The
next post of the Morning Trekk will be on Monday, 29 August 2016
Thought
for the day
"There is nothing
as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of
time."
—Anne Lamott (American, 1954)
Word
for the day
Mountebank (n)
Any charlatan or quack.
Malice
towards none
Shri Mohan Bhagwat is
neither helping Hindus, nor Hindutava, nor Hindustan!
First random thought this morning
Flood in Bihar and Assam is an annual occurrence since past many
decades. It has been regularly impacting the normal lives of millions of poor
and helpless people, besides causing extensive economic damage.
There are ministries and departments for flood control. Relief
packages are announced every year by the central and respective state
administrations.
But we have not heard about any Plan to solve the problem on a
sustainable basis. This makes the whole planning process look like a farce; and
concern of politicians for poor questionable.
Unexciting denouncment of Rexit drama
The industry & markets have
ostensibly hailed the announcement of Dr. Urjit Patel's as the new RBI governor
in place of the outgoing governor Dr. Raghuram Rajan, as a measure to maintain
continuity in the policy environment.
In my view, the whole episode
exposes the inherent incongruence of the investment and business strategies;
and is unfortunate to that extent. For example, consider the following:
(a) The Reserve Bank of India is an 81year old institution. It has
withstood all tests of the time and emerged stronger. This one of the few
public institutions which have impeccable and unblemished track record of
performance.
Though
governor may be working as a guiding force, denying the role of the technical
teams working at RBI in policy making may be ignorant and unfortunate.
Assumption
that an individual could be more important than the institution itself is
preposterous. Moreover, it violates the whole thesis of India being an
attractive investment and business destination. The episode forces me to raise
serious doubts over the:
(i) seriousness of the celebrated global investors, who created
ruckus over retirement of the incumbent governor;
(ii) competence of the Indian media in economic matters, which took the
lead from casual statements of celebrities and created an environment of fear
and suspicion amongst the common public, especially the investors in financial
markets;
(iii) intentions of the political leaders from the opposition parties,
who intervention in the matter was opportunistic, totally out of turn,
unnecessary and apparently not in the national interest;
(b) Assigning the bird adjectives to a RBI governor is unfortunate and
contemptuous. This incorrectly suggests that the governors servants of their
prejudices and/or are incompetent to judge the change in the circumstances
underlying the policy formulation.
Is
it so difficult to accept that the macro fundamentals and economic realities
have changed materially since 2013 when Dr. Rajan assumed the charge of RBI
governor's office. Dr. Patel needs to take decision under current circumstances
(c) Those clamoring for Dr Rajan, are not exactly celebrating the
entry of Dr. Patel - who stands for everything Dr Rajan did and is considered
more hands on to the Indian economy and businesses. Why? Do they fear that Dr.
Patel, having worked closely for Indian businesses and global investors, knows
much more about their "ways and means" as compared to Dr. Rajan whose
experience was mostly academic.
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