Amey Chitale

The capital’s annual smog crisis is no longer a seasonal aberration but a policy failure in slow motion. In recent years, winter in north India has become a season of dread instead of relief from the monsoons. Nowhere is this more viscerally felt than in Delhi, which has slipped from a polluted megacity into the ranks of the world’s most toxic capitals. Until the early 1990s, Delhi’s air, though imperfect, remained largely breathable. A smaller population, fewer vehicles and favourable wind...

Uneven growth, swelling giveaways and rising debts are testing the foundations of India’s fiscal federalism. Income gaps, swelling welfare commitments and uneven revenue growth are reshaping India’s state finances. The country’s federal compact, once defined by shared revenues and coordinated investment, is now marked by diverging fortunes between richer and poorer states, widening rural-urban divides and a rising appetite for politically seductive cash transfers. These shifts are beginning...

The first of a two-part series examines how India’s federal fiscal structure strained by populist spending and uneven GST revenues threatens to upend the nation’s pursuit of long-term economic stability. The Indian economy has lately taken some curious turns. The sting of tariff disruptions still lingers, but the festive season’s buoyancy and the continuing benefits of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) reforms have revived momentum. Exports have been dented by American tariffs and the uneasy...