I AND MY WORDS

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi Addressing Media Ahead of the Budget Session 2025 For the last few years, we have been solely missing reform in our government action. Instead, we have been seeing an attempt at tax tinkering in the name of simplification, not just for individuals, but also for corporates, being passed off as reforms. Now, the problem, as Professor Prassana Tantri explains well in this chat on the popular podcast Vaad, is that these things will be meaningless in the presence of tax targets being set regularly to fund government expenditure. It is a must watch, and can be seen at the link below. This literally hurts – India cannot be a consumption economy like the United States of America, despite all the people who are perhaps advising the government to do so, inspired by the motherland of the Chicago School of Economics which is widespread across American thought. However, the policy advisory of raising funds comes from the European model, which a country with 800 mi...

With the ongoing pandemic a few things are now becoming obvious on the economic front.  The much touted economic recovery plan Aatmanirbhar Bharat has been partly successful; however, with judicial interference now and anticipated in the future, one can see the reform roll out promised under the program failing to materialize before end of 2023. The Loan sanction vs disbursal ratio under the emergency credit loan guarantee scheme clearly did not pan out on desired lines for some crucial reasons I had highlighted earlier. Agricultural reforms remain in the cold storage for now.  Part success of course has been used because PLI schemes of certain sectors have received great response . Particular focus for applause should go on mining, pharmaceuticals and electronics, as well as medical devices which also hold great promise and can be indeed transformative along with textiles. However, in the other sectors it remains an expression of noble intentions like solar PV modules an...

  It has been a very long time since a budget actually cut short on frills and embellishments and took head on some of India’s bigger challenges. Political messaging in India for long has been couched in the poverty driven, gareeb kalyan , redistributive mindset which while seemingly right has made politicians forsake growth as a political strategy. To that end, the Narendra Modi government’s Budget 2021 with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have displayed a rare step - a break from the voter driven politics of India and actually pushing for growth. For the longest time, India’s political class has been deriving the wrong messages from electoral politics. This misplaced belief that free goodies, subsidies and coverage for all will somehow be able to buy the voter’s support has caused much damage to the economy. What has often been forgotten is that you can only distribute what you earn, and distributing wealth instead of poverty is what the voters would rather prefer. It is ...