Economic Setback After NDA

08-18-2006, 02:34 AM

Didn't take too long to go from India Shining to India Whining. You'll note that those (Mani Shankar, Dilip Dsouza, Praful Bidwai, Shekar Gupta etc) whining at India Shining have now done a complete 180 degree flip! Wonder why?

10-01-2006, 11:12 AM

58% Unemployment in India !?
Anyone translation?

10-01-2006, 11:40 AM

Viren

I had seen this here

http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/sep/29jobs...?q=bp&file=.htm

Most likely housewives are being considered as unemployed. Something is messed up in that survey.

10-01-2006, 10:56 PM

QUOTE58% Unemployment in India !?
Anyone translation?
Very wage, what are the base criteria? No explanation what they considered are employable?

10-01-2006, 11:20 PM

QUOTEIndia 8.9 
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Imagine GDP rise with reforms
The scorching 8.9 per cent growth in the Indian GDP in the first quarter of 2006-07 is a tribute to what the enterprise and genius of this country can achieve even in the near absence of economic reforms. Combined with the increased overseas investment by Indian business houses - outgoing FDI, as it were, has crossed incoming FDI this year - the 8.9 per cent figure will only bolster the bullish, optimistic mood of business and economy stakeholders. It has often been said that India can achieve 12 per cent growth rate, and consistently, with the right mix of reformist policies - the sort Finance Minister P Chidambaram has pleaded with the Left and with UPA allies for room for. The prospect of that has never looked more inviting; if nine per cent is the new 'neo-Hindu' growth rate, and the baseline mark, the future is India's to imagine. The long-term rise of the Indian economy is now beyond question; yes, there will be hiccups along the way but a dramatic decline now looks more and more unlikely. It can be the product of only freak events or a colossal failure of policy management. There is convenient shorthand for this: It's called fiscal deficit.

The figures Mr Chidambaram provided are chilling. Sixty per cent of the 2006-07 fiscal deficit target - high anyway, at 2.1 per cent of GDP - was reached in the first five months of the year itself. Manic social spending is a recipe for fiscal profligacy; it adds to money supply but not productivity - and so pushes up prices and inflation, too. The waste called the rural employment guarantee programme, which will satisfy only armchair socialist fantasies and enrich local henchmen of the ruling party/coalition across States, giveaways to minorities and other specialist interest groups; the strengthening of subsidy raj; dollops of populism in the run-up to State elections in 2007 - this is the stuff of a fiscal nightmare. Some of it can be paid for by even higher economic growth, but this will necessitate more reform. The Finance Minister has spoken of the need to further open up the financial sector. Other examples are possible. Take higher education - to pay for the reservation regime inflicted upon the country by HRD Minister Arjun Singh, the Government will have to add seats, faculty, hostel rooms by the thousands in the next two or three years. If it opens up higher education to private/foreign investment, much of this burden could be passed on to the private sector. Mr Chidambaram probably knows that anyway. He needs to just act, never mind the prickly fellow travellers. After India has given him 8.9 per cent growth, he has a moral obligation.

agnivayu · (This post was last modified: 10-04-2006, 07:29 PM by agnivayu.)

There never was a Hindu rate of growth, India for a long time was suffering from the "Psuedo-secular left wing loser" rate of growth. Now that India is fast approaching the Vedic rate of economic growth, it's time to boast about Vedic/Hindu culture's influence in making this happen. Infact if anybody talks smack about the caste system, just let them know about the rapid economic growth rates, which seems to provide greater upward mobility than the left wing p-sec policies.

04-18-2007, 06:20 AM

'Aiyar jab cost Delhi the Asiad' 
QUOTEBut the IOA is upset with Sports Minister Mani Shanker Aiyer for his comments which they feel may have had an adverse effect on the bidding process. Aiyer had said last week that the Games were of no good to the common man.

"There were too many stories going around that 'India is a divided house', 'the Sports Minister does not want something', they are all in the Gulf News and the Kuwait News. So we couldn't fight that," IOA President Suresh Kalmadi said.


If you appoint fools as Minister what else one can expect, his previous job history is enough to prove eg. Oil deal, Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan......

04-22-2007, 02:25 AM

QUOTEDelhi's lost chance 
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Paying for cussed Third Worldism
With the Olympic Council of Asia voting for South Korea's Incheon rather than New Delhi, the 2014 Asian Games will not, as it happens, come to India. Doubtless perhaps part of the reason for India's defeat was the financially superior bid put together by the South Koreans. The over-confidence of the Indian Olympic Association, which thought it had the 2014 Asiad sewn up because its leading office-bearers were well-networked in the OCA, must surely share blame too. Nevertheless, IOA president Suresh Kalmadi has blamed Union Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar for queering the pitching by being openly critical of India's bid and calling it a waste of money for a country with 250 million people in poverty. The BJP, keen as an Opposition party should be to exploit divisions in the ruling coalition, has sought to move a parliamentary motion against Mr Aiyar. Certainly, the manner in which the Sports Minister was shouted down by colleagues at the Cabinet meeting where the Indian bid was finally cleared, as well as his continued and relentless attack on the idea of India hosting big sports events - if Mr Aiyar had his way, he would cancel the 2010 Commonwealth Games too - have not left the UPA Government looking prim and pretty.

It would be tempting to see Mr Aiyar's glee at India not winning the right to what would have been its first Asian Games in 32 years as one man's personal angularity. It is much more than that. It betrays a mindset, a Third Worldism almost, that is all too prevalent in Indian public life. This romanticises indigence and frowns upon growth and its spin off, such as urban infrastructure, as vices; it has, in the past year especially, severely constricted this Government's capacity for economic reform. That larger issue being where it is, it is necessary to counter the Sports Minister's cussed opposition to the Commonwealth and Asian Games. For a start, are these guaranteed to lose money? Other than the Montreal Olympics of 1976, no major multi-event sporting event in recent decades has been a financial failure. Many second or third rung cities - Atlanta, Seoul - have used Olympics and other games to bolster infrastructure, repackage the city as a business and tourist destination and make that quantum leap to a global metropolis. The case of Athens, the small, ragged capital of a B-list economy, is there for all to see. When Greece hosted the 2004 Olympics, it gave its capital an underground rapid transit network and an overground road matrix that a decade of 'normal' planning would not have achieved. Delhi's experience with the preparation for the Commonwealth Games is instructive. It has given east Delhi a new identity and urban sensibility, fast-tracked the Metro to Gurgaon and Noida, and had the Finance Minister offering tax incentives for building hotels in the National Capital Region. All of these were much needed; their legacy will serve India years after the Australian and Kenyan athletes have gone home in 2010. One of the major organisational costs for any modern sporting spectacular is in the IT operations that, in a sense, micromanage the games. The Commonwealth Games will be a huge business opportunity as well as a showcase for Indian IT; the Asiad would have been too. Rajiv Gandhi realised these long-term benefits when he worked behind the scenes to make the 1982 Asian Games a success. It's a pity his Socialist sidekick could never see the point.

05-07-2007, 11:49 PM

And India stretches out its bowl again

QUOTEOn April 30, the Government of India finally found the time to issue a tender to import one million tonnes of wheat. This is the second year in a row that this happened. Following the experience of 2006, a truly prudent ministry would have moved long before. Now, I fear we are just a bit late.

The benchmark for commodities trading is set in Chicago. At the beginning of April, wheat was trading at US $4.12 a bushel. By April 30, when our economist prime mpinister and his crack team finally realised the danger, the price of wheat had risen to US $4.9555 a bushel.

In other words, the Indian taxpayer has already been hit for millions of dollars. (And his purse may be pinched even further if prices rise at news of the Indian tender.) That is a scandal in itself, but what is worse is that the Government of India may be doing too little even at this late hour.


QUOTEReaders may recall that the Union finance ministry announced a ban on pulse exports in June 2006. That means everyone knew there was a shortfall (inevitably leading to rising prices). Why then did the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs wait until mid-April to approve of imports? Could this not have been done in January or February, or even earlier?

I am not quite sure where the imports are to come from. While wheat is grown not just in Australia and North America but even in Europe, the pulses that we Indians eat are cultivated (mostly) in just three nations -- Turkey, Canada, and Myanmar. Finance Minister Chidambaram himself told Parliament just that in March 2007. In the same statement, he said that this situation meant that the Government of India simply could not source pulses anywhere. If that was the situation on March 6, what was the point of waiting up to April 12?


QUOTE150 years ago, it was said that a mysterious 'chapati' was used to ignite a war. The freedom fighters of 1857 were lucky -- they could actually afford to buy wheat and pulses at rates so cheap that chapatis could be sent forth as a coded message. What will it take today to remind our current leaders of their duties?

05-08-2007, 12:44 AM

Pakistan is sending wheat to India. Now, who is behind this deal?

05-26-2007, 11:45 PM

Indian Express
QUOTEAs our columnist today argues, the NDA had more by way of both symbol and substance when it came to infrastructure and that the UPAâs failure is all the less defensible when one considers the economic policy talent it has at its disposal. Just one example makes the UPAâs confused thinking clear: three years have passed without a single step being taken in planning for regulators in the infrastructure sectors. 

QUOTEIf one trawls through the speeches of Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, many splendid arguments for better regulation can be found. That only reinforces the question why progress has been limited with the two of them batting for the idea. Related questions are why the highway project is caught in turf wars that started as ministry versus planning commission but seems to have expanded to include the PMO as well, and that too not over a matter of high policy but over appointments. If appointing officials takes so much time, whatâs the hope, one might ask, for building highways faster. 

Then thereâs power, a sector that should have seen the PM and the planning commission chairperson using all their political/executive power to force through some reforms. The Electricity Act has been short circuited, Coal India seems as invulnerable to reform as it was in the heydays of Indian socialism, and some state governments â like that in Maharashtra â have created an awful mess in the name of power reform, knowing no strong critique is coming from the Centre. A seriously dysfunctional power policy could well be the UPAâs most prominent infrastructure legacy. True, of course, that airport reform started because the PM forced it through, an achievement no one can take away. But look at the loss of momentum now, look at the small-minded debate on which bunch of babus should regulate civil aviation. Another achievement: the Railways. But there letâs take the credit away from the collective (the UPA government) and give it to the individual (Lalu Yadav).

05-28-2007, 07:58 PM

PM's call for equality scientifically not possible
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070527/43/6gawm.html

QUOTESunday May 27, 11:15 AM
Bangalore, May 27 (IANS) Economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who yearns for redistribution of wealth may be up against the laws of physics.

When Singh last week called upon corporate leaders to strive for 'equitable' wealth and income distribution across society he was asking for something that violates a natural law, physicists say.

Singh said that 'rising income and wealth inequalities, if not matched by a corresponding rise of incomes across the nation, can lead to social unrest'.

But a mathematical study just published says 'wealth and income can never be uniform in a society'. About five to 10 percent of the population will remain wealthy and 90 to 95 percent relatively poor.

The study by Arnab Chatterjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata and Sitabhra Sinha of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai appears in the latest issue of 'current science' published by the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Using mathematical models -- previously derived for gases and liquids -- the researchers show that 'economic inequality is ordained by rules of physics and is inevitable in any society'. 

They say uneven wealth distribution seems to follow 'a universal law' that holds true for economies in many different societies: from ancient Egypt, through 19th century Europe, to modern Japan and the US. The same is true of the developing economy of India.

Irrespective of differences in culture, history and social structure, indicators of relative prosperity such as GDP and the economic policies followed in different countries, income and wealth distribution seem to follow the same pattern, they say.

According to the scientists, the 'natural' behaviour of income and wealth inequality comes from picturing the economy as a thermodynamic system in the same way that physicists picture an ideal gas inside a container.

After random collisions and scattering with each other, the gas molecules reach a state of equilibrium with the total energy distributed among the molecules in such a way that a few molecules possess very high kinetic energy while the rest are less energetic.

A plot of wealth distribution shows something similar, the scientists found out. The poorer majority of the population (90-95 percent) -- whose number initially rises with income but decays rapidly -- follows Gibbs distribution, a thermodynamic model that describes the distribution of energy in an ideal gas in equilibrium.

And the rich, making up five to 10 percent of the population, veers off to the tail of the distribution curve following the 'Pareto law' named after Vilfredo Pareto, who first observed this power law in the 1890s.

According to researchers, about 40-60 percent of the total wealth of any economy is possessed by the five-10 percent of the people in the 'Pareto tail'.

For their studies, the scientists analysed large sets of published data from sources such as income tax returns and net values of assets in societies like Japan, the US, Britain, India, and 19th century Europe.

The study has however raised a debate in the scientific community with some questioning the basis of applying gas models 'to artificially created and maintained economic systems'.

05-28-2007, 08:47 PM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' /> If Mathematicians think richness as inevitable, u don't need a rocket scientist to figure out that social unrest is inevitable esp in a densely populated country as ours. So, what is the civilised way out as u don't want Maoist war to spread all over India.
It's the duty of PM not only to say but also to ensure that it's translated into action.
<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /> mathematicians

05-31-2007, 05:21 PM

Abandon liberalisation agenda, CPI-M tells PM
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070531/43/6ghqe.html

08-01-2007, 12:59 AM

FM regrets slow pace of economic reforms

09-02-2007, 11:04 AM

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/cont...htm?chan=search

Too Many Missed Opportunities
Business is losing faith in Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
by Manjeet Kripalani

The rupee then began to levitate, crimping competitiveness, especially vis-Ã -vis China. Heavy monsoon rains caused devastating floods, displacing thousands of villagers and focusing attention on the government's inability to shore up India's crumbling infrastructure. Now, leftist parties are threatening to withdraw their support for the ruling coalition unless Singh turns his back on a landmark agreement with the U.S. on nuclear power for civilian uses.

Singh's stumbles have not hurt growth, which is expected to come in at 8.5% for the year. But his government has been so embroiled in internal disputes that New Delhi has failed to capitalize on an extraordinary opportunity to cut farm and oil subsidies, abolish rent control laws, and change onerous labor regulations. These and other measures are essential if India is to keep growing at almost double digits and lower the poverty level from 25% of the population.

What went wrong? Part of the problem lies with the 16-party coalition led by Singh's Congress Party: Keeping it together is a full-time job in itself. Another is that voters had unrealistic expectations of Singh. As finance minister, the Oxford grad unshackled India's economy with the support of then-Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Now he looks ineffective. Critics say it is Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhiâand not Singhâwho really pulls the levers of power, and that she is lukewarm about market reforms. "We thought Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister would be the same as Manmohan Singh the finance minister," laments Subir Gokarn, chief economist for Asia-Pacific for Standard & Poor's (MHP). "Our expectation was misplaced."

FOUNDERING PLANS

The business community's list of complaints is long. Privatization of state-run companies has been put on hold, on ideological grounds. A program to build Chinese-style special economic zones has foundered over how much to pay displaced farmers for their land. Official approvals, slow to come, are blocking badly needed commercial and residential construction. "Our lives are getting choked," says Mohan Pai, head of human resources at Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY). "The airports are choked, the trains are choked, the sewers are choked. I am feeling less optimistic about my country's ability to get out of this, at the best time in our history."

India's poor don't have much to cheer about either. In 2004 the government launched a $2.8 billion annual plan to guarantee rural laborers 100 days of work at minimum wageâa bid to provide a livelihood to millions. But in most states, critics say the scheme has been wasteful and ineffective and that a $6.1 billion project to revamp rural infrastructure has had mixed results. Meanwhile, measures to overhaul education and health care have not yielded a payroll yet, though Delhi raised taxes on the affluent to fund the reforms. "What is my tax for?" says Ajay Shah, an economist and former adviser to the finance ministry. "They are trying to improve outcomes by throwing more money at dysfunctional systems." A government spokesman says the programs are off to a good start.

Those inclined to optimism say that the quarrel between Singh and his left-wing partners could help reinvigorate his leadership. Others are already putting their hopes on the next regime. "Perhaps a new government, whatever it will be, will change things," says Madhav Bhatkuly of Mumbai equity fund New Horizon. That's cold comfort for those who were hoping for badly needed action now, not later.

11-04-2007, 10:42 PM

THINKING ALOUD The myth of the small investor
Sudheendra KulkarniPosted online: Sunday, November 04, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Inclusive growth. Thatâs the mantra that Dr Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, P. Chidambaram and Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia have chanted since the UPA government came into being in May 2004, even as they presided over the most exclusive growth that the country has ever witnessed.

They would do well to let the country know how inclusive has been the growth as measured by that index of wealth creation, the Sensex, which last week made an Indian the worldâs richest man.

âYeh toh limited logon ki Diwali hai,â is how a journalist friend of mine, who works for a business channel, described it when I asked him if the base of beneficiaries of the recent stock market boom was getting broad-based. With Diwali approaching, the Sensex crossed the 20,000 mark last week, up from 15,000 only four months ago. âThis growth story is meant exclusively for the big guys,â he commented. âIt has a No Entry sign for small investors.â

To know more, I turned to another eminent business journalist, Rajrishi Singhal, consulting editor of The Economic Times. He drew my attention to his recent article (âDecoding the myth of the small investorâ, ET, Sept 21), in which he writes: âThe unpleasant truth is that the system abhors smallness. The financial markets have turned out to be a modern-day factory for the manufacture of myths. Some myths are created to keep a section of society happy. The small investor is one such myth. It is the product of some fertile imagination harnessed to keep society lulled in the belief that there is great concern for the small investor. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole market microstructure is designed to keep out the small guy from this exclusive club.â

As proof, he says that only 72 lakh people, just over two per cent of the total working population of 32.1 crore in the18-59 age group, invest in stocks, either directly or through mutual funds. In other words, it is not just the crores of Indiaâs poor â farm labourers, construction-site workers, roadside vendors etc â who are excluded from Dalal Streetâs Diwali celebrations. Even our burgeoning middle-class has nearly no share in its rapidly expanding cake. Mutual funds, which are meant to enable retail investors to invest in stocks indirectly, have been of little help. Over 60 per cent of subscriptions of mutual funds still come from corporates. Almost 80 per cent of retail subscriptions in mutual funds come only from three or four metros. Some growth funds have only two or three big investors.

Last week, a leading daily, celebrating the Sensexâs flight to 20,000, told its readers: âIf you had invested Rs 1 lakh in any of these stocks on February 7, 2006, when the Sensex was at 10,000, you would have made ...â Then, listing BSEâs 30 index-driving scrips, it said that a Rs 1 lakh investment then in Mukesh Ambaniâs RIL would be worth Rs 3.9 lakh today, in Anil Ambaniâs REL would be worth Rs 2.89 lakh now, and so on. However, hereâs the stark truth: anyone who has only a lakh to invest will hardly be able to buy the shares in any of the top 30 companies.

Anomalies abound in Indiaâs capital markets. On the one hand, foreign investors, convinced about Indiaâs long-term growth potential, are pouring money. But the markets are very illiquid. Of the 7,834 listed scrips, there is hardly any trading in more than half of them. For the shares of many companies, there are no takers at any price. Most of the coveted shares belong to companies that are family-controlled, where manipulations by promoters are rampant. The so-called independent directors on the boards of these companies, whose remunerations and perks have become immensely more attractive than before, routinely turn a blind eye when promoters enrich themselves at the cost of small investors. Above all, potential small investors fear the stock market, believing it to be speculative and unsafe. They prefer to invest in gold or real estate. Small and medium companies, which can perform well and reward the investors handsomely, are hobbled by infrastructural bottlenecks, made worse by governmental corruption, red-tapism and harassment.

The UPA, in its common minimum programme, had promised: âInterests of small investors will be protected and they will be given new avenues for safe investment of their savings . . . strictest action will be taken against market manipulators.â

The promise remains on paper. Instead, the government has allowed inclusive growth of a very different kind. Indiaâs super-rich are now getting included in the elite club of the worldâs mega-rich. So much so that, during the Sensexâs ascent from 10K to 20K in just 21 months, the family wealth of Mukesh Ambani rose from Rs 60,391 crore to Rs 2,27,690 crore, making him the worldâs richest man. His younger brother Anil Ambani increased his wealth from Rs 34,249 crore to Rs 1,52,600 crore in the same period. Thousands of crores were added to the wealth of other Indian kubers as well.

But letâs remember: last week also saw tens of thousands of poor villagers, many of them with bare feet, marching to the national capital to highlight their demand for land and livelihood. For how much longer can we keep them excluded from Indiaâs growth story?

11-09-2007, 12:16 PM

At present Rs. 1 lakh Crores is being spent on subsidy alone according to the Prime Minister. This means there is less resources for education, housing , health and other facilities. The subsidy on oil sector needs to be finetuned. At present the poor and the rich both are receiving the subsidy in respect of LPG and Diesel . This should be so mmaid that those who are economically weaker only will get these items at a susidised rate while the owners of Diesel engined MB and BMW may pay the normal price. On the agriculture sector, some reduction on firm subsidy is also necessary. However, both these measures need the support of the Left parties under the present political dispensatiion at the Centre. So nothing much can be done till the next general elections.

11-09-2007, 12:43 PM

Every month they should have increased oil price. Yes, it would have slow down growth and but impact would have been little and current economy would have adjusted with time, demand for oil would have decreased and net saving overall. Now if they will increase price, it will be big margin and that will bring people on street. especially commies. Inflation will increase and road bummer will be big. In place of soft landing now it will be hard landing.

Current international oil price is based on perception. If India will increase oil price, it will bring down global per barrel price, based on perception that demand for oil in India will decrease.

Lets see how so-called "economist" PM will handle this crisis.
Whether he believes in strong foundation or power?

11-14-2007, 12:16 AM

No rise in price, oil companies to manage loss QUOTEIndia issues bonds to state refiners and fuel retailers to the tune of 42.7 percent of their revenue losses due to product sales, while upstream companies share around 33 percent.

Analysts say the bonds increase India`s fiscal burden.

The government has not raised state-administered retail fuel prices this year even though crude has jumped to a series of record highs. On Tuesday it was trading at about $94 a barrel.

The Indian crude basket has risen by 145 percent since April 2004, but retail prices of petrol have gone up by just 29 percent and those of diesel by 40 percent.

With elections in the key state of Gujarat in early December analysts said the government was always unlikely to risk voters` ire by raising fuel prices, which it discounts to protect poor consumers and help fight inflation.

Greed of power is so strong, even it means screw India.

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