David Cameron is no Margaret Thatcher.
— Sanjaya Baru
The ministries of finance and industries and commerce require modern-minded, transparent, and efficient leadership.
Few in Europe imagined the incompetence and dishonesty of Greek economic managers would bring the entire European project into question.
If the World Bank does not alter its shareholding structure to reflect the shifts in global distribution of income and economic power, its role may get marginalised as regional institutions fill the vacuum.
The G-20,with all its inadequacies, is a mixed group of the world's rising and risen powers.
If the Asian financial crisis had the impact of accelerating China's rise, the transatlantic financial crisis has had the effect of accelerating Germany's rise.
Adversity is the mother of enterprise.
The UPA's strategy of 'inclusive growth' remains the foundational pillar of economically, politically, and socially sustainable development.
Any sustained rise in the price of oil will hit the Indian economy hard.
For China, the GCC countries have emerged as a major market for Chinese manufactured goods and food exports.
Economically, the business development of the greater Hyderabad region has made the city integral to the state.
A common language doesn't soothe dry tongues and thirsty throats.
I think many people grow on the job.
The reason a Congress-led coalition didn't happen in 1990 was because it is entirely possible that Rajiv Gandhi himself wasn't sure how the Congress party would evolve in that context.
I think the government lost control over fiscal policy in UPA-2. But it is possible to suggest that the momentum of the populism of UPA-1 did the damage when the economy slowed down, but government spending could not.
I have not broken any promises, but I have full freedom to say or write about what others have said to me during my tenure in the PMO.
For all the criticism I've been showered with - people calling me a betrayer, a backstabber - frankly, the only criticism I have of Manmohan Singh is that he weakened the office of the prime minister, and he brought down the dignity of the office.
The new era of bottom-up politics has had politically paradoxical consequences in China. While it has made the system of governance more participatory, it has made the central government less authoritarian and, therefore, more bureaucratic and cautious.
When national policy becomes hostage to regional interests, the federal government becomes paralysed and would be unable to act in the larger national interest.
The world may view India more benignly, but it does more business with China. It courts China; it needs China. Look at the genuflecting Europeans and the fork-tongued Americans!
While the World Bank is an inter-governmental institution, drawing its funds from member governments and run by a board of directors nominated by member governments, its policies have increasingly become sensitive to civil society pressure and NGO agendas.
In the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, regionalism was seen as a building block of globalisation.
A major concern of some of us who were not sympathetic to the separate Telangana movement was with respect to the future of Hyderabad.
Policies aimed at attracting more foreign investment into India would naturally be a part of an external stabilisation strategy.
While history has its limitations in shaping contemporaneous and forward-looking strategic choices, it does shape popular perceptions.
If Iran seeks to meddle in domestic Indian politics by creating disaffection among the Shias of Uttar Pradesh, what better way to counter that by reminding all concerned that while the Shias maybe an important vote bank in U.P., they constitute only 10 per cent of Indian Muslims, while the Sunnis account for an overwhelming 90 per cent.
Given the stake that both the U.S. and Europe have in stabilising and sustaining global growth, their policies should be aimed at ensuring China, India, and other newly industrialising Asian economies can take up the slack created by the slowdown in OECD economies.
Hyderabad is a truly pan-Telugu metropolis that has come to accept the mix of Telangana's dakhni culture and the coastal region's Andhra culture.
India is a complex country.
I do believe it is true that the people of India regard the prime minister as the most important political leader.
Rajiv Gandhi could have certainly attempted to form a Congress-led coalition government in 1990.
When I was in the PMO, Digvijaya Singh used to call me whenever he wanted to see the PM. He used to go through me. He is under compulsion to criticise me, but I am under no compulsion to criticise him.
Civil servants and government functionaries do not write memoirs because they hope to get more government jobs or assignments.
Obama's starting point was not as low as Manmohan Singh's starting point, and Obama's rise was not as sharp.
Angela Merkel is no Konrad Adenauer or Helmut Schmidt.
Continent-wide nations require continent-wide leaders whenever they are in crisis. The 'idea of Europe,' much like the 'idea of India' was the construction of such continental leaders.
I have been visiting China since 1995.
The World Bank is a shareholder-driven organisation, and as in all such organisations, the majority of shareholders would want a manager of their liking at the top.
China and Germany are important geo-economic powers that have been able to bolster their geo-political and even military power, thanks to the opportunity provided by their geo-economic rise.
Indian politics has a way of taking a curious turn and surprising the wisest of pundits.
Policies that aim to promote the livelihood security of the people - promoting employment, improving the nutritional status of children and women, expanding educational opportunities, and providing affordable healthcare - would be the first charge on the budget of a developmental state.
The people of India and Arabia have interacted across the waters between them for thousands of years.
A trilateral initiative by the U.S., China, and India in the Gulf, aimed at facilitating a resolution of historic problems in the region, would benefit global growth and stability.
As Asia's rising powers seek to sustain growth and ensure stability, energy security has moved to the forefront of Asian geopolitics.
Telangana is not like Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, nor even like Haryana. Apart from the language it shares with the rest of Andhra Pradesh, it is today more integrated economically into the state as a whole.
Many people in public life are not good campaigners.
Prime ministers with full majority have behaved differently from each other. Jawaharlal Nehru was a leader who ruled by consensus while Indira Gandhi was considered more unilateral in her approach.
In some ways, Mr. Modi's foreign policy is a continuation of Dr. Manmohan Singh's, and in some ways, it could be that Mr. Modi was repossessing all the non Nehru-Gandhi leaders of the Congress.
A politician normally flatters you in your face and criticises you behind your back.
In India, too many people do not write memoirs, but Natwar Singh and P. C. Alexander did.
