governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
So now that the wine has run dry; the Christmas cake is mere crumbs and the New Year eve shenanigans are forgotten let’s get back to basics. What is 2020 going to be about? In one word- tough except for large industry and private banks which shall clock handsome bottom lines, their bonus boosted employees […]
Read More Keep the demand fires burning in 2020The Reserve Bank’s decision to transfer Rs 1.76 trillion to the government as surplus follows the “golden mean” principle, often used by committees. This bonanza comes courtesy an “Expert Committee to Review the Extant Economic Capital” of the RBI, constituted in November 2018, which has now recommended a higher level of transfer as against the […]
Read More RBI plays White Knight to revenue strapped governmentThe Union Budget proposal for a Sovereign Bond by India in the international markets might have come a cropper along with its “sherpa”, Subhash Garg, our former finance secretary. Why the rush? It was never apparent why the government chose to announce in the Budget speech this year, out of the blue, almost as […]
Read More Sovereign Bond Issue in “thanda basta”On Monday, May 22, 2017 CBI Special Judge, Bharat Parashar will sentence the five accused, convicted by him on May 19, 2017. Among the convicted are three officers – H.C. Gupta, retired Secretary of the Ministry of Coal (MOC) and two of his juniors, convicted under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal conspiracy and […]
Read More The coal-gate bell tolls selectively(photo credit; namakkal.tn.nic.in) Prime Minister Modi, addressing the civil service officers, last week, made three telling points. First, he asked the bureaucracy to shrug off the inhibitions of the past and think big and assured that resource constraint would not limit them. Second, he exhorted the bureaucracy to change citizens’ perception of babudom by personal […]
Read More PM to babus: Learn to work with “plentiful resources” for social and human developmentThe saffron deluge has taken everyone by surprise, like an early monsoon. The Modi storm carried away with it, anyone who rode with him and demolished all others, barring regional stalwarts like Amma, Naveen Patnaik and Didi. Is this the end of caste as a political weapon? With Bhenji (Dalit supremo), Netaji (Ahir supremo-UP), Lallu […]
Read More Saffron IndiaThe Land Bill 2013 is backward looking and shortsighted. Coming 119 years after the predecessor legislation in 1894, it fails on four counts. First, it does nothing to assure citizens that it shall rein in wilfull and unnecessary acquisition of property by the State, as has been happening in the past. Consider that there are […]
Read More Land Bill: political gains, future losses.
Opinion India 