In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

Read full article Abstract: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in May 2014, India faced major economic challenges. Growth had plummeted to 5.9 percent during the last two years of the outgoing government, down from a nine-year average of 8.2 percent. During the same two years, inflation had averaged 9.7 percent. Meanwhile, the government was in the grip of paralysis, unable to rein in corruption or complete large projects and in need of key structural reforms. Four years later, the Modi government has largely succeeded in addressing these problems. On average, inflation has come down to 4.3 percent and growth has climbed to 7.3 percent over the last four years. Bold steps such as the demonetization program in November 2016 have been effective in curbing corruption. And the government has introduced numerous efficiency-enhancing initiatives, such as the replacement of a complex set of central- and state-level taxes with a single goods and services tax (GST). Taken together, these policies put India on the path to long-term growth and prosperity.

The Narendra Modi-led government has set the stage by inviting applications for 10 joint secretary positions for terms lasting three to five years.Read full article In an article published in this newspaper in September 2000, ‘ Bringing Competition to Bureaucracy’, I had argued that increased complexity of policymaking required opening up of the top bureaucracy to outside specialists. I recommended, “Positions at the level of joint secretary and above should be filled by fully open competition. To ensure fairness in the process, the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) can be entrusted with the task of administering the selections. When outside individuals are chosen, they may be brought on fixed terms of a suitable length.” Two decades later, the government has set the stage for this important reform. It has invited applications for 10 joint secretary positions for terms lasting three to five years. Surprisingly, however, the majority of news stories have taken a sceptical view of the GoI announcement. A key criticism has been that this is nothing new; lateral entry, most prominently of economists, has been a feature of our…

Read full article Abstract: Progress in reforms is like the movement of the hour hand of the clock: human eye is unable to detect the movement in it and yet it has gone full circle twice a day. While naysayers complain that they can see no progress in reforms, reforms in the past four years have accumulated to the point that only highlights can fit a newspaper column. During the last two full fiscal years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, inflation had averaged 9.7% and growth 5.9%. To address inflation, the new government adopted inflation targeting on the monetary front and a strict fiscal consolidation plan on the fiscal front. To address growth, it undertook numerous structural reforms. The result has been an average inflation rate of 4.3% and GDP growth of 7.3% during the past four years. Governance has been a key focus of the government. The government’s concerted efforts towards improving the ease of doing business have translated into India jumping from 140th to 100th position in the World Bank rankings. In parallel, the government has worked to…

Read full article Abstract: There is consensus that a top priority for India is creating jobs, especially jobs that pay well. Surprisingly, there also seems to be consensus that we are adding approximately one million new job seekers each month. This was the figure Congress president Rahul Gandhi highlighted when speaking at the University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University the past September. At UC Berkeley he referred to 12 million young Indians entering the job market every year and at Princeton he placed the figure at 30,000 per day. While there was much dissection of Rahul Gandhi’s speeches, no one questioned these numbers. It is surprising that on an issue so central to policy making, we have accepted the most critical statistic without scrutiny and centred all jobs debates and analyses on it. The origins of the statistic are difficult to trace but nearly all analysts and institutions pronouncing on the job situation in India are using it.

Read full article Abstract: The stage is set for a long overdue overhaul of higher education in India The Prime Minister’s vision to create 20 institutions of eminence and the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s reforms push have set the stage for an overhaul of higher education in India that is long overdue. The HRD Ministry first saw the passage of the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017, which will extend greater autonomy to the IIMs. It followed this up with reforms in the rules and regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), giving autonomy to India’s best-ranked universities and colleges. Subsequently, the Union Cabinet approved the continuation of the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, which has been working quietly to improve the quality of higher educational institutions in the States through outcome-based grants. The time is now ripe for another change: to replace the UGC Act, 1956, with a new law that should respond to the current needs of higher education. Such an Act will take forward the reforms adopted until now, remove the clutter of regulatory agencies under the…