Will Arundhati Bhattacharya be the RBI's first woman governor? Or will Urjit Patel succeed Raghuram Rajanas RBI governor when his term ends on September 4?
Alleging that a government working against the citizens is at the helm, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Saturday announced a new platform 'Insaaf' to fight 'injustice' prevailing in the country and called on everyone, including Opposition parties' chief ministers and leaders, to support him in his endeavour.
The prospects for strong, sustained economic reforms do not appear to be promising in India.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, has given a call for a two-day strike from December 16 to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned lenders. In the Union Budget presented in February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the privatisation of two public sector banks (PSBs) as part of its disinvestment plan. The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the past four years.
A faltering economy may have led to a re-think on economic strategy. And Mr Modi might think he is politically strong enough to take some risks. But there could be a minefield ahead, observes T N Ninan.
Sangh affiliates believe the government's apparent anti-poor message led to their loss
In the past two months alone, four companies have garnered a cumulative Rs 22,400 crore via this route.
Here is some background on the candidates seen as potential successors to Rajan at the RBI
Privatisation in Russia was endorsed by technocrats. It led to the rise of Vladimir Putin.
'We have to think of the repercussions if public sector banks are privatised and if they go to foreign hands.'
'Indian macro conditions have never been better, and many businesses will safely compound earnings over the next five years.'
'If you look at the order books of capital equipment companies or money deployed on the ground, there is forward movement in terms of actual investment by the private sector.'
The government should frame new policies to assure growth.
Economist Arvind Panagariya tells Suman Guha Mozumder that the rupee is doing a much-needed clean-up job, raising exports and cutting imports.
Indian companies are investing up to $600 million every year and creating jobs and contributing to the British economy.
Economist Dale W Jorgenson declares that India is doing "very, very well" and forecasts that India might continue to outrun world economies, including China over the next many years.
'The government is sincerely working on employment generation. Unfortunately, they are depending on these people from Harvard. Their wrong policies are killing jobs. The government has to come out of the Western framework on which they depend upon a lot.'
A report stated that despite initial setbacks from demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax, "all in all" the Indian economy has done well.
He said his government was committed to further reform policies to boost 'Make in India' and for creating conducive business environment through stable and transparent regulatory mechanisms
Once the impact of all policy changes made by the new Indian government and investments in key areas is felt, the country will see significant growth.
Industry experts on Friday called upon the new BJP-led NDA government to focus on attracting investments in key sectors, especially the infra space, to revive growth and investor confidence.
Fitch Ratings on Wednesday said India's high fiscal deficit would pose a challenge in lowering the debt to GDP ratio, which is expected to rise above 90 per cent in the next five years. It said India entered the pandemic with little fiscal headroom from a rating perspective. Its general government debt/GDP ratio stood at 72 per cent in 2019, against a median of 42 per cent for 'BBB' rated peers.
Growth in India will pick up from current levels, says LEO Puri, managing mirector, UTI Asset Management Company.
The chaos on its stock markets, a fierce battle between the old and new guard in the Communist Party and the restive border provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang forebode tough times ahead for China, says Claude Arpi.
There is a need for tax reforms in the country in a bolder way, Singh said.
Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan on Monday warned against compromising India's interest for the sake of attracting foreign investment and said the priority should be framing transparent policies as well as resolving contractual tax disputes quickly.
IMF chief said the G20 leaders need to respond to the calls for creating jobs.
Is it because of the failure to deliver serious institutional reform or that, at the end of the day, we are like that only, asks T N Ninan.
The solution to globalisation is decentralisation and the solution to multilateralism is reformed multilateralism, not a 1945-version of multilateralism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said.
"It's a welcome development, but we also feel it was long overdue... It's a recognition of the actions that the government has undertaken like GST, bankruptcy. We also need to keep all these things in perspective," Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said.
'Karna is the greatest warrior in the Mahabharata -- in fact, Arjuna is a nobody in front of Karna.' 'But Arjuna had a better advisor in Krishna than Karna.' 'Karna failed because he listened to the wrong advice given by Salya.' 'It just shows wrong advisors can land even the mighty in trouble.'
US President-elect Joe Biden plans to increase the number of high-skilled visas, including H-1B, and eliminate the limit on employment-based visas by country, both of which are expected to benefit tens of thousands of Indian professionals impacted by some immigration policies of the outgoing Trump administration.
India's gross domestic product product (GDP) growth rate between 2011-12 and 2016-17 should be about 4.5 per cent instead of the official estimate of close to 7 per cent, he said in a research paper published at Harvard University. "The Indian policy automobile has been navigated with a faulty, possibly broken, speedometer," he says in the paper.
The RBI expects change, presumably commencing in the next Budget, but must hold its current view until this actually happens.
The government has the upper hand in the ongoing negotiations, and it is unclear if a real debate will happen, observes Tulika Narayan.
'The Budget numbers presented severely underestimate the magnitude of the unstated fiscal crisis that we went through in 2018-2019, which cannot be conceivably be fully reversed in 2019-2020,' points out Rathin Roy, director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
With economic growth slowing to a six-year low, IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath says the government should undertake structural reforms such as bank clean-up and labour reforms to address the slowdown in domestic demand. She rooted for government policies focusing on managing a slowdown in domestic demand, and on boosting productivity growth and supporting employment creation in the medium term.
'What is unusual about the current period of slow growth is that it has come without an external driver -- high oil prices and/or successive monsoon failures -- as was the case with all previous periods of slowdown, going back 50 years, notes T N Ninan.
Sinha, a former finance minister, hogged the limelight and started trending high on social media on Wednesday after he criticised his own government for sinking economy in an article.
India's national security strategy needs to be revised periodically since the global and regional geopolitical situation is dynamic, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
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