Large financing needs of infrastructure require long-term financial savings of households to increase but they actually show a steep decline in recent years.
The issue of inequality has assumed the blazing limelight at a time when inequality in India is said to be higher than it was in the British Raj. It's a ripe situation for half-truths and incendiary statements.
Speaking at launch of economist Surjit Bhalla’s book, S Jaishankar also highlights Gen Z’s engagement with ‘reel culture’, which has 'promoted awareness, created interest in many subjects'.
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.
Thank you for this very timely and thought provoking article. It is rightly said: ” The large financing needs of investment in infrastructure require long-term financial savings of households to increase and to be channelled for this need. This requires reform and development of the financial sector that can play the role of this intermediation. The first is the reform on the savings side. Savings of Indian households are primarily in short-term assets. The challenge is to incentivise these into long-term savings such as insurance and pensions.”
When I started learning economics and problems of the Indian economy, first in school in the late fifties, and then in college/university in the early sixties (ending 1966), we were taught that savings must always be accorded the most important place vis-a-vis investments as the basis of economic growth. Many savings related initiatives/schemes of the govt, apart from being welfare measures, also thus sought to take are of the savings aspect. All was going well, until suddenly and overnight about two decades or more ago, the post office savings bank interest rates were slashed by more than 6 or 7%, thus destroying the financial base of millions of households, especially of the retired people with no pensionary benefits and solely dependent on the small savings and insurance schemes by way of source of income and security. One cannot blame the headless politicians as they really do not know the woes of those deprived of the right to unjust enrichment–unlike the bureaucrats. What I wonder is about the wisdom of those flower eating bureaucrats, proverbially divorced totally from the world of realities of the life of toiling millions, who advised the govt over the years to ignore household/small savings as a source of investment and also as a great tool of social security. Over the years, therefore, we have seen how mindlessly the rates of commission of the PO Savings Agents have been reduced and finally withdrawn, oblivion of the role of these facilitators in the field of for encouraging and helping the growth of small savings for decades, apart from acting also, as insurance agents, helping common people saving through insurance policies. Why the rate of interest on post office savings bank deposits must be linked to bank interest defies any logic, when considered from the basic question of finding resources for investment fore economic growth. Moreover, these parasites called bureaucrats are incapable of understanding the needs of the common people on the streets and are so insulated that they cannot simply understand as to how they really (manage to) live–as it is said that “half the world does not know how the other half lives!
It is hoped that the bureaucrats and “authorities” of Niti Ayog read the old text books of the sixties and seventies on Indian Economy/Economic Development of India and do ponder over the fundamental issues of investments being the function of savings. It is imperative to again take active steps to encourage savings– at least the small savings of households in the post office savings bank accounts, Jan Dhan accounts, and the like–at the earliest. Once this is done, the govt can then think of making larger investments in the priority sectors. It would also be essential to encourage savings in the banks who must rethink their business plans.
Thank you for this very timely and thought provoking article. It is rightly said: ” The large financing needs of investment in infrastructure require long-term financial savings of households to increase and to be channelled for this need. This requires reform and development of the financial sector that can play the role of this intermediation. The first is the reform on the savings side. Savings of Indian households are primarily in short-term assets. The challenge is to incentivise these into long-term savings such as insurance and pensions.”
When I started learning economics and problems of the Indian economy, first in school in the late fifties, and then in college/university in the early sixties (ending 1966), we were taught that savings must always be accorded the most important place vis-a-vis investments as the basis of economic growth. Many savings related initiatives/schemes of the govt, apart from being welfare measures, also thus sought to take are of the savings aspect. All was going well, until suddenly and overnight about two decades or more ago, the post office savings bank interest rates were slashed by more than 6 or 7%, thus destroying the financial base of millions of households, especially of the retired people with no pensionary benefits and solely dependent on the small savings and insurance schemes by way of source of income and security. One cannot blame the headless politicians as they really do not know the woes of those deprived of the right to unjust enrichment–unlike the bureaucrats. What I wonder is about the wisdom of those flower eating bureaucrats, proverbially divorced totally from the world of realities of the life of toiling millions, who advised the govt over the years to ignore household/small savings as a source of investment and also as a great tool of social security. Over the years, therefore, we have seen how mindlessly the rates of commission of the PO Savings Agents have been reduced and finally withdrawn, oblivion of the role of these facilitators in the field of for encouraging and helping the growth of small savings for decades, apart from acting also, as insurance agents, helping common people saving through insurance policies. Why the rate of interest on post office savings bank deposits must be linked to bank interest defies any logic, when considered from the basic question of finding resources for investment fore economic growth. Moreover, these parasites called bureaucrats are incapable of understanding the needs of the common people on the streets and are so insulated that they cannot simply understand as to how they really (manage to) live–as it is said that “half the world does not know how the other half lives!
It is hoped that the bureaucrats and “authorities” of Niti Ayog read the old text books of the sixties and seventies on Indian Economy/Economic Development of India and do ponder over the fundamental issues of investments being the function of savings. It is imperative to again take active steps to encourage savings– at least the small savings of households in the post office savings bank accounts, Jan Dhan accounts, and the like–at the earliest. Once this is done, the govt can then think of making larger investments in the priority sectors. It would also be essential to encourage savings in the banks who must rethink their business plans.
Socialist Modi squandering money on freebies subsidies, has no money for infrastructure and defence.