The future lies in services, not manufacturing. This is good news since India has a greater comparative advantage in services than in manufacturing, and should be building on its strengths. Instead, the government seems obsessed with manufacturing and is pouring …
Mistaken priority: Putting all eggs in manufacturing basket is starving services Read More »
Along with Taiwan’s Foxconn, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta plans to set up India’s first silicon fabrication plant (fab) in Gujarat, along with a display glass unit, costing a whopping $20 billion (₹1.6 trillion). Silicon from this project will be sliced into …
Are subsidies for silicon fabrication plants liable to be wasteful ‘revadis’? Read More »
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the US and its Nato allies quickly imposed tough sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of its foreign exchange reserves and suspension from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) payments system that …
Who’s sanctioning whom? How the Ukraine screenplay has been reversed Read More »
Chief Justice N V Ramana has, astonishingly, waded into the controversy of political parties promising endless freebies that could plunge countries into disaster. He says political parties do not want to curb such excesses, so a specialised body should tackle …
A fundamental problem of democracies: What constitutes good and bad freebies? Read More »
India is currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Hurrah. But the combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and states exceeds 10% of GDP, horrendously high by international standards. High fiscal deficits can spur high growth for some time, but then …
A global recession will pose enormous fiscal challenges. India must be prepared Read More »
There is not the slightest chance that the world has a hard landing and India does not. We are only 7% of the global economy; the idea that we will stand out is a fantasy to me,” says Swaminathan Aiyar, …
Deeper US recession spells big trouble for India, says Swaminathan Aiyar Read More »
Two months ago, I wrote in these columns of how commodity prices had shot up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but then receded considerably by mid-May. I said the good news was that inflation had probably peaked, while …
Crashing food prices ease fears of starvation but not of a market crisis Read More »
The latest projections of the IMF, even with the downward revisions is still showing India as being the fastest growing economy. When everybody else is going down, let us not pretend that we can become a 10% economy. If we …
Rupee nearing 80? Swaminathan Aiyar on why we shouldn’t worry too much Read More »
Paul Samuelson once said wryly that economists had predicted nine of the last five recessions. In other words, they over-predicted at least half the time. Cynics will say that, in truth, economists would kill for even this level of accuracy. …
Why US is no longer heading for a recession but is actually in a recession Read More »
In earlier columns, I have highlighted the sad slump in India’s global rankings on various measures of democracy, freedom and human rights. Economic trends have been muddied by an unexplained slump – part of a global slump – in 2019-20, …
So, how well has India’s relative performance been under the Modi government? Read More »
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