RTI: Why is Reserve Bank standing in the way of transparency?

On December 18 2019, the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, gave a very concise and brief order which reads as follows-

“Upon hearing the counsel the Court made the following order: Inspection Reports/Risk Assessment Reports/Annual Financial Inspection Reports of the banks including State Bank of India shall not be released by the Reserve Bank of India until further orders.”

In various Supreme Court judgments it has been mandated that all orders must give reasons. I have tried to understand the reason for constraining the citizen’s fundamental Right to Information in this order and have completely failed.

Corruption, Economy, Law, Opinion, RTI

By Shailesh Gandhi

December 19, 2019

January 8 General Strike will set the political course in 2020

The continuing protests in the country, especially by the students against the passing of the Citizens Amendment Bill in Parliament in a hurry without consulting the political parties, are spreading in all states with more and more people of all religions and communities joining the movement against the implementation of the CAA. The ruling regime is adamant in implementing their agenda and so all indications are that this turmoil on the issue of CAA will continue.

Even as this major issue of political and Constitutional importance is happening there are massive preparations on to make the general strike called on January 8, 2020, a big success. 25 crore workers from organised and unorganised sectors are expected to take part in the strike. A ten-point charter of demands have been submitted to the government by the leading trade unions of the country led by AITUC, INTUC, CITU and HMS. The RSS led BMS may not join the strike but the organisation supports the demands in the charter and the BMS leaders have openly come out against the jobless economic policy and opposes the sale of the public sector companies at cheap prices.

This near total unity of the trade unions of the country on the charter of demands and against the economic policies of the Modi 2 government has set the stage of a major confrontation between the working class of the organised sector and the Modi govt before the presentation of the second budget. The slowdown is so pervasive that the former chief economic adviser of the Modi govt Dr Arvind Subramanian has termed is as the “Great Slowdown” on the lines of the Great Depression of USA in 1929. He said that the Indian economy is headed towards ICU which means that the economy is near coma and the patient needs drastic treatment for survival.

Economy

By Nitya Chakraborty

December 4, 2019

Time to track job losses in the Indian Economy

It is high time we tracked job losses in the country alongside the routine study of job growth. The government may disagree, for the country’s job scene looks truly dismal, if not alarming. This is partly because of the dwindling economic growth and recessionary pressure on a number of industries.

Industrial shake up, corporate mismanagement by short-sighted entrepreneurs and new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning also contribute significantly to job losses. The global economic slowdown too is badly impacting the import-dependent Indian market with more foreign countries trying to push their India sales while Indian exports keep shrinking.

Imports adversely affect the local labour market. Falling exports contract it further. Companies in the sectors such as telecom, steel and non-ferrous metals, mining and quarrying, cement, engineering and transport, electronics and software, automobile, brown and white goods and banking among others, are chucking jobs. The so-called ‘voluntarily retirement’ in industry and banking is practically involuntary as surplus employees have little option.

Economy, Opinion

By Nantoo Banerjee

November 30, 2019

Nirmala Sitharaman’s Discerning Eye

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is endowed with a rare ‘discerning eye’, which has certain magical powers to see imaginary things and filter out the real ones. Not everyone can be expected to have such special faculties. But she has a problem there: she cannot imagine that not everyone is as lucky as she is.

During a short discussion on the economy in the Rajya Sabha the other day, the finance minister categorically denied that the economy was in recession. “If you look at the economy with a discerning eye, you see that growth may have come down… but it is not a recession yet and won’t be a recession ever,” she asserted. It did not quite matter to her whether those sitting opposite to her were really convinced. She was convinced and that is all that mattered.

It seems that she is taking things a bit too personally. True, she is the finance minister. But all the problems of the Indian economy are not solely because of her. The problems with the economy started much before she shifted from South Block to North Block to take up the mantle of the finance ministry.

Economy, Opinion

By K Raveendran

November 30, 2019

GDP Touches A New Low

Four months from now, the financial year 2019-20 will come to an end. Eight months have already passed, with such a fall in the GDP growth rate—slowdown in the Indian economy cannot be reversed in the near future. The country cannot realize the budgeted GDP growth rate for this year.

The fall in the GDP growth rate has touched a new low at 4.5 per cent in the second quarter as against 5 per cent in the first. It is the worst growth figure after 2012-13, the base year for the new series of the data. The average growth rate in the first six month is thus merely 4.75 per cent, and then in the last two months, the economic and financial crises have signalled a further decline.

The slowdown has created a huge shortfall in the budgeted estimates of the current financial year. The GDP for the year 2019-20 was projected 2,11,00,607 crore assuming 12 per cent (nominal) growth over the estimated GDP of 1,88,40,731 crore for 2018-19. At the average growth rate of 4.75 per cent, that we have been able to achieve in the first half of the current financial year, the likely shortfall at the end of this year is quite disturbing. How precarious the situation is can be imagined by the fact that the RBI’s transfer of funds to the tune of 1.76 lakh crore to the government of India was 1.25 per cent of GDP in 2018-19.

Economy, National, Opinion, Politics

By Gyan Pathak

November 30, 2019

Is the ‘Kerala Model’ Sustainable?

Kerala is perilously perched on a financial volcano that is ready to erupt any time. Finance minister T M Thomas Issac misses no opportunity to talk about the impending financial anarchy and blames it on the Centre ad nauseam. It may be politically expedient to do so, but the unfortunate reality is that the state has been following an unsustainable model of economic development.

With virtually no industrial and manufacturing base, there is no wealth creation in the state and as such, the government has only limited means to earn revenue. The revenue collection has remained static at 10 percent or below, but the expenditure has been mounting at 16 percent, which means that the collection has plummeted despite the steady growth in spending.

This has, however, not stopped the government from its prodigal ways of spending, for which it has to borrow from all kinds of sources, often at prohibitively high rates. With each borrowing, the public debt is ballooning and the per capita debt is already unduly high. The public debt is estimated to have nearly doubled from Rs 78,673.24 crore to Rs 1,50,000 crore in the five years from 2011 to 2016. This has further spiralled under the present government as it has gone on a borrowing spree.

Development, Economy, Kerala, Opinion

By K Raveendran

November 27, 2019

Proper Land use legislations for Rebuilding Kerala is necessary

Land Reforms legislation in Kerala was a watershed event and served a huge socio-economic purpose. But fifty years on, Kerala has done little to maximize the use of land in terms of productivity, housing, industries, forests etc. Whilst retaining the spirit of the Land Reforms, it must be examined how economies of scale can be achieved with all its attendant benefits of higher productivity by planned land use.

It’s pertinent that urban and rural areas must have a guideline for personal, industrial and civic use. As a state, do we really have a master plan for land use to serve as a guideline for corporations, municipalities and panchayats keeping in mind the density of population, topography, natural features and local needs? Admittedly, there ought to be a ‘zoning’ approach to planning. This is necessary to prevent geo-climatic disasters and reduce its impact on people.

Our higher density of population and lower land availability vis a vis other states is a reality and should call for pragmatic solution to development needs with regard to human aspirations. This calls for an interface management using adaptive techniques leveraging on technology. Industrial parks must ensure air, water pollution control measures, especially when habitation around industrial areas cannot be averted due to population/land availability.

Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, Economy, Environment, Kerala

By N Dharmaraj

November 26, 2019

Indian Economy in Virtual Recession

On the first day of the winter session of Parliament, the finance minister has stated that though the economy has slowed down, it is well on the target of reaching a $5 trillion economy by 2025. At the current rates of growth, notwithstanding all the data fudging and efforts to show the economy is recovering, the reality is that India’s growth rate is declining steadily and dangerously.

The NCAER has now projected the current growth rate at below 5 per cent (4.9 per cent). The PTI had filed a story on October 31 reporting a US think tank (Centre for Global Development) assessment that “India’s growth is in barely positive territory”. Other top institutions have also similarly rated India’s growth rate projections at below 5 per cent. The ICRA rating agency places it at 4.7 per cent. The State Bank of India pecks it at 4.2 per cent.

A closer look at key parameters of the Indian economy shows that this declining growth rate has severely impacted on people’s welfare pushing up unemployment and poverty across the board.

Economy, Opinion

By Sitaram Yechury

November 21, 2019

Temple alone cannot save Nation’s Economy and People

Now that the Hindus have secured what they wanted, Ayodhya can no longer subsume all other issues of human survival in the Hindi heartland, where a Ram Temple upon Babri Masjid has always had its maximum appeal. Ayodhya has almost played out politically and as such, more mundane issues of day to day life are expected to re-engage the cow belt attention.

It is true that Indians had perfected the art of achieving absolute happiness through spirituality, but this faculty was never universal and only the most enlightened were privy to its secret. For the rest of Indians, spirituality is only a means to achieve greater material progress. So, the Ram temple cannot keep them obsessed for much longer. This puts the attention back on the economic conditions of the nation and the people, which unfortunately have not received Ram’s blessings despite all the sacrifices that have gone into the making of his temple.

No one has elucidated this helplessness more vividly than former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his latest critique of the Indian economy and the Modi government. Manmohan Singh’s only blemish perhaps was his tenure as prime minister, which didn’t match up to his stature as an economist. But in everything else, of course, with the exception of politics, where he continues to be as alien as he ever was, his performance has been unimpeachable.

Economy

By K Raveendran

November 19, 2019

Why Thomas Issac is less than forthcoming on KIIFB

When Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan rang the opening bell at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in May this year to mark the listing of the Masala bonds sold by the state-government-owned Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), it was celebration time in Kerala. Masala bonds are investment products issued by Indian entities outside the country and denominated in rupees.

KIIFB’s debut bond on LSE raised Rs 2,150 crore as part of a plan to collect up to Rs 50,000 crore for the agency, set up by the state government to raise resources and fund infrastructure projects. It was the first-ever offshore capital market issuance from a state-level entity.

Although it is a customary practice for the exchange to let the CEO or president of the listing company do the honours of opening the market as a public relations exercise to please the clients, the event was made out to be a great achievement for Pinarayi Vijayan personally and the state government in general.

Development, Economy, Kerala, Opinion, Politics

By K Raveendran

November 19, 2019

How Kochi can Combat Climate Change

Climate change—and sea-level rise—is going to seriously impact the Kochi urban region as half of it lies on or below the mean sea level. It becomes imperative that climate change and its consequences are taken up as an urgent urban governance agenda. This needs special attention and should be addressed through scientific planning and policies.

It is important to device resilience and mitigation strategies to effectively address this critical issue. To frame the right policies, we need to study the problems faced by the city and their short-term, medium-term and long-term repercussions on land and people. The major climate change threats to Kochi include intermittent precipitation, increase in temperature and sea-level rise.

Erratic rainfall pattern has been reflected in the form of short-duration high-intensity rainfall. In the month of August 2019, an all-time high rainfall of 820 mm was recorded in Kochi surpassing the previous record of 783.5 mm in the month of August 2014. In the month of July 2018, rainfall of 231.8 mm was recorded in a short duration of 24 hours and this has been the highest rainfall recorded in a day, in the recent past. Last month, on October 21, heavy rains lashed across the city bringing normal life to a standstill. On this particular day, the rainfall recorded was 197.6 mm in a day and the same is the second-highest rainfall figure for Kochi.

Climate Change, Development, Economy, Environment, Features

By Rajan Chedambath

November 18, 2019

Survey shows PMMVY not reaching rural expectant mothers in five states

The Jaccha-Baccha survey (JABS), of pregnant and nursing women in rural India by student volunteers, coordinated by economists Jean Dreze, Reetika Khera and Anmol Somanchi, in June 2019 and released today found that expectant mothers in six states where the survey was held—Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh—were underweight (as low as 40 kg) even by the end of their pregnancy. One of the key findings of the JABS Survey was that the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Mathru Vandana Yojna (PMMVY) was restricting the maternity benefits to just one child per woman. Shockingly, the government’s own data shows that less than a fourth of eligible expectant women have received the benefits.

On December 31, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that women would be entitled to maternity benefits of Rs 6000 each after delivery. A budget allocation of Rs 2,700 crore was made in Union budget 2017-18 for the purpose. However, to cover 90 percent of all deliveries, on an assumption of a birth rate of 20 per thousand, Rs 15,000 crore would be necessary. Moreover, while drafting rules for the distribution of this maternity benefit, the Centre restricted it to just the “first live birth” and reduced the amount to Rs 5000.

Under the National Food Security Act 2013, all women are entitled to a maternity benefit of Rs 6000 for the birth of a child, unless they avail benefits as organized sector employees. The PMMVY was introduced in 2017 to implement this provision of the 2013 Act. In violation of the NFSA Act, the PMMVY restricted the benefit to just one child per woman.

Daily, Development, Economy, Gender, Health, Life, People

By Rosamma Thomas