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Tag: Indian Express (page 1 of 2)

March 28, 2018

One Misstep Too Many: Facebook has Egg on its Face Again, and This Time it Might Stick

Zuckerberg has confidently promised to fix Facebook, but it will be far from easy. The ultimate social network is a victim of its own success and eye-watering revenues. When Facebook’s 2 billion users around the planet log in every month and share or swipe past some slice of the human condition as offered up by friends, family and others, the users and their contexts are bound to vary widely. To get a sense of the spread of contexts that Facebook must straddle, consider the two most important markets for the company: India, which has the largest number of Facebook users and is among its fastest-growing markets; the home market of the US. Now, add Brazil and Indonesia as the next two markets behind these two dominant ones. To manage a social network spanning this much disparity of socio-political contexts and levels of digital trust would call for Zuckerberg to re-enroll at Harvard and get a degree in what I might call “digital anthropology.”

Read the full op-ed by Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

February 1, 2018

Three un-Davos men

None of these men are ideologues in the classic sense. They are the latest incarnations of Huntington’s culture warriors — they are masters of the culture of contradictions. Xi has revived his own form of Maoism, with unchallenged state control, now sauced up with dollops of market- and technology-infused pragmatism. Modi, for his part, embraces Hindutva and foreign leaders with equal vigour and is equally facile at following ancient texts and his WhatsApp feed to check on who has responded to his daily greetings. As for Trump, he is consistent only in playing to the base that brought him to power and to his own base instincts. He can also talk up America like a luxury condo he has developed for the exclusive use of global investors even as he sends strong signals that the condo is not open to the riff-raff, especially from certain continents or certain religions. These are the unDavos Men, who are consistent in their adherence to contradiction.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

January 23, 2018

The Aadhaar Opportunity

In an age rife with digital innovation, India has made two meaningful contributions: The number “zero” and Aadhaar. Okay, I cheated a little bit with the first one, given its pre-digital age origins, but let’s not allow petty details to get in the way. Aadhaar is a monumental IT project and a monumental vision for inclusion. Aadhaar, as a concept, lays the very foundation of trust in the digital age. And it does so regardless of caste, Facebook status or creed, across a billion people. Unfortunately, this also means that Aadhaar is a treasure trove of personal data on a billion people; therein lurks a parallel potential for widespread mischief. A journalist writing for The Tribune suggests that, indeed, such mischief can be pulled off rather easily.

Read the full op-ed from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

November 28, 2017

Memo to the World Bank: India should be rated even higher in the ease of doing business rankings the next time

Pop the champagne and pass the mithai — for it is, indeed, the epoch of belief, the season of light in the world’s largest democracy. After languishing in the World Bank’s league tables, India is, finally, getting its due: It has been admitted to the top 100 nation club for Ease of Doing Business. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one giant step closer to fulfilling every Indian’s dream.

It is now time to plot the next big move — to break into the top 80 nations club. With all the hard work already behind us, this next step should be a piece of cake. Here is how.

Read the full piece in The Indian Express

October 14, 2017

Ig-Nobel Mistakes

Wiping out 86 per cent of a country’s currency is rarely a “good start” on anything. In a country where, according to recent analyses of income-tax probes, the cash component of undeclared wealth is estimated to be only about six per cent, leaving an economy virtually cashless is certainly not a good place to end up. If Thaler had studied the data on the Indian economy he might have realised that the policy instrument he had supported was aimed at the wrong target: The currency of corruption is mostly in non-cash assets.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

June 23, 2017

If Trump, Modi Talk Climate

All this makes for an awkward prelude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington — a pity, since the two headstrong heads of state have a lot in common. Diplomacy may demand that the climate kerfuffle be kept off the agenda. In the unlikely event that it does come up, though, here is a cheat sheet for the PM.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

May 15, 2017

The Art of Curry Diplomacy

Infosys’ curry diplomacy was, no doubt, inspired by Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” order and his threat to revise the H-1B visa programme. I am not convinced that extravagant job-creation programmes in the US are the best use of Infosys’ increasingly scarce resources. While the Bengaluru-based IT giant may know how to mix its spices, to “curry favour” is a phrase that, oddly enough, has little to do with treating someone to a mean curry. Its obscure origins are in the grooming of horses: “To curry” is “to brush”. By spending resources on creating thousands of tech jobs in a country where the administration is gutting resources for science and technology programmes in an industry rapidly being automated, it seems Infosys is bringing the wrong curry and backing the wrong horse.

Read the full op-ed from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

February 3, 2017

The Less Cash Budget

After the drama of demonetisation, the 2017-18 Union budget has been a decidedly sober affair. The budget speech, one of the longest in history, was short on game-changing ideas. The finance minister didn’t seem terribly perturbed by the gathering storm clouds worldwide: Populist surges in the US and Europe; a strengthening dollar and oil price uncertainties; prospects of trade or religious wars, maybe both. That the IMF has shaved off a full percentage point of India’s anticipated growth rate as the economic penalty for the November cash carnage did not seem to provoke much worry either.

Read the pull op-ed from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

January 23, 2017

A New Abnormal

A little over two months has passed since the Narendra Modi government’s ambush on its own currency. In keeping with the unexpected nature of its launch, the manoeuvre has had some unexpected consequences. There are at least three ways in which the November 8 experiment has upended conventional wisdom.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

December 6, 2016

Demonetiser’s dilemma: Switch to digital in a digitally under-evolved country such as India will be a journey of small increments

Disruption is fashionable in digital circles, but usually the target of disruptive moves is a lazy incumbent. Disrupting the consumer is generally not cool. The demonetisation disruption — and the PM’s nudge towards cashlessness — provides an opportunity to ask fundamental questions.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

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