Srinath Sridharan

Dr. Srinath Sridharan is a Corporate Advisor & Independent Director on Corporate Boards. He is the author of ‘Family and Dhanda’.

Can Accepted Practices Become Governance Risks?

The alleged practices at HDFC Bank raise larger questions. Can commercially accepted market behaviours evolve into governance risks before institutions are willing to confront them openly?

Srinath Sridharan

May 28, 2026 at 7:19 AM IST

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Central Banking Beyond Textbooks, Critics, and Commentators

The RBI is being judged through theoretical abstractions, comparisons, and shallow critiques. It is a hard task to keep one of the world’s most complex emerging economies stable.

Srinath Sridharan

May 21, 2026 at 5:22 AM IST

Insurance Promoters Must Share Cost of Customer Harm

IRDAI’s proposal to link executive compensation with customer outcomes acknowledges the widening trust deficit within India’s insurance sector. But durable reform will need more.

Srinath Sridharan

May 19, 2026 at 9:21 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: Why Indian Goodbyes Take Longer Than Parties

Basis Life

Middle-aged Indians increasingly complain about exhaustion, sleep cycles and lack of time. Yet the same people can spend forty extra minutes near lifts, gates and parked cars discussing digestion, children and property prices after already saying goodbye three times.

Srinath Sridharan

May 16, 2026 at 4:26 AM IST

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Geopolitical Volatility Demands a More Economically Disciplined India

The Prime Minister’s advisory reflects emerging realities of inflation, external vulnerability and sovereign economic resilience.

Srinath Sridharan

May 11, 2026 at 5:14 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: Why We Leave Parties Early After 40

Basis Life

In urban India, middle-aged adults still attend weddings, dinners and house parties, but quietly plan when to leave. Early exits have become a practical way to manage time, energy and social expectations without offending anyone.

Srinath Sridharan

May 9, 2026 at 5:18 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: We Don’t Reply. We Compose

Basis Life

Even a simple message, has shaped into a small act of editing, restraint, and quiet calculation.

Srinath Sridharan

May 2, 2026 at 6:33 AM IST

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RBI Affirms Rules over Exceptionalism for Corporate India

The RBI’s clarification on upper-layer NBFCs places principle above pedigree. How Tata Sons responds will define the boundary between legacy privilege and regulatory certainty in India.

Srinath Sridharan

April 30, 2026 at 8:14 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: The Art of Saying “We’ll See”

Basis Life

By middle age, we stop saying yes or no. We learn something far more useful, and far more polite.

Srinath Sridharan

April 25, 2026 at 5:09 AM IST

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India Turns Maritime Insurance Into Strategic State Power

By underwriting maritime risk, India is embedding insurance within the core of economic statecraft. In a fractured global order, control over risk is increasingly control over trade itself.

Srinath Sridharan

April 21, 2026 at 4:48 AM IST

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Benjamin Button, But Emotionally Backwards in Middle Age

Basis Life

We begin life intellectually prepared and emotionally untested. Middle age quietly reverses that order, offering clarity, calm, and a deeper way of living that few earlier years can provide.

Srinath Sridharan

April 18, 2026 at 6:54 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: Golf Is Not a Sport, It’s Also Access

Basis Life

Nothing is decided on the golf course. That would be improper. It is simply made easier long before it reaches a meeting.

Srinath Sridharan

April 11, 2026 at 4:28 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: Teens Are Parenting Their Parents Now

Basis Life

Teenagers, of today, do not just test parental patience. They expose parental habits, hypocrisies, and old authority that no longer works. Adolescence is the stage when Indian parents are finally forced to unlearn control and relearn respect.

Srinath Sridharan

April 4, 2026 at 8:45 AM IST

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India’s Case for Monetary Sovereignty in a Changing Order

The future of power in finance lies not in currencies alone, but in who controls how they settle.

Srinath Sridharan

Anand Venkatanarayanan

April 2, 2026 at 3:10 AM IST

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Board Independence in India is Largely a Managed Illusion

Indian boards have mastered the form of independence without hollowing out its substance. Unless dissent is enabled, accountability stays performative.

Rabi N. Mishra

Srinath Sridharan

March 30, 2026 at 5:59 AM IST

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The OPD Waiting Room Is A National Anxiety Clinic

Basis Life

This column looks at why the OPD waiting room has become one of the most revealing spaces in the country, where fear, hierarchy, and everyday absurdity all sit together.

Srinath Sridharan

March 28, 2026 at 7:06 AM IST

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When Scale Becomes a Systemic Risk

What looks like strength in politics, markets and energy may actually be a dangerous concentration of risk. Probably why modern systems are becoming more brittle precisely where they appear most powerful, as concentration risk is becoming one of the defining strategic vulnerabilities of our time.

Srinath Sridharan

March 26, 2026 at 8:23 AM IST

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Large NBFCs Cannot Remain Exempt From Leadership Tenure Discipline

If systemically important NBFCs are large enough to matter to financial stability, they are large enough to face governance disciplines closer to banks. India should stop mistaking executive longevity for institutional strength and begin treating succession as a prudential obligation.

Srinath Sridharan

March 23, 2026 at 3:12 AM IST

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Sarci-Sense: Why Does Everyone Over Forty Suddenly Know Everything?

Basis Life

Somewhere in our forties we acquire a curious superpower. We become experts on almost everything.

Srinath Sridharan

March 22, 2026 at 10:35 AM IST

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Family Offices and India’s Capital Shift: Missing the Real Story

India’s family offices are often caricatured as impulsive pools of wealth chasing fashionable bets, but such portrayals miss a more consequential shift.

Srinath Sridharan

March 18, 2026 at 10:29 AM IST

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The Bureau

Benchmarks End Lower, Post Monthly Losses Amid US-Iran Uncertainty

India Cuts Monsoon Rain Forecast to 90%

RBI Says Bond Yields May Face Upward Pressure If Global Easing Stalls

Cash Growth Outpaces Economy as Currency in Circulation Rises Nearly 12%

Large-Ticket Frauds Drive Sharp Rise in Bank Fraud Value Despite Fewer Cases: RBI Report

RBI to Sharpen Focus on Neutral Rate in Wider Policy Modelling Push

RBI to Transfer Record ₹2.87 Trillion Surplus To Govt, CRB Buffer Set Lower at 6.5%

Flawed Design, Poor Planning Make Extreme Heat Conditions Worse For Indian Cities

Learning to Shoot: I Tried to Fly Before I Could Walk