The experience of depositors in the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMCB) suggests that the government and the central bank are unwilling to protect the financial savings of ordinary households. Besides allowing depositors in the bank to access only a…
Neoliberal reform has plunged more than one industry into a crisis, where large scale failure is the norm, but there is no sign of resolution. India’s civil aviation sector is a stark example. So is the beleaguered telecommunications industry. The…
In a previous edition of MacroScan, we considered trends in central government employment, and showed how the number of people employed by the central government stagnated between 2006 and 2014, while the number employed by central public sector enterprises declined.…
A common refrain in assessments of India’s current economic predicament is that the economy is performing below potential because of a lack of ‘liquidity’. Often, this is merely a means of stating that an inadequacy of credit flow is choking…
In an unusual and ill-advised move, the Reserve Bank of India issued a brief ‘clarification’ on October 1st which said: “There are rumours in some locations about certain banks including cooperative banks, resulting in anxiety among the depositors. RBI would…
Mid-September saw some unusual developments in US money markets, which gave market players and monetary authorities the jitters. Over three days, a key short term interest rate rose sharpy to reach levels last touched about a decade ago, when the…
It is only too evident that the Modi government is a strongly centralising one in many ways – and this is also clear from various fiscal moves. In 2015, it accepted the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission to increase…
The neoliberal trap has resulted in a new normal of low growth globally. C. P. Chandrasekhar explains how countries, in trying to deal with this, are rely ingon the same policies that created the earlier speculative bubble and crash.
In another instance of lack of clarity in economic decision making, the NDA government seems to be drifting into signing on to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement potentially involving 16 Asia-Pacific partners. Under discussion for 7 years now,…
The government has finally admitted that the Indian economy is on a steep downturn. For some time now, even the business community, which tends to shower all praise and disapprove any criticism of the reformist Modi dispensation, has expressed concern…
