Thursday, October 17, 2019

The politics behind Abhijit Banerjee getting Noble Prize


On October 15, the Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee jointly won the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with his wife Esther Duflo and Harvard's Michael Kremer.

After winning the award, Banerjee, in a press conference in New York, said that Indian economy is "doing very badly" even as the government is increasingly recognising that there is a problem.

We must all be proud because of an India-born economist winning the award, but his remarks needs to be thoroughly diagnosed.

There are two major indicators that show if an economy is doing well or not. Those are - forex and gold reserves of a country.

As on October 4, India’s foreign exchange reserves had hit a record high of $437.833 billion, as per the data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The foreign currency assets (FCA), which form a key component of reserves, had risen by $3.996 billion to $405.611 billion.

On the gold reserves front, India had entered the league of world's top-10 gold holding central banks, which was confirmed by a data released by World Gold Council on June 4. The RBI held 612.6 tonnes of the metal as part of its foreign exchange reserves and dislodged the Netherlands from the 10th spot.

No other country can understand the value of gold reserves as it does. The Chandra Shekhar government had pledged 46.91 tonnes of gold with the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan to raise $400 million to avoid default on overseas payment obligations.

Yashwant Sinha, who is the most vocal critique of Narendra Modi government's economic policies, was the finance minister then. Phew!

The increase in forex and gold reserves, clearly indicates the robustness of the Indian economy.

Apart from these two parameters, there are few other factors which also indicate the soundness of Indian economy.

Factor 1: For the first time in UN history, India is among 34 UN member states which has paid its regular budget dues in full and on time to the world organisation, when rich-countries like US, Saudi Arabia and Oman, among 64 members states have not paid theirs.

The non-payment by these countries has resulted in the UN facing a severe liquidity crisis. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the world organization will not have enough cash by November to cover payrolls.

In this grave scenario, India has paid 23.25 million dollars in regular budget assessments by January 31, 2019, the 30-day due period specified as per UN's Financial Regulation rules.

Factor 2: Never before in its history, India had paid oil import bills of Iran. In the previous round of US sanctions, India had settled 45 per cent of oil payments in rupees and the remainder in euros After the fresh US sanction, India had signed a deal with Iran to make all payments in rupees to fix its trade balance with Tehran.

Factor 3: The Indian government also took a very bold decision to cut corporate tax from 30 per cent to 22 per cent, which would result in a revenue loss of Rs 1.45 lakh crore to the Indian exchequer.

Factor 4: The decision to increase five per cent, from 12 to 17 per cent, Dearness Allowance of central government employees, also would cause a revenue loss of Rs 15,909.35 crore.

Factor 5: Yet another scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, is going to cost the Indian treasury Rs 75,000 crore. The scheme would benefit 12 crore farmers across India.

As per reports on April 23, the government has already transferred Rs 10,500 crore to farmers' accounts, comprising first and second installments.

Also the Interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, just before the elections, had also allocated Rs 60,000 crore for NREGS scheme in 2019-20.

For fiscal year 2018-19, NREGS was allocated Rs 55,000 crore.

These decisions taken by the Modi government clearly shows it has enough money in the exchequer to meet these promises.

Also, for the first time in 20 years, India has raced past China on FDI front in 2018. This has changed the dynamics of attractive Asian market.

India had attracted 253 inbound deals amounting to $39.515 billion compared to China's $33.02 billion in 397 inbound deals in 2018, as per a data from Dealogic, a global financial markets platform.

Despite these positive indicators, on what basis the left brigade and the Lutyens media are raising a noise over slowdown?

They are arguing on the basis of fluctuating rupee value, consumer sentiments and quarter-on-quarter GDP number.

In reality, these economic parameters do not interest Indian voters, except matters of corruption and inflation, which were non-issues in last general election.

India's inflation, as per the Economic Survey released on July 4, was at low levels in past five years of NDA rule, compared to a decade's UPA rule.

During NDA rule, from 1999 to 2004, the average rate of inflation was 4.1 per cent while it was 5.l8 per cent between 2004 and 2009 during UPA-I.

During UPA-II rule, from 2009 to 2014, the average rate of inflation was 10.4 per cent, while from 2014 to till September 2018, during NDA rule, the average inflation rate was 4.7 per cent.

So, if inflation is under check, is there any urge in the people to spend at all? This is a very pertinent question raised by the Lutyens media and the left brigade, which had resorted to fear-mongering on it just before the start of Indian festival season.

Consider this: In the first six days of the festive sale from September 29-October 4, e-retailers Amazon and Flipkart in India achieved a record nearly Rs 19,000 crore of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV).

Given the momentum seen in the first edition of the festive sale, the entire month of October is expected to generate up to Rs 39,000 crore in online sales, almost shared by Amazon and Flipkart. This was reported by Bengaluru-based research firm RedSeer Consultancy.

This is just one small example of positive consumer sentiment prevaling in the organised sector, but what about the unorganized sector? Those numbers are not accounted as GDP numbers? For sure, the liquidity is much higher than the organised sector.

Amidst this positive scenario, it is astonishing to hear Abhijit Banerjee saying that the Indian economy is doing badly. He also had expressed his disappointment over Modi government for rolling back taxes on the rich and said these steps wouldn't save the economy from the current downturn. "Taxing the rich is the first step towards a stable economy where people are not desperate," he had said.

If Congress would have won the election and Nyay scheme implemented, it would have pushed India's economy to Chandra Shekhar and Manmohan Singh's eras.

WHO CREATES these anti-India brands like Amartya Sen, Raghuram Rajan and Abhijit Banerjee? And for what purpose?

Consider this: Amartya Sen was awarded Nobel Prize on the recommendation of Rothschild family, which has a reputation of enriching itself on growing misery around the world at slightest of opportunities.

It also has a history of manipulating stock markets, funding world wars, engineering largescale decisions in their favor, exercising significant control over the banking system, and owning large media outlets to influence public opinion in their favor.

Yet another India-born economist Raghuram Rajan belongs to an elite group of economist czars called the Group of Thirty, which is sponsored Rockefeller Foundation.

The Group of Thirty strategises use of debt crisis to smash sovereignty of each country.

Their perspective is to create a world council with executive powers to dictate and supervise financial policies of each sovereign nation to allow free reign for nation-less capital.

This entity would be made up of the IMF and the Central banks, act independently from national governments, and be coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements, based in Basel, Switzerland.

This group, it is quite evident, has scant respect for sovereignty of nations and their economic growth, and so does Raghuram Rajan. His policies as RBI Governor had dealt a major blow to India’s growth story.

During his tenure, loans had become costlier due to hike in interest rate. MSMEs dried up under his watch due to the Prompt Corrective Action, which put a ban on fresh lendings to them. On the contrary, public sector banks gave loans based on a phone calls from crony leaders. In fact, the public sector banks had the worst phase under his watch.

The ban on fresh lendings not only affected MSMEs, but also big industries because very few businesses in the country enjoy access to alternative sources of capital.

Some of his public speeches were shocking to the core. He once advocated moving of Indian workforce from agriculture to industry and services. If implemented, it has the potential of damaging the Indian economy and increasing unemployment. Instead, a boost in agriculture means more employment for low skilled labor and unskilled labor in the country.

So much from Raghuram Rajan, what about Amartya Sen? He was responsible for many devastating economic policies, including the ill-conceived NREG, which suffered from corruption and inefficiencies. The scheme, which was launched during UPA rule, hardly gave 43 days of employment per year.

With Rs 2 lakh crore spent on the scheme, only 2.7 million jobs were created during 2005-10 under UPA.

Less said the better about Abhijit Banerjee. He was the brain behind Congress' Nyay scheme, which was believed to be a huge burden of Indian economy if implemented.

The scheme, which promised to provide Rs 72,000 annually to about five crore of poorest Indian families, is based on dole-out economics, which discourages masses to develop self-sufficiency. This model perpetuates poverty and ensures a solid vote-bank for the Congress.

This also works in favour of the benefactors of anti-national international foundations, which create these soundbite masters to push their agendas.

Or simply, are they paying their dues owed to their creators? Looks so ...

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