Russia under President Putin, it is becoming increasingly clear, can never become a genuine legal market economy. His penchant for interference, his partisanship both in terms of granting favor and victimizing those who oppose him, is manifestation of a format worse than crony capitalism.
Like The former lady PM of India, he has done much good to consolidate and empower Russia. But such wheeling-dealing approach to economy does immense harm in the long run by implicitly disallowing new entrants.
The tailspin to which Russian economy is being subjected to, due to rash monetary measures, would have been recoverable if western banks cooperated. Instead of reconciliation, President Putin opted for blame game, and he is getting little help from China either. The depiction of his economic model as kleptocracy is sounding more credible now.
In this last post, sad to conclude that Russian affinity now has turned risky to Indian development. India would be far better off and certainly safer if the new architecture created by MMS led UPA is strengthened to become the primary one for long term strategic needs.
In this last post, this inference is bit bitter, but as an Indian-American, not much!
