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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...

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Banks 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...

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Central 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...

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Bravo, 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...

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Rajan’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...

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Inter-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...

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Economics 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;...

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Rupee 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...

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Probe 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...

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US 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...

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Reading 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...

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Worsening 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...

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Will 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...

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RBI 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...

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The 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...

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Selling 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...

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Deferment 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...

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Barking 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...

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MSF 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...

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RBI'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...

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RBI 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...

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Too 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...

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Is 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...

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BJP’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...

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Burying 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...

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Third 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...

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Three 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...

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Nachiket 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...

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The 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...

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Be 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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