Put genie back in bottle
Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee | Professors of Economics at MIT
The Indian Express
Narendra Modi’s “maximum governance, minimum government” had resonated with the Indian voters in 2014 and the current debate on the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) can be seen in the context of this idea, write Nobel prize winners Banerjee and Duflo.
For instance, the NRC presumes that the rural population, that consists of people who may not even know where they were born, will have documents to prove their citizenship.
According to the authors, the exercise will leave such a population feeling guilty of them being foreigners or their fate will rest in the hands of officials, which is “a very risky gamble”. “This is not maximum governance and minimum government, but introducing a meddlesome officialdom into a question as fundamental as citizenship rights”, they write. The authors argue that the government seems to take it as given “that all immigrants are a problem”. They cite their book Good Economics for Hard Times and argue that large immigration of low skilled workers doesn’t affect the earnings of other low skilled workers.
Duflo and Banerjee write that “paranoia about immigration is a genie that needs to be put back in the bottle”. They add that India needs to, instead, embrace the vision of being “one of the mother lodes of civilization”.
The difficulty of being honest
Ashok Lavasa | Member, Election Commission of India
Financial Express
In light of Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa and his family facing various CBI enquiries, Lavasa wonders at the “wisdom” in the dictum that “honesty is the best policy”. He questions whether honesty is to be “understood as a pragmatic way of dealing with situations or is it simply an ethical response to any given situation influenced by an individual’s character?”
Lavasa was the only EC to not give Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah a clean chit in code of conduct violations during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign
He writes that “honesty as a policy always comes with a price” but adds that “no system can be productive if it is obsessed with defining the idea of honesty narrowly and subjecting everyone to a hidebound, arbitrary ideal”. If a “public servant decides to accommodate the genuine concerns of an individual without compromising public interest, it cannot be termed a dishonest act,” he adds.
According to Lavasa, the “Prevention of Corruption Act is meant to be a deterrent against exercising judgement with mala fide intent; if it throttles individual initiative taken in right earnest, bureaucrats would be more servants and less civil.” In conclusion, he argues that “it would be mawkish to think that those who do not stand by the honest are dishonest” and that “people are generally good; [but] they are also generally timid.”
Enough of Snakes & Ladders
Ajay Chhibber | Distinguished Visiting Scholar, International Economic Policy, George Washington University
The Economic Times
Chhibber writes that with India entering 2020, it is “still unclear” how to stem the country’s economic spiral and notes that “a somewhat longer perspective may help” understand the “predicament on what lies ahead”. He writes that the political establishment “appears ‘shaken, but not yet stirred’ into bolder second-generation reforms”.
According to Chhibber, unless the “economy turns around quickly” it is likely that the downward spiral will feed on itself and turn into an “internal fiscal, financial sector crisis”. Moreover, he writes that “by delaying quicker resolution of NPAs through a bad bank,” there are “risks that a vicious downward spiral is developing into a bigger crisis”.
Chhibber suggests that “a combination of inflation and exchange rate depreciation is the most likely outcome”. Furthermore, RBI should allow “exchange rate adjustment and not waste reserves fighting it,” he adds, as this “may reduce the pressure to turn more protectionist and boost exports”. Finally, Chhibber maintains that “piecemeal reform is like a game of snakes and ladders — you go up one small ladder, and get bitten by a snake tumbling back to where you were” and thus, one needs “comprehensive bold reforms to catch the bigger ladder and on to the golden turnpike”.
It is everybody’s constitution
Gautam Bhatia | Delhi based lawyer
The Hindu
The Indian Constitution was born through an act of public participation that began with mass movements of the freedom struggle, and culminated in a dialogue between the framers of the Constitution and the Indian public, writes Bhatia.
The Constitution is a charter of values and principles with a vision of a free, just and equal society, he writes. Bhatia argues that the Constitution has been central to these protests with many invoking the Preamble to determine if the law is even “worthy of the Nation that we set out to be in 1947”.
He states that debates around equality cannot avoid deeper questions about the nature of our democracy, which should be settled during public conversations between citizens. Citing America’s anti-slavery movement, he argues that the recent protests can be understood as an act of reclamation. Beyond the Supreme Court’s “narrow yes or no”, whether the CAA stays or go, the constitution will remain everyone’s constitution, concludes Bhatia.
Look into the heart of crimes
Valson Thampu | Former Principal of St Stephens College, New Delhi
The Telegraph
From 2012 Delhi gangrape case to the Hyderabad doctor’s murder and rape case, not much has been done to understand and curtail crimes in India, writes Thampu. Terming it a “gross failure”, Thampu writes that the lawmakers think crimes will disappear if the culprits are hanged or lynched that seem like penance “for one’s own failure than taking an informed stand on making our society a better place”. He states that the legislation of death penalty has increased in a large number of rape victims being killed.
He argues that the need is to be socially and scientifically aware while dealing with such issues. He writes that people need to be aware that the existing socio-cultural ambience is largely responsible for gender crimes. Thampu adds that our response is exaggerating when the perpetrators are socially backward which would have been different if the victims were socio-economically faceless.
Without fear or fervour
Naushad Forbes | Co-Chairman, Forbes Marshall
Business Standard
Forbes states that Rahul Bajaj was the ‘star performer’ at the recent ET Awards Function and the exchange between Bajaj and Amit Shah opened a “space for discussion and debate”. However, he maintains that “our key priority is the economy”. The protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act have diverted us from “our moribund economy,” writes Forbes.
He writes that a “public acknowledgement of the deep challenges the economy faces would enable the government to use its considerable political capital to drive the necessary changes we need”. The only way for “noisy democracies” to progress is “by checks and balances from autonomous and independent institutions such as universities, election commissions, courts, independent media and an effective opposition,” adds Forbes and writes that one “cannot speak truth to power if we plead for favours and special privileges”.
He calls for the need to “deal with the government as equals — praise where praise is due, but criticising when criticism is called for”. We must “let industry shed its fear and speak truth to power” and stop “asking the government for things,” writes Forbes.
May i know who will decide citizen ship of the country?