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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Standard Deviation

Indian freebies are working. But it’s not reducing poverty, only making people spend less

Subsidies are here to stay. Worryingly, subsidy expenditure will likely increase as Indian politicians try to meet a wider set of aspirations through more diverse freebies.

Credit where credit’s due—Modi govt has scripted an unbelievable banking success story

Indian banks, regulators, and investors weren’t worried when crises began exploding in US and European banks earlier this year. This resilience has been a long time coming.

Modi govt has a split personality—innovative on disinvestment, regressive on credit card spends

Scrapping the latest version of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, or denial on China dependence reveal the govt's signs of immaturity that are hard to ignore.

The pains and gains of Modi’s reforms are deferred—GST, banks to demonetisation

Even if credit expansion to corporates begins today, it’s too late for there to be any real impact in terms of new investments and job creation before May 2024.

Modi govt turning into Big Brother. Overly-protective TCS policies infantilising citizens

Prime Minister Modi talked about ‘minimum government’, but nobody thought he meant making the citizenry do the government’s job.

Vodafone to ONDC to BharOS, how govt is empowering small businesses and breaking duopolies

Food delivery and e-commerce are two sectors where the government has created an indirect mechanism to stop the duopoly system, without clipping the wings of the giants.

Modi govt not leveraging its parliament strength for economic reforms. Using it for politics

BJP’s pro-business, pro-economic reform image is now being dented, even though this regime is better positioned to make positive change than most before it.

Blinkit-like approach to reduce cost hurting economy and workers. Innovate, increase revenue

Investing in more capital than in employing labour can work in most countries. But India can't blindly emulate developed economies and reduce the amount of labour employed.

India innovates in labour. It doesn’t need the pressure to spend huge on R&D like US, Japan

India has cheap labour while conventionally R&D-intensive countries have cheaper capital. The whole debate on R&D needs to be recast to fit the realities here.

Indian policymaking is good when cautious, botched when rushed. Learn from US banking crisis

India has done great in regulation because it took time to think things through. The US banking crisis should encourage Modi govt to avoid rush jobs like demonetisation.

On Camera

Profit margins in lottery industry are tiny. Here’s how Future Gaming paid for its electoral bonds

Neither state govts nor companies earn large profits from lotteries. However, a look at the system shows there’s ample evidence of murky dealings and financial irregularities. 

Amid plans to lift AFSPA, Army starts joint training with Jammu & Kashmir Police

In an interview with Gulistan News this week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government would leave law and order to J&K Police and slowly withdraw troops.

For BJP, Kejriwal is an idea whose time has come to be destroyed

The ‘idea’ Kejriwal's politics grew around was a no-holds-barred fight against corruption. That is the reason Modi govt has now tarred him and his entire party with the same paint.