Columns

India is possibly the only country in the world which mandates that a profit-making company spend two percent of its after-tax profits on “corporate social responsibility’ (CSR). This requirement came as part of the new company law of 2013, which replaced the fifty-seven-year-old company law of... read more

India wants to grow its economy to US$ 5 trillion. People want jobs and their incomes to grow. India needs its industrial sector to grow to absorb the millions of people coming off agriculture as they will with productivity in the agricultural sector improving. India cannot rely only on its service... read more

With Jammu and Kashmir leaders behind bars, the people locked up in their houses, schools, colleges, institutions closed, and some voices from the other States celebrating this kind of action and incarceration, do we really think we are making progress with the integration of Kashmir into the rest... read more

Some Indian observers have said that US President Donald Trump’s July 22 offer to mediate on Kashmir has no validity after India abrogated the State’s special status under Article 370. On August 6, Rajya Sabha MP Subramaniam Swamy demanded withdrawal of India’s complaint to the United Nations... read more

The MPC has many reasons for which it has offered a rate cut. First, observed inflation and inflation outlook measured in terms of Consumer Price Index Combined (which means Rural and Urban combined, abbreviated as CPI-C) continues to remain benign and is projected to be within the target of an... read more

That the Monetary Policy Committee will reduce the policy rate for a fourth time in a row was in no doubt. Most expected a cut by 25 basis points, although there were a few who hoped for a more aggressive decrease by 50 basis points. The actual outcome was a cut in the rate by 35 basis points, to 5... read more

US President Donald Trump’s remarks on June 22 during Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the White House have created a storm. Trump replied when Khan requested for his help in resolving the vexed Kashmir issue: “I was with Prime Minister Modi two weeks ago when he asked me whether I... read more

Many years ago, a plainclothes police officer known as an “encounter specialist”, that uniquely Indian term that has sadly become part of everyday usage, sat in his office in the Western suburbs of Mumbai for a long conversation in which he explained upfront how he was not the last word in honesty... read more

On July 11, World Population Day, a Union Minister expressed alarm, in a Tweet, over what he called the “population explosion” in the country, wanting all political parties to enact population control laws and annulling the voting rights of those having more than two children. Just a month earlier... read more

A year when the country celebrates the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary offers us a timely opportunity to consider his criticisms of modernity and juxtapose them with those of the other towering figure of his generation, Tagore. Also, fittingly, we are just weeks short of Tagore’s 78th death... read more

The title of this column is actually a very fertile and active area of research in the economics and finance academic professions. The question refers not just to ownership by the government vis-a-vis the private sector, but also between private, domestic and foreign owners. Do banks perform... read more

India’s vast, mostly unregulated and fast-growing shadow banking sector is in the midst of a crisis. This is a fire that threatens to engulf much more than the sector in which it has started and carries the potential to burn down important segments of the Indian economy. The government is... read more

The Union Finance Minister in her maiden budget speech on July 05, 2019 has made a significant announcement in paragraph 103 that reads: “India’s sovereign external debt to GDP is among the lowest globally at less than 5%.The Government would start raising a part of its gross borrowing programme in... read more

Looking at the present conditions in India, anybody would expect the budget to address the most critical problems of our population, namely, poor health, a semi-literate population, the agricultural crisis and the highest ever unemployment. Unfortunately none of these problems are addressed... read more

Objections to Greenpeace’s strategies by Extinction Rebellion (XR), the environmental movement whose supporters occupied Greenpeace’s offices last year, as well as its own successes, highlight contrasts between the strategies of organisations and citizens’ movements. Loose citizens’ movements are... read more

In the next five years India aims to become a five trillion dollar economy. It’s a nice round number, although the word “trillion” is not quite folksy enough. It actually equals one lakh crore, the preferred coinage of our bureaucrats, ministers and bankers. It’s basically five followed by twelve... read more

The full budget for 2019-20 presented on July 5 did not contain the kind of stuff that would fire up the financial markets and cause a rush of adrenaline in taxpayers and investors. In that sense, and in many others, it was not similar to budgets in the past. And what is a good thing for the sake... read more

The interim budget in February gave a substantial stimulus to the taxpayer. Almost three crore taxpayers moved out of the net, as the minimum threshold was raised. Further the cash transfer to farming households led to some consumption push, and not to forget electoral gains too. Against that... read more

The revenue arithmetic of the Budget is quite conservative. Factoring in the protracted slow-down phase and a shortfall in personal income tax revenue and GST receipts, the “gross tax revenue” projections have been lowered from their level in the interim budget. However, the projections of “non tax... read more

As per the empirical exercise set out in the Economic Survey of Government of India 2018-19, the Indian economy will grow to 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2024-25 with an inflation of 4 per cent and real economic growth of 8 per cent per annum. Besides, the productivity (both labour and capital) of... read more