'It's a toss-up between a fire sale of equity or merger with a strong bank,' points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The BJP has shown signs lately of returning to its trader mindset.' 'Several strong emotions get meshed in this: Nationalism, protectionism, mercantilism, and arrogance,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
The economists, who were surveyed, also felt it will take time for banks to make any further reduction in deposit rates
Various twists and turns by govt post-demonetisation prove that it has been tall order for the PM
A glance back at some important events that occurred in 2018.
It further said India is facilitating external commercial borrowings by startups in order to encourage innovation and promote ease of doing business.
Rejecting criticism of jobless growth, he said if state after state is creating good number of jobs, how can the Centre be creating joblessness?
Farm loan waivers should not be regarded as expenditure but as incentive and investment, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the states were free to announce farm loan waivers if they had the fiscal space and that there would be no shortfall this year in divestment and non-tax revenues.
''Even without major reforms, with a business as usual scenario, and with current inflation trends, we should be clocking around 11 to 12 per cent nominal growth.' 'That is not happening and is a source of worry,' Rathin Roy tells Arup Roychoudhury.
Stating that a weak fiscal position continues to constrain India's sovereign ratings, Fitch said the next government's medium-term fiscal policy will be of particular importance from a rating perspective.
The S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices under-performed to lose 0.8% and 1.6%
SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said Naresh Goyal would be eligible to bid for the airline when the lenders auction it next month.
'We all wanted a strong Centre with a decisive mandate from the people, to allow them to take bold decisions.'
The decision to do away with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes accelerated the slowdown in economic activity with growth averaging 6.8 per cent in the seven quarters after it, as against an average of 8 per cent in the six quarters preceding it, says former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian.
Daniel Wu, chairman of the Asian Bankers Association (ABA), says there is merit in merging some of the less efficient public sector banks in the country.
What will the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government do to answer the queries and fears of investors who will want to be doubly sure they would not be harassed at a later date, as has been happening to Sterlite, should be interesting to watch, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In India, most funds have one or at most two platforms, but we are the only one which has four -- growth equity practice, real estate practice, a special situation and credit platform, and infrastructure.'
With Indian infrastructure companies burdened with debt, global PE funds and developers sense an opportunity to buy the airports cheap
From Rafale relief to heat on realtors, 10 landmark Supreme Court judgments in 2018.
"A very easy solution to suggest is tax-payers must pay because the private sector has defaulted," Jaitley said, adding that bank recapitalisation, where the government puts in more capital in public sector banks to shore up their books, effectively amounted to that. "Therefore, I think let's try and make the private sector pay for their debts or allow somebody else to step in."
'Good economics isn't necessarily bad politics, or vice versa,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The attempt to build a negative narrative about India's economic performance is disingenuous.' 'For the investors as well as the targeted beneficiaries of welfare schemes, the ground reality is very different,' argues Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, NITI Aayog.
'GST had to come close on the heels of demonetisation as part of the same package.'
'The expectation was that Modi would become even bolder in his approach, and after only four months into his second term, we are starting to see evidence of this.'
'Some business families would probably have to revert to their core businesses, which the IBC will ensure.'
Instead of a consumption stimulus the government must address the NPA issue with a war footing and invest in infrastructure, affordable housing and exports, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The Modi government could steer through Parliament 59 out of 75 Bills.
The biggest achievement of demonetisation is that it has brought about a social revolution against black money and corruption, says Sukumar Mukhopadhyay.
He said the country has witnessed a journey from indecisiveness to clarity and decisiveness.
'The entire government-owned banking system (excluding SBI) is now in the red.' 'But worse is to come,' warns T N Ninan.
'The PCA framework was revised and tightened in April 2017, but there was no discussion in any board meeting. The government does not know the rationale behind revising the framework and how the RBI arrived at it. Similarly, there was no discussion in the board meeting on the revised NPA framework,' said an official.
It is worth reconsidering if this fascination with either having a single party majority or Modi's leadership or, indeed, both, is such a great idea for India, says Udit Misra.
Pensioners, India Inc may get tax breaks in Budget
Aggressive rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve could result in a flight of capital from emerging markets like India, says B Gopkumar, chief executive officer, Reliance Securities.
Modi said the ease of doing business ranking improved because the government initiated reforms to end difficulties in the lives of people.
The trio, 'twin shocks' of demonetisation and GST, 'twin balance sheet' problem that has been weakening India's banking system and the 'twin deficit' problem will continue to challenge economic management and performance in the year ahead, says Shankar Acharya.
Six months into his new role, Vishal Wanchoo, president and chief executive officer, GE, South Asia, speaks to Jyoti Mukul about how its horizontal business lines of additives and digital are playing across its verticals.
Nitin Desai suggests some concrete measures to revive investment and boost growth.
'Urjit Patel was not quite the picture of courage, but even he turned, he had to turn.' 'Perhaps there is something that is far more sinister than what we are aware of, which is the reason for his resigation.'
