Comments on: The ‘Indian Political Business Complex’

By: Celebrity Famous Women » Easy outs and hard decisions

Celebrity Famous Women » Easy outs and hard decisions — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:19:44 +0000

[...] blog . A piece written by Arjun Swarup in the Indian Economy blog in October, titled - ‘The Indian Political Business Complex‘ is worth rereading – he discusses the same issue: While the growth rates clocked by the [...]

By: Nitin

Nitin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:11:36 +0000

Hi Guys!

We need to look at the situation from the normative economics view and not the emotional view.

The prosperity of large business houses has little co-relation with the eradication of poverty. The business houses exist in its own ecology and the only meaningful ways in which they are connected to the base of the pyramid is in that they have the ability to generate employment and pay taxes.

In both ways, they have serious limitations. The employment generated can never be large enough to employ the largest workforce in the world. Nor can the taxes be used to eradicated poverty. Indian government has to sustain the competitiveness of these businesses and a lot of the resources are gone towards this end. The base of the pyramid has to help itself.

We need to look around the world and in the field of development economics to understand that the co-existence of poverty and prosperity side by side is a norm rather than an exception for a country with large population base like India. We need to find ingenious ways to address the socio-economic issues and help people help themselves. There is no other way that has worked in the past and I see no other way that will work in the future.

Nitin

By: Vikram

Vikram — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:48:03 +0000

I think your suspicions are not unfounded. Two examples I can think of are the SEZ fiasco in Goa, with the Central Government seemingly reluctant to side with a popularly elected state government and siding with the developers. A much more serious issue is the EIA legislation. One article is here, but it is very sinister and I will do a more detailed blog post on this soon.

By: Imagining India » Blog Archive » Easy outs and hard decisions

Imagining India » Blog Archive » Easy outs and hard decisions — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:55:52 +0000

By: Uravashi

Uravashi — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:17:47 +0000

This is nice article reagrding political and business landscape in India. I think it is helpful to know more about politics and business.

By: amit

amit — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:10:25 +0000

With the terrorist mayhem in South Mumbai, one of the “oligarchs” corner of India, I can only hope you are correct and that the much needed security infrastructure will be finally influenced – perhaps incessant media chatter driving aam junta sentiment will also add to it.

However, I disagree with your approach to the “oligarch” analysis. India has gone from having massive industries controlled entirely by the state (old Russia) to individuals/corporationss – it seems to me the forces are pointing towards further liberalization. You must pick a side – do you want capitalism driven by brutal market forces or a socialist state, USA or France? It seems you want a dot com boom in india where entrepreneurs can play a role without a balance sheet. I would suggest thats on its way, consumer spending needs to rise for people’s needs to rise upwards on Maslow’s pyramid.

The nature of some of these business (cement, retail, telecoms, infrastructure) is that not everyone can play – you need a massive balance sheet. And economies of scale force further out the small players, not any direct govt policies. And with respect to the mobile-Telecom sector, India has one of the most vibrant markets, with consumers (aam aadmi) benefiting!..

So alright, I am all over the place… but you started it!..

By: bunty

bunty — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:55:24 +0000

Great post. Another example i can give you is that of telecom. In progressive countries, a telecom license is divorced from spectrum auctions, so that telecom services that do not require spectrum, such as VoIP or a simple calling card can be rendered cheaply. In India, spectrum has been insidiously “bundled” with the licence, so as to make it almost impossible for small scale entrepreneurship to deliver telecom services. While speaking incessantly of customer benefit, the TRAI has done all in its power to limit the small scale competition that can keep telecom sector margins in check.

By: B Shantanu

B Shantanu — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:33:47 +0000

Sorry, the link to the post that analyses the problem is this:

http://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/09/14/fixing-the-system/

By: B Shantanu

B Shantanu — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:32:56 +0000

Arjun: Good and thought-provoking piece…

You said, “On a broader governance level, the negative impact of the political business nexus can be observed. Running for public office in India is an incredibly expensive proposition and campaign financing remains murky, with virtually no accountability…”

This is probably at the root of most of what is wrong with India – i.e. bad policies, ineffective governance.

Instead of a rant here though, I would urge you and your readers to have a look at this post which attempts to dissect the problem…

The “solution” is of course, far more complex but still all is not lost…

http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/11/06/changing-india-step-1/

By: Anakshi

Anakshi — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:48:15 +0000

Hi!your article raises the critical issues like the oligarchy nature of Indian economy and nexus between politics and big business houses .It is a matter of concern that it leads to concentration of power and wealth in few hands .The gap between the rich and poor has widened .the condition of common people still remains the same even after 60yrs of Independence .