governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
Will India get rich before it turns 100? A reality check Author: Prosenjit Datta Publisher: Aleph Pages: 138 Price: Rs 499 Economic treatises, says Prosenjit Datta, a distinguished Indian editor and business journalist, can be frustratingly obtuse and reader unfriendly. This attractively written book is anything but. It packs a punch despite being deceptively slim, […]
Read More Book Review: Can India be Rich at 100?The recent, hastily terminated attempt by the Government of India to induct 45 specialists as senior and mid-level civil servants on contract and the earlier agriculture reform legislation, withdrawn in 2022, both point to three generic, weak spots in the government’s reform strategy. Three errors First, scoring a quick win for the reforms report card […]
Read More Government appointments: “quick results” scupper deep reformsAn India, more populous than China this year, and growing to 1660 billion people by 2050, is touted as good news by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – an agency which monitors population trends and its implications for the economy. Most Indians though, have mixed feelings about adding 240 million odd people to what […]
Read More Think before you have a babyGrowth is slowing in India. In July to September this year there were six major economies- Malaysia, Greece, Philippines, Israel, Colombia, Argentina (The Economist December 1) with growth higher than the 6.3 percent India achieved in the April to September quarter of this fiscal. Growth by year end is unlikely to be vastly different. Is […]
Read More Indian Economy between A Rock and A Hard spaceGlobal population growth decelerated since 1965, even before “The Population Bomb”, a 1968 best-seller by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, advocated population control if the world were not to starve to death. In 1972, the Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth”, which similarly predicted that the world would run out of its natural resources. […]
Read More Population growth- Ticking bomb or blessingEconomists belabour the point that emerging out of the pandemic–induced economic downturn is qualitatively different from emerging out of a long–drawn economic recession. Simply put, it is easier to get back to where you were. Turning on a light switch and flooding a dark room with light instantly is apt for describing what happens once […]
Read More Unraveling fiscal stressFinance Ministers have an uncanny way of figuring out what makes the fish bite and neutralizes the sceptics. Nicely rounded words in the budget speech – like phonetic “quick wins” – come in handy to send the roosters crowing a new Dawn. A three pronged paradigm shift in the budget? FM Sitharaman’s salad dressing for […]
Read More Budgetary provisions matter more than the speech“When you are down and out, on the streets and evening falls hard”, say songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel, friends appear magically like a bridge across troubled waters. That is exactly what 2021 needs to be for the entire world today. A magical bridge across which lies a shinning, clean, healthy and happy […]
Read More 2021 – A bridge across troubled watersIn the first half of fiscal 2020-21 Union government receipts are just 25% of budgeted annual receipts as opposed to 40% in the previous fiscal. Receipts tend to have a slow start but not this slow. We are Rs 2.7 trillion short of the Rs 8.4 trillion we collected as receipts last fiscal till September. […]
Read More Come September outcomes fiscal blues“Ghasiram Kotwal” Vijay Tendulkar’s brilliant Marathi satire on the predilection of the powerful to subvert ideology to their own survival, was penned in 1972. It faced rough weather in getting permissions to be staged. The Shiv Sena raged against it, presumably because it portrayed Nana Phadnavis, a prime minister of the Peshwas, in a bad […]
Read More Holding a mirror to India
Opinion India 