'Flush with funds, lending became a cash management exercise.' 'Road projects, power generation plants, airports etc were financed left and right with apparently no regard for the projects' ability to repay,' explains S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
Here is the full text of the joint statement issued by India and the US.
The new government has to make conscious efforts to rebuild social equality and bring the people together.
India needs to build its Grand Narrative, and its cultural power, which conquered all of ASEAN (then known as Indo-China), needs to be forcefully projected while simultaneously hard economic and military power are also emphasised, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'My interest is to open up transparency to the people who unnecessary raise these issues. The prime minister has full right to go wherever he is going but the question is why is he not transparent on expenditure.' 'When the prime minister went to the UN, he spoke of transparency. You are not complying with it. It shows hypocrisy.' Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd) on why he filed an RTI to find out how much Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spent on his foreign visits.
'The temptation of governments, to have a finger in the RBI pie will be just too great to resist, unless extensive amendments are carried out in the RBI Act treating it almost as the fourth branch of the government.'
Aaron Schock, who resigned as US Congressman on Tuesday night following media disclosures of his loose spending habits, met Narendra Modi thrice. These encounters were not free of controversy either.
'The Congresswallahs will hope that Arvind Kejriwal's oratory and confidence will be the anti-aircraft guns to Narendra Modi's airwave-capturing force. Both Kejriwal and Modi speak Hindi well. Both are supremely self-confident about their agenda and vision. Some of their catch-phrases -- 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' -- are identical. Both are inspiring figures for their cadres. Both are not hesitant at all to wear their faith in Bhagwan on their foreheads on public platforms.' Sheela Bhatt believes that the 2014 election will be a Kejriwal versus Modi battle.
'We are completely engaged in fighting poverty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only engaged in fighting us.'
In a recent lecture, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan dished out some frank advice -- don't get into 'jugaad', instead try for the long haul. Only that will sustain in the long-run.
Veteran journalist Coomi Kapoor, whose book came out recently, speaks to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about Independent India's darkest phase.
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It's perverse to rationalise 'controlled' killings or torture -- without going down a slippery moral slope. Once the state stoops to torture, it's liable to sink into tyranny, says Praful Bidwai.
'Those who have seen the functioning of the Modi government in Gujarat know that the issues related to Hindutva and issues of economy and growth function simultaneously.' 'Modi's politics are based on the understanding of the middle-class consumer society which is in pursuit of material aspirations.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reveals the Modi government's economic and political plans for the year ahead.
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
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