Op-Eds

The sovereignty premium has become the quiet tax of our time.    At the 2025 International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual meetings, discussions on financing development goals highlight an increasingly pressing reality: the growing economic cost countries incur to achieve financial autonomy. This sovereignty premium is becoming visible across sovereign balance sheets. Global public debt is...   Read More

Key Takeaways Women constitute a large share of India’s textile workforce yet remain confined to low-skilled and traditional roles due to limited education and informal training. With the sector’s shift towards digital and sustainable production, demand for advanced skills is rising. Focused re-skilling, entrepreneurship, and digital literacy can help women access emerging opportunities and leadership...   Read More

Summary Sustainable development finance is trapped in a structural bind: the needs are rising, but the instruments are skewed toward debt. Developing economies must mobilize an estimated $4.2 trillion annually to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate targets, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Simultaneously, over two-thirds of public...   Read More

By embedding behavioural awareness, robust safety, and digital trust into the investor ecosystem, India can nurture generations of empowered citizens. A 23-year-old management student in Delhi recently lost her savings to a social media group that promised “sure-shot stock tips” with guaranteed daily returns. A few weeks earlier, a young IT professional followed the advice of a...   Read More

As India deepens financial inclusion through digital tools, World Investor Week 2025 urges regulators and citizens to address behavioural biases, fraud risks, and digital trust gaps. Access to investing has expanded dramatically through digital platforms and mobile tools, aided by the JAM Trinity and Aadhaar-enabled services. Yet, the behavioural vulnerabilities of investors remain as prominent...   Read More

Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? The provocative question, once aimed at the Father of Modern Economics, echoes with particular resonance in India. The book is a critique of Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’ postulation and challenges the very foundation of economic measurement, pointing to the vast, uncounted economy of unpaid labour, performed predominantly by women, that fuels...   Read More

For India, agricultural protection is similar to US anxiety on immigration. Once, I took a group of American students to learn more about the rural parts of India. We spent a couple of weeks in a village, where the students were constantly trailed by giggling children, several of them shouting out questions. So, we decided...   Read More

The hidden costs countries now accept for strategic resilience. A new principle is reshaping global finance: the sovereignty premium – the economic cost countries willingly pay for financial autonomy. This premium functions as geopolitical insurance, a calculated payment to build structural resilience against exclusion while securing self-determination. For an increasing number of states, economic efficiency now...   Read More

A structured care-giving industry can not only meet a vital social need but also generate large-scale employment, spur health-tech innovation, and create new public-private models of welfare. India is often described as a young country, but the truth is that it is also ageing faster. As per a report by NITI Aayog, the elderly in...   Read More

India's agricultural future hinges on aligning water and crop calendars to combat the dual threats of drought stress and waterlogging Summary India’s farms thrive when water arrives in sync with crop needs – but that harmony is breaking down. Mistimed irrigation brings twin threats: drought stress and waterlogging, both devastating for smallholders. Erratic monsoons and...   Read More