The Opinion Makers
Keeping the southern neighbour engaged
Christophe Jaffrelot| CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris and professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute
Haider Abbas Rizvi| Information commissioner, Uttar Pradesh
The Indian Express
Jaffrelot and Rizvi argue that during Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapaksa visit to India, Prime Minister Modi should aim to counterbalance Beijing’s influence in the Indian Ocean.
“New Delhi has tried to engage the new Sri Lankan government after Rajapaksa assumed office. India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar, landed in Sri Lanka on November 20, 2019 to invite Gotabaya for his first visit to India — rather than to China…. India’s effort were also designed to thwart China extending its influence in Sri Lanka at a time when the Narendra Modi administration is trying to counter Beijing’s clout in the Indian Ocean,” they write.
Partha Ghosh | Former ICSSR National Fellow, and professor of South Asian Studies, JNU
The Indian Express
Ghosh claims that after conducting a cost benefit analysis of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), it will be evident that if there is a Nobel Prize for jokes, the citizenship law is India’s entry.
“Just to label approximately 20 lakh Muslims in Assam and Bengal as ‘non-Indians’, 137 crore Indians will have to show their papers. To victimise one person, 700 others will be terrorised. Varun Grover makes enormous sense when he sings, hum kaagaz nahi dikhayenge (we will not show you our papers). If you still think that the CAA is not a joke, I pity your sense of humour,” he writes.
The political context of Donald Trump’s India visit
Dhruva Jaishankar | Director of the US Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation
Hindustan Times
Jaishankar argues that US President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to India will see him leverage the trip for political ends ahead of the Presidential elections. However, India needs to focus on the wider agenda. “While Trump will highlight the aspects of engagement with India that serve his political interests, the real significance for India will be at a more mundane level,” he argues.
The new challenge for Census 2021
Devesh Kapur | Asia Programs Director at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC.
Neelanjan Sircar | Assistant professor, Ashoka University
Hindustan Times
Kapur and Sircar warn that the entire CAA-NRC-NPR issue ignites a more pertinent issue — the veracity of official data.
“If respondents ascertain that truthfully revealing certain kinds of information in the NPR is more likely to result in questioning their citizenship, they may choose to obfuscate or misreport. Because the NPR and Census are to be run concurrently — and both are under the auspices of the Registrar General of the ministry of home affairs (also the key architect and driver of the CAA) — this loss of credible information is likely to extend to the Census,” they note.
Listening to the call of the informal
Arun Maira | Former Planning Commission member
The Hindu
Maira argues that the informal sector’s small entrepreneurs in rural areas and the urban fringes, should not be ignored.
“The thrust of the Indian government’s policies should not be to reduce the size of the informal sector. Rather, it must be to improve working conditions for the citizens who earn incomes in the sector,” he states.
It’s time shareholders answered for corporate misdeeds
Katharina Pistor | Professor, Columbia University
Mint
Pistor explains the concept of “limited liability” or “no liability” among shareholders of a company who are “shielded from the harms that corporations inflict” on consumers, workers or the environment, like how shareholders were “let off the hook” after the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Pistor explains that this is why “markets simply cannot price risk adequately”, thereby distorting the market system as a whole.
Why tariff hikes won’t protect domestic manufacturers
Arindam Bhattacharya| Managing Director & Senior Partner, Boston Consulting Group
The Financial Express
Given that India is the most “aggressive user of anti-trade notifications”, Bhattacharya express concern about the Budget’s announcement to increase tariffs on household products and appliances. Though the move is meant to “restrict ‘unnecessary’ imports” from China and promote local industries, he argues that a “tariff protection without a clear endgame” could make our manufacturing sector less globally competitive. He suggests including a “CoDB-driven industrial policy… [with] a time-bound plan” in trade policy.
Making IBC work for individuals, too
H.S. Shylendra| Writer is with IRMA, and is a member of IBBI’s Working Group on Individual Insolvency
The Hindu Business Line
Shylendra criticises the “cumbersome” criteria and procedures for Fresh Start Process (FSP), which allows individual insolvency under IBC. To make FSP more feasible, he suggests two approaches. First, “revise the extant criteria to make them inclusive” and second, “fundamentally change FSP yet …[retain] its original intent of expeditious discharge of the poor.”
Hardayal Singh| Former chief commissioner, income-tax, GoI
The Economic Times
Singh criticises the governemnt’s decision to take over Unitech, a Delhi-based real estate “giant”. The delay in possession has led to “unsold inventory of housing units in India’s top eight cities”, he explains. Singh says GoI is setting a “bad precedent” as it “may find it difficult to intervene in other failing companies” and such interventions usually lead to “inefficient outcomes”. It should ideally be a “referee”, not a “player” in such cases.
Ajay Chhibber| Director general, independent evaluation office, GoI
The Economic Times
Chhibber criticises monetary policy committee’s announcement of “another pause in repo rate cuts” and keeping its stance “accommodative”. He points out that MPC could have “cut rates further, as its own inflation projections show a quick reversal to CPI inflation” which leads him to criticise the inflation targeting regime as a whole. At the moment, “RBI has sent a signal back to the finance ministry that as instructed, it is indeed focusing on inflation” and now it is up to the former to revive growth.
Business Standard
Like Chhibber, Bandhopadhyay also comments on MPC’s “accommodative” stance and its decision to “kick-start growth” — an area that the Union Budget “feared to tread”. He points out four pillars upon which the latest policy rests — RBI is “closing its window for the fixed-rate daily and 14-day repo”, banks are freed from obligations regarding CRR and NDTL, banks are allowed “a one-time restructuring of loans given to MSMEs” and an “extension of the date of commencement” for real estate projects without “downgrading assets”.
