Topic: liberalisation

On 24 July 1991, finance minister Manmohan Singh presented the Union Budget for 1991-92 that changed the course of Indian economy. In his Lok Sabha speech, he quoted Victor Hugo to say, 'no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.'

Speaking at India Ideas Conclave, organised by think tank India Foundation in Bengaluru, V. Anantha Nageswaran, also said India was now in position to deliver domestically-driven growth'.

Restrictions on banking led to limited capacity for new entrepreneurs to have access to resources. It allowed the old elite to continue dominating. This order must be shaken up now.

Exactly 30 years after India turned away from central planning and liberated the private sector, the Modi govt is again handing out subsidies & licenses while putting up tariff walls.

India’s turn to a centrally planned economy began in the 1950s under PM Jawaharlal Nehru. But by 1991, the economy came to a grinding halt and faced a massive crisis.

Modi had pledged to turn India into a $5 trillion economy by 2025, but the pandemic is set to push that back by years. Over 200 mn have gone back to earning less than minimum wage a day.

India has once again lived up to reputation of using a crisis to unleash difficult reforms. Nirmala Sitharaman has introduced bold reforms in holy cow sectors like agriculture and defence.

In Good Economics for Hard Times, Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee write about the link between liberalisation and inequality in India.

There have been constant attempts to destabilise campuses in India. Take the suicides of Rohith Vemula, Payal Thadvi, Fathima Latheef or BHU protest for instance.

Caught between two worlds, McDowell’s Thril cola made an impact in India, but briefly.