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Showing posts from January, 2019

13 Economists and their Economic Strategy for India

Former governor of RBI Dr. Raghuram Rajan and MIT professor Dr. Abhijeet Banerjee have written an article, viz. Eight things India must do in 2019 , in Times of India on 1 st January, 2019 [i] in which they present a list of eight things which according to them India, government and people collectively, must do in new year to improve her future. In this article I want to critically analyze their proposal. Rajan and Banerjee give the following background as a cause of their proposal, Last October thirteen of us, all economists, got together in the hope that as the country gears up for elections, we could start a conversation by identifying a set of policy ideas that might help inform party manifestoes and policy visions. While our views stretch across the spectrum from right to left, we found surprising agreement on the challenges India faces and reforms it needs now. Two of us sifted through the set of ideas, picking what we felt were the top challenges and propo

Modi’s Universal Basic Income Gambit

According to the MSN news , the Modi government is preparing to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) scheme before next year’s general election. The government will transfer a certain amount into the bank accounts of citizens who are unable to earn an income. The Centre has been facing a relentless Opposition onslaught over a slew of issues, including agrarian distress and unemployment. The BJP suffered reverses in assembly polls held in three Hindi belt states in November and December. What will be the impact of this scheme on the Indian economy? To understand that, we need to first understand what this universal basic income (UBI) is. Once that is understood, it is easy to see its impact on the economy. What is UBI? Just like Narendra Modi, many liberal politicians in USA are also running the 2020 Presidential election campaign on the platform of UBI. The democrat candidate Andrew Yang defines UBI in this way:   The idea is that all citizens receiv