There's no great virtue in stipulating that 3% of GDP is the desired level of fiscal deficit. India, with its faster economic growth rate, can cope quite well on all indicators with a higher deficit.
I conducted a disability issues session for the civil servants of the 94th Foundation Class of 2019 at the training in Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration.
Bangladesh has South Asia’s most liberal investment regime — in terms of legal protection of foreign investment & generous fiscal incentives, says PM Sheikh Hasina.
Arvind Kejriwal’s retreat from the fight with Narendra Modi is total. His focus is local issues & Delhi elections and this isn’t defeatism but excellent politics.
The world watched aghast as police armed with tasers, tear-gas masks—and in one case backed up by snipers—arrested hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters at universities across the United States.
The Asian Development Outlook 2024 report suggests that policymakers in the region should monitor a number of risks. These include escalating conflicts and geopolitical tensions.
Germany’s erstwhile Christian Democratic Union govt, led by Angela Merkel, prevented sale of small arms to police forces in states they perceived had ‘bad human rights record’.
A theme has not yet emerged for BJP & people see lack of a contest, which makes it unexciting. For all these reasons, 2024 is turning out to be an unexpectedly theme-less election.
Modi must now take some bold political decisions on economy and remove all cobwebs of past 70 years of economic management. One of the decisions is about complete transparency in accounting for fiscal deficit and its impact on inflation, without specifying any hard target for fiscal deficit. In addition, as Ninan argues, we must change cash accounting to accrual accounting method as well to show the correct position. Fiscal deficit is the result of various government policy actions on letting go revenues and increasing spending for running administration, social sector and capital investment and hence, component and quality of spending matter not the deficit target itself. A economy grows, deficit will correct itself to its natural level and we learn to live it. Government should have a strict target for its administration cost as a percentage of tax collected and live within it strictly by improving efficiency, retiring incompetent staff at all levels etc. Interestingly, if actual fiscal deficit is 6%, and we are still able to manage inflation under 4% shows that we need be too scared of this number ! Modi style is objective oriented management- particularly when the objective has a strong nationalist sentiment- so let the objective be how to reduce India’s trade deficit with India’s enemy No 1- China to zero level from the current level of USD 60 billion. To achieve this, we must reduce bring cost of our goods and services to the level where it is competitive with the Chinese- so reduce direct and indirect taxes, improve infrastructure, introduce labor reforms, become business friendly etc. To do this means to do many things one of them is about this issue of FRBM Act. Having sorted or about to sort various long pending contentious political issues of the country (Art 370, UCC, Ram Mandir, one election, removal of word secularism from the Preamble of the Constitution etc etc.) , the real legacy of Modi will be his footprint on the economic management. If he is serious about India becoming 5 trillion dollar economy, he must make bold political decisions. Should Amit Shah move to finance ministry after the December session of Parliament after introducing bills for UCC and Ram temple construction?!!!
Chastity for a woman is good. Also for a man. Period. Simply because we have made a dog’s breakfast of the fisc is no reason to argue against the FRBM Act or the reasonable figure of 3%, which in any case excludes an equal figure for the states. We are actually closer to 10%. Nor should we believe this fairy tale that our higher growth – remember fastest growing economy in the world ? – gives us a free pass. 2. The government should get its fiscal house in order. It is sapping the real economy of vitality. Nor is its profligacy building shiny new airports. Like many given to banks for recap, down the chute.
Modi must now take some bold political decisions on economy and remove all cobwebs of past 70 years of economic management. One of the decisions is about complete transparency in accounting for fiscal deficit and its impact on inflation, without specifying any hard target for fiscal deficit. In addition, as Ninan argues, we must change cash accounting to accrual accounting method as well to show the correct position. Fiscal deficit is the result of various government policy actions on letting go revenues and increasing spending for running administration, social sector and capital investment and hence, component and quality of spending matter not the deficit target itself. A economy grows, deficit will correct itself to its natural level and we learn to live it. Government should have a strict target for its administration cost as a percentage of tax collected and live within it strictly by improving efficiency, retiring incompetent staff at all levels etc. Interestingly, if actual fiscal deficit is 6%, and we are still able to manage inflation under 4% shows that we need be too scared of this number ! Modi style is objective oriented management- particularly when the objective has a strong nationalist sentiment- so let the objective be how to reduce India’s trade deficit with India’s enemy No 1- China to zero level from the current level of USD 60 billion. To achieve this, we must reduce bring cost of our goods and services to the level where it is competitive with the Chinese- so reduce direct and indirect taxes, improve infrastructure, introduce labor reforms, become business friendly etc. To do this means to do many things one of them is about this issue of FRBM Act. Having sorted or about to sort various long pending contentious political issues of the country (Art 370, UCC, Ram Mandir, one election, removal of word secularism from the Preamble of the Constitution etc etc.) , the real legacy of Modi will be his footprint on the economic management. If he is serious about India becoming 5 trillion dollar economy, he must make bold political decisions. Should Amit Shah move to finance ministry after the December session of Parliament after introducing bills for UCC and Ram temple construction?!!!
Chastity for a woman is good. Also for a man. Period. Simply because we have made a dog’s breakfast of the fisc is no reason to argue against the FRBM Act or the reasonable figure of 3%, which in any case excludes an equal figure for the states. We are actually closer to 10%. Nor should we believe this fairy tale that our higher growth – remember fastest growing economy in the world ? – gives us a free pass. 2. The government should get its fiscal house in order. It is sapping the real economy of vitality. Nor is its profligacy building shiny new airports. Like many given to banks for recap, down the chute.
… money given …