governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Policies mean very little, unless there is a national consensus behind them, because governments change in a democracy. Formulating a policy is a clunky, time- and effort-intensive, process. It should be attempted only if massive structural change is necessary. India has rarely been in the game of big bang reform. Our forte is incremental change. For this, key […]
Read More Junk policy for actionThus far, the BJP has played to a core script of development; a more effective State and muscular nationalism, fanned by Hindu revivalism and an assertive foreign policy stance. This has resulted in a “tick all the boxes” type strategy, with the central focus being on winning elections. This strategy has paid rich dividends politically. […]
Read More BJP’s new script – defending the losersThe Narendra Modi government poses two conundrums for citizens. First, citizens want an effective government, like PM Modis. But they also value and actively guard their rights. Making a colonial-style government gallop, often means cutting corners and turning a blind eye to the encroachment of citizens’ rights. We are still very far from being China, […]
Read More The two conundrums of the Modi governmentThe Aadhaar fever started in 2009, when the UPA government was in office. It encountered turbulent times in 2014 when the government changed. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a technology enthusiast, was persuaded to look beyond the past at the opportunity it gave to reduce official discretion and corruption, whilst targeting and delivering public services. […]
Read More Aadhaar – catching crooks & criminalsThe international bond market, with an outstanding volume of around $22 trillion, is the final arbiter of a country’s destiny. Bonds, unlike loans, can be traded, or “marked to market”. This makes trustworthy credit ratings, like Moodys’, critical to give pricing signals. Since there is a market, even discards are recycled. Discards are called “junk” […]
Read More Moody God of bond marketsThe politics around “demonetisation” — a misused term for what happened on November 8, 2016 — has taken centerstage in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh (that voted yesterday) and Gujarat (which goes to the polls in December). Finance minister Arun Jaitley has added “morality” to the cluster of objectives, that seemingly […]
Read More “Demonetisation” as a morality playWhat was Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley’s press conference on Tuesday all about anyway? If the intention was to gain eyeballs, it succeeded. But if it was to allay fears about the Indian economy, it failed. Here is why. Misguided choice of communication medium First, the optics were all wrong. The finance minister had just returned […]
Read More FM Jaitley’s press meet – more lobs than ground strokesAll governments game their performance metrics. Smart governments guard against falling for the make-believe themselves. The BJP stumbled in believing that India had earned an entitlement to grow, faster than China, at eight per cent per year. Well-intentioned measures — to end black money, resolve the stressed bank loans and reform indirect taxes added to […]
Read More Recapturing growth with stabilityBimal Jalan exercises the writer’s privilege to box his reflections between three inflection points. The first is 1980, ostensibly because 1977-79 was the first time the Congress lost power at the Centre. The second is 2000, being the start of a new millennium. And 2014 is the bookend when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National […]
Read More Bimal Jalan reflectsViolent crimes against children are grabbing headlines. The latest is the sexual assault and murder of a student in a private school’s toilet in Haryana’s Bhondsi, near Gurgaon. However, Haryana is not the most dangerous state for kids. That dubious distinction belongs to Delhi, with a crime rate (crimes against children per 100,000 population) of […]
Read More Keeping our children safe
Opinion India 