The Price of Growth
Jan 27th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The early signs of a reduction in the rate of inflation have been used as evidence to make a case for lower interest rates. However, there is no reason to believe that within the current policy regime, rate cuts would not aggravate inflationary trends once again.
The Role China Plays
Jan 25th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar
China, which is being touted as the biggest challenger to US economic supremacy, is witnessing slowdown in its growth rates. However, such a slowdown could prove to be bad news for the US economy as well, because China also happens to be the biggest market for all US MNCs.
Capitalism and Hunger
Jan 20th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar
After close to 65 years of independent national development, the level of child malnutrition in India remains unacceptably high. The capitalist growth of the worst variety fostered by neoliberalism and the consequent refusal of the government to directly address the problem explains the cause for this ''national shame''.
Year of Centenaries
Jan 12th 2012, Jayati Ghosh
100 years ago when Gustav Mahler composed his 9th Symphony, it reflected the troubling times he lived in. It was music for uncertain times, even though it contains within it certainties of different kinds. 100 years later, there is almost a sense of déjà vu with Europe, and indeed the whole world, now faced with another period of political and economic volatility.
Lies, Damned lies, and Statistics: On Arvind Panagariya's Kerala adventure
Jan 5th 2012, R. Ramakumar
This is a response to the article titled ''Cracking the Kerala Myth'', published in the newspaper Times of India dated 2 January 2012. The author refutes the claims that the development of Kerala was not state-led success, and highlights the statistical fallacies in the argument.
Retail Rollback
Dec 26th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The whole fiasco over the decision to allow FDI in retail and the subsequent withdrawal of the same has been a major embarrassment for the Indian Government. The failure to get its own allies on board proves that political democracy held its sway. The very fact that the political parties were so wary about the issue proves how little support this decision actually has amongst the larger masses.
Multinational Retail Firms in India
Dec 12th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The actual impact of large corporate retail, and especially multinational retail chains, in developing countries clearly shows that many of the claims made by proponents of such corporate retailing - in terms of employment generation or benefits to producers and consumers - are suspect or sometimes completely false.
Democracy and the Financial Markets
Dec 20th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
In the last few decades, it has become increasingly common for various developing and ''emerging'' markets to give greater importance to appeasing the interests of financial markets over the requirements of political democracy. Now, this is afflicting developed countries as well, where governments are sacrificing democracy in favour of the markets.
Retrogression in Retail
Dec 1st 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
Permitting FDI in retail trade, wherein a few oligopolistic buyers will come to dominate retail trade, will lead to adverse employment effects and an erosion of the real incomes of small crop producers.
The End of Europe?
Nov 30th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The crisis in Europe has recently claimed many political victims, with the governments in Greece and Spain, two of the worst hit countries, being changed. The newer governments promise to implement stringent austerity measures that are being proposed as a solution to the crisis. However, how much of austerity can actually be implemented, and what good such measures will do to resolve the crisis is highly doubtful.
European Banks and Asia
Nov 17th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
European banks are being forced to take a haircut to deal with the region's crisis. Given their greater role in total international funding and the significant exposure of Asian financial systems to global capital, this raises concerns about the likely impact that the European banking crisis would have on Asia.
Pills, Patents and Profits
Nov 16th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
It is widely accepted that regulation and control in India's pharmaceutical sector had resulted in India ensuring access to cheap medicines for its population. However, liberalisation policies have eroded away much of the benefits. The newly proposed National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy, 2011 can do further damage by weakening the current price control regulations.
Employment Generation as an Economic Strategy for Uncertain Times
Nov 14th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
This is the acceptance speech made by the author at the award function of the ILO Decent Work Research Prize, 2010. Discussing the growing pressures in the current global scenario, she argues for a shift in macroeconomic strategy towards domestic wage- and employment-led growth as a means to sustainable growth, as well as an end in itself.
Protest in the Age of Crises
Nov 2nd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
If the Occupy Wall Street movement is to acquire strength to actually confront the might of finance capital and the state it controls, it must find greater cohesion, with an organisational structure and a programme that goes beyond anger against the capitalist system and the condition to which it has reduced the majority.
Karuturistan, Ethiopia: The fire next time?
Oct 21st 2011, Alemayehu G. Mariam
Karuturi is an Indian MNC that currently owns 2,500 sq km of virgin fertile land in Gambala, Ethiopia, where it practices corporate farming. The project has not only displaced local inhabitants from their homeland, it is also impoverishing the local community by bringing in farmers from India and thereby denying local people the right to livelihood. The produce is meant to be exported to the international market, whereas Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of foreign food aid.
Much More Needed to Help the Poor
Oct 19th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan is not only disappointing, but also disturbing in its attitude towards poverty reduction. Multidimensional approach to poverty, which any sensible government would adopt today, is ignored in the Approach paper and the policy interventions that have been proposed are pathetic.
The G20 and Employment Outlook
Oct 12th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
A recent ILO document on employment and labour market outlook in G20 countries points towards an economic crisis of major magnitude in most of them. According to the report, the two key challenges for global policy makers at present are to ensure better utilisation of labour resources and better quality jobs.
''Planning'' for Whom?
Oct 12th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
There are some fundamental changes in the Planning Commission's current perspective relative to the earlier periods. In the post-Independence years, pursuit of profit was not seen as being in the social interest and this was reflected in the nature of development planning. But now, profit is the sole motive and the role of the state is to merely facilitate this by incentivising corporate activity.
What World Leaders Need to Do Urgently (but are not)
Oct 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Global leaders' efforts to control the prevailing anarchy and enable recovery in their economies end up having the opposite effect, because the direction of their macroeconomic policies is all wrong and mobile finance capital is still largely unregulated. Here are five basic steps that world leaders need to take.
How Little can a Person Live on Today?
Oct 3rd 2011, Utsa Patnaik
The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ''poverty line'' follow from a mistake in method which it made thirty years ago and has clung to ever since. On the basis of the officially accepted nutritional norms, the true poverty lines show that 75 percent of the population is in poverty. With this high level of destitution, the sensible policy is to revert to a universal distribution system with an urban employment guarantee scheme.
Poverty Lines and Poor Minds
Oct 3rd 2011, Himanshu
There is much academic debate on the appropriate estimates of poverty line. Poverty lines are benchmarks for policy makers to measure progress over time. The use of such measures for targeting social assistance is arbitrary. The Planning Commission's use of narrowly defined poverty line estimates restricts access of the poor to basic entitlements such as food and health. What is required is universal provisioning of these entitlements without recourse to any targeting.
Shifting Havens for Capital
Sep 30th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
In parallel with the sudden strengthening of the dollar recently, the value of a whole host of alternative assets has fallen. In the process developing countries that have been the targets of financial investors and those dependent on commodity exports have become particularly vulnerable.
Approaching the 12th Plan
Sep 26th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Considering India's slow growth of employment in the recent period because of our demographic bulge and increasing numbers of educated youth in search of productive employment, the need of the hour is to redesign our growth strategy and use social policy and social expenditure to generate more employment as employment creation is the most important mechanism for achieving inclusive economic growth.
Nix to Both Teams: People's power can only work within a structured
system
Sep 12th 2011, Ashok Mitra
Although people's power is a beautiful idea, it can work only within the format of a structured system. While the Anna Hazare movement leaves lessons for the government and the Parliament, it should also make the nation realise the perils from excesses indulged in the name of the people's will.
Afterword on a Movement
Sep 7th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
Any undermining of parliamentary democracy represents a huge social retrogression. But a positive fall-out from the Hazare movement hopefully is self-rectification by the ''democratic State'' in the face of this challenge. However, the Hazare group's assault on parliamentary institutions and exclusive emphasis on corruption within the state machinery, to the exclusion of the corporate sector and civil society groups, could turn out to be a part of an agenda of converting Indian democracy into a ''corporatocracy''.
Evading an Inflation Cure
Sep 7th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The changing responses of the government to persisting inflation suggest that the government has given up on the task of curbing inflation and expects that people would learn to live with the phenomenon and adjust. Thus the focus on the long-run supply constraints in agriculture as being the reason for the recent inflationary surge is to evade rather than address the problem of inflation.
Grabbing Global Farmland
Sep 7th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is essential to fight the irresponsible and exploitative behavior manifested by Indian companies involved in the recent trend in large-scale overseas acquisitions of farmland and the undemocratic processes underlying these land grabs. Without this, the struggle for greater economic justice within India will also be undermined.
The Consequences of Increasing Access to Education
Sep 1st 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Globally, there has been a rise in student enrolments in educational institutions, which is a welcome improvement. However, this development gives rise to newer challenges of providing productive employment to meet the aspirations of the newly educated youths. Failure to do so can generate discontent and social tensions that can be destabilizing factors for all societies in the near future.
Global Disorder and the Indian Economy
Aug 25th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The Indian economy is showing the classic signs of a bubble economy and any small signs of external vulnerability and economic fragility can cause it to burst. Crucial possible downsides of the current round of global uncertainty for India and other emerging markets include the lack of import demand growth in the US and the EU, renewed inflows of mobile capital, etc.
Is China next?
Aug 10th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
While some observers expect a collapse of the property boom in China and a resultant crisis, this seems unlikely to happen because the state, still a major player in China, is responding to the danger in more ways than one.
The Urbanisation Challenge
Aug 10th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Addressing the problems posed by growing ''urbanisation'' is one of the major challenges for India at present. The country faces a potentially deadly combination of growing population in small urban areas with poor or possibly non-existent facilities and inadequate good quality employment generation.
America's Debt-ceiling Crisis
Aug 4th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The compromise between Obama and the Republicans to end the US debt-ceiling crisis has done great damage in terms of a sharp regression in income distribution and a remarkable shift to the Right in the US, as well as an aggravation of the recession in the world economy.
Policy Inertia, Oil and Inflation
Jul 14th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The Union government's reluctance to look for alternate measures to ease oil price rise fuelled by international shocks reflects a policy inertia stemming from its deep faith in the market mechanism. However the state governments and the consumers who have to bear the additional burden of such price hikes are at the receiving end.
Global Oil Prices
Jul 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Recent price changes in global oil markets are increasingly affected by forces that have more to do with financial speculation and expectations than with current movements in demand and supply. In the current oil price surge, the real gainers are the financial speculators in oil futures markets and the big oil companies.
Changing Guard at the IMF?
Jul 6th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The change of guard at the IMF would not make a difference as long as there is no significant change in the Fund's approach to economic policies. Despite the experience of continually getting it wrong in so many countries over so many decades, the Fund is still persisting in imposing the blatantly counterproductive strategy of fiscal austerity everywhere.
Gassing the State
Jun 29th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
Corruption has reached unprecedented levels and constitutes the fundamental problem that India is facing today. It stems from the neoliberal reform that sought to attract private capital into a lucrative and sensitive area such as petroleum.
Why is India Suddenly so Angry about Corruption?
Jun 18th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Post liberalisation, market-oriented reforms have delivered higher aggregate growth but also significantly increased economic inequality and material insecurity for the majority of India's population. The recent outrage against corruption in India reflects a great betrayal felt by a populace that had been told that the era of neoliberal economic policies would end vices that were supposedly associated with greater government involvement in economic activity.
Commodities and Corruption
Jun 6th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular polity. Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity. But the incident of four senior central ministers kow-towing most abjectly to a ''Baba'' proves that neo-liberal India, far from countering pre-modernity, is actually strengthening it. This proves the leftist argument that in countries embarking late on capitalist development, the bourgeoisie allies itself with the feudal and semi-feudal elements that impedes the march to modernity.
Trading Growth for Inflation
May 27th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
If inflation is influenced by global developments, adjusting domestic interest rates may do little to redress the problem. The RBI's latest interest rate manoeuvre may thus end up being successful in contracting demand and growth, but it is likely to fail to rein in inflation.
Depriving Dalits of their Due
May 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The denial of public resources that are mandated under the Special Component Plans for Scheduled Castes amounts to a huge assault on their basic socio-economic rights, as it forces them to continue to live in squalor and degradation.
Politics in the Digital Age
Apr 20th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
While there is all-round acceptance that corruption needs to be combated, the recent much-hyped movement for a bill on the Lok Pal has generated a number of questions, objections and criticisms. The most important of these is the fact that corruption in societies such as ours is not just political, but also structurally embedded.
The Growth-discrimination Nexus
Apr 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is argued by many that market forces break open age-old social norms, particularly those of caste and gender. However, unfortunately, capitalism in India, especially in its most recent globally integrated variant, has used social discrimination and exclusion to its own benefit, to take forward the growth tory.
Socialist and/or Feminist?
Apr 11th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Across countries, socialist feminists face a dual struggle: the need to address and confront the unjust economic order that is expressed in class societies, and the simultaneous need to address and confront the constantly regenerated patterns of gender inequality and subordination.
Revisiting Financial Reform
Apr 8th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
India is doing away with specialised development banking institutions on the grounds that equity and bond markets would finance industrial development. This is bound to lead to a shortfall in finance for long-term investments, especially for medium and small enterprises. The experience of countries such as Brazil, which has thus far not opted for this trajectory, may be educative.
Why West Bengal Needs a Left Government
Apr 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is not only for taking forward the struggle for democracy but also the successful achievements of the Left government in the areas of land distribution and health that West Bengal should have a government headed by a revitalised Left Front. It is essential to consolidate these achievements and move forward, rather than allow them to be dissipated or even reversed.
The Onion Price Rise: What actually made us cry?
Feb 21st 2011, Ann Mary John
It is unfair to hold only supply side factors responsible for the upswings in onion prices. Food price inflation can be seen to have been caused by the government's action (inaction) and not by the emerging domestic demand or the unfortunate supply side conditions alone.
Teaser Mania
Feb 9th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The Reserve Bank of India's advice to banks to withdraw loans offered with teaser interest rates comes as a precautionary measure to avoid any crisis of the sub-prime type as India remains prone to such crises. Substantial retail lending by Indian banks using teaser rate loans, especially to the housing market, has led to this apprehension.
The Paradox of Capitalism
Feb 4th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The fact that the bulk of the world's population continues to struggle for subsistence is because of the incubus of an exploitative social order; but this is often obscured by analyses that continue to cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the ''economic problem of mankind''.
Is the MNREGS Affecting Rural Wages?
Feb 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Despite numerous problems with the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Scheme has borne some positive results. Ironically, the moderate success of the Scheme in improving the conditions and bargaining power of rural labour, including that of women workers, has now become another source of its criticism.
Policy Paralysis and Inflation
Feb 3rd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The price trends over the last one-and-a-half years suggest that inflation is being driven by factors which are structurally embedded in the economic environment generated by the government's neoliberal reform agenda adopted for two decades now. Further, neoliberal thinking is leading not only to policy paralysis and absurd reasoning, but also to policy responses that are contrary to what is needed.
Diluting the Right to Food
Feb 2nd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
In its task of formulating the Food Security Bill, the National Advisory Council has ended up recognizing the supply constraints that could hinder implementation of the bill which guarantees universal access to food through a public distribution system.
Going after the Little Guys
Jan 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
In order to control their large volume of non-performing assets (most of which are loans made to large corporate houses), several commercial banks in India are selling off their small NPA accounts to private players at a large discount. By doing so, the banks are indirectly putting great pressure on the small scale producers, the middle class families and other similar groups for repayment instead of the large defaulters.
The Criminalization of Dissent
Jan 13th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The official position idealising economic growth as a national goal and vilifying any opposition to it as anti-national, is reification. But, equally importantly, it is dangerous, both because it criminalizes ideological dissent and because it implicitly justifies corporate control over the State.
Food Inflation and Agricultural Swaraj
Jan 3rd 2011, Rahul Goswami
The price of a basket of staple foods has become crippling in rural and urban India. The government's response is to favour agri-commodity markets, greater retail investment and more technology inputs. For food growers and consumers alike, the need for genuine farm swaraj has never been greater.
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