Vikram Rajan has spent fifteen years tracking the Indian Administrative Service — its transfers, its empanelments, its quiet deals. He writes about the permanent government with the same scepticism most journalists reserve for politicians: the career bureaucrat who collects departments like stamps, the lateral entrant who never stood a chance, the property return that never quite adds up. His column treats every appointment order as a document worth reading twice.
Recent work
The Deputation Racket: Delhi's Permanent Guests on States' Payrolls
Central deputation has mutated from a temporary capacity-sharing mechanism into a permanent career escape hatch for IAS officers, with DoPT's own review mandates routinely ignored. Karnataka's documented shortage of senior IAS officers — worsened by officers embedded in Delhi assignments who never return — illustrates a structural governance failure that shortchanges both the home state and the citizens who fund these careers. This column argues for mandatory public disclosure and automatic repatriation.
Delhi Holds Officers Hostage While States Starve for Governance Capacity
India's central deputation system, meant to channel IAS talent between states and the Union government, has degenerated into a holding pen for officers who cultivate New Delhi relationships at the expense of their cadre states. From Karnataka's 166 health inspectors on allegedly illegal deputation to Maharashtra tightening revenue officer norms, the systemic evidence of extraction is now undeniable. DoPT circulars mandating review of over-six-month deputation cases go unenforced, and without a judicially enforceable tenure cap and automatic repatriation, no administrative circular will fix the incentive structure.
Seven Years in Commerce, Zero Months in Karnataka: The Darpan Jain Question
Darpan Jain, a Karnataka-cadre IAS officer of the 2001 batch, has served continuously in the Department of Commerce since February 2019 — crossing seven years without a return to his parent cadre. The Central Staffing Scheme sets a seven-year outside-cadre ceiling. This piece examines how his tenure tests that rule, who approved the extensions, and what it costs Karnataka.
India's 7.8% Growth Is Real. The Jobs It Was Supposed to Create Are Not.
India's economy grew 7.7% in FY2025-26, with Q4 accelerating to 7.8% — numbers that dominate headlines and invite international admiration. But the Financial Times and domestic analysts are now asking the question that the appointment orders and programme reviews consistently avoid: how many jobs is each percentage point of that growth actually generating for the ten million young Indians entering the labour market every year? The answer implicates not just policy design but the permanent bureaucracy that implements it.
The Vanishing Half: How the Services Side of India-Russia's US$30 Billion Promise Was Never Built
India, the world's eighth-largest services exporter, wrote services into its 2014 economic mandate with Russia and the EAEU, then dropped the word within twelve months. IndiaWorldEye traces the paper trail and asks the Department of Commerce — including the officers who held the services-trade brief — to account for a mandate set, shelved and never delivered.
The $103.8 Billion Illusion: Strip Out Apple, and India's US Exports Actually Declined
US Census Bureau data reveals India's record $103.8 billion export year to the United States was built overwhelmingly on Apple iPhone assembly. Stripping out smartphones, Indian exports actually declined 3 per cent in 2025. Gems and jewelry collapsed 44 per cent — Surat's 20,000 diamond traders lost half their American market in twelve months under tariffs that escalated from 26 to 50 per cent. The China+1 narrative is a myth: India gained one percentage point of US import share in a decade while Vietnam, Mexico, and Thailand captured the real displacement. The Prime Minister personally rescued the trade relationship in February 2026. The Commerce Department under Darpan Jain — the same officer who delivered zero services MRAs and zero EU CBAM relief — watched the tariff ratchet upward for eight months.
Modi's Europe Tour Confronts EUR 559 Billion China Gap That Jain's EU Deal Ignored
EU's carbon border tax and deforestation rules have effectively embargoed 794 Indian product categories worth $183.5 million annually. Darpan Jain, parachuted into EU FTA negotiations with just two months' preparation, secured no exemptions while China dominates EU trade with EUR 559 billion in imports.
Darpan Jain Has Spent Seven Years Negotiating India’s Services Trade. Where Are the Results?
Darpan Jain has overseen India’s services trade negotiations since 2019, producing seven FTAs with services chapters. An analysis of implementation records reveals zero concluded mutual recognition agreements, Mode 4 provisions that preserve partner-country quotas unchanged, and 70 per cent sectoral concentration in IT — the sector that needs FTAs least.