“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” lamented French President Charles de Gaulle. India, with 22 official languages (and over 1,000 mother tongues), faces a similar puzzle. Of all places…
Pollution is not a new problem in India. But its recent intensity is a clarion call for policy action. Both India’s leaders and people can no longer afford to look away. India faces a crisis…
Data openness sounds like a defensible cause. In the information age, citizens expect transparency, and degree of openness is an increasingly common benchmarking metric. However, not all governments are so forthcoming, and Singapore is one…
Economic inequality has been a popular topic for analysis, commentary and political debate. Recent data have elicited yet more concern. The top 1 per cent of the world’s wealthy individuals now own more than the…
China and India are experiencing rapid urbanisation, with rural-to-urban migration occurring at historically unprecedented rates. City planning and economic policy have struggled to keep pace with this demographic shift, and global economic competition may force…
People now have higher expectations for living standards, particularly for their children. Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley is evidence that the government is committed to building the country’s global image. However, India first must sell its…
Many in Asia have escaped poverty, but capital continues to flow disproportionately to the tiny elite. The top 1 per cent now own 50.4 per cent of global wealth; that is, 1 per cent of…
The return of the haze to Singapore has brought the predictable round of complaints, analysis, hand-wringing, and soul-searching, but the problem never seems to improve. To establish a basis for actionable intervention, it is critical…
The next generation of think tank capacity should emerge not from direct government initiatives, but from the improvement of conditions that support independent thought. This includes an education system that teaches critical thinking, an intellectual…
Food safety is a serious public health concern in the world’s two most populous countries, China and India. In both countries, the challenges of feeding a large, geographically dispersed population, millions of whom are poor…
