Rama Bijapurkar

How we've shifted from loving all things Western to embracing global, desi, and global desi vibes -- with fewer value judgments

Conflicting data, fragmented markets, and outdated metrics: Here's why reframing the narrative on India's consumption is essential to address the diverse realities of 2025

Our world rankings are, without question, a stunning achievement that calls for monumental pride

Evaluating corporate results through the lens of factors affecting consumer demand makes more sense than the reverse

Nation-building education is the govt's job. It should do it with the same might it used for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Aadhaar linking, Covid vaccination drive, and financial inclusion initiative

The idea that large companies need demand visibility to invest, so lower-income demand needs to be stimulated, does not hold water

There are two distinct political narratives in the country today--one giving voice to an "aspiring India" and the other to a "hopeless India". Both factions have their work cut out

Despite the fatigue of having to find work gigs , there is hopefulness and striving, and little anger

The ethnographic study findings suggest that politics is not on the radar of 18-21 year old Indians

Most Indians do not care about the income gap between the top 1 per cent and the rest. They have their own logic that merits listening

With the blurring urban-rural income divide and the diminishing mental and physical distinctions, large mass markets with modest-income consumers are finally emerging

In defining and thinking about the middle class, we need to move away from rankings and income to quality

IndiGo also understands the Indian psyche very well, and has shown how the Indian mentality of wanting the moon for six pence can be tackled

Our goalpost and gaze need shifting from external chest-thumping on world rankings to prioritising human capital and productivity in our polity and election promises

We need to stop obsessing over consumption, the real problem is supply

The survey revealed a very disappointed Urban India, which agreed, by a strong majority, that acche din had not come in their personal context