IEB reader Suresh Dalai sends us this thoughtful guest post As with most other places in the world, India is facing a significant economic slowdown that is aggravating an already serious liquidity crisis. The government is finding it increasingly difficult to implement additional fiscal or monetary measures, and as a result, has tried to bring [...]
Ila Patnaik and Lant Pritchett discuss the problems facing Indian policy makers
Vivek Wadhwa’s latest column in Business Week,which says we shouldn’t blame H1-B workers for job losses, invites a (predictable) barrage of comments. Here’s an earlier IEB post on Wadhwa’s research — Don’t Try Kicking Sand In America’s Face. On another note, Sunita Narain’s at it again — after colas, now it’s edible oils. (HT: Amit [...]
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 [...]
Progressive critiques of India’s recent development prospects are often marked by schizophrenic worldviews – between what is and what ought to be. Mira Kamdar’s recent piece in the World Policy Journal illustrates this well. By Ms. Kamdar’s account Indians are heading down an inevitable path to doomsday. Malthusian population pressures, resource scarcity, global warming, environmental [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
He advocates a false morality to disguise his government’s failures Dr Manmohan Singh the prime minister has routinely relied on platitudes (instead of on incentives) to motivate the UPA government’s policies. But he is getting even the platitudes wrong. In a country where the average annual per capita income hovers around an unacceptably low US$1000, [...]
Who gets hurt when grain exports are banned? Swaminathan Iyer took the words out of this bloggers mouth. The UPA government, he writes “has suddenly shifted from protecting Indian farmers against cheap imports to protecting the consumer by cheapening imports”. He is referring to the ban on rice exports (which follow the export of wheat [...]
The total strength of the defence employees has risen from nearly 362,000 in 1960 to 1.3 million today. The defence pensions bill, which is over 50 percent of the central government’s pensions bill, has also risen exponentially since the 1960s. It has grown nearly tenfold from Rs. 1670 Crore in 1990-91 to Rs. 15,244 Crore [...]
Should foreign law firms be allowed into India? No, says Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner of Amarchand Mangaldas, one of India’s largest law firms. Amarchand and other large Indian law firms have benefited immensely from liberalization in India. However, when it comes to opening up the legal sector, here’s Mr Shroff touting shibboleths like a good [...]
The relevant question is not Who are we going to trust but What are we going to trust? Arnold Kling wrote a freewheeling essay last year Should You Trust the Government? in which he points out In the case of government, there is good trust and there is bad trust. Good trust is trust in [...]
The crude oil prices have finally touched $100 per barrel – a psychological barrier and a statistical inanity. The composition of Indian crude basket represents average of Oman & Dubai for sour grades and Brent (dated) for sweet grade in the ratio of 59.8:40.2 since April 2006. The Indian crude basket has touched a high [...]
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