Part I: How India Learnt to Pay Differently There are technological revolutions that announce themselves with great fanfare, and there are those that quietly become part of everyday life. UPI belongs to the second category. Its most visible symbol is a little black-and-white square that now appears almost everywhere—in the neighbourhood grocery shop, beside aContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India -I”
Tag Archives: finance
The QR Code That Changed India-III
Part III: From the Tea Stall to the World The story of UPI would be incomplete if it ended with the QR code at the neighbourhood shop. What began as an attempt to make domestic payments simpler has now acquired a larger significance. India is increasingly exploring whether the architecture that transformed payments at homeContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India-III”
The QR Code That Changed India-II
Part II: The Price of Free There is a curious paradox about UPI. The more successful it has become, the easier it is to forget that it costs money to run. For the user, a UPI payment is almost completely frictionless. We scan a QR code, enter an amount, authenticate the transaction and the moneyContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India-II”
A Budget of Consolidation in an Uncertain World
The Union Budget 2026–27 has been presented at a moment when the global economic and political environment remains deeply unsettled. Wars continue to disrupt trade routes, financial markets remain sensitive to interest rate movements in advanced economies, and supply chains are increasingly shaped by geopolitics rather than efficiency alone. For an economy like India—integrated withContinue reading “A Budget of Consolidation in an Uncertain World”
A Budget Asserting Confidence of an Incumbent Government
‘Flat’, ‘without Substance’ and ‘a budget from a government on its way out’ are some of the epithets that greeted the Interim budget presented earlier in the day. Clearly, these were voiced by the critics, not from the economist community, but largely from the opposition parties. And yet, if the budget had incorporated any major policy initiative,Continue reading “A Budget Asserting Confidence of an Incumbent Government”
