Talk Point

Demonetisation was a political move with economic consequences. Among other things, it sought to uproot an old political elite that presumably depends on hoarded cash.

Since Nitish is being seen as a villain among a large sections of Dalits, and is also an ethically beaten public figure right now, everything he says might appear bad. When India Inc is slowly but steadily moving towards integrating Dalit/Adivasis in their workforce chain, why is this man barking private sector quota at this juncture?    

Whether reservations in the private sector are feasible or not depends on the political will of the governments. It is a globally proven fact that institutions with greater diversity are more successful and innovative and endure longer.

Nitish Kumar finds himself in a fix as he ditched the backward class constituency in jumping onto the BJP bandwagon. As an astute politician, he realised that all his rhetoric would not work with people. Therefore, he has come out with this trick of demanding a 50 per cent reservation in private sector.

Private sector reservations are a bad idea and step in the wrong direction, because growth and job creation are driven by private entrepreneurs reacting to the profit motive.

What Nitish Kumar has said is not anything new. This issue has been debated and discussed since the 2000s. Several Dalit politicians have stressed the need for reservations in the private sector.

On 8 November, 2016 the Prime Minister announced on television that 86 per cent of the money in circulation in the Indian economy stood demonetised. There are still unanswered questions about the legality of the entire exercise and even the process followed to arrive at the decision.

Demonetisation was a courageous policy decision fraught with high risks. The purported objectives of the decision were to eliminate fake currency, weed out black money, and address tax evasion. Later, digitisation of the economy was also added to the list of objectives. How has demonetisation fared on these objectives?

One year later, it is clear that the economic upside to demonetisation—if there is one—is a long-term proposition. How the government is going to ensure long-term gains is still unclear.

Exactly a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ambitious but enormously disruptive decision to invalidate Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes, ostensibly...