie banks, warns Rahul Jacob.
We should all bow before the legend that is Leander, says Rahul Jacob.
'Three hotels with exceptional food left me hankering to go back to feast at their tables,' says Rahul Jacob.
'What will this supposedly more business-friendly government do if it gets a second term?' 'Important labour law and land reforms remain off the table.' 'Witness the arm-twisting of foreign players in e-commerce and all but one player in telecom -- and it is very hard to justify this perception that the BJP is business friendly.' 'There will also remain the real risk of ideas seemingly gleaned from the pages of Amar Chitra Katha, overlaid with PowerPoint presentations,' predicts Rahul Jacob.
'Infectious disease is a given of humankind. There will always be another around the corner.'
In the past decade-and-a-half, sections of urban India have become much more liberal about accepting gay men and women than our colonial-era laws might have suggested, says Rahul Jacob.
Drawn in by fuzzy promises about unleashing the entrepreneur in each of us and the benefits of being one's own boss, people find themselves instead oppressed by an algorithm, notes Rahul Jacob.
... 'is long lives are generally the norm today,' says Rahul Jacob.
Despite presiding over scores of factories in what is today India's largest garment exporter with 105,000 employees, Ahuja is a modest man with much to be immodest about. He tells Rahul Jacob that the government needs a free trade agreement with Europe fast to ensure a level-playing field with Bangladesh and Vietnam.
'We must all commit to sharing less nonsense and quarrelling less on social media.' 'We could use that time instead to meeting and speaking to our friends and family instead of 'liking' their posts.' 'Zuckerberg will be the poorer for that, but our lives will be so much richer,' says Rahul Jacob.
'"We want to get the learnings from Flipkart and take it to other parts of the world," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon was quoted as saying.' 'That is a very large tuition fee for an MBA in a country that outdoes Brazil and perhaps even China in busting multinationals' knees and sometimes their heads as they try to crack a market of mostly impoverished people run by a government that has never really given up the sadistic pleasures of administering the license raj,' notes Rahul Jacob.
Pierre Paganini may be the most important reason Roger has the best record in men's tennis in the past 12 months.
You can return to Delhi even after 25 years and find that friends treat you as if you had never left, says Rahul Jacob.
'It's a dream, but will I give it up? No bloody way,' Umesh Pandey, the former Bangkok Post editor turned Opposition candidate, tells Rahul Jacob.
The country would see more economic progress if the private sector was left to run business without government interference, Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy has said at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
'Anantkumar Hegde will be pleased that those thousands who formed a long line to enter the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral on Christmas Eve night were both aware of their 'parentage' -- to use his insulting term -- and would describe themselves as Hindu,' says Rahul Jacob.
'More and more young chefs, instead of inventing new things, are exploring more deeply inside India,' Indian Accent's Manish Mehrotra tells Rahul Jacob.
'Open defecation kills more Indians than any terrorist organisation could, but turning that around will take communicating that all Indians are created equal and that continuing this practice is anti-national,' points out Rahul Jacob.
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