The men with guns tend to know little finance, and establishing such a conspiracy then involves leakage of information, which is also dangerous, Ajay Shah points out.

Policymakers should aspire to restore the pre-Independence environment where the rupee was trusted and used all over South Asia, in Southeast Asia, in West Asia, and in East Africa, suggests Ajay Shah.

When we look at the pension expenditure of the states, so far, there has been no gain from the NPS reform. Pension expenses as a share of total state revenue expenditure rose from 4% in 1991-1992 to 10% at the time of the NPS reform, and have risen further to about 12%, observes Ajay Shah.

More vaccination would have been done in India if the State had not had complete control of all vaccination, notes Ajay Shah.

It is not the job of regulators to ensure that users make profits. It is not the job of regulators to prevent people from making losses. It is not the job of regulators to prevent people from doing stupid things, argues Ajay Shah.

The political economy of the IPO market involves regulators empathising with intermediaries, and designing a bridge that systematically takes wealth away from founders, VC and PE funds, and business houses, explains Ajay Shah.

Business failures rise when growth declines. When Indian growth slowed in the last decade, defaults increased. This is the normal working of the market economy, points out Ajay Shah.

The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.

The Indian State has low operational capabilities. Individuals will have concerns about material that flows through the government, on questions of purity, perfection of the cold chain, and correctness of procedures at the frontline. Even if a government programme is able to solve all these problems, it will be limited in scale-up. The passion, management capabilities, and response to local conditions, which will be found with tens of thousands of ground-level initiatives, Individuals will have concerns about material that flows through the government, on questions of purity, perfection of the cold chain, and correctness of procedures. Even if a government programme is able to solve all these problems, it will be limited in scale-up, argues Ajay Shah.

The only path to recovery of the economy lies in profit growth that triggers off employment growth, and finally investment, notes Ajay Shah.

'Most of the testing capacity in India is in the private sector.' 'Whether it is the established RT-PCR test for COVID-19, or it is other innovations in testing that are now coming up, all these are fully within the capabilities of the private sector.' 'Health policy should harness these capabilities,' says Ajay Shah.

How do we get back to higher trend growth? The heart of the problem lies in private corporate investment, recommends Ajay Shah.

'A buoyant market economy is one which is led by the innovation and imagination of private persons,' notes Ajay Shah.

'We get an overzealous army of tax inspectors pushing the economy too hard,' says Ajay Shah.

'We are all in a tizzy about NBFCs in the aftermath of the IL&FS default.' 'We tend to jump to the notion that an NBFC is like a bank. But banks make a promise that deposits are liquid and have an assured return.' 'NBFCs make no such promises,' points out Ajay Shah.

'If the RBI had done the right things, these mistakes would not have happened in banks, public or private,' says Ajay Shah.

The system envisaged under the FRDI Bill, if implemented properly, would help improve the efficiency of capital allocation without harming consumers, and without risking the stability of financial firms, says Ajay Shah.

Without bringing sound governance and technical capabilities into the RBI's work, injecting new money sets the stage for a next wave of bad behaviour by banks, warns Ajay Shah.

'The hour is very late, and the choice between triumph and tragedy knocks at our door,' says Ajay Shah.

A way out of the economic slump is to revisit the template of 15 years ago and follow its constituents, recommends Ajay Shah.