Short read: Kebabs, biryani and much more: Indian city on UNESCO culinary list
One city in India which has very few listed companies but which Marcellus’ analysts visit with metronomic regularity in order to conduct field research is Lucknow. The food in the Avadhi capital city is mind-blowing. Not just the starters (galouti), not just the main course (biryani) but also the desserts are out of the world. […]
Short read: The Entry-Level Hiring Process Is Breaking Down
Across the world, including in India, graduates – even from the most elite universities – are finding it difficult to get jobs. This is partly because there are fewer graduate-level jobs. Whilst there is no definitive answer on why this is happening in economies as disparate as America and India, it is widely speculated that […]
Long read: How China Built an Arms Industry to Rival the West
The emerging multi-polar global order requires countries to alter their geopolitical strategies, in particular, become more self-sufficient on defence needs. India being the world’s largest importer of defence equipment (outside of war-torn Ukraine) has rightfully embarked on an indigenisation path. The challenge is that much more accentuated given modern warfare requires cutting edge capabilities in […]
Long read: How Warren Buffett Did It
Plenty has been written and said about Warren Buffett. Yet, as he retires from day-to-day responsibilities at Berkshire Hathaway this week, an ode to an illustrious career is justified. A career that spanned 84years if you count that he bought his first stock when he was 11 and he is hanging up his boots at […]
Long read: The Kremlin’s brazen tactics: Russia’s shadow fleet is doubling as a spy asset, intelligence sources say
This is a remarkable long read pulled together by a team of CNN journalists spread across the world. Effectively, they are saying that James Bond style Russian agents now travel in oil tankers around the world and conduct in-depth surveillance and espionage: “Russian personnel with links to the country’s military and security services have engaged […]
The Inevitability of Rupee Depreciation and How You Can Benefit from it
The Rupee loses approximately 40% of its value every decade. As a result, after paying taxes, you have less than a third of your income left in hand to finance your daily expenses and your long-term goals (like children’s education, retirement). However, it does not have to be like this. You can compound your wealth […]
Short read: The Misfit Tree
It’s that time of the year when there is general cheer all around. Work related stress eases a bit as people go on breaks. Families get together as kids come home from college or relatives and friends living abroad making their annual trips home. Some of us are looking forward to that long-planned vacation. Yet, […]
Short read: Indian football’s great irony: Millions for Messi, none for the beautiful game
300 of India’s top footballers today are jobless as India doesn’t have a national football league anymore. It might sound ludicrous given the game’s greatest star Lionel Messi, received a raging (pun intended) welcome in India with hundreds of thousands of fans thronging stadiums and the rich and the famous paying over a million for […]
Short read: Housework Valued
More women vote in India’s elections than men. Unsurprisingly therefore, over the past four years various state governments have started unconditional direct benefit transfers to their largest votebank – women. The Statesman says that this could be the beginning of something big, something profound: “India may have stumbled into one of its most consequential social […]
Long read: How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device in the Himalayas?
This is a fascinating story from six decades ago about an espionage act gone wrong possibly putting at risk millions of lives even to this day. It follows the Chinese nuclear tests in 1964 which alarmed the US. In a rare act of partnership with India who had just lost a war to China, the […]
Long read: The India Trump Made: Where American Bullying Is Leading New Delhi
James Crabtree is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Rudra Chaudhuri is the Director of Carnegie India. In this piece, the two foreign policy experts opine on how India is navigating the foreign policy mess that Trump has created. India’s response according to these two experts has three different strands […]
Long read: South rising, west slipping: India’s export map is being redrawn, shows RBI data
In our 2024 bestseller ‘Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India’ we had dedicated a chapter to how southern India is rapidly pulling away from the rest of India in economic growth. (The South pulled away from the rest of the country on social indicators several decades ago.) To our surprise, this point […]
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