governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
The introduction of a 10 per cent tax on capital gains (with effect from April 1, 2018), accruing from the sale of equity, after holding it for at least one year, has generated a great deal of angst. But it is unconscionable that stock market investors who have earned windfall gains of 30 per cent […]
Read More Union taxes are scraping the bottomEven as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be winging it to frosty Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting next weekend, his bete-noire — Congress president Rahul Gandhi — has decided to be different and spend the coming week in his parliamentary constituency of Amethi, in rural Uttar Pradesh. Both seek inspiration and support. […]
Read More Modi@Davos – Jawboning the futureManaging winter smog in the National Capital Region (NCR) has occupied the Supreme Court since 2015. Three interim orders — in November 2016, September 2017 and October 2017— each of which changes the status quo, imposing commercial costs, illustrate the limitations of the judicial approach while balancing commercial interests with public health concerns. Joined at […]
Read More A “green” Diwali sans firecrackersRajiv Kumar, the new vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog, has made development of an organic, Bharatiya model of development as his mission. He is likely to encounter three problems in this endeavour. A new, local model of development is doomed from the start in a globalised world First, in a post-ideology world, marked by rapid […]
Read More Will NITI get it’s hands dirty?Elite concerns are usually disconnected from the ground reality. For the 1 per cent of Indian who live privileged, cocooned lives, the judicial right to privacy created by the Supreme Court yesterday will add yet another layer with which they can insulate themselves from the “barbarians at the gate”. So, here is what the rich […]
Read More Privacy – an elite fantasyBOOK REVIEW India Transformed 25 years of Economic Reforms Rakesh Mohan – edited Penguin Viking 670 pages; Rs 999 Curating 31 essays into a story on India’s economic reforms can be a giant yawn. But Rakesh Mohan, a videshi economist and a veteran of four major government committee reports, is up to the challenge. THE PLUMBING WHICH […]
Read More Well begun is half donePresidential elections in India are a ho-hum event for the average citizen. At best, this is a moment when the government “signals” its political identity or its governance style. The BJP-led NDA government has succeeded in the former but not the latter. Shivshankar Menon, national security adviser in Dr Manmohan Singh’s government, uses the “minimum […]
Read More Template RashtrapatiCourtesy Arvind Subramanian, India’s Chief Economic Advisor, the 4R (reform, recognize, recapitalize, resolve) approach to manage the corporate bad loans problem, has captured public imagination. But he soft peddles a fifth R, that of retribution. The big stick must be wielded for reform to be credible. Public sector banks – flabby, politicised ATMs providing easy […]
Read More Retribution – the missing R for resolving bad loansBOOK REVIEW Rethinking Public Institutions in India Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Milan Vaishnav (Eds) Oxford University Press 548 pages; Rs 995 Public institutional reform has a stale air about it. There are plenty of options but little action. The sombre packaging of this book adds to this gloom. Possibly, the “monkish”, value-for-money branding is […]
Read More India’s pressured public institutions
Opinion India 