Prosaic View

Updated : Aug 25, 2020

Economic crisis: Why turning on the consumption tap will not be easy

Why getting consumption growth back on track will be more difficult than simply reducing taxes or interest rates

Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India

Updated : Aug 29, 2019

What RBI surplus bonanza tells about government finances

The government cannot stop or slow down spending - the economy is already losing steam with exports, private consumption and private sector investment slowing down

Updated : Jul 6, 2019

Budget 2019: Old wine in old bottles

Despite the list of achievements of Modi 1.0 that Sitharaman talked about, and the new targets she laid out - in terms of piped water to rural households, a common power grid etc - there was actually no tough decision or new idea that the Finance Minister announced

CEA KV Subramanian (right) and Principal Economic Advisor to Finance Ministry Sanjiv Sanyal (left) hold copies of Economic Survey 2019 after a press conference. Photo credit: IANS

Updated : Jul 4, 2019

CEA Subramanian toes government line, more or less

The focus of the chapters in the Economic Survey 2019 is interesting, both for what they talk about and also for what they omit to discuss

There are still no reports on how the government plans to help these PSUs cut losses and become more efficient in using some of the money raised for telecom companies to offer VRS and reduce staff.

Updated : Jul 3, 2019

Budget 2019: Nirmala Sitharaman's PSU problem

Union Budget 2019: Even as we head for the first Budget of Prime Minister Modi's second term, news is coming out that the government is planning to help Air India and telecom PSU siblings, BSNL and MTNL, raise massive debt in order to keep them running

Updated : Jun 7, 2019

What makes debt market more dangerous in India than in the US

In India, quite a few high yield bonds were not considered particularly risky - the paper was largely issued by big, reputed brand names, and were often initially graded with triple A or equivalent credit ratings

Updated : Jun 6, 2019

Turning portfolio diversification theory upside down

It is increasingly becoming clear that the idea of debt being safer than equity was illusory at best

Updated : Apr 18, 2019

Why Jet Airways is a bigger nightmare for bankers and government than Kingfisher was

Jet Airways was largely Naresh Goyal's entire life and he was known to be fairly parsimonious in his travels and business expenses

Updated : Apr 16, 2019

Catch-22: Jet Airways has put bankers in a situation they hate!

The bankers are well aware that if they don't give out the money, the Jet board has recommended stopping operations

Updated : Feb 2, 2019

The Lack of Urgency about Artificial Intelligence

In the last four budgets, AI did not find any mention. The government itself has not made noise about artificial intelligence being a focus area in the past four years.

Updated : Jan 31, 2019

Budget 2019: What announcements will Piyush Goyal make?

The stand-in Finance Minister may talk of a minuscule fiscal slippage or put a brave face and say the government would still meet its fiscal deficit targets.

Updated : Jan 14, 2019

The reservation goose that lays golden eggs

How Indian politicians realised that creating a more equal society was a bad idea and not conducive to winning elections

Updated : Dec 28, 2018

Modi govt needs to stop throwing good money after bad

The government's decision to recapitalise the ailing public sector banks without first fixing the management problems is a bad idea.

Updated : Dec 27, 2018

The government's love-hate relationship with e-commerce

The Modi government has always had an uneasy relationship with digital marketplaces. The new regulations only show more evidences of its confused goals

Updated : Dec 14, 2018

The task before the new RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das

Critics have already started saying that Shaktikanta Das is Modi's and Jaitley's man, and therefore will do exactly what they tell him to do.

Updated : Dec 13, 2018

Fixing economy is govt's job, not that of RBI governor's

The problems with SMEs, troubled power companies, and NBFCs have hardly been created by the RBI. And while the government would love to believe that a more reasonable (or pliable) central bank will solve all the problems, this is not going to happen.

Updated : Dec 10, 2018

RBI Governor Urjit Patel makes loud noise with silent exit

Over the past six months, it had become apparent that the quiet Patel was increasingly at loggerheads with the Finance Ministry and, unexpectedly, he was sticking to his guns and refusing to be cowed by the Finance Ministry.

Updated : Nov 29, 2018

Why the new GDP numbers are confounding

If anything, this data revision by the government, which shows that the growth during the UPA years is even lower than the growth in the past four years, is hard to reconcile for one reason -- the first UPA government witnessed tremendous economic tailwinds.