Basis Life

Words as Fossils: The Secret History Hidden in Everyday Speech

From Roman elections and medieval prejudice to forgotten gods and discarded science, everyday words preserve the hidden histories, beliefs and biases of vanished worlds.

R. Gurumurthy

Via WikiCommons

In Search of the Lesser Florican

Maneet Pal Singh

Maneet Pal Singh

Basis Life

Why Intelligent People Keep Moving Toward Outcomes They Know Are Dangerous

Not an AI story and not a tale of greed. Coxon's resignation is a story about the gap between knowing and doing, and the systems that make that gap almost impossible to close.

Kirti Tarang Pande

Istock.com

Basis Life

The Customer Is King, Just Don't Ask Him for Anything.

A hunt for something as ordinary as socks turns into an unexpected lesson in modern retail

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci Sense: Why Do We Photograph Food Before Eating It?

We once ate, remembered and moved on. Now even a meal seems incomplete until someone who isn’t there has seen it.

Srinath Sridharan

Istock.com

Basis Life

The Serious Business of Being Funny

A good joke does more than puncture power. It exposes hypocrisy, deflates pomposity and reminds us to check the mirror before laughing at others.

R. Gurumurthy

Istock.com

Basis Life

The Machines Know What We Want. Shame They Don’t Know What We Mean.

Something strange is happening in the way we live with technology. We barely notice it anymore; but perhaps we should.

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci Sense: Why Can We Manage Everything Except the Newspaper Flying Everywhere?

We organise careers, money and children with military precision, yet leave the morning newspaper scattered across the house. Perhaps our disorder is more selective than our discipline.

Srinath Sridharan

istock.com

Basis Life

Please Consult the Asterisk Before Buying

Purple toothpaste, black charcoal fairness creams, tea that evicts calories—Indian advertising has stopped selling products and started selling deficiencies. One tiny asterisk knows the truth. Meet advertising's most honest, most ignored employee.

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci Sense: When Did Looking Successful Become Enough?

We claim to admire character, merit and substance. Yet give us a famous surname, a foreign degree or a photograph with the right person, and our principles suddenly become negotiable.

Srinath Sridharan

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci Sense: When Did We Stop Being Embarrassed by Hypocrisy?

We have always lived with contradictions. But somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost the old discomfort of being caught behaving differently from what we preach.

Srinath Sridharan

Istock.com

Basis Life

The Power of Two

Two friends who never stopped texting. Two doctors who kept hope alive. Two chants repeated in the dark. This is what it takes to survive uncertainty—and come out the other side.

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Admit, Stay Silent, or Inspire: Leadership is About Reading the Room

Mamdani, Gandhi, and Modi show that if the goal is to build credibility and repair trust, leadership communication can't be determined by personality. It must diagnose which wound, in which room, requires which honesty.

Kirti Tarang Pande

Istock.com

Basis Life

The Intelligent Fool Has Entered the Room

Intelligence can explain our mistakes. Wisdom begins when we stop defending them, question ourselves, and learn to change.

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci Sense: India Has Discovered Protein. Again.

In India’s desperate search for protein, a generation raised on social media is paying a premium to rediscover what its own kitchens have known for centuries

Srinath Sridharan

iStock.com

Cotton, Speculation and the Birth of Modern Bombay's Financial System

The American Civil War redirected cotton supplies to India, triggering a speculative frenzy in Bombay that transformed the city yet ended in catastrophic collapse.

Aadya Tyagi

Via WikiCommons

Basis Life

The Ratings That Begin at Home

In a world of stars, scores and rankings, family labels remain the most durable, least transparent and least open to appeal.

Krishnadevan V

iStock.com

Basis Life

Rich-Looking, Asset-Poor: A Generation that has Everything, Except the One Thing that Builds Wealth.

The RBI calls it a consumption boom. A psychologist calls it a reference-point shift. The former reads as official macro optimism. The latter sees a generation flexing luxury to compensate for a future that´s priced permanently out of reach. History has a name for this pattern: the fall of Rome.

Kirti Tarang Pande

Istock.com

Basis Life

Sarci-Sense: Don’t We Believe in Serendipity Anymore?

The finest chapters of our lives were often written by circumstances that never consulted us. The human question is - Are we still leaving enough room for serendipity?

Srinath Sridharan

istock.com

Basis Life

The Un(Ubiquitous) Indian Dining Table

The Indian dining table once brought families together. Today, it holds laptops, deliveries and leftovers—while conversations increasingly happen somewhere else.

Kalyani Srinath

Istock.com

Columnists

Vivek Kaul

Vivek Kaul is a writer and an economic commentator.

Michael Debabrata Patra

Michael Patra is an economist and former RBI Deputy Governor.

Duvvuri Subbarao

Dr Subbarao is a former governor of RBI

Arvind Mayaram

Arvind Mayaram, former Finance Secretary, is Chairman of the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur.

Ashima Goyal

Dr Ashima Goyal is an Economist, Ex MPC Member.

Ajay Srivastava

Ajay Srivastava is the founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative.

Abheek Barua

Abheek is an Independent Economist and the Former Chief Economist at HDFC Bank.

Vijay Chauhan

Vijay Singh Chauhan, a former IRS official, is a Senior Visiting Fellow at ICPP, Ashoka University

R. Gurumurthy

Gurumurthy is an ex-central banker who handled markets, and later, financial stability for RBI.

Gaura Sen Gupta

Gaura is Chief Economist at IDFC First Bank.

Sharmila Kantha

Sharmila Kantha is an industrial policy specialist and author.

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)

Lt Gen Hasnain is Governor, Bihar, and Former Commander of Chinar Corps.

Dhananjay Sinha

Dhananjay, a D-School alum, is CEO and Co-Head of Equities at Systematix Group.

Sharmila Chavaly

Ex-civil servant Chavaly held key Railways, Finance roles; specialises in infra & PPPs

Srinath Sridharan

Srinath is an author, corporate advisor, and independent director on corporate boards.

Amitabh Tiwari

Amitabh Tiwari tracks politics with a strategic eye

Vivek Kaul

Vivek Kaul is a writer and an economic commentator.

Michael Debabrata Patra

Michael Patra is an economist and former RBI Deputy Governor.

The Bureau

Tata Mistrust: Bombay House Boardroom Battle Heats Up

Indian Equities End Mixed as US Fed Hawkishness, Oil Prices Offset Bargain Buying

US Sanctions Bill Exposes India to Tariffs of Up to 100%, Says GTRI

US FOMC Raises Fed Rates by 25 bps, Warsh Flags Persistent Inflation Risks

India’s Gilt Market Faces Pressure on Every Front, Curve Seen Bear-Flattening

India’s Finance Ministry Rejects External-Pressure Claim on UPI MDR

August CPI Turns October RBI Meeting Into a Live Rate-Hike Call

India Govt Allows 0.4% MDR on UPI Merchant Payments Above ₹2,000

India’s GDP Data Puzzle: Pronab Sen on Deflators, Revisions and Trust

In Search of the Lesser Florican

Maneet Pal Singh

Canvas

Vivek Kaul

Michael Debabrata Patra

Duvvuri Subbarao

Arvind Mayaram

Ashima Goyal

Ajay Srivastava

Abheek Barua

Vijay Chauhan

R. Gurumurthy

Gaura Sen Gupta

Sharmila Kantha

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)

Dhananjay Sinha

Sharmila Chavaly

Srinath Sridharan

Amitabh Tiwari

Vivek Kaul

Michael Debabrata Patra

The Bureau