governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The myth of a dominant center and weak states in India is long enduring. Some of this is wish fulfillment by national elites since it reinforces their own centrality, as Delhi based movers and shakers. How granular is the “post planning”economy? The “planned” economy approach, which ended in 2014 with the Modi government, also played […]
Read More Sorry StatesThe Modi government has its near-term challenges well defined – containing China, Covid and Congress in the order they are presented. The Congress bogey Of these, the last seems the most doable. The Congress lingers primarily because Indians are habituated to hedge their bets and have a back-up plan. Never put all your eggs in […]
Read More Containing the 3Cs- China, Covid and CongressMacho men have a subliminal attachment to the V shape because that is what they are supposed to look like. No coincidence then that virility is also spelt with a V. The sad truth is that a V shape does not come naturally. It is the consequence of lots of grunt work to sculpt away […]
Read More Chasing a V shaped recoveryPolitics is heating up. Elections in Bihar loom in November with Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu* and West Bengal tightly packed together in May next year, just after the FY 2021-22 budget. Bihar remains rural at heart. Luckily for the BJP, agriculture is the bright star in the Indian economy with expected growth of 3%. Doesn’t […]
Read More The price of fiscal exuberance“Waiting for Godot”- a play by Samuel Beckett in which a fictional Godot never arrives. The title has now become a code or allegory, to describe waiting forever for something which never happens. The 2014 “election jumla” of Rs 15 lakhs of recovered hawala money to be deposited into each bank account, quickly acquired this […]
Read More Fiscal stimulus – Waiting for GodotPrime Ministers Modi’s address on May 12 was, as expected, a dog’s breakfast of proposals aimed at pleasing everyone. Please all stimulus 10.5% of GDP The Rs 20 trillion ($260 billion) stimulus “package” – around 10.5% of the likely GDP of Rs 190 trillion in Fy 2021 – is touted as a silver bullet which […]
Read More New India – Vocal about local but aspirationally globalExpectations of the post-Covid world being qualitatively better than before are misplaced. If anything, it is likely to be nasty, brutish and permanent, to misquote Hobbes – the 17th century English philosopher of “Leviathan” fame. The twin drivers of Hobbesian dystopia There are two ways India could slip into a Hobbesian dystopia. First, Covid could […]
Read More Keep Hobbes at bay whilst Covid is in playIs Covid-19 an inflection-point in Indian history? And if so, what direction does it presage? Why should this “cough-cough” moment be considered significant? Three reasons appear plausible. Political consolidation First, the Modi government is settling into a comfortable additional medium term – ten year – political run all the way to 2029. Enough secondary support […]
Read More New India – Like Gujarat, minus the sugarWe have needed one since the 2008 global financial crisis when massive fiscal interventions provided the fizz to drag out a functioning economy for the next decade. The buzz fades This fizz has now run dry, sapped by – corporate freeloaders, who misused the cheap money at the expense of small investors, who naively assumed […]
Read More India needs a haircutThe money this deal could fetch the Union government is just the tip of the iceberg. Government owns just over 53 per cent of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). Valued at 20 times the earning per share (the same as Reliance Industries) the fair price for handing over strategic control of the company should be […]
Read More Privatizing Bharat Petroleum is a big deal
Opinion India 