Dragon4
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Wow! never noticed.
India Soars High - KPMG
- Thread starter Nilgiri
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Sky lord
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So all Indians are lying toads including Consultants who work for international organizations according to you?
And of course as per yourself Chinese government statics can be taken seriously and Chinese consultants are always very fair !
That skin of pretend rationality you use to cover your deeply held racism is cracking in places!
Use a little Google. Chinese government statistics and sausages have much in common.
Mufflerman
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It's not economic times. It's economist.
kadamba-warrior
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In addition, certain crops like sugarcane are biennial or sometimes triennial - depending on the overall fertility and availability of water - which means you get 2 or 3 annual harvests for the same sugarcane crop.
Not only does this impede crop-rotations but also messes up fertility of the land big time while wasting gazillion gallons of water!
If you ask me, the government should strictly regulate sugarcane crops, or atleast take all the incentives away like MSP.
Dungeness
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So all Indians are lying toads including Consultants who work for international organizations according to you?
And of course as per yourself Chinese government statics can be taken seriously and Chinese consultants are always very fair !
That skin of pretend rationality you use to cover your deeply held racism is cracking in places!
Use a little Google. Chinese government statistics and sausages have much in common.
It is not about racism, but about the governance system and the social mentality. We know many of you love to soar high on some western cheer leading articles or government statistics, but not too many of you actually care about the bottom part of your own society, those without internet voice. The inclusiveness of social development is deep rooted in Chinese mind, but not so much among internet Indians. Many of you would click "thanks" on the articles like "India has 360 million Internet users, 2nd highest in the world", but never bother to find out just how many of them can afford data charges, and actually benefit from Internet.
We are all "brainwashed" one way or the other, the difference is we know it, but you don't. That's why you are more subject to biased information than Chinese. Just look at all those "superpower" threads and how many of you click "thanks".
As for the Chinese government statistics, I personally don't know how much water in them, but I do know China's economy is 5 times of India's, Chinese people live 8 years longer than Indian, and Chinese got lot more Olympic medals.
Don't get upset, get even, for the sake of your Mother India.
Indika
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no idea.
Nilgiri
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...lasses-i-and-ii-cbse/articleshow/54298968.cms
No school bags, homework for classes I and II: CBSE
@anant_s @Levina
I am going to make this a Modi administration-based thread (policy and implementation wise esp w.r.t the previous administration). I feel such a thread is lacking (does not fit into India politics thread or India economy thread precisely given the former is pretty much a gossip/troll thread and the latter is more a strict results/data thread).
Over time I will post more deep personal analysis and such when I get time....and try to get it pinned once there is substantial material and interaction here. I may change the title at that point too.
@PARIKRAMA @anant_s what do you guys think/feel?
For now some more articles on the general trend I want for this thread:
http://www.firstpost.com/india/how-...rm-an-effective-development-plan-2982126.html
How PM Modi is breaking silos in governance to form an effective development plan
Two seemingly unrelated events are clear indicators of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determined attempt to break the existing silos in India’s governance structure.
On 26 August, the Niti Aayog drew up a list of 1400-odd government servants and initiated a lecture series known as “transforming India”.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, inaugurated the series at New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan in which PM Modi, along with his cabinet colleagues and officials to the level of director in the government of India, were attendees.
File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AFP
After Modi’s introductory speech, the stage was left for the guest to wax eloquent over India’s handicaps and the expectations of the world on the country. Modi, along with his entire cabinet and top policy makers, were patient listeners.
Those who attended the lecture were quite impressed, not only by the outstanding exposition of Shanmugaratnam but also by his profound understanding of India’s social and economic complexities.
For instance, Shanmugaratnam pointed out that India had been expending its energy more on over-regulation and less on building a stronger society. He took cues from Modi’s speech, who emphasised that a strong society was a sine qua non for a strong country.
But what was particularly interesting in the lecture was that Modi requested the guest to not hold back on his punches while making critical references to India’s policies. Shanmugaratnam did exactly that; in a friendly atmosphere with 1400-odd top policy makers of the country, listening attentively in the spirit of learning.
Impressed by the experience, the prime minister directed the Niti Aayog to organise at least four such lectures in a year, to expose the Indian policy honchos to outsiders’ perspective on India.
“It was a unique experience to see the prime minister sitting with everyone, like a student in the session,” said one of the participants.
Only a day after India’s top political executives, along with the bureaucrats, learnt a lesson or two about globalisation and its benefits, Modi addressed a meeting of chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states on 27 August, and encouraged them to share the best practices initiated by each of the governments.
Curiously enough, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar and his officials gave a PowerPoint presentation on the institutionalised mechanisms established by the state's government for the transfers of teachers. The presentation won the adulation of the prime minister, as he was well aware of the rampant corruption involved in the transfer of teachers in Haryana.
Khattar later revealed that he had borrowed the idea from Gujarat, where former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had put in place a system, allowing senior most teachers to choose their place of posting.
“This has drastically reduced the complaints of corruption and curbed the discretionary powers of the bureaucracy,” said one of the officials, who had made the presentation for the state government.
Similarly, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh also gave presentations about the best governance practices that they had innovated. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, came out with a detailed presentation about his government’s plan for doubling the income of farmers in the state by 2022 – a promise that the union government had made in its budget.
In the one-on-one meetings with the CMs, Modi pointed out that such an exercise would not only help share the best practices of governance on a wider scale, but would also give innovative ideas to the chief ministers to devise effective methods of governance.
Those working closely with Modi admit that the prime minister had all along been insistent that the ministries should avoid the tendency to work in silos. That is the precise reason why Modi has been holding meetings with secretaries of the government on a regular basis – to monitor the pending projects and confront the officials if they were responsible for holding up projects.
With monthly meetings, Modi has also been in touch with chief secretaries – through video-conferencing – to remove irritants between the Centre and the states, and expedite development projects.
Source in the government point out that of late, the government has roped in several experts into various ministries in order to inculcate an efficient work culture in governance. Apparently, these experts have been playing critical roles in running highly technical ministries like power, surface transport and railways – by introducing a new culture of efficiency and transparency, and by orienting the bureaucracy to adapt to a new style.
In the Niti Aayog, nearly 40-odd graduates – passed out freshly from prestigious institutes all over the country – have been inducted to formulate a long-term economic perspective for the country, and to assess the impact of the government's policies.
The inaugural session of the “transforming India lecture” – by Singapore Deputy Prime Minister, to address India’s top echelons – is being seen as Modi’s attempt to gradually unclutter the bureaucracy and to orient them along the best practices of governance on the international level.
On a political level, he is goading the BJP-ruled states to learn from the best practices from other states. Though the initiative is still at an incipient stage, it is nevertheless regarded as a positive step for evolving a coherent and effective development plan for the country.
===================================================
http://www.livemint.com/Money/gtMT7lWeS8n2nyIZ3HLZON/How-good-is-it-How-bad-is-it.html
How good is it? How bad is it?
Modi, as a Delhi outsider, has shut down access to power and its benefits
When I began this column in March 2009, I remember writing my first piece on the macro mess India was in and how a spendthrift government, which took an 8% growth rate and a 26% rise in tax revenues in the previous years as the new normal, messed up big time. You can read that column here: http://bit.ly/2bynE0d . With elections around the corner, money was splurged on massive loan waivers and many other let’s-give-them-money-and get-their-votes schemes. It worked and the government came back to power. The next five years got the country closer to disaster, with bank books getting stuffed with questionable loans, policy paralysis and big corruption in the central government and bureaucracy.
The economic fallout of bad policy is usually political in a democracy, so India voted in a new government with a clear majority for the first time in 30 years in 2014. It’s been two years and it is unclear if things are better or worse. Is the new government good or bad? Are we doing better or worse? Much of the popular discourse is muddied with commentary on issues that have little to do with the economy: there is a lot of angst over issues of tolerance, communal tensions, rewriting history. I’ve been asking this question of all the people I meet—corporate leaders, bureaucrats, academics, regulators, heads of institutions: what’s going on, are things better or worse?
All of them say three things. One, corruption in the central government is gone. There is a tough message out from the Prime Minister’s Office that graft will not be tolerated. Everybody I spoke to said that indeed the extortions from every project were gone. Graft in the lower bureaucracy and in local governments persists and is very deep-rooted. But at the Centre, it is gone. There is an overall drive against black money with various schemes being tried to put a plug on it. The same hard stand has been taken with bank loans and one place to start has been the process of selection of public sector bank chiefs. A member of the committee who would interview candidates for public sector bank chairmen told me that after 2014, they stopped getting calls from the power centre on who to hire. The rate used to be fixed, he said, we were just told to pick the name told to us. Who’d pay? Firms that would then benefit from easy loans and terms. Those calls have stopped.
The hardening stance of the state on black money shows up in the prices of real estate. Real estate has been the sump of black money in India and the politician-builder-land mafia nexus had raised prices to a level that was beyond any economic logic. People who bought their Rs.8 crore luxury floors in Gurgaon are unable to find a buyer at half the price. The winter for real estate is going to last a long time—so if you are still holding on to an investment thinking it will recover, plan on bequests rather than profits in the near future.
Two, policy paralysis is over and the government is executing plans, many of these are carry-overs from the previous government and some that were announced but were not executed. Aadhaar is a great example of the Modi government carrying forward a project that is so key to India’s progress. The Jan Dhan scheme has added millions of unbanked to the banking sector’s customer base.
Three, key individual ministries are doing well—power, roads, defence, railways, telecom—and are showing results. These are core industries and will bear fruit over the long-term. Those looking for a quick return to the 2008 growth rates will be disappointed. One criticism that my small dip-stick revealed is over the hurry that the government is in to do things; another complaint is that some of the announced schemes don’t have deep-enough roots.
So why the noise? Why this huge angst with the Narendra Modi led government on one side and the extreme right-wing backlash on the other? The 2014 election threw up a result, which has left a section of the urban elite that was part of the access-based ecosystem that ran the country, out of the power loop.
Modi, as a Delhi outsider, has shut down access to power and its benefits. Notice the way illegally occupied bungalows in central Delhi have been vacated—the numbers have jumped from the previous years. Read this excellent piece by author Sanjeev Sanyal on taming the Delhi elite earlier this year: http://bit.ly/2bOcdXV . There is a vocal section unwilling to accept that the election verdict was something that they were against.
I remember a spate of opinion pieces just after the results bemoaning the poor choice that Indian voters made. I remember tweeting that it seems 20 op-ed writers are telling a billion Indians how to vote.
What we need to remember is that there are spin doctors and rabble rousers on both ends of the spectrum. The ‘bhakts’ as they are called will see no wrong and will abuse anybody who dares to ask questions. Equally rabid are the entitled left-loonies who will attack Modi personally for everything that’s wrong in the country. It is very difficult to stay centered when the polarisation is so severe. I find it useful to stay with what I can understand and not get blown away by agendas and rhetoric on both the extreme sides. I think the economy looks better and there is a genuine attempt to put in place rule-based norms, away from discretion-based norms that would result in rent seeking. The next two years will show if the reform is bearing fruit or not. It would be fair to give the government at least four-and-a-half years before we decide whether the change at the Centre has worked or not.
Monika Halan works in the area of consumer protection in finance. She is consulting editor Mint, consultant NIPFP, member of the Financial Redress Agency Task Force and on the board of FPSB India. She can be reached at monika.h@livemint.com
No school bags, homework for classes I and II: CBSE
@anant_s @Levina
I am going to make this a Modi administration-based thread (policy and implementation wise esp w.r.t the previous administration). I feel such a thread is lacking (does not fit into India politics thread or India economy thread precisely given the former is pretty much a gossip/troll thread and the latter is more a strict results/data thread).
Over time I will post more deep personal analysis and such when I get time....and try to get it pinned once there is substantial material and interaction here. I may change the title at that point too.
@PARIKRAMA @anant_s what do you guys think/feel?
For now some more articles on the general trend I want for this thread:
http://www.firstpost.com/india/how-...rm-an-effective-development-plan-2982126.html
How PM Modi is breaking silos in governance to form an effective development plan
Two seemingly unrelated events are clear indicators of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determined attempt to break the existing silos in India’s governance structure.
On 26 August, the Niti Aayog drew up a list of 1400-odd government servants and initiated a lecture series known as “transforming India”.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, inaugurated the series at New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan in which PM Modi, along with his cabinet colleagues and officials to the level of director in the government of India, were attendees.
File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AFP
After Modi’s introductory speech, the stage was left for the guest to wax eloquent over India’s handicaps and the expectations of the world on the country. Modi, along with his entire cabinet and top policy makers, were patient listeners.
Those who attended the lecture were quite impressed, not only by the outstanding exposition of Shanmugaratnam but also by his profound understanding of India’s social and economic complexities.
For instance, Shanmugaratnam pointed out that India had been expending its energy more on over-regulation and less on building a stronger society. He took cues from Modi’s speech, who emphasised that a strong society was a sine qua non for a strong country.
But what was particularly interesting in the lecture was that Modi requested the guest to not hold back on his punches while making critical references to India’s policies. Shanmugaratnam did exactly that; in a friendly atmosphere with 1400-odd top policy makers of the country, listening attentively in the spirit of learning.
Impressed by the experience, the prime minister directed the Niti Aayog to organise at least four such lectures in a year, to expose the Indian policy honchos to outsiders’ perspective on India.
“It was a unique experience to see the prime minister sitting with everyone, like a student in the session,” said one of the participants.
Only a day after India’s top political executives, along with the bureaucrats, learnt a lesson or two about globalisation and its benefits, Modi addressed a meeting of chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states on 27 August, and encouraged them to share the best practices initiated by each of the governments.
Curiously enough, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar and his officials gave a PowerPoint presentation on the institutionalised mechanisms established by the state's government for the transfers of teachers. The presentation won the adulation of the prime minister, as he was well aware of the rampant corruption involved in the transfer of teachers in Haryana.
Khattar later revealed that he had borrowed the idea from Gujarat, where former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had put in place a system, allowing senior most teachers to choose their place of posting.
“This has drastically reduced the complaints of corruption and curbed the discretionary powers of the bureaucracy,” said one of the officials, who had made the presentation for the state government.
Similarly, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh also gave presentations about the best governance practices that they had innovated. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, came out with a detailed presentation about his government’s plan for doubling the income of farmers in the state by 2022 – a promise that the union government had made in its budget.
In the one-on-one meetings with the CMs, Modi pointed out that such an exercise would not only help share the best practices of governance on a wider scale, but would also give innovative ideas to the chief ministers to devise effective methods of governance.
Those working closely with Modi admit that the prime minister had all along been insistent that the ministries should avoid the tendency to work in silos. That is the precise reason why Modi has been holding meetings with secretaries of the government on a regular basis – to monitor the pending projects and confront the officials if they were responsible for holding up projects.
With monthly meetings, Modi has also been in touch with chief secretaries – through video-conferencing – to remove irritants between the Centre and the states, and expedite development projects.
Source in the government point out that of late, the government has roped in several experts into various ministries in order to inculcate an efficient work culture in governance. Apparently, these experts have been playing critical roles in running highly technical ministries like power, surface transport and railways – by introducing a new culture of efficiency and transparency, and by orienting the bureaucracy to adapt to a new style.
In the Niti Aayog, nearly 40-odd graduates – passed out freshly from prestigious institutes all over the country – have been inducted to formulate a long-term economic perspective for the country, and to assess the impact of the government's policies.
The inaugural session of the “transforming India lecture” – by Singapore Deputy Prime Minister, to address India’s top echelons – is being seen as Modi’s attempt to gradually unclutter the bureaucracy and to orient them along the best practices of governance on the international level.
On a political level, he is goading the BJP-ruled states to learn from the best practices from other states. Though the initiative is still at an incipient stage, it is nevertheless regarded as a positive step for evolving a coherent and effective development plan for the country.
===================================================
http://www.livemint.com/Money/gtMT7lWeS8n2nyIZ3HLZON/How-good-is-it-How-bad-is-it.html
How good is it? How bad is it?
Modi, as a Delhi outsider, has shut down access to power and its benefits
When I began this column in March 2009, I remember writing my first piece on the macro mess India was in and how a spendthrift government, which took an 8% growth rate and a 26% rise in tax revenues in the previous years as the new normal, messed up big time. You can read that column here: http://bit.ly/2bynE0d . With elections around the corner, money was splurged on massive loan waivers and many other let’s-give-them-money-and get-their-votes schemes. It worked and the government came back to power. The next five years got the country closer to disaster, with bank books getting stuffed with questionable loans, policy paralysis and big corruption in the central government and bureaucracy.
The economic fallout of bad policy is usually political in a democracy, so India voted in a new government with a clear majority for the first time in 30 years in 2014. It’s been two years and it is unclear if things are better or worse. Is the new government good or bad? Are we doing better or worse? Much of the popular discourse is muddied with commentary on issues that have little to do with the economy: there is a lot of angst over issues of tolerance, communal tensions, rewriting history. I’ve been asking this question of all the people I meet—corporate leaders, bureaucrats, academics, regulators, heads of institutions: what’s going on, are things better or worse?
All of them say three things. One, corruption in the central government is gone. There is a tough message out from the Prime Minister’s Office that graft will not be tolerated. Everybody I spoke to said that indeed the extortions from every project were gone. Graft in the lower bureaucracy and in local governments persists and is very deep-rooted. But at the Centre, it is gone. There is an overall drive against black money with various schemes being tried to put a plug on it. The same hard stand has been taken with bank loans and one place to start has been the process of selection of public sector bank chiefs. A member of the committee who would interview candidates for public sector bank chairmen told me that after 2014, they stopped getting calls from the power centre on who to hire. The rate used to be fixed, he said, we were just told to pick the name told to us. Who’d pay? Firms that would then benefit from easy loans and terms. Those calls have stopped.
The hardening stance of the state on black money shows up in the prices of real estate. Real estate has been the sump of black money in India and the politician-builder-land mafia nexus had raised prices to a level that was beyond any economic logic. People who bought their Rs.8 crore luxury floors in Gurgaon are unable to find a buyer at half the price. The winter for real estate is going to last a long time—so if you are still holding on to an investment thinking it will recover, plan on bequests rather than profits in the near future.
Two, policy paralysis is over and the government is executing plans, many of these are carry-overs from the previous government and some that were announced but were not executed. Aadhaar is a great example of the Modi government carrying forward a project that is so key to India’s progress. The Jan Dhan scheme has added millions of unbanked to the banking sector’s customer base.
Three, key individual ministries are doing well—power, roads, defence, railways, telecom—and are showing results. These are core industries and will bear fruit over the long-term. Those looking for a quick return to the 2008 growth rates will be disappointed. One criticism that my small dip-stick revealed is over the hurry that the government is in to do things; another complaint is that some of the announced schemes don’t have deep-enough roots.
So why the noise? Why this huge angst with the Narendra Modi led government on one side and the extreme right-wing backlash on the other? The 2014 election threw up a result, which has left a section of the urban elite that was part of the access-based ecosystem that ran the country, out of the power loop.
Modi, as a Delhi outsider, has shut down access to power and its benefits. Notice the way illegally occupied bungalows in central Delhi have been vacated—the numbers have jumped from the previous years. Read this excellent piece by author Sanjeev Sanyal on taming the Delhi elite earlier this year: http://bit.ly/2bOcdXV . There is a vocal section unwilling to accept that the election verdict was something that they were against.
I remember a spate of opinion pieces just after the results bemoaning the poor choice that Indian voters made. I remember tweeting that it seems 20 op-ed writers are telling a billion Indians how to vote.
What we need to remember is that there are spin doctors and rabble rousers on both ends of the spectrum. The ‘bhakts’ as they are called will see no wrong and will abuse anybody who dares to ask questions. Equally rabid are the entitled left-loonies who will attack Modi personally for everything that’s wrong in the country. It is very difficult to stay centered when the polarisation is so severe. I find it useful to stay with what I can understand and not get blown away by agendas and rhetoric on both the extreme sides. I think the economy looks better and there is a genuine attempt to put in place rule-based norms, away from discretion-based norms that would result in rent seeking. The next two years will show if the reform is bearing fruit or not. It would be fair to give the government at least four-and-a-half years before we decide whether the change at the Centre has worked or not.
Monika Halan works in the area of consumer protection in finance. She is consulting editor Mint, consultant NIPFP, member of the Financial Redress Agency Task Force and on the board of FPSB India. She can be reached at monika.h@livemint.com
SamantK
SENIOR MEMBER
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It is not about racism, but about the governance system and the social mentality. We know many of you love to soar high on some western cheer leading articles or government statistics, but not too many of you actually care about the bottom part of your own society, those without internet voice. The inclusiveness of social development is deep rooted in Chinese mind, but not so much among internet Indians. Many of you would click "thanks" on the articles like "India has 360 million Internet users, 2nd highest in the world", but never bother to find out just how many of them can afford data charges, and actually benefit from Internet.
We are all "brainwashed" one way or the other, the difference is we know it, but you don't. That's why you are more subject to biased information than Chinese. Just look at all those "superpower" threads and how many of you click "thanks".
As for the Chinese government statistics, I personally don't know how much water in them, but I do know China's economy is 5 times of India's, Chinese people live 8 years longer than Indian, and Chinese got lot more Olympic medals.
Don't get upset, get even, for the sake of your Mother India.
These Chinese somehow think they have got rights to lecture us cause their economy is doing good.
Do us all a favor and mind your business, we will soar where ever we want to and o whose ever words we please.
Sky lord
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Haha..so you're an amateur pschycologist? Well don't give up your day job.It is not about racism, but about the governance system and the social mentality. We know many of you love to soar high on some western cheer leading articles or government statistics, but not too many of you actually care about the bottom part of your own society, those without internet voice. The inclusiveness of social development is deep rooted in Chinese mind, but not so much among internet Indians. Many of you would click "thanks" on the articles like "India has 360 million Internet users, 2nd highest in the world", but never bother to find out just how many of them can afford data charges, and actually benefit from Internet.
We are all "brainwashed" one way or the other, the difference is we know it, but you don't. That's why you are more subject to biased information than Chinese. Just look at all those "superpower" threads and how many of you click "thanks".
As for the Chinese government statistics, I personally don't know how much water in them, but I do know China's economy is 5 times of India's, Chinese people live 8 years longer than Indian, and Chinese got lot more Olympic medals.
Don't get upset, get even, for the sake of your Mother India.
Please check the "superpower" threads on PDF, all or most are started by chinamen like yourself or by the PDF bot. Risingshiningsuperpower and his alter ego endiyashining starts most of them, mainly as a way to bring in Chinese tiger statistics ...how many cars do Chinese have, how many roads every microsecond , how much GDP etc etc ad infinitum.
Indians have an excellent idea of what our issues are..listen to any Indian opposition party.....they make sure to bring up every issue and every non-issue. every chance they get...we are not however willing to lie back while foreigners insult us.
Please also remember that just one generation ago , the Chinese were so poor they were starving to death in the millions....how many died during the cultural revolution? ...and how many Chinese even knew what was happening at that time? ( thanks to the great and truthful Chinese government statistics) .
It is Nothing but racism to assume that only one group can drag themselves out of extreme poverty and no other group can. Why not just wait and see? maybe India will fix its problems, maybe we won't....but one thing for sure....we certainly don't need Chinese advice.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Nilgiri
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I have reported his multiple account to the mods, still no action done. Its of relevance given his first account is perma-banned from this forum.
Nilgiri
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ry-director-in-india/articleshow/54303040.cms
India is acknowledged as an economic power: Onno Ruhl, World Bank’s Country Director in India
India is now acknowledged as a country of global importance beyond its history and sheer size of population, as an economic power, says Onno Ruhl, who completes his four-year term as the World Bank's country director in India. In an interview to ET's Deepshikha Sikarwar and Vinay Pandey, he says climbing into top 50 will take some time but can be done. Edited excerpts:
You have been here for four years. You have seen two governments. How do you see this transition?
India must be in one of its most dynamic periods of history. What we have seen is end of a mandate that led to some hesitation in policymaking, to a very a strong mandate which led to ambition. There was high ambition in the government and there still is, but the actual pace of reform had to be tempered by the fact that in the Rajya Sabha there is still no majority.
But if you look at where the country is now and where it was four years ago, then suddenly it looks like it was a fast change. Macro fundamentals are very, very solid. In 2013, India was most vulnerable during the taper tantrum. Now India is a star. India is now acknowledged as a country of global importance beyond its history and sheer size of population, as an economic power. Therefore, on balance you see a gradual but persistent shift with high ambition and a different projection internationally, leading to a very ambitious change.
Some of the government's initiatives are close to the World Bank's mandate. How do you see them?
Cleaning the Ganga, Swachh Bharat, 100 cities, 500 cities, 24x7 power, Skill India...In the beginning people said these programmes sound good, but is this something comprehensive and then people realise what is in there is the recognition that India urbanises, and that's positive. The recognition that Indians need a level of service that behoves a middle income country and middle-class nations, which India is in the process of becoming. Most importantly, the recognition that demographic dividend will only pay off if people benefit from investment and are skilled enough to be competitive. You can mobilise around it and then the target setting. My favourite target is October 2, 2019, the most important and the most difficult, the open defecation and Swachh Bharat.
Do you see any transformational change in implementation?
One big change is the goal setting and holding people accountable for those goals, which represents a different approach to how politics and administration have interacted in India. It's really good, it's really a game changer. The government says we want business, we want investment, so whatever is wrong we will try and fix it and will tell people who give permits or do inspection that their job is to facilitate is a big shift, not universally successful as yet. It is not perfect, but direction of travel is there.
How do you see certain isolated incidents that threaten to disrupt reform agenda?
You are getting in the space of diversity and tolerance and things like that. The World Bank really has no mandate on that so I would limit to a few observations. First, for a diverse society like India to grow and prosper, that overall climate is harmonious, peaceful and that there are outlets for tension are positive and not negative.
From where I am sitting I would say, yes, there are incidents, but look at the world today. Look at the incidents we have had in France, Belgium, United States, Turkey, let's not go to Syria. India looks pretty stable. Indians sometimes criticise themselves too much. I don't think the world looks at India as a hotspot or trouble spot.
What worries you most about India?
There is one development indicator where India is dead last in the world, the sex ratio. Building on that, India's female labour participation rate is second to last among G20 countries. Only Saudi Arabia is worse. It's significantly lower in urban areas than rural India. For India to become great and get beyond the middle income trap, there is no country that does that without drawing on the talent of its women in a more significant way. I see a little bit of complacency. It's the number one issue.
Ease of doing business has really caught on in India, with states competing with each other. Is it yielding results?
There are two approaches here - one is to set a very ambitious goal on the global ranking. The global ranking means Delhi and Mumbai. So it's a very simplified and imperfect way of measuring what happens in India. Delhi and Mumbai are actually not the most dynamic parts of the Indian economy. The goal setting is good. It's completely shifted the debate we had with DIPP and other agencies on what to do. This will lead to result. Other countries have done it. It's a big effort and other countries are not sitting idle. Climbing into top 50 will take some time but can be done.
The other approach is even more transformational, which is the work on ranking the states. I live near the Claridges (hotel in central Delhi). There was this big hoarding there saying Jharkhand is no. 3 in business ranking. Who in India could have anticipated something like this? Nobody said it is BJP's goal. This is much more relevant than global ranking. This covers all of India.
India is acknowledged as an economic power: Onno Ruhl, World Bank’s Country Director in India
India is now acknowledged as a country of global importance beyond its history and sheer size of population, as an economic power, says Onno Ruhl, who completes his four-year term as the World Bank's country director in India. In an interview to ET's Deepshikha Sikarwar and Vinay Pandey, he says climbing into top 50 will take some time but can be done. Edited excerpts:
You have been here for four years. You have seen two governments. How do you see this transition?
India must be in one of its most dynamic periods of history. What we have seen is end of a mandate that led to some hesitation in policymaking, to a very a strong mandate which led to ambition. There was high ambition in the government and there still is, but the actual pace of reform had to be tempered by the fact that in the Rajya Sabha there is still no majority.
But if you look at where the country is now and where it was four years ago, then suddenly it looks like it was a fast change. Macro fundamentals are very, very solid. In 2013, India was most vulnerable during the taper tantrum. Now India is a star. India is now acknowledged as a country of global importance beyond its history and sheer size of population, as an economic power. Therefore, on balance you see a gradual but persistent shift with high ambition and a different projection internationally, leading to a very ambitious change.
Some of the government's initiatives are close to the World Bank's mandate. How do you see them?
Cleaning the Ganga, Swachh Bharat, 100 cities, 500 cities, 24x7 power, Skill India...In the beginning people said these programmes sound good, but is this something comprehensive and then people realise what is in there is the recognition that India urbanises, and that's positive. The recognition that Indians need a level of service that behoves a middle income country and middle-class nations, which India is in the process of becoming. Most importantly, the recognition that demographic dividend will only pay off if people benefit from investment and are skilled enough to be competitive. You can mobilise around it and then the target setting. My favourite target is October 2, 2019, the most important and the most difficult, the open defecation and Swachh Bharat.
Do you see any transformational change in implementation?
One big change is the goal setting and holding people accountable for those goals, which represents a different approach to how politics and administration have interacted in India. It's really good, it's really a game changer. The government says we want business, we want investment, so whatever is wrong we will try and fix it and will tell people who give permits or do inspection that their job is to facilitate is a big shift, not universally successful as yet. It is not perfect, but direction of travel is there.
How do you see certain isolated incidents that threaten to disrupt reform agenda?
You are getting in the space of diversity and tolerance and things like that. The World Bank really has no mandate on that so I would limit to a few observations. First, for a diverse society like India to grow and prosper, that overall climate is harmonious, peaceful and that there are outlets for tension are positive and not negative.
From where I am sitting I would say, yes, there are incidents, but look at the world today. Look at the incidents we have had in France, Belgium, United States, Turkey, let's not go to Syria. India looks pretty stable. Indians sometimes criticise themselves too much. I don't think the world looks at India as a hotspot or trouble spot.
What worries you most about India?
There is one development indicator where India is dead last in the world, the sex ratio. Building on that, India's female labour participation rate is second to last among G20 countries. Only Saudi Arabia is worse. It's significantly lower in urban areas than rural India. For India to become great and get beyond the middle income trap, there is no country that does that without drawing on the talent of its women in a more significant way. I see a little bit of complacency. It's the number one issue.
Ease of doing business has really caught on in India, with states competing with each other. Is it yielding results?
There are two approaches here - one is to set a very ambitious goal on the global ranking. The global ranking means Delhi and Mumbai. So it's a very simplified and imperfect way of measuring what happens in India. Delhi and Mumbai are actually not the most dynamic parts of the Indian economy. The goal setting is good. It's completely shifted the debate we had with DIPP and other agencies on what to do. This will lead to result. Other countries have done it. It's a big effort and other countries are not sitting idle. Climbing into top 50 will take some time but can be done.
The other approach is even more transformational, which is the work on ranking the states. I live near the Claridges (hotel in central Delhi). There was this big hoarding there saying Jharkhand is no. 3 in business ranking. Who in India could have anticipated something like this? Nobody said it is BJP's goal. This is much more relevant than global ranking. This covers all of India.
anant_s
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looking forward to it!
Nilgiri
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After GST, focus is on labour reforms
NEW DELHI: The government is gearing up for bold labour reforms after putting thegoods and services tax (GST) back on track. An inter-ministerial group on labour headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley is slated to meet on September 15 to reconsider the labour ministry's proposal to introduce two legislations aimed at significantly enhancing ease of doing business in the country.
"The inter-ministerial group will meet to consider afresh the Wage Code Bill and the Small Factory Bill," a senior labour ministry official told ET on condition of anonymity. The high-level group had met in December last year to discuss the two legislations.
Although everybody was on board regarding the content of the legislations, the group decided to put them on hold till the passage of GST Bill, the single most crucial taxation reform being pushed by the government at the time. "The group was of the view that let us not create any straw of resistance until the GST goes through. Now the road ahead seems to be clear for the government to push for more big-ticket legislation," the official said.
The labour code on wages provides for a minimum floor level national wage which will be mandatory for all states. This will give a boost to the government's recent initiative of increasing minimum wages 42%, a provision that currently applies only to central government employees and is only an advisory for states.
Besides, the labour ministry plans to streamline the definition of wages by amalgamating four wage-related statutes.
These include the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Payment of Wages Act, 1936; the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 to simplify the process of operating business in India. At present, there are about half a dozen definitions of wages in various acts across Centre and states which employers have to grapple with.
The Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill, 2014 intends to make life simpler for small and medium enterprises, which are expected to flourish under the improved ease of doing business regime and in turn create employment.
The bill, pending for two years, aims to bring all small factories under a common regulation and exempt them from 14 central labour laws. It envisages rules for wages, overtime hours as well as social security.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...is-on-labour-reforms/articleshow/54302784.cms
NEW DELHI: The government is gearing up for bold labour reforms after putting thegoods and services tax (GST) back on track. An inter-ministerial group on labour headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley is slated to meet on September 15 to reconsider the labour ministry's proposal to introduce two legislations aimed at significantly enhancing ease of doing business in the country.
"The inter-ministerial group will meet to consider afresh the Wage Code Bill and the Small Factory Bill," a senior labour ministry official told ET on condition of anonymity. The high-level group had met in December last year to discuss the two legislations.
Although everybody was on board regarding the content of the legislations, the group decided to put them on hold till the passage of GST Bill, the single most crucial taxation reform being pushed by the government at the time. "The group was of the view that let us not create any straw of resistance until the GST goes through. Now the road ahead seems to be clear for the government to push for more big-ticket legislation," the official said.
The labour code on wages provides for a minimum floor level national wage which will be mandatory for all states. This will give a boost to the government's recent initiative of increasing minimum wages 42%, a provision that currently applies only to central government employees and is only an advisory for states.
Besides, the labour ministry plans to streamline the definition of wages by amalgamating four wage-related statutes.
These include the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Payment of Wages Act, 1936; the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 to simplify the process of operating business in India. At present, there are about half a dozen definitions of wages in various acts across Centre and states which employers have to grapple with.
The Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill, 2014 intends to make life simpler for small and medium enterprises, which are expected to flourish under the improved ease of doing business regime and in turn create employment.
The bill, pending for two years, aims to bring all small factories under a common regulation and exempt them from 14 central labour laws. It envisages rules for wages, overtime hours as well as social security.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...is-on-labour-reforms/articleshow/54302784.cms
Nilgiri
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http://ajaishukla.blogspot.ca/2016/09/spending-big-defence-budget.html
Spending a big defence budget
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 13th Sept 16
There is little public scrutiny of the defence budget, and most of that is reserved for the capital budget, the purchase of snazzy new weaponry and equipment, usually from foreign vendors. Meanwhile, little attention is paid to the revenue budget, the humdrum expenditure on salaries, pensions, stores, spare parts, fuel, ammunition, and myriad items needed to sustain the existing military. The figures make it clear that this emphasis is mistaken: of this year’s overall defence budget of Rs 3,40,922 crore (using a new, fuller accounting methodology), just Rs 86,340 crore were allocated for capital expenditure. In contrast, three-quarters of the allocation, a whopping Rs 2,54,582 crore, will go on revenue expenditure. This disproportionate allocation is not a peculiarly Indian problem, even if the skew in our case is especially worrisome. Governments and defence economists worldwide spend more time on right sizing and streamlining the revenue budget than they do on the more seductive and attention-grabbing arms acquisitions under the capital head.
On September 6, India’s defence ministry promulgated a sensible new policy --- termed Delegation of Financial Powers for Defence Services (DFPDS – 2016) --- that will streamline and improve the way the military spends its gigantic revenue budget. DFPDS – 2016 restores to military commanders at various levels --- brigade, division, corps, commands and army headquarters --- limited discretionary financial powers; and a far higher spending limit where a proposal has the concurrence of the civilian financial advisor associated with the concerned headquarters. For example, in buying information technology equipment like computers, a corps commander can spend up to Rs 5 lakhs per item at his own discretion; and a divisional commander can spend Rs 2 lakhs. But with the concurrence of the “Integrated Financial Advisor” (IFA) posted at the corps headquarters, their spending limit rises to Rs 2 crore and 1 crore respectively. Similarly, the new policy allocates to the military command chain spending limits for other expenditure heads like transport, engineer stores, etcetera.
Last year’s version of this policy, DFPDS – 2015, had blocked military commanders at every level from spending even a rupee on expenditure they deemed legitimate. For example, a corps commander who is entrusted with the lives of 40,000 soldiers, Rs 5,000 crore worth of military equipment, and the defence of some 200 kilometres of India’s border; was prevented by DFPDS – 2015 from ordering the expenditure of Rs 5 lakhs on IT equipment.
This was not just a status issue for the military, but also a major functional bottleneck. Every purchase sanctioned by the military’s 10,000 “competent financial authorities” needed consultation with an “integrated financial advisor” (IFA) from the defence ministry’s finance wing, of which there were just 70. To illustrate how this played out, consider purchases in the army’s 10 Corps, which is headquartered in Bhatinda, but has units and formations spread across Ganganagar, Suratgarh, Bikaner and a host of other places. Since 10 Corps has just one IFA, who is located in Bhatinda, every purchase proposal needed to be moved to Bhatinda on a file. The IFA there, snowed under with the numerous purchase demands of an entire army corps, would naturally take time processing them. Often sanctions would come when the purchase was no longer needed. Sometimes the financial year would be over and funds would have lapsed. And, most importantly, in dealing with an avalanche of routine, low-value purchase sanctions, the IFA would be left with no time to process high-priority, high-value procurements that might be essential for operational reasons.
It might be uncharitable to suggest that the defence accounts hierarchy --- a cadre called the Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) --- deliberately engineered this situation by divesting the military hierarchy of financial powers in DFPDS – 2015. But it is a fact that the greater workload that DFPDS – 2015 placed on the IFAs provided the IDAS with the opportunity to demand an expansion of their cadre. Eventually, after the army chief protested strongly to the defence minister, DFPDS – 2015 was placed in abeyance on October 26, 2015; and the new policy has addressed the army’s concerns. But larger structural issues continue to block the expenditure of defence allocations, as is evident from the last year’s under-spending of over Rs 13,000 crore.
A central problem remains the government’s multiple finance divisions that impede, rather than assist, each other. The ministry of defence --- unique amongst all ministries --- has its own finance division (FD), headed by the Secretary Defence (Finance). The FD’s eight joint secretaries, an additional secretary, and a secretary make it bigger than some Union ministries. It oversees the entire defence budget, and is in turn responsible to the finance ministry.
Any defence ministry decision or proposal that has a financial effect must have the concurrence of the FD. After the executive wings of the defence ministry (army, navy, air force, etc.) raise a proposal, it comes to the FD for concurrence. Delays inevitably follow as the FD raises numerous queries on file and the executive departments answer them at length. The FD prides itself on maintaining parallel files, featuring these lengthy back-and-forths, which allows it to capture the way a ministry proposal evolves, and what each official has said at a particular point in time. From the military’s point of view, this is pure perversity; one officers posted in army headquarters complains: “We have standardized a check list of questions the bureaucrats might like answers to, but give even the most complete file to a bureaucrat and he will find a question to raise.” Only after the FD’s concurrence does a proposal go up for the defence minister’s approval.
The process gets even more complicated for expenditure proposals (whether capital or revenue) that are beyond the defence minister’s financial powers. Since these must go to the cabinet committee on security (CCS), the finance minister feels it necessary to comment on the proposal. Successive defence ministers have strongly argued that, after a matter has already been exhaustively dealt with the FD in MoD, there should be no need for the finance ministry to re-examine it afresh. Yet, the finance ministry increasingly feels an independent re-examination essential. This duplication of work routinely delays expenditure proposals, such as the finance ministry’s lengthy scrutiny of the need for a mountain strike corps.
The fundamental logic of these multiple structures and the convoluted processes they generate remains a distrust of the military, and the conviction that multi-layered scrutiny is needed to avoid the wasteful, and even corrupt expenditure of government funds that have already been allocated to defence. Nobody in the monitoring mechanisms is either responsible for the defence of India, nor accountable in any way for lapses due to delays in providing sanction. Until this dichotomy is resolved, and structures implemented to empower the key stakeholder --- the military --- ineffectual fixes will yield only limited results.
@Abingdonboy
Spending a big defence budget
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 13th Sept 16
There is little public scrutiny of the defence budget, and most of that is reserved for the capital budget, the purchase of snazzy new weaponry and equipment, usually from foreign vendors. Meanwhile, little attention is paid to the revenue budget, the humdrum expenditure on salaries, pensions, stores, spare parts, fuel, ammunition, and myriad items needed to sustain the existing military. The figures make it clear that this emphasis is mistaken: of this year’s overall defence budget of Rs 3,40,922 crore (using a new, fuller accounting methodology), just Rs 86,340 crore were allocated for capital expenditure. In contrast, three-quarters of the allocation, a whopping Rs 2,54,582 crore, will go on revenue expenditure. This disproportionate allocation is not a peculiarly Indian problem, even if the skew in our case is especially worrisome. Governments and defence economists worldwide spend more time on right sizing and streamlining the revenue budget than they do on the more seductive and attention-grabbing arms acquisitions under the capital head.
On September 6, India’s defence ministry promulgated a sensible new policy --- termed Delegation of Financial Powers for Defence Services (DFPDS – 2016) --- that will streamline and improve the way the military spends its gigantic revenue budget. DFPDS – 2016 restores to military commanders at various levels --- brigade, division, corps, commands and army headquarters --- limited discretionary financial powers; and a far higher spending limit where a proposal has the concurrence of the civilian financial advisor associated with the concerned headquarters. For example, in buying information technology equipment like computers, a corps commander can spend up to Rs 5 lakhs per item at his own discretion; and a divisional commander can spend Rs 2 lakhs. But with the concurrence of the “Integrated Financial Advisor” (IFA) posted at the corps headquarters, their spending limit rises to Rs 2 crore and 1 crore respectively. Similarly, the new policy allocates to the military command chain spending limits for other expenditure heads like transport, engineer stores, etcetera.
Last year’s version of this policy, DFPDS – 2015, had blocked military commanders at every level from spending even a rupee on expenditure they deemed legitimate. For example, a corps commander who is entrusted with the lives of 40,000 soldiers, Rs 5,000 crore worth of military equipment, and the defence of some 200 kilometres of India’s border; was prevented by DFPDS – 2015 from ordering the expenditure of Rs 5 lakhs on IT equipment.
This was not just a status issue for the military, but also a major functional bottleneck. Every purchase sanctioned by the military’s 10,000 “competent financial authorities” needed consultation with an “integrated financial advisor” (IFA) from the defence ministry’s finance wing, of which there were just 70. To illustrate how this played out, consider purchases in the army’s 10 Corps, which is headquartered in Bhatinda, but has units and formations spread across Ganganagar, Suratgarh, Bikaner and a host of other places. Since 10 Corps has just one IFA, who is located in Bhatinda, every purchase proposal needed to be moved to Bhatinda on a file. The IFA there, snowed under with the numerous purchase demands of an entire army corps, would naturally take time processing them. Often sanctions would come when the purchase was no longer needed. Sometimes the financial year would be over and funds would have lapsed. And, most importantly, in dealing with an avalanche of routine, low-value purchase sanctions, the IFA would be left with no time to process high-priority, high-value procurements that might be essential for operational reasons.
It might be uncharitable to suggest that the defence accounts hierarchy --- a cadre called the Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) --- deliberately engineered this situation by divesting the military hierarchy of financial powers in DFPDS – 2015. But it is a fact that the greater workload that DFPDS – 2015 placed on the IFAs provided the IDAS with the opportunity to demand an expansion of their cadre. Eventually, after the army chief protested strongly to the defence minister, DFPDS – 2015 was placed in abeyance on October 26, 2015; and the new policy has addressed the army’s concerns. But larger structural issues continue to block the expenditure of defence allocations, as is evident from the last year’s under-spending of over Rs 13,000 crore.
A central problem remains the government’s multiple finance divisions that impede, rather than assist, each other. The ministry of defence --- unique amongst all ministries --- has its own finance division (FD), headed by the Secretary Defence (Finance). The FD’s eight joint secretaries, an additional secretary, and a secretary make it bigger than some Union ministries. It oversees the entire defence budget, and is in turn responsible to the finance ministry.
Any defence ministry decision or proposal that has a financial effect must have the concurrence of the FD. After the executive wings of the defence ministry (army, navy, air force, etc.) raise a proposal, it comes to the FD for concurrence. Delays inevitably follow as the FD raises numerous queries on file and the executive departments answer them at length. The FD prides itself on maintaining parallel files, featuring these lengthy back-and-forths, which allows it to capture the way a ministry proposal evolves, and what each official has said at a particular point in time. From the military’s point of view, this is pure perversity; one officers posted in army headquarters complains: “We have standardized a check list of questions the bureaucrats might like answers to, but give even the most complete file to a bureaucrat and he will find a question to raise.” Only after the FD’s concurrence does a proposal go up for the defence minister’s approval.
The process gets even more complicated for expenditure proposals (whether capital or revenue) that are beyond the defence minister’s financial powers. Since these must go to the cabinet committee on security (CCS), the finance minister feels it necessary to comment on the proposal. Successive defence ministers have strongly argued that, after a matter has already been exhaustively dealt with the FD in MoD, there should be no need for the finance ministry to re-examine it afresh. Yet, the finance ministry increasingly feels an independent re-examination essential. This duplication of work routinely delays expenditure proposals, such as the finance ministry’s lengthy scrutiny of the need for a mountain strike corps.
The fundamental logic of these multiple structures and the convoluted processes they generate remains a distrust of the military, and the conviction that multi-layered scrutiny is needed to avoid the wasteful, and even corrupt expenditure of government funds that have already been allocated to defence. Nobody in the monitoring mechanisms is either responsible for the defence of India, nor accountable in any way for lapses due to delays in providing sanction. Until this dichotomy is resolved, and structures implemented to empower the key stakeholder --- the military --- ineffectual fixes will yield only limited results.
@Abingdonboy
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That's a pretty clever attempt to try and avoid a heavy fine.
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