Showing 1-10 of 10 results
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India's 'no' at WTO may just mean 'not yet'
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 27/02/2024
» As trade ministers gather at the World Trade Organization's (WTO) summit in Abu Dhabi this week, one of the villains will, as usual, be India. And, certainly, there's some justice to the complaint that Indian negotiators are far too ready to block consensus at such confabs unless granted concessions on their own priorities. Saying "no" often comes too easily to them.
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Nobody's got a clue on India's poll
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/03/2019
» India's parliamentary elections are like no others in the world. Nine hundred million people are eligible to vote in 2019, for 573 constituencies -- the largest of which contains almost three million voters. The country will take 39 days to vote; some states, like giant Uttar Pradesh with a population of 200 million, will vote in seven stages. And, on May 23, we will get to know who won.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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India's states will pay for populism
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/07/2017
» Things only seem to get worse for India's farmers. They'd barely recovered from two years of drought when they were hit by the government's decision last autumn to declare 86% of India's currency illegal. They struggled through that, and the consequent crash in prices, in hopes that this year's monsoon would be healthy. And, although forecasters insisted enough rain would fall, an "unexpected dry spell" is now threatening to ruin their summer crop.
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India losing faith in free-trade deals
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 11/04/2017
» Until fairly recently, it looked like two massive new agreements would compete to define the future of world trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, backed by the US, would try to move the global trade architecture toward new norms, with harmonised regulations at its centre. Meanwhile, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, backed by China, would drastically reduce remaining tariffs across a swathe of Asia and push the existing model of trade and manufacturing as far as it could go.
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Monsanto clash bad for innovators
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 31/08/2016
» Monsanto's many battles with the Indian government have typically been cast as clashes between poor Indian farmers and a giant multinational that's overcharging for its genetically modified seeds. And certainly, the US agriculture giant isn't the most sympathetic of companies. Its seeds are indeed expensive and, in the case of cotton, no longer deliver the returns promised as resistance builds up.
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Major tax reform is just the start
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 24/06/2016
» In opening up sectors from aviation to defence to 100% foreign ownership this week, India's government is clearly hoping to signal that its reform drive is revving up again. Next on the agenda may be one of the most far-reaching new measures in years: a long-awaited, nationwide goods-and-services tax, or GST.
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'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.
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