Sure there is no quick fix! That is why prevention is better than cure!
‘There is no quick fix,’ the finance minister, P Chidambaram is reported to have told media persons Tuesday last. He is dead right. There are no pat solutions that will bring us immediate relief from...
View ArticleBanks and exchanges must meet a higher standard of ethics
‘Fit and proper’! That’s a phrase the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in common with financial sector regulators all over the world, is fond of describing as a key determinant in granting approval for...
View ArticleCentral bank-speak: Mis-read, Mis-spoken or Just Mis-understood?
Last Tuesday, after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) first quarter review of its monetary policy 2013-14, the Sensex fell 245 points. But there was nothing the governor, D Subbarao, had said to evoke...
View ArticleBravo, FM!
It is not often I find myself in such complete agreement with the present FM, P Chidambaram. But his decision to appoint his present Chief Economic Advisor, Raghuram Rajan the next Reserve Bank of...
View ArticleRajan’s Crown of Thorns
In the Indian ecosystem, it’s not often that merit trumps all other considerations. Extraneous factors — caste, community, religion and that important political backing — often seem to count far more...
View ArticleInter-state council alone must decide which state gets ‘Special Status’
In the ‘let’s see who blink first’ contest between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the UPA government, there’s no doubt the first round has been won by the wily Kumar. Faced with an angry...
View ArticleEconomics 101 for the FM
The Finance Minister, P Chidambaram’s statement in Parliament, ‘My government believes that while price stability is important, it has to be in the larger context of growth and employment generation;...
View ArticleRupee Fall: As we sow so must we reap. Or in this case, weep.
Cold turkey has got me on the run. So sang the Beatles back in the late 1960s. Except that they weren’t talking of the Indian economy but of the agony of withdrawing from artificial stimulants. In...
View ArticleProbe into NSEL must extend to MCX-SX as well
According to news reports, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) had served notice to the Financial Technologies-promoted NSEL (National Spot Exchange of India) based on the Forward Market...
View ArticleUS Fed's inward-looking monetary policy could boomerang!
Allan Meltzer, professor at Carnegie Mellon University has hit the nail on the head. Speaking at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the annual watering hole of central bankers, Meltzer reportedly voiced the...
View ArticleReading Subbarao right
The RBI's plea for respecting the central bank's space must be seen in right lightMany have read the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, D Subbarao’s Nani Palkhivala Memorial speech in Mumbai on...
View ArticleWorsening balance sheets have escaped attention
With all eyes on the rupee , worsening bank balance sheets have escaped policy attentionLater this week, Raghuram Rajan will take over as the 23rd governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It is...
View ArticleWill the new RBI governor be able to suit action to words?
For a first statement from a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, and that too, on his very first day in office, Raghuram Rajan’s statement of the ‘first steps, concrete actions …as well as some...
View ArticleRBI must come clean on why it took so long to acknowledge its mistake
Tucked away in the inside pages of the dailies over the weekend was a seemingly innocuous report: the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it said, had inadvertently left out an applicant – Chandigarh-based KC...
View ArticleThe NPS rip-off! Old age security is a myth with the NPS as it stands today
Ever since Parliament passed the PFRDA (Pension Regulatory and Development Authority) Bill, giving the pension fund regulator statutory backing, business dailies have been full of the virtues of the...
View ArticleSelling India short!
Stanchart's proposal to abolish caps on FII holding of G-Secs is fraught with dangerOn the face of it, it seems a harmless enough proposal. The finance ministry wants to get government securities...
View ArticleDeferment of Fed tapering must be used to put our house in order
From poster boy to stick-inthe-mud central banker. In little over a fortnight, the markets’ love affair with the new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan seems to have all but ended. But...
View ArticleBarking up the wrong tree
The government’s decision to infuse more funds (over and above the Rs 14,000 crore set aside in Budget 2013-14) to beef up the capital of public sector banks is totally ill-conceived. It is also a sad...
View ArticleMSF cut: RBI weakens its inflation-fighting credentials
By playing along with the government, the RBI risks sending a, perhaps, unwarranted signal: that it is happy to play ball regardless of whether, in the process, it risks taking its eye off its main...
View ArticleRBI's long history as an inflation fighter: Raghuram Rajan likely to uphold...
“Given that inflation has been persistent suggests a significant mismatch between demand and supply. In the short run, curbing demand moderately so as to allow supply to catch up can be an effective...
View ArticleRBI has no option but to dance to the Fed's tunes
The RBI's next mid-quarter review of its Monetary Policy 2013-14 is scheduled for 18 December. Unfortunately, the meeting of the US Fed Open Markets Committee is also scheduled for Dec 17 and 18.Given...
View ArticleToo many unanswered questions
The Tatas’ about-turn on their banking application is inexplicableThe bland statement from the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday did not say much. ‘Tata Sons Limited’, said the central bank, ‘has...
View ArticleIs This the New Normal?
There are few issues of greater import than achieving a broad national consensus on growthThe big poser after the second-quarter GDP numbers on Friday is: does this mark a bottoming out of the economy...
View ArticleBJP’s remarkable performance is a shot in the arm for markets, economy
At one level, it’s all over; bar the shouting. The BJP has won convincingly in two of the three large states that went to the polls, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, is neck-and-neck with the Congress in...
View ArticleBurying all talk of a new normal
Assembly results convincingly prove there are no takers for a new (read higher) normal when it comes to inflationPolitical pundits might analyse Sunday's election results till the cows come home. But...
View ArticleThird time unlucky? PM's media interaction gets three out of ten
The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s media inter-action on Friday morning, his third in 10 years, was like the man, under-stated and devoid of either passion or excitement. But for an occasional glimpse...
View ArticleThree major developments likely to impact the financial sector in 2014
Annus horribilis! That’s how Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II described 1992 and many others described 2008, the year Lehman Brothers collapsed . But for us in India, there can be no doubt that 2013 wins...
View ArticleNachiket Mor committee report is an example of triumph of idealism over...
As a general rule, expert committee reports fall into one of two categories. The first consists of reports that though profound, are so idealistic and far removed from practicality that they are per...
View ArticleThe only way to tackle food inflation is through holistic reform of agriculture
What explains the sustained increase in prices witnessed during the past many months? Over the months, we’ve heard a wide variety of explanations. These range from the increase in rural wages, to the...
View ArticleBe careful what you wish for!
The recommendations of the Urjit Patel are not quite what the PM had, perhaps, hoped for when he expressed a desire for a review of the monetary policy framework.‘The time has come, when we should...
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