Showing 1 - 5 of 5
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 03/09/2018
» The Indian central bank's final tally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2016 demonetisation drive -- intended to take money derived from tax evasion out of circulation -- showed that 99.3% of outlawed high-value banknotes had been returned. That's a severe loss of face for officials, who had argued that holders of the cash would rather destroy it than return it to banks, providing a windfall for the government.
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 01/03/2017
» India's slow-moving banking crisis continues to drag on, as ponderous and unstoppable as the state-controlled banking sector itself. A recent study found that the gross "non-performing assets" of state banks rose by 55% in 2016, and 135% in the last two years. They now account for 11% of all state bank loans.
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 03/02/2017
» Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept to power in India in May 2014 ardently promising -- like so many chest-thumping leaders elsewhere in the world -- that he would create jobs. The angry and under-employed young people of heavily populated north India, in particular, decided to trust a man who sold himself as a strong, sound steward of the economy.
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 10/11/2016
» It certainly took everyone in India by surprise. But then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a flair for the dramatic. In an unexpected prime time address on Tuesday, he announced that in a few hours, millions of high-denomination currency notes would no longer be legal tender. It was the only way, he insisted, to deal with "the disease" of unaccounted-for income -- or "black money", as it's called in India. "Your money will remain yours," he assured a stunned citizenry -- as long as you get around to depositing it in post offices sometime over the next several weeks.
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 22/07/2016
» 'Black money" -- the colloquial name for a vast network of off-the-book cash transactions and unbanked savings -- is one of India's biggest scourges. Amounting to as much as $460 billion (16 trillion baht) a year, bigger than the GDP of Argentina, all that money lies beyond the reach of the tax authorities, creditors and anti-corruption investigators.