RESEARCH

Hopefully, readers won’t find the comparisons Greek. The European country is a typical example of the ultimate fate socialism and populism meet . India, beware! I n terms of economics, this is the chronology that unfolded in Greece, which the whole news media is talking about today. Greece enters Eurozone in 2001. Unfortunately Europe goes into recession around 2008. Greece being poor, suffers more with 28 per cent unemployment. Being part of Eurozone, Greece can’t print more drachma to reduce its value in international market and make Greek exports attractive. The German-dominated European Central Bank is right for a robust Germany, does not work for a weak Greece. Debt burden on Greece today: 177 per cent of its GDP. Greece must come up with a loan payment of $1.8 billion to the IMF by yesterday, literally — 30 June — to avoid a default. Constant government borrowing to fund promises by politicians causes Greece...

The recommendations are not driven by a doctrinaire free market philosophy. It’s a pragmatic approach towards making the department viable. I   have procured a copy of the recommendations of the “ Committee for Mobilization of Resources for Major Railway Projects and Restructuring of Railway Ministry and Railway Board” headed by eminent economist and NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy. Bibek Debroy In the report, the advisers recommended an overhaul of the entire system from decision-making structure to accounting systems, from human resource management to budgetary relationship between the government and Railways, from financing to regulation and implementation of policies and programmes. Advocates of liberal economics who must have turned ecstatic over the talk of trains by private companies in this morning’s newspapers must note that even the existing private domains are functioning below par because of confusion over returns on investment and the unce...

This has been happening for donkey’s decades, with many dubious incidents having unfolded before journalists of the present generation. What is reassuring, the NDA government has antecedents to inspire this confidence among the people that it will not spare anybody who is guilty. A fter serving for a few months on the Science & Technology beat, I was given the Petroleum Ministry and Ministry for Telecommunications additionally by the then Statesman bureau head. Till then — and even till this day — I have had friendly relationships with my colleagues in that office. However, for about a month following the expansion of my portfolio, the correspondent who was previously working on petroleum and telecommunication beats sulked and spread canards about me in the office. In turn, colleagues close to me spread the conspiracy theory around that the journalist was upset with me because I had snatched his ‘plum’ posting away. I have no proof of his indulgence in unscrupulous parl...

The establishment of NITI Aayog is a clear message that the government is committed to reforms, decentralization and a cooperative federalism that advocates involving states in the Centre’s decision making. I n what can be seen as the greatest policy shift by the new dispensation, the NDA government has begun the year 2015 with scrapping of the Soviet-modelled Planning Commission with NITI Aayog. While “niti” sounds like the Sanskrit-origin word implying “policy” and “ethics”, it’s actually an acronym for National Institution for Transforming India.   Swarajya was the first media outlet to forecast the change rather than speculate what it would be like: “…the Planning Commission will soon morph into a body that facilitates coordination between the Centre and the states.It will certainly not be a planning organ by another name, and it will not be a typical think-tank as is being speculated in the media,” read our 23 October article on the issue. And that is ...

H is rationale is sound. And he has a way with words — he borrows the term “Californication” from the American comedy by that name to summarise Amartya Sen and Jen Drèze’s description of a liberalising India as “islands of California in a sea of sub-Saharan Africa” — which is remarkable, given that he went to-and-fro between electronic and print mediums of journalism, a transition the venerable Mark Tully famously did not find smooth. Hindol Sengupta in  Recasting India  depicts a country whose citizens have perhaps made more sense of freedom in the last two decades than what its politicians could muster. A member of the upwardly mobile middle class would be tempted to own it as his or her published title. Binding:  Paperback Publisher:  Palgrave Author:  Hindol Sengupta Released:  2014 Beginning with Dwarakanath Tagore, Gurudev Rabindranath’s grandfather who had interests in coal, tea, jute, sugar refining, newspapers and shipping, th...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pro-market, but he wouldn't rush liberalisation without calculating the political implications of every capitalist measure proposed by economists. F ar better than the Congress, much less than liberal economics, but an urge to push it within the confines of political realism — that is how the Modi government’s performance can be summarised. Liberals who supported the Bharatiya janata Party’s campaign in the hope of a revival of the national economy, but who are not in touch with functionaries of the government, have had occasions of despair. Why so many foreign trips? Why has one minister been entrusted with two of the most important portfolios, both of which demand full-time involvement? Why no thrust on Hindutva ? These are some of the FAQs the government must live with. After meeting some economists the prime minister trusts, I sought to allay concerns of the Right-of-Centre supporters of the party on Facebook. In the group ...