"The time will
come when it will disgust you to look in the mirror."
—Rose
Kennedy (American, 1890-1995)
Word
for the day
Zoosemiotics (n)
The study of the sounds and signals used in animal communication, as
song in birds or tail-wagging in dogs.
Malice
towards none
PM Modi once said on floor
of the Lok Sabha, that his political acumen should not be doubted.
AK obviously did not buy his
claim.
It would be interesting to
watch who returns triumphant at the end of the day!
First random thought this morning
US$265bn stimulus by Japanese government and yet "no
hike" by US Fed, hardly moved the global markets.
Is it simply the law of diminishing marginal returns working or
the markets are losing faith in governments and central bankers?
"EASE" vs. "ease" of doing business - 2
I have been saying this rather persistently and repeatedly. I do
not mind reiterating it once again - if India needs to become a middle income
economy by 2050, her people would need to contribute a lot. It is almost
impossible to make India grow faster through fiscal profligacy, crony
socialism, and nationalism by convenience.
Almost everyone I meet in the cities of this vast country, is
complaining about shrinking cash economy and improving incidence of taxation.
Those who are complaining the most include - Traders whose
whole business model is build around tax avoidance; industrialist and large
farmers who profited from free (or stolen) electricity & bank loans
which they earnestly believed are not repayable; businesses who were
conceived and setup as beneficiaries of tax arbitrage; real estate
developers who obliged people by taking their hard earned money in
consideration of promise of a dream house and not delivering anything for
years; brokers and professionals who helped all these people in
laundering money and/or providing legitimacy to this ill gotten money through
complex deals at stock exchanges or through round tripping from tax havens.
In my firm view, India cannot become a middle income economy by
2050 if we fail to -
(a) Bridge the multitude of
deficits prevalent in the country, especially trust deficit, governance
deficit, compliance deficit, skill deficit, social and physical infrastructure
deficit, and capital deficit; and
(b) Bring India into a
state of equilibrium by removing social, and regional, economic imbalances.
It is therefore of utmost importance that-
§
Industries and businesses who have thrived
historical on government largesse and not necessarily on the enterprising
abilities of promoters would be willing to give back to society by way higher
taxes, higher voluntary CSR spending, technology upgrade for better resource utilization,
etc.;
§
Regions like Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are
economically more developed despite not being endowed richly with natural
resources, would like to acknowledge that a part of their development is due to
imperial designs of British regime and share their wealth with exploited
regions like Jharkhand and Odisha.
§
Caste and communities which command ownership of
the major part of economic resources and occupy most of the social space, would
like to voluntarily vacate some space for the historically oppressed and
downtrodden.
§
Populace which has grown to be non-compliant by
habit, not necessarily by intention, would like to change habits like spitting
on roads, violating traffic rules, encroaching on pavements in front of their
house/shops, exploiting domestic helps and child labor etc.
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