The Globe and Mail - Marcus Gee Columns

India's leaders must choose: Forge reform or remain shackled

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

mgee@globeandmai.comGifts like this come rarely in politics. In the midst of a global economic crisis that threatens to stifle India's growth, the country's voters have defied all predictions and handed the leaders of the Congress Party a famous victory. The question now is what those leaders do with it.

Shining a light on torture is America's lesser evil

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Barack Obama mustn't be seen to be concealing past misdeeds

Shining a light on torture is America's lesser evil

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00 EDT

mgee@globeandmail.comA U.S. president quickly learns that most of his big decisions mean choosing among unpalatable options - his leadership is often the art of selecting the lesser evil. So Barack Obama is finding in the case of the torture photos.

Why can't India do better? A technology entrepreneur blames the state

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00 EDT

mgee@globeandmail.comVisitors to Nandan Nilekani's Infosys Technologies Ltd. INFY-Q in Bangalore often feel they have been transported to another world. On the way there, they experience present-day India in all its gaudy, squalid glory: the beggars, the clogged streets, the ceaseless construction, the dust. Then, as if riding a raft from raging rapids to flat water, they find themselves in a green oasis where the roads are impeccable, the grounds manicured and the toilets clean - a paragon of order and modernity in the heart of India.

The cruel irony of China's one-child policy

Fri, 8 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Demographers say it is the first country to grow old before growing rich

The prophet of progress

Wed, 6 May 2009 03:23 EDT

'I personally believe that one of the fastest ways we can recover from this global crisis is increasing trade among nations and not by putting up barricades.'

THE PROPHET OF PROGRESS

Wed, 6 May 2009 00:00 EDT

mgee@globeandmail.comCapitalism is done like dinner. The free market is over. Globalization is dead. The great recession has finished them all. So say the prophets of doom.Nandan Nilekani has a different view. Mr. Nilekani is a prophet of a different kind: a prophet of progress. The co-founder of Infosys Technologies Ltd., a leading Indian IT and offshoring firm, believes that globalization is here to stay, despite the biggest economic slump since the Second World War. In fact, the way to beat the crisis is to embrace globalization, not reject it.

Sri Lanka should be magnanimous in victory despite the Tigers' brutality

Fri, 1 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Military victory over the Tamil Tigers must come with a political solution that answers Tamils' long-held grievances

Sri Lanka should be magnanimous in victory despite the Tigers' brutality

Fri, 1 May 2009 00:00 EDT

mgee@globeandmail.comCommanders who smell victory are not much interested in moderation. After more than 25 years of conflict with a brutal separatist enemy, the government of Sri Lanka has the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cornered in a tiny coastal strip in the island country's north. The army has captured or killed several top Tiger commanders and reduced the rebel army to a remnant of perhaps 500 to 2,000 fighters. A civil war that has probably claimed more than 100,000 lives is about to end with the decisive military defeat of one of the world's most vicious terrorist groups.