The Internet may have worked wonders for Obama in the US, but is unlikely to be even half as effective in India In a nation where a quarter of eligible voters are now between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the 2009 elections will see a potential 100 million young Indians heading to the polls [...]
Ila Patnaik and Lant Pritchett discuss the problems facing Indian policy makers
Tying defence expenditure to GDP is no substitute for policy making. India’s defence expenditure this year is pegged at less than 2 per cent of the GDP which is lower than India’s defence spending in 1962 — 2.1 per cent of the GDP. After the Chinese debacle, it jumped to 4.5 per cent in 1964. [...]
Old Jungle Saying: “If you see India and China in the same article, it’s time to run for cover :-)” The entire China vs India debate is so overdone and (mostly) futile. Unfortunately, it seems to elicit the most number of comments on IEB – largely bakwaas, unfortunately – which we have to perforce edit [...]
An article of mine got published on TCS Daily on the evolving political and business landscape in India. The article can be found here. The article is reproduced below as well – The decade and a half following India’s economic reforms of 1990-91 has been an exciting and transformational one for India and its people, [...]
Ilian Mihov, Professor of Economics at INSEAD, holds forth on the lessons of the collapse of the ‘golden age’ of the late 1920s. What is the biggest lesson from the Great Depression? In my view, it is that monetary policy and the financial sector play a crucial role in economic development. Let me put it [...]
By V Anantha Nageswaran On September 19th, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson issued a statement in which he said that the Federal government “must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy”. He called it the ‘Troubled Asset Relief Program’. Many have taken to [...]
Did you know that the Indian government imposes a cess on indigenously produced crude oil? The Oil Industry Development Act, 1974 based on which the cess is being charged, states that “the cess collected under this provision would be made available to the development of petroleum sector”. The cess was introduced to provide financial assistance [...]
The government has now announced that it will issue oil bonds worth Rs 94,600 crore in the fiscal year 2008-09. If the revenue collection rises at the same rate, it would be to the tune of around Rs 77,000 crore in 2008-09. The subsidy for kerosene and LPG is at around Rs 3000 crore. So, the government will suffer a net loss of nearly Rs 20,000 crore in providing petroleum products to the citizens of India. Phew! 0.4% of GDP wiped out in one go.
Why is Bengal, one of the largest sources of coal in the world, importing coal from abroad? Long-time reader and IEB friend, Joydeep Mukherji sent us this article with a comment: The West Bengal government has decided to import one lakh tonne of coal at higher rates to fuel the thermal power plants which have [...]
Mohit Satyanand Though I have never invested in the shares of Reliance Industries, my recently gleaned understanding of the world petroleum scenario has made me respect the company’s vision in its refining projects. As I mentioned once earlier, RIL’s existing refinery, and the one nearing construction, reportedly have unparalleled flexibility to process heavy, high-sulphur (so-called [...]
Let us rejoice at the government’s consideration for the defence services. As per the finance ministry’s directive on austerity measures for the government, All non-plan expenditure heads excluding interest payment, repayment of debt, defence capital, salaries, pensions and the finance commission grants to states will be subjected to a mandatory 5 per cent cut.[IE] Does [...]
Earlier post on the subject: Oil Pricing in India Vikram S Mehta, chairman of the Shell Group of companies in India, provides the structure of the price build up for petrol and diesel by the public sector companies in India. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) calculates inter alia the landed import duty paid price of petrol [...]
V Anantha Nageswaran What is interesting in Daniel Yergin’s FT piece is that he deftly sidesteps the question of predicting the future for oil price—near-term or in the long-term. In recent years, he has been proven wrong. His Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has been bearish on oil since 2004-05. More important rather than interesting [...]
V Anantha Nageswaran A table of inflation rates in many countries around the world is beginning to reveal a disturbing picture. The lowest rate is found in Germany – at 3.0%. Many emerging countries that seem to be doing a truthful job are reporting inflation rates in excess of 10% and some in excess of [...]
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