Hugo Dixon: Robbery by any other name
Inflation’s siren seductions should be resisted. Some pundits, including Reuters Breakingviews’ Edward Hadas, argue that a spot of inflation could be just the remedy to bail out those who borrowed too much in the heady days before the credit crunch. But the flipside of a deliberate inflation policy would be that savers would be robbed. That [...]
Agriculture & Employment: Two Crucial Segments Ignored Again
By Ashwani Mahajan During the 1990s, eight to 10 per cent of the planned expenditure was on agriculture. Over the past decade, it has reached a low of around 2.5 per cent. Although the government shows concern over agriculture in every budget, such expressions are no more than lip service. Last year, the government spent a meagre sum of Rs [...]
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak: Education in the Union budget
One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget [...]
Martin Feldstein: How safe are your dollars?
Chinese officials and private investors around the world have been worrying aloud about whether their dollar investments are safe. Since the Chinese government holds a large part of its $2 trillion of foreign exchange in dollars, they have good reason to focus on the future value of the greenback. And investors with smaller dollar holdings, who [...]
Subramanian Swamy: A crisis and an opportunity ahead
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is not like his predecessor. But he is without any soft options today, shackled as he is by the recent past of the Finance Ministry's stewardship. Hence it is no surprise that despite a heroic effort to put together a dynamic budget, he has produced what could at best be termed a damp squib. The global [...]
Jamal Mecklai: Post-Budget – A new paradigm
Budget 2010 went far beyond most recent Budgets in that it defined an entirely new paradigm for the Indian economy. The most important part of the Budget was the Economic Survey, which, more than simply providing the conceptual underpinnings for the Budget, is the document that describes the government’s thoughts and beliefs. It tells us who our [...]
Abheek Barua: Mind the gaps
Pranab Mukherjee doesn’t do folksy, he doesn’t do big bangs or dream Budgets either. Mercifully, he seems to do prudence, a virtue that warrants a premium these days when governments around the world grapple with the aftermath of the fiscal excesses of stimulus. Thus, despite the obvious negatives in the Budget (higher excise duties and MAT [...]
Martin Hutchinson: Wish we were in Rio
Turkey: Recep Erdogan needs both skill and luck. The Turkish prime minister has done a pretty job good economically — stabilising the government’s deficit and presiding over substantial growth before the recession. But his AK Party, which has been in office since 2002, has to deal with some tough internal problems, without much outside [...]
Sanjaya Baru: Finmin: Return of the Gladstonians
The global financial crisis has empowered fiscal conservatives in India. Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a finance ministry that liked to keep its Budgets balanced. Balanced Budgets and low inflation were virtues that prudent civil servants held high. They were the children of, what economists Vijay Joshi and IMD Little famously [...]
M Govinda Rao: Damned if you Do, Damned if You Don’t
The Finance Minister had to present this year’s Budget in the background of slow global recovery, poor agricultural growth and increasing domestic prices. Although Indian economy is clearly on the path of recovery, complete withdrawal of the stimulus is premature, but excessive government borrowing could put pressure on interest rates and hurt [...]