Paying the price of oil

The government has missed a golden opportunity to reduce the impact of high oil prices on India's political economy - and may now pay a price

There was a time when the Indian economy — and, in fact, its political climate — was dependent completely upon the monsoon. If you had a bad monsoon, you had a bad year and a troubled government. If you had a good monsoon, you had a bit of growth and a government that felt secure. This is no longer strictly true. Yes, droughts are still dangerous, but the impact of a bad monsoon on the entire economy is no longer catastrophic. Over decades, successive policymakers have worked hard to drought-proof large parts of the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has