Mira Kamdar is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute, a Fellow of Asia Society and the author of Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World (Scribner 2008).

Blog Entries by Mira Kamdar

Outsourcing India: For Obama And Singh, Democracy Means Business

1 Comments | Posted November 24, 2009 | 02:12 PM (EST)


When the administration rolls out the red carpet to welcome Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington next week, the real action won't be around the elegantly set tables at the Obama's first state dinner. It will be over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That's right: The same folks...

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The Shah Appointment at USAID

2 Comments | Posted November 16, 2009 | 12:13 PM (EST)


Talkin' Bout a (Second Genetically-Engineered Privatized) Green Revolution

The Cold War is over! The Cold War is back! With the appointment of Rajiv Shah to head USAID, it's deja-vu all over again for the Obama administration. Welcome to Camelot redux, the 1960's re-engineered for the 2010s.

Michelle Obama's stylish...

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Parsis in Paris: Little Zizou in the Land of Zidane

17 Comments | Posted November 9, 2009 | 11:00 AM (EST)


It's not often one finds photographs of Parsis on display in the heart of Paris. But that is just what strollers along the Seine can find this fall. The photographs, by Sooni Taraporevala, are part of the Quai Branly museum's biannual exhibition Photoquai. It is free and open...

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Slumdogs And Americans: Equal Opportunity Police Brutality in India

5 Comments | Posted October 13, 2009 | 03:32 PM (EST)


Anyone who watched Slumdog Millionaire or read Suketu Mehta's Bombay: Maximum City remembers the scenes of police torture, how harrowing they were for the victims, how casually banal they were for the perpetrators. Last week, American journalist Joel Elliott got to experience this first-hand. Stumbling upon a group of uniformed...

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Afghanistan: Collateral Damage From Paris to Punjab

1 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 04:11 PM (EST)


I confess that I have never been to Afghanistan. Like most of my friends, I don't know anyone who has served there or who hails from the war zone. I would expect, therefore, not to come face-to-face with the human cost of this long drawn-out war. But I have. I...

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The Radical Philosopher: Reflections on Gandhi's 140th Birthday

4 Comments | Posted October 2, 2009 | 02:34 PM (EST)


On October 2, 1869, exactly 140 years ago, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born. Dubbed Mahatma, or great soul, he was one of the most radical thinkers and activists who ever lived. Were he alive today, I have no doubt Gandhi would be utterly appalled at the direction the world...

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The Political Risks Of Tweeting In The Land Of Sacred Cows

24 Comments | Posted September 27, 2009 | 12:11 PM (EST)


India's new-media savvy Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has tweeted up a domestic political tempest in a country where sensitivities are ever on a hair-trigger alert for any sign of religious or class offense. Asked by a journalist via Twitter how he felt about traveling "cattle class"...

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