ET2010 (12)

India Growth Miracle Faces Threat

Country's leadership views India's destiny to great world power as inevitable. As a result, complacency has returned at top policy levels. Top 10 challenges for IndiaRead full article The single most important reason why India receives as much attention worldwide as it does today is its perceived economic potential. At $1.25 trillion in GDP, the country currently accounts for only 2.2% of the world GDP. It ranks a low 12th in economic size despite a population of 1.2 billion and comes behind all remaining three BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries. Yet India cannot be ignored because if it fulfils its promise of near-double-digit growth over the next two decades, it would become the third or fourth largest economy in the world. But nothing is ever carved in stone in the world of economics. In the 1950s, India had been seen as a rising star while South Korea was viewed as a basket case. But dramatically different policy choices by the two countries led to exactly the opposite outcome by 1980. Fortunes began to turn for the better for India only…

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Competition Commission of India: A Game Changer

CCI is the biggest piece of reform in last six years but the main obstacle to its effective functioning would be raised by govt itself.Read full article Recently, when a customer petitioned the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to intervene on his behalf against prepayment penalty on a loan imposed by his creditor bank, a senior Reserve Bank of India (RBI) official was quick to tell an ET (Oct 17, 2009) reporter, “We will direct banks to do away with the prepayment penalty in case of loans disbursed in future.” For years, customers had complained to the RBI about excessive prepayment penalties ranging from 1-4% of the loan value but without notice. The game changer this time around was the pending petition by the customer to the CCI. The commission, which began its full operations in April 2009, is required by the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2007 to protect the interests of consumers against anti-competitive practices of all market entities.

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