The Economic Times
FIR against Moily? As absurd as one against Kejriwal
Feb 16th
Aam Admi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has filed an FIR (first information report) accusing petroleum minister Veerappa Moily of conspiring with Mukesh Ambani to raise the price of natural gas, bestowing billions of windfall profit on Reliance Industries Ltd. Now, the Ambanis and Congress politicians have committed a thousand sins over the years. I will More >
AAP can take a leaf out of Amartya Sen’s book
Feb 2nd
Many analysts and businessmen fear that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), dominated by socialists and Marxists like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, is an extreme Left party. These fears are overblown. The AAP has appointed a seven-member committee to formulate its economic policy. This includes libertarian economist Laveesh Bhandari and business honchos like Meera Sanyal More >
Rupee slide to 65/dollar and shrinking CAD will boost India’s exports and growth
Jan 29th
Once again, emerging market currencies are falling but not nearly as dramatically as in May-August 2013. The episode was sparked by the US Fed indicating it would soon taper and eventually end quantitative easing (QE3). Tapering is now partly priced into markets, but a new problem is GDP slowing and a possible financial crash in More >
Falling wheat prices and controls on MSP can rein in food inflation
Jan 15th
Food inflation is a huge problem. It has, in different years, been concentrated in different items: sometimes cereals, sometimes proteins (dairy products, pulses, eggs, meat), sometimes vegetables. Skyrocketing global prices of wheat and maize after the mid-2000s have stoked Indian inflation too. The good news is that global wheat and maize prices have crashed spectacularly. More >
Time to think the unthinkable: Kejriwal as PM?
Jan 5th
The unthinkable happened in 2013: Arvind Kejriwal became CM of Delhi. What’s the most unthinkable thing that could actually happen in 2014? Kejriwal could become prime minister of India. Readers may laugh incredulously at the very suggestion. But the revolutionary success of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi election shows it’s time to abandon More >
Finding a balanced approach to environment and development
Jan 1st
India Inc is delighted with the exit of Jayanthi Natarajan as environment minister, as also with a proposal for deemed environmental clearances if formal clearances are not given within a stipulated time limit. Natarajan was often castigated for slowing environmental clearances to a crawl, freezing the development process. Businessmen also talked of delays arising from More >
Muzaffarnagar offers chance to rejuvenate Congress
Dec 29th
Dear Rahul Gandhi, When you visited the refugee camps in Muzaffarnagar district last week, you advised the refugees to return to their village homes, saying failure to do so would mean victory for the communalists who started the Hindu-Muslim violence. You also spoke of the need for peacemakers to heal communal wounds. I visited the More >
Runaway inflation can be curbed by reining in food prices
Dec 18th
Runaway inflation caused the Congress debacle in the recent state elections. The latest inflation figure is 11.2%, with food inflation touching 14.5%. Inflation has averaged almost 10% a year for several years, one of the highest inflation episodes in history. All the other episodes (as in 1979, 1974 or 1965-55) were caused by major droughts. More >
Election 2014: The big battle is now between BJP’s Narendra Modi and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal
Dec 9th
A spectre is haunting BJP: the Modi effect may be dented by the Kejriwal effect, spoiling BJP’s chances of leading a stable government after the 2014 election. BJP has done well in the four state assembly elections, but Aam Aadmi Party has done even better. Starting from scratch, it has captured almost a third of More >
BJP’s rhetoric and the behaviour of its CMs show no appetite for radical reforms
Dec 4th
Despite dismal GDP growth, the stock markets are buoyant. Market analysts hope that a BJP-led coalition will be elected in 2014, liberalising policies and boosting economic growth. These hopes are grossly inflated. FirstPost editor R Jagannathan says, aptly, that Indian political parties have a consensus on bad ideas. A BJP-led coalition will be better than More >
There’s a Modi effect, but not a Modi wave
Dec 1st
Shortly after the Gujarat state election, Swaminomics argued that Narendra Modi would not be able to make this a launching pad for the prime ministership. I need to qualify that judgement heavily after a recent tour of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to cover the state Assembly campaigns. When asked what the main issues were in More >
States need to reform fast to speed up projects, growth
Nov 20th
With GDP growth having halved from over 9% in 2010-11 to just 4.5% today, many observers are demanding more reforms from New Delhi. Finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram replies that a new wave of reforms is indeed being implemented. The central Cabinet has cleared more than Rs 3 lakh crore worth of projects. Yet, industrial growth More >
Poverty falls fast for dalits and Muslims
Nov 3rd
During the period of fast economic growth in the 2000s, how did poor minorities fare? Some heartening answers have been provided in a Columbia University paper by Panagariya and More (Poverty by Social Religious and Economic groups in India and its Largest States, 1993-94 to 2011-12). Poverty has declined much faster for dalits and tribals More >
Industrial growth likely to be much higher than estimates, suggests IIP data
Oct 23rd
India’s industrial production and GDP have been plunging for three years. But one person believes that major revisions are going to make the data look much better. Pronab Sen, former chief statistician, thinks that the current GDP growth estimate of 5% for 2012-13 may be way short of reality, and revisions could take it above More >
Obama shows why India must not seek a presidential system
Oct 13th
Narendra Modi’s rise owes much to his image as a decisive, efficient go-getter. A recent magazine poll showed 86% of new voters wanting an “authoritative and decisive” prime minister. They hate the corrupt bumbling and drift of the UPA government. For the same reason, many Indians favour a presidential system of government, to ensure decisive More >
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