In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

Read full article Abstract: India-China comparisons often take 1980 or a later year as the starting point. But a balanced understanding of the relative achievements of the two countries requires a look at prior decades as well. Chairman Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, establishing the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the sole authority. Approximately around the same time, India opted for a democratic regime under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. While most Indians have a good idea of what democracy delivered to them between 1950 and 1980, they perhaps know far less about China. Today, it is commonplace to argue that the Chinese economy is performing better because authoritarianism allows its government to be more effective. But few observers care to record the gigantic failures of the same authoritarianism in the early decades.

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.

By committing a 20% reduction in emission intensity while the west is making negligible effort, India may have compromised its interest.Read full articleIt is difficult to avoid speculating that in approaching the Copenhagen negotiations, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accorded as high a priority to winning the admiration of US President Barack Obama as to cutting a deal that would best serve India’s interests. While the former objective was achieved, the same cannot be said of the latter.Begin by considering three facts relevant to India’s interests. First, with 400 million Indians without electricity and 300 million in abject poverty, India’s top priority has to be sustained rapid growth that would eliminate poverty and bring electricity to all in another decade or two. Without that, even absent any further global warming, millions of Indians will continue to be victims of cold waves, droughts, floods and cyclones. Second, while it is feasible to achieve small reductions in carbon emissions at low or no cost, at the current level of technological development, significant reductions would require substantial cuts in energy consumption. This would entail…

Efficiency brought in by an open economy, top class entrepreneurs, high savings rate and young population will collectively deliver 8-9 per cent growth over the next decade. Read full article In the next 10 years, India will be the third-largest contributor to the world GDP growth, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit projection. Making the realistic assumption of 2 per cent annual growth, the world GDP will increase from approximately $61 trillion in 2008 to $76 trillion by 2020 in 2008 dollars. A conservative guess is that India and China together will grow 8 per cent per year in real dollars over this period (despite the major crisis recently, each is already back to growing this rate), which will raise their combined GDP share in the global economy from 9.5 per cent in 2008 to nearly 18 per cent. Shares of the United States and Japan (23.7 and 8.1 per cent, respectively, in 2008) will decline. The coming decade is, therefore, going to be pivotal in terms of a shift in the centre of gravity of the world economy to…

Read full article Abstract: The freedom movement of India is without a parallel in the history of mankind. Lasting for almost a century, the movement produced an unending stream of heroes ready to give their lives to the country. Its reach expanded as it progressed until it had drawn virtually all Indians into its fold. Once freedom had been won, the surviving heroes went on to unify peoples of diverse cultures, languages, religions and castes under a common democratic Constitution. Even excluding the area belonging to Pakistan, this was the first time since Emperor Ashok in the 3rd century BC that such a vast territory in the subcontinent had come to form a single nation with all princely states melting into it.