Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Politics as usual in India again
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 05/02/2019
» India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in a spot of trouble. He has to face reelection in a few months amid growing dissatisfaction with his government's performance; he's likely to use every lever available to eke out a win. One such lever, unfortunately, was the interim federal budget that his lame-duck government presented last week, to keep official machinery running till the next government can come in with a mandate and make decisions about taxation and spending. As many of us feared, Mr Modi broke with bipartisan convention: He used the occasion essentially to launch his election appeal to India's voters. And, unfortunately, it's one that they have heard before.
The cost of a Modi election victory
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/12/2018
» Many of us have long argued that, whatever its problems, India is one of the best long-term bets in the world for one simple reason: It has the sort of world-class institutions that can help build and sustain a genuine market economy. Sadly, many of those same institutions are being undermined by the country's own leaders -- most recently the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which Prime Minister Narendra Modi appear intent on subjugating as part of his bid for reelection. Of all people, Mr Modi should recognise that no election victory is worth giving up on India's best chance at becoming a world-beating economy.
Why India's airlines fail to take off
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 03/12/2018
» Anyone puzzled by how the Indian economy manages to grow swiftly while somehow failing to be prosperous could do worse than look at the state of India's airlines. Over the past four years, passenger growth in India has been rapid: The number of flights taken has increased between 15% and 20% per year. Demand growth this year is likely to be the highest in the world. Yet the industry itself hasn't benefited. Almost every Indian airline is struggling.
Tiny ad may set Indians free at last
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 16/06/2018
» It was the most carefully examined square of newsprint in recent Indian history. Last week, a small job ad appeared on the inside pages of some newspapers looking for candidates for the post of "joint secretary" in the Indian government. Within a few hours, the ad had gone viral: Opposition politicians had weighed in, Twitter was agog and hundreds of thousands of 40ish Indians wondered if they had one last opportunity to make their parents proud.
India's economy faces ominous 2018
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 09/01/2018
» You'd think the Indian economy had returned to rosy health. It seems to have recovered from two enormous disruptions -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision just over a year ago to withdraw 86% of the currency in circulation, and the poorly-planned rollout in the middle of 2017 of a new goods-and-services tax. Exports are no longer declining, as they had for several quarters; indeed, for the last month that data is available, they rose 30%. The Purchasing Managers' Index expanded the fastest it has in five years. At least one international ratings agency has upgraded India's credit rating.
India's banks need more than a bailout
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 27/10/2017
» India has long been faced with a slow-motion bank crisis.
India central bank passes buck back to government
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 04/08/2017
» At their Wednesday meeting, the makers of India's monetary policy cut interest rates only slightly. They would seem to have had little choice -- but also little confidence that a deeper cut would jumpstart the Indian economy.
State can't fill India's dangerous investment gap
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 25/10/2016
» India's celebrated position as the world's fastest-growing large economy conceals a dangerous weakness: too few people seem to want to invest there. Even by the government's growth figures, private investment is shrinking at an increasing pace -- by 1.9% between January and March and 3.1% between April and June.
'Gradualist' reform slowed growth
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 26/07/2016
» On July 26, 1991, Manmohan Singh -- then Finance Minister, and later prime minister for 10 years -- rose in parliament to deliver an address that would transform India. That speech, outlining the first budget of a just-elected government under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, launched India's journey of economic reform, dismantling many decades-old socialist-style controls on the private sector.
Could India be the first country to get rid of cash?
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.