Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Gautam Chikermane 🇮🇳 Profile picture
Gautam Chikermane 🇮🇳
@gchikermane
VP @orfonline | Grand Strategy, Economics, Mahabharata | New Books: Reading Sri Aurobindo; and Reform Nation
4 subscribers
Nov 1 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I am sitting in his study.
Surrounded by intense conversations this room is witness to.
Memories. Debates. Books.
My small personal sorrow is drowned in the ocean of public loss.
Goodbye, Bibek Debroy—we will continue, in another room, at another time, across another life. Mahabharata and economic policy. Puranas and fountain pens.
Gita(s) and Devi.
A life that explored all these.
A life that lived his explorations.
‘Dr. Bibek Debroy’ to most, ‘Bibek Da’ to some, and despite our age gap, simply ‘Bibek’ to me.
Sep 25, 2023 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
#TheVaccineWar is a film that says: “India Can!”
Beyond that, @vivekagnihotri’s biggest achievement is to give a fitting tribute to India’s unsung hero-soldiers in this war—our women scientists.
Disclosure: I play a cameo in this film.
 
A thread…


Image
Image
Image
Image First, #TheVaccineWar is the first Indian science film I’ve seen. It has simplified cutting-edge virology and made it accessible to non-scientists.
It has done so by embedding characters into the science—not the other way—and shown the lives of women and men behind the vaccine. Image
Jan 31, 2023 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
The #EconomicSurvey by CEA V. Anantha Nageswaran tracks past reforms, points out future ones, examines threats & opportunities, contextualises the India story, builds hope amid uncertainties. It looks within & outside, past & future, macroeconomics & policy.
Very useful document! Real GDP growth to be between 6.0% and 6.8%; inflation rate (CPI-C and WPI) is below 6% and is on the descending slope of the surge that hit the economy in the first half of the current fiscal: #EconomicSurvey
Jun 4, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
The real discovery in #SamratPrithviraj is @ManushiChhillar. Watch the film for the entire run up to, and climax of, the swayamwar sequence. It’s kshatriyata, it’s gender rights, it’s valour. Above all, it’s a set of great performances—firm yet respectful, dissenting yet dharmic. In a film that hovers between fresh nationalism and dharma on the one side and predictable and out of synch song-and-dance routine on the other, it is @ManushiChhillar who saves the film and stays in the mind. She delivers the dances with grace but doesn’t let them smother her.
May 31, 2022 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
He was only 53.
He sang his last song.
And quietly passed away.
In music he lived life, in music he met death.
Sorrow is for the rest of us, for KK it’s possibly a Stairway to Heaven. KK was our lead singer and drummer.
With Julius, Franz, Tom, Sandeep and I, we were Horizon, the college band at KMC.
Feb 10, 2022 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Delighted to announce that our new report ‘Jailed for Doing Business: The 26,134 Criminal Clauses in India’s Business Laws’ has been released.
Written by @rishiagraw and me for @orfonline, it hopes to usher in third generation economic reforms.
A thread…

orfonline.org/research/jaile… The compliance universe for India’s businesses comprises:
— 1,536 laws
— 69,233 compliances
— 6,618 filings
Feb 8, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
As a company, you may hate the country you’re profiting from, but when you go public with your virtue-signalling you lose your consumers, your profits, your investors.
All you will be left with is a burning hatred — roast in it! Mature reply by @MEAIndia to @Hyundai_Global: India welcomes investments by foreign companies in various sectors. But, it is also expected that such companies or their affiliates will refrain from false and misleading comments on matters of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Oct 1, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Congratulations to @narendramodi for providing the political conviction for reforms; @HardeepSPuri for nursing the process; and @JM_Scindia for executing one of the most difficult reforms!

A thread on the history nationalisation of airlines — and its ugly repercussions. Under the Air Corporations Act of 1953, Parliament voted to nationalise nine airlines — Air India, Air Services of India, Airways (India), Bharat Airways, Deccan Airways, Himalayan Aviation, Indian National Airways, Kalinga Airlines, and Air India International.
Aug 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The @orfonline Foreign Policy Survey 2021: Young India and the World
Some findings:
— 72% rate India’s foreign policy very good or good
— 77% say US most trusted
— 77% say China most distrusted
— 71% say AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan is good for India

orfonline.org/research/the-o… — 62% say globalisation has had a mostly good effect on ‘India overall’
— 59% say it has had a mostly good effect for ‘education opportunities overseas’
— 51% say it has had a mostly good effect on India’s economy
— 38% say it has had a mostly bad effect
Jul 24, 2021 • 12 tweets • 9 min read
Exactly 30 years ago, on 24 July 1991, India embarked on a reforms journey that irreversibly changed the textures of its economy.
This series of essays analyses that sojourn so far and gives directions for future reforms.
A thread…

orfonline.org/series/30-year… via @orfonline 1. @NKSingh_MP analyses the significance of the 1991 reforms and then lists out eleven prerequisites for the success of future reforms.
orfonline.org/expert-speak/e… via @orfonline
Jan 28, 2021 • 6 tweets • 8 min read
In the run-up to #Budget2021, I am hosting a series of discussions on the six big issues Finance Minister @nsitharaman faces.
1. Markets
2. Vaccines
3. Jobs
4. Growth
5. Infrastructure
6. China

#IndiaBudget2021 on @WIONews Day 1 (25 January): why are stock markets booming when the economy is contracting?


With @ashishchauhan Nandish Desai and Juan Manuel Lopez-Zafra
#IndiaBudget2021 on @WIONews
Jan 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Rich farmers have weaponised their well-cultivated image of being poor farmers.
By desecrating the Tiranga they have shown contempt for a nation that feeds them their wealth.

It’s time for hard action by the state. Political parties supporting this violence will fall by the wayside — a rising India has no patience for such opportunism.

It’s time for had action by the state.
Jan 14, 2021 • 21 tweets • 11 min read
Some readers have been asking what #India2030 is all about.
Here’s a chapter-by-chapter thread on the 20 forecasts by 20 thought leaders on 20 themes that will define India in the 2020s.
1/n Chapter 20 of #India2030 by @davidfrawleyved talks about how the Civilizational Resurgence of India will reconnect its ancient past to ride into a dharmic future
2/n
Dec 25, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
On #GitaJayanti, I prostrate before Sri Krishna for conceptualising the Bhagwad Gita, Ved Vyasa for compiling these powerful spiritual ideas, and Sri Aurobindo for taking them to the next level.
A thread... The one shloka from the Bhagwad Gita that has dominated the 2020 discourse is on dealing with death:

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः ।
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः ॥

Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry.
Dec 13, 2020 • 24 tweets • 4 min read
A thread on, and chronology of, past 20 years of discussions, debates and discourses around farm reforms — which committee said what — says end the tyranny of APMC and Essential Commodities Act, allow farmers to flourish
[Links to all primary documents below.]

1/n 19 December 2000: Expert Committee set up by the Ministry of Agriculture under the chairmanship of Shankerlal Guru.
• Call for ideas to promote agricultural growth
• Ensure that a greater share of the ultimate price of the agricultural produce goes to farmers
2/n
Jul 30, 2020 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Second quarter of global GDP in 2020 is bleeding: a growing thread on contracting economies... Germany's GDP contracts by 10.1% in second quarter

dw.com/en/coronavirus…
Jul 14, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
All those cheering UK policy banning #5G equipment from #Huawei, calm down.

Thread... Policy: Buying new Huawei #5G equipment banned after 31 December 2020.

Implication: Nothing -- UK telecommunications firms are free to buy all #Huawei equipment they want, and more, over the next five months.
May 28, 2020 • 5 tweets • 5 min read
Until China reforms, Made in China firms must be treated with as much caution and precaution as India is treating the Made in China pandemic
orfonline.org/expert-speak/t…

My essay in @orfonline argues why #Huawei must not be allowed into India's #5G
#Ladakh India will not be alone in rejecting #Huawei.
UK proposes a D10 club of democratic partners for #5G:
-- G7
-- Australia
-- South Korea
-- India

thetimes.co.uk/article/downin…
May 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The primary issue around Clause 7.1 is that the right to property as a fundamental right was snatched away from Indians in 1978.

A short thread... Between 1951 through 1976, seven amendments—1st (1951), 4th (1955), 17th (1964), 25th (1971), 39th (1975), 40th (1976), and 42nd (1976)—were brought in, all of which were struck down by the Supreme Court.
Apr 26, 2020 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
Sorry @irsassociation @finmin @nsitharaman: these measures will be inadequate to derail the Indian economy.
Here are some ideas that may help.
All citations from my 2018 book, 70 Policies that Shaped India (@orfonline).
Download here orfonline.org/wp-content/upl…
1/n Just 40% tax on the rich? It’s is too low. The rich are parasites, rogues, anti-national. You can do better.
The tax should be raised to 93.5% as Indira Gandhi had in her 1970 Budget.
And don’t forget the 15% surcharge that took the marginal rate of tax to 97.5%.
[Page 51]
2/n
Apr 20, 2020 • 25 tweets • 24 min read
ALERT: a #tweetstorm on the recent work of @orfonline scholars on and around #COVID19 follows.
Do read and share these cutting-end analyses.

#EachOneReachOne
1/n Harsh Pant and @KartikBommakan1: China is using #COVID19 as an opportunity for potential Chinese military action
orfonline.org/expert-speak/c…

#EachOneReachOne
2/n