Category: Economy

Two important unanswered questions about the gold monetization scheme
in Economy

The first question is of course about the interest rate, and how much will a bank be willing to give out to investors. As far as retail investors are concerned I feel it is really hard to get excitement going about the gold monetization scheme at anything less than 3 or 4 percent. I have
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Yash Birla has a Swiss Account, what next?
in Economy

PTI reported today that industrialist Yash Birla, along with four other lesser known businessmen hold Swiss bank accounts as confirmed by the Switzerland authorities. This news apparently delighted the finance minister who chalked this to successful diplomacy and cooperation between the Modi government and the Swiss government. Almost all news articles I read talked about Yash Birla as if
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What is the definition of a heat wave and how do people die of it?
in Economy

The heat has been particularly merciless in the last few days, and the reports of hundreds of people dying due to the heat wave is quite saddening. Unfortunately, this is nothing new; every year people die of the heat wave in the summers, and of the cold wave in the winters. In the winters there are
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Details of the Draft Gold Monetization Scheme
in Economy

The Finance Ministry published a draft on the Gold Monetization Scheme that the finance minister had spoken about during the recent budget. The big idea behind gold monetization is that India produces almost no gold and imports massive amounts of it — up to a thousand tons a year — this leads to a big trade
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Thoughts on the India – China MOUs
in Economy

The China pitstop has perhaps been the most interesting in our globe trotting PM’s itinerary. The beginning wasn’t as exciting for its substance as it was for its selfie opportunities, and even though a couple dozen government to government MOUs were announced, it is hard to get excited about an agreement between Doordarshan and China Central
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Can the Black Money Bill affect you directly?
in Economy

Rajya Sabha cleared the Black Money Bill today, which is officially Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015, and this is perhaps the only piece of legislation which the Congress finds itself unable to oppose. The finance minister had first talked about this Bill earlier in the year, and the bill has been introduced
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What is the BRICS Bank that K V Kamath just became the president of?
in Economy

Mr. K V Kamath was named the first head of the BRICS Bank or officially the New Development Bank today, and the news was all over today with much excitement and pride (a little misplaced in my opinion). First, a little history on the acronym BRICS, and then a little history on the bank itself. “BRICS
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What is full convertibility of the Rupee?
in Economy

The RBI Governor, Dr. Raghuram Rajan has brought up the subject of full convertibility of Rupee again recently, and it will be interesting to see what steps he takes to make it happen in the future. Capital account convertibility of the Rupee means the ability to convert INR into any foreign currency, and the foreign currency
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How do you get anything done?
in Economy

Reading and writing about the land acquisition bill has made me somewhat gloomy, and question how you can get anything done in a Democracy like India? Congress is intent on blind opposition to whatever the government proposes instead of educated debate, and since the government doesn’t have enough seats in the Rajya Sabha, it can’t pass
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Do States have large amounts of unused land already?
in Economy

I wrote about some of the sticking points in the Land Acquisition Amendment yesterday, and a related question to that is of course how important is this act itself? Is it really stopping progress? Don’t state governments already have large land banks that they aren’t able to use? I think it is important to first
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Will the Make In India campaign succeed?
in Economy

The Make in India Concept I don’t think there are many Indians today who haven’t heard of the Make in India campaign that was launched last September by the Modi government. The idea behind it is rather simple – increase the share of manufacturing in the GDP, and the reason for that is rather simple as well.
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