Columns

It is not that everything the Reserve Bank of India has done or is doing is right. There is a lot to be said about the way in which the central bank has functioned and it is fair to criticise, even attack, it over lack of transparency, poor bank supervision and of course the wonky management of... read more

This December 12 is the third death anniversary of Sharad Joshi, founder of the Shetkari Sanghatana, the farmers’ organisation. At a time when lakhs of farmers are marching into the capital, and agrarian distress is visible in many parts of the country, it is appropriate that we recollect the... read more

This column appears on the morning a lot of us will be glued to our television screens, watching the results of elections to the Assemblies of the States of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. There is no doubt that these are a very important set of results. They will... read more

Fund managers and shareholders work with a different agenda governed more by higher profits and rising stock prices in the near term, not necessarily the long-term view that Polman brought into fashion at Unilever.

If the American national, John Allen Chau, has been killed in the North Sentinel island, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, as alleged, then it is indeed tragic. A young person in his twenties did not deserve to die this way. But equally, the illegal adventure of Chau and the push by the... read more

The RBI Governor Urjit Patel has reiterated before a Parliamentary panel the central bank’s well-known position that its reserves are "for periods of stress and not for meeting normal needs." A committee is set to go into the issue of an “economic capital framework” (ECF), or the reserves... read more

The penultimate monetary policy for fiscal 2018-19 has maintained status quo on the policy repo rate at 6.5 per cent but what stands out is the clarity with which the MPC resolution and the RBI leadership has spoken this time on critical areas like liquidity, volatility in retail inflation, growth... read more

The fifth bi-monthly meeting of the MPC of the RBI in the current fiscal was billed to be a non-event since just about everyone was certain that the policy repo rate would be kept unchanged at 6.50%. It turned out to be not exactly a non-event although the MPC kept both the policy rate as also the... read more

In his own strident way, never giving an inch and always straining to milk dry the argument for his side, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has summed up the frivolousness of the debate on GDP growth rates. The Minister wrote in his blog: “Data based on facts and on the best global practices is... read more

The inflation reported for the month of October was 3.1 per cent, the lowest in the last one year. This was a big relief, because just one month ago, there were fears that international oil prices may spike up to a100 dollars a barrel. This was because of the impending sanctions against Iran, which... read more

When UPA-II under Dr. Singh lost to Narendra Modi’s BJP, Dr. Singh lost only his job but it was the Congress that lost everything. This is not to say the Congress did not deserve it, nor is it to divert attention from the scandals that now dog the BJP and the Prime Minister. But it is to be noted... read more

The crucial Nov.19 board meeting of the RBI, which threatened at one point to be an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, has passed without any fireworks and that in itself is some good news. At an institution like the RBI, it is never comfortable when the board confronts the Governor and the... read more

The institutional autonomy and independence of the RBI is very important for its credibility and reputation. The latter is a precious and fragile thing, and needs to be protected and preserved. But ultimately the central bank’s independence is within the context of the sovereign, represented by the... read more

We see an unending bout of meaningless growling that sucks out all energy from public debate, reducing everyday conversations to confrontations that are ugly, loud and can only turn away people from engaging with any of the issues of the day.  This lowering of the standards of engagement is a fall... read more

Do celebrities have proprietary rights over a country and should they use the love of their fans and the popularity of their game to spread messages that ratchet up ultra- patriotism? Virat Kohli has undoubtedly excelled in his chosen field of cricket – a sporting success that has brought in its... read more

The midterm elections in the United States are a significant barometer of the voters’ perception on the President’s performance. They occur exactly at the mid-point of the four-year term and hence are a useful input to predict the outcome of the presidential election coming up in the next two years...

Over the last few years, there have been demands for the use of the RBI’s internal reserves for fiscal purposes, like recapitalisation of PSBs and higher dividend payments to the government. The previous RBI Governor was fairly dismissive of this idea. It appears that the present leadership of the... read more

This is the season of the RBI being looked at and studied threadbare as the central bank hits the headlines like never before. The one good thing about the current crisis is that there is an attempt to understand this complex animal and how its working impacts common citizens. But not everything... read more

There is merit in the argument that the Reserve Bank of India is not a free bird. An elected political leadership that is overbearing, even wayward, stands superior to a set of experts, including the highly accomplished economists who run the central bank. We therefore have Section 7 of the RBI Act... read more

As the RBI and the government prepare for a crucial meeting of the RBI board on November 19, the discussions have boiled down to one critical question, and it carries a Rs 3.6 lakh crore tag. This is the amount of money the government wants the RBI to transfer as dividend or surplus. The pressure... read more