10 Feb 2021
Chitra Subramaniam
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India must talk trade, for its people by its people and with its people. What India needs today is not a paradigm shift, a new narrative nor a strategy but hard work, focus and commitment aimed at creating nearly 20 million jobs the economy will consume year on year. If you think global trade negotiations…
27 Jan 2021
Chitra Subramaniam
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The World Health Organization (WHO)’s apex body, the Executive Board ended a week of meetings on Tuesday. You probably didn’t hear about it. That puts you in the same category of the majority of the people in the world who hear nothing about the agenda items on the table ranging from chronic diseases to budgets…
10 Oct 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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No, the system is not broken. For most Indians there never existed a system except one that took the subjugation and acquiescence of millions of Indians for granted. From one generation to the next, the obligation to obey has been transmitted without words as if genetically coded. The instructions were and are in the air.…
28 Sep 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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Deontology. It’s a word that constantly speaks to the journalist in me. Rules, ethics, respect and language must guide an editor 24/7 as s/he examines evidence, facts, leads and stories. There comes a time when journalists who respect their work and that of their colleagues seek to secure the hard won gains of free speech…
14 Sep 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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The one trillion dollar Norwegian fund, one of the world’s largest, run by the Norwegian National Bank is oft cited as an example of money managers balancing heft and health to always land on their feet. Set up after the country struck oil in 1969 and subsequent prosperity, the fund now largely promotes green and…
1 Sep 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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It is not a Moody’s, but its power in Switzerland, an international centre for banking and financial advice and signals, is as substantial as it is understated. The Swiss Association for Responsible Investments SVVK has excluded four of India’s sterling companies – Tata Power, L&T, Bharat Dynamics and Walchandnagar Industries – in a nuclear weapons…
25 Aug 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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In my 1997 book India Is For Sale, I wrote in some detail about how Indians do not understand conflict of interest. They understand conflict and they understand interest but they think the ‘of’ in between is only a preposition. Social climbers are especially attracted to this kind of unprincipled herd mentality. L’affaire Wall Street…
19 Aug 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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As the health, economic and political impact of COVID-19 unfolds the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been under international glare and scrutiny in ways rarely seen throughout its over 70-year history. The basis of the malaise is focused on its (in)ability to sound the alarm at the right time and demonstrate global leadership in helping…
10 Aug 2020
Chitra Subramaniam
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On May 13, 1998, India became a full-fledged nuclear state joining the ranks of the United Nations P5 (US, UK, France, Russia and China). A European diplomat asked me why India required a nuclear weapon in an unstable part of the world. The patronizing framing of that question notwithstanding, I had one answer and a…