Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the G-20 Finance Ministers' meeting in Paris, Mukherjee said fiscal expansionary policies were required in the past, in the wake of global financial crisis.
Often criticised for offering less attractive interest rates than banks for most of the last five years, retirement fund manager EPFO hiked the annual rate of returns on employee provident funds to 9.5 per cent in 2010 and this time around, the banks were left behind.
India achieved the distinction of being the second fastest growing economy amid the global recession in 2009, but the joy was marred by the decade's sharpest rise in food prices to the chagrin of common man.
The year was particularly significant as the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India acted in favour of the investors and eased norms making it easier for them to invest in mutual funds.
Investors got the upper hand in 2009, while fund houses struggled to cope with regulatory changes and upheavals in the economy, even as the industry shrugged off recession blues with its assets hitting an all time high of Rs 8 lakh crore (Rs 8 trillion).
Besides undertaking the routine work, Ahluwalia entrusted the task of revamping the Commission to new member Arun Maira, formerly with the Boston Consultancy Group. "We cannot work is silos. We need better lateral inputs," Ahluwalia had said at a recent internal meeting of the commission.
The biggest irony is that nearly two-thirds of these funds are estimated to have come from investors in overseas markets, which themselves were in shambles and where companies were in dire need of capital, forcing them to beg their respective governments for money.
The pinnacle of a market economy is when the consumer feels like king. Never before have Indians had such a vast choice and for the icing on the cake, prices from kitchen goods to cars started falling in 2008.
They used to be an avenue of mutual gains for investors in both good and bad times for years, but incurred heavy losses in 2008, when mutual funds became poorer by about Rs 1,50,000 core (Rs 1,500 billion) or about one-third of their total size.
World Bank President Robert B Zoellick in his remarks at the Rome Conference on Food Security pointed out that 28 countries have imposed export bans on food items and stressed 'these restrictions and taxes should be lifted, at a minimum for humanitarian food purchases and transportation by World Food Programme'. UN Secretary General Bank Ki-moon on Tuesday called upon the countries to resist the temptation to impose ban on export of foodgrain.
More than 850 million hungry people around the globe can enjoy a better life if the world sets aside less than three per cent of what it spends on the purchase of arms every year, for the development of agriculture.Pointing out the stark realities of the wasteful spending, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation director general Jacques Diouf on Tuesday appealed to world leaders for US$ 30 billion a year to re-launch agriculture and avert future threats.
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