Raghav's Take

Unquestionably, the Mufti-Modi Pact to create the PDP-BJP coalition government on 1 March 2015 was a Coalition of Immense Hope. Unfortunately, in three years, it had transgressed into a "Coalition of Fear."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government treats Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, as the God of all economic success. PM Modi cherry-picked and talked about all the good stuff, but "overlooked" many troublesome facts, about India’s economy. Here's a reminder from Raghav Bahl.

230: PM Modi Should Control Clumsy Propagandists Lest They Do More Harm

2019 coalition government: In an eerie replay of 1996, the BJP could become the single largest party, the Congress could come in second and a clutch of regional parties could dice the remaining seats. Here are three reasons why the 2019 "khichdi"coalition could be a political delicacy.

Khichdi is also a colloquial description of weak coalition governments. The phrase acquired wide currency during 1996-97, when unstable United Front regimes were formed during a sickly interregnum in India’s democracy. Today it’s back in vogue, with several pundits wondering if the 2019 polls shall throw up another khichdi coalition. Listen to The Quint's Editor-in-Chief, Raghav Bahl analyse India's politics.

On 28 July, the man responsible for securing our telecom and broadcast infrastructure, RS Sharma revealed his Aadhaar ID number and dared hackers to “harm”, but did he accept his defeat with humility? Listen to The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl talk about the culture of intimation in our current political environment.

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hugely dissimilar personalities in outward conduct – one writes crude tweets, the other remains strategically silent – have nonetheless created equally polarised democracies ten thousand miles apart. And what about their attitude towards independent news platforms? Listen to The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl!

The University of Delhi (DU) immeasurably helped create Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political brand. His sprint towards the stunning 2014 victory had begun on 6 February 2013 at DU’s Shri Ram College of Commerce.

Ironically, Prime Minister Modi needs to take lessons from the swift, decisive actions of two politicians he holds in disdain, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, says The Quint's founder Raghav Bahl.

Brahmastra, in the Mahabharata, is a “single projectile that is able to destroy the Universe”. Lord Rama is thought to have used it in his last battle with Ravana. Now let’s put it in context of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. After four years of a blessed existence, Modi is facing his first acute economic challenge. Today, India is again teetering at the edge of a severe macro-economic imbalance: treasuries have crossed 8 percent, the rupee has plummeted by 15 percent to over 74/dollar, oil is perilously close to three figures, and hundreds of stocks are in a severe bear grip even as market indices have crashed by over 15 percent. Does he have the gumption to deploy a policy Brahmastra, to kill the crisis before it careens out of control?

By not going for a TARP-like bailout, Prime Minister Modi has given an extra gain of Rs 30,000 cr to crony capitalists who allowed IL&FS to crash, while levying an extra tax of Rs 2,00,000 cr on ordinary/innocent investors, like you and me.  The above is very simple arithmetic, but a team of IAS babus (bureaucrats) will never understand it, because it is deeply suspicious of market forces. And Prime Minister Modi has surrendered his economic policies to them, keeping entrepreneurs, tailors and firemen out.

As a Bollywood narrator would say, in dono stories main Modi hai, Patel hai, RSS hai, aur cash bhi hai! But there is a tiny difference between the two, and that is the letter ‘t’. You see, one was about a Statue, the other about a Statute. Prime Minister Modi helmed and orchestrated both the stories. In the first one, he redeemed his 6-year-old pledge to build the world’s tallest statue on river Narmada – a 182-metre salute to Sardar Patel, an icon of India’s independence movement. In the second but bigger story, Modi threatened the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a surgical strike.

The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl argues that Lutyens’ Delhi did more to propel Modi into the PMO and may even be able to bring him down in 2019\. Tune in to this edition of Raghav's Take.

Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into active politics brought on a plethora of nervous and panicked responses from the BJP and several “star journalists”. But the Modi government’s uncouth television henchmen will bring Rahul Gandhi’s Congress roaring back to life, says Raghav Bahl. Listen to the podcast!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves to talk up all his “pioneering firsts”. Well, he’s now added a truly lethal one to that arsenal – India’s first post-truth Budget! Exactly 18 hours before the Budget was presented in Parliament, India dramatically upped its previous two years’ GDP numbers. Ironically, the most brazen “upgrade” was reserved for 2016-17 when demonetisation had clearly ravaged the economy. How did this happen? Well, it was simply a matter of tweaking a few numbers and changing the “denominator” against which all key figures and metrics are calculated against. Listen, as Raghav Bahl explains, on this episode of Raghav’s Take.