Ranvir Nayar, Author at Media India Group

5 years since demonetisation, cash rules India more than ever

November 5, 2021

At around 8 pm in the evening of November 8, 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced immediate abolishing of high-value currency notes, referred to as demonetisation in India, he outlined several goals that he had set for himself and his government as part of this drama...

COP26 headed to failure despite carbon to coal commitments

November 4, 2021

Even before the latest climate change summit, COP26, began at Glasgow earlier this year, there were more than enough warnings and definitely more than adequate evidence that the world had already turn out of time in meeting the climate change threat head on and that the Glasgow s...

World Thrift Day: Global savings surge in pandemic

October 30, 2021

The United States, the country that invented credit cards and is famous for practically everyone living off credit and out-of-pocket, has seen a record jump in its personal savings rate during the pandemic, which raced ahead to 13.7 pc in 2020 from 7.6 pc in the preceding year. N...

High energy prices could derail COP26

October 29, 2021

A report by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, released barely a week before the opening of COP26, the global climate change summit in Glasgow that begins tomorrow, says that the commitments made so far by different countries to cut carbon emissions by 2030 are far s...

Atmanirbhar Bharat & ballooning trade deficit with China

October 20, 2021

India’s overall trade deficit in merchandise trade in the first six months of the current fiscal, from April 1 to September 30, 2021, jumped sharply to USD 78.81 billion, up from USD 25.7 billion last year, a hike of 207 pc, though the deficit stood marginally lower than USD 88...

India getting too close to US for China’s comfort

October 6, 2021

Yesterday, chief of Indian Air Force Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari told a press conference that the IAF was fully ready for a two-front war, saying he was aware of the close relationship between China and Pakistan and the ongoing buildup of forces and infrastructure by China al...

German elections mark troubled transition to post-Merkel era

September 23, 2021

No politician has dominated the political landscape not just in post-war Germany but also across the European Union as has German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has been setting the tone for her country as well as the EU for nearly two decades now. But as Merkel hangs up her gloves...

Lessons for India in ruckus over AUKUS

September 19, 2021

In a clear sign that it was not letting go of the issue, France ratcheted up its criticism of the triad of United States, United Kingdom and Australia over the nuclear submarine deal that killed a EUR 56 billion deal which Australia had signed with France over two years ago. Usin...

Need to regulate human invasion of Space

September 14, 2021

For long, it was the purview of the government to decide who would get to the space. But no longer so. Now, almost anyone who can afford to pay for it seems to be getting a ticket. For instance, in the matter of a few weeks, after Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, another billionai...

20 years after 9/11 attacks: War on terror turns full circle

September 11, 2021

As the world marks 20th anniversary of the dramatic terror attacks in the United States, the earth seems to have come a full circle, metaphorically speaking. Before the 9/11 terror attacks, the Taliban was firmly in charge of Afghanistan, that had been for a while the wild west o...

Indian economy: Pandemic recovery long way off

September 8, 2021

On August 31, the Union finance ministry tweeted a self-congratulatory message saying its prediction of a V-shaped, or very rapid, recovery in the Indian economy had come true as the Gross Domestic Product in the first quarter, ending on June 30, 2021, spiked by 20.1 pc over the ...

Global warming goes way beyond carbon

September 3, 2021

With over 40 gigatonnes released in the atmosphere in the year 2020, which was supposed to be a low-activity year due to the lockdowns and travel restrictions across the globe, carbon dioxide is of course the most high-profile and most talked about reason behind the global warmin...