Jason A. Kirk, assistant professor of political science and international studies, contributed a guest column in last Sunday's edition of Business Standard, a leading financial daily in India.
On the eve of the annual World Bank-IMF spring meetings in Washington, Kirk’s editorial “India’s painful end-of-aid graduation” argues for India’s continued access to the Bank’s “soft loans” for its poorest states, even though the country as a whole is on the cusp of graduating to middle-income status. India’s lagging states exhibit developmental indicators comparable to those of the poorest African countries – but with much larger populations.
Amid the international attention being given to India’s “rising power” status, Kirk argues, the gap between India’s richest and poorest states is often ignored, but it is wide and growing wider.
Business Standard has a print circulation of 145,000 and is published in all of India’s major metro markets. Its website attracts 1.5 million unique visitors every month–the highest of any stand-alone financial newspaper in India. The paper publishes both English and Hindi editions.