Ranvir Nayar, Author at Media India Group

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...

From threats of sanctions to pleas of safe zone: Western approach to Taliban

August 31, 2021

On the night of August 30, just as the last aircraft of the United States Air Force, a C-17, departed Kabul, the Taliban celebrated with a huge display of fireworks and gunfire to mark their victory over the world’s most powerful nation, after a 20-year-long see-saw battle. The...

Poor report card likely by India at IUCN World Conservation Congress

August 28, 2021

When the Indian delegation reaches the historical port city of Marseille on the famed French riviera next week to participate in the IUCN World Conservation Congress, it would have little to be proud of and a lot to hide due to poor performance in conservation of the immense natu...

National Monetisation Pipeline: Backdoor privatisation

August 27, 2021

Unveiling the NMP on Monday, Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was at pains to say that the monetisation plan was not akin to privatisation but “it aims to unlock value in brownfield projects by engaging the private sector, transferring to them revenue rights and not o...

Vaccine passports: Bad idea with terrible timing traumatises tourism industry

August 24, 2021

For a long while now, international travellers have been used to finding different queues at immigration counters at various airports, especially in developed world, queues that classify arrivals by origin of their country. Most of the rich countries are clubbed together and then...

India to be first to feel pinch of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

August 15, 2021

How dramatically military and political fortunes can change within a week? And that too in a historically unstable region like Afghanistan where control over cities and even capital Kabul can change hands faster than a click on the internet. Till earlier this week, most analysts ...

Weak governance continues to haunt Indian boardrooms

August 8, 2021

Earlier this week, Gautam Thapar, head of Avantha Group, a paper, power and real estate conglomerate, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on charges of money laundering. Thapar was arrested following an alleged property transaction where Thapar’s firm ‘gifted’ INR 3...

UNSDGs: Sustainable development remains a goal too far

July 13, 2021

In many ways it was heartening to see that the G7 Summit 2021, held in the United Kingdom on June 11-13, delved in detail on topics beyond business, trade, investment, strategy and power. For once, it took up issues that concern people and their well-being – health, poverty, ed...

4 years of GST: Anything but a Good, Simple Tax

July 10, 2021

When the Narendra Modi government rushed with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), within weeks of its passage in the Parliament, several economists and opposition leaders had cautioned the government against a hurried implementation, advocating that that more ...