by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News, Politics
London : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday compared the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist organization, and said the RSS wanted to “capture” every institution of the country.
The RSS was trying to change the very nature of India, he alleged.
Rahul Gandhi was speaking at an event in London in the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). Gandhi said: “We are fighting an organisation called the RSS, which is trying to change the nature of India. There is no other organisation in India that wants to capture India’s institutions,” he added.
Gandhi said: “What we are dealing with is a completely new idea. It is similar to the idea that exists in the Arab world in the form of Muslim Brotherhood. And the idea is that an ideology should run through every institutions, one idea should crush all other ideas.”
Citing a few examples, he said: “You see the response of four Supreme Court judges, who came out and said ‘we are not being allowed to do our work’. You see Raghuram Rajan (former RBI Governor) and the shock of demonetisation. You can see India’s institions being torn down one by one. That requires a response, a response that has to include all who value what India has achieved,” he said.
Gandhi said the decision on demonetisation bypassed every single institution. “Demonetisation was an attack on small and medium businesses, which is India’s real power,” he said.
“It took a week for economists to figure out what has been done (by demonetization). The RBI was not spoken to, the finance minister didn’t know of it. The cabinet was locked up. The idea came from the RSS directly,” he said.
On lessons learnt from the electoral defeat in 2014, Gandhi said: “That you have to listen, the leadership is about listening, leadership is about empathy. At a party level, I think there was a certain degree of arrogance that had crept into the Congress. So, never forget that the party is actually the people. That’s a lesson for every body in the Congress,” he added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Markets, News
By Rohit Vaid,
Mumbai : Fears over a rise in global protectionist measures, along with rupee movement and direction of foreign funds, are likely to chart the course of major domestic equity indices during the week starting on August 20.
“Global risk will drive the market sentiments next week. The news on US-China talks to resolve trade disputes later in the year will boost the sentiment,” Devendra Nevgi, Delta Global Partners Founder and Principal Partner, told IANS.
“The news emanating from Jackson Hole Symposium, where the US Fed Chairman is expected to comment on the policy rates, will be watched next week,” Nevgi added.
Consequently, investors will remain cautious over the possibility of any impending hike in the US interest rates which can potentially drive away Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) from emerging markets such as India.
“Besides, rupee movement and crude oil price movements along with inflow and outflow by the foreign and domestic players will dictate the trend of the market going ahead,” SMC Investments & Advisors’ Chairman and Managing Director D.K. Aggarwal told IANS.
According to Anindya Banerjee, Deputy Vice President for Currency and Interest Rates with Kotak Securities, the Indian rupee is expected to range from 69.50 to 70.50 against the US dollar in the coming week.
In recent days, geo-political tensions between the US and Turkey, wider trade deficit, along with outflow of foreign funds have pulled the Indian rupee to fresh record intra-day and closing lows.
On Thursday, the Indian rupee plunged to an intra-day level of 70.39-40 — its lowest-ever mark — against the greenback, prompting some automobile manufacturers and other import dependent sectors to raise prices.
It settled at a record closing low of 70.16 against the US dollar on Thursday.
Besides the rupee, foreign fund inflows into the country might get impacted due to “global risk aversion”.
In terms of investments, provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 2,028.47 crore during August 13-16.
“Emerging market sentiment remains negative which is reflected in the net selling by FPI, and the DII support is vital for the continued momentum in the markets,” Nevgi said.
On technical levels, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty50 remains in an uptrend.
“Technically, with the Nifty surging to new highs, its intermediate trend remains up,” Deepak Jasani, Head – Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.
“The intermediate uptrend is likely to continue once the immediate resistance of 11,495 points is taken out. Crucial supports to watch for resumption of weakness is at 11,340 points.”
Last week, both key Indian equity indices — S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 — rose on the back of easing inflation data along with broadly positive global cues.
However, a slump in the Indian rupee limited the gains on equity indices.
On a weekly basis, the S&P BSE Sensex closed at 37,947.88 points, higher 78.65 points or 0.21 per cent from its previous week’s close.
Similarly, the wider NSE Nifty50 made substantial gains. On Friday, it ended at a record closing high of 11,470.75 points, higher 41.25 points or 0.36 per cent from the previous week’s close.
(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amit Kapoor and Chirag Yadav,
It took just over seven decades after the British left India, but recent growth trends make it clear that this year the latter will overtake its erstwhile coloniser to become the fifth-largest economy in the world.
A few months ago, World Bank data revealed that India had already muscled past the French economy in 2017; another minor coloniser of the Indian subcontinent. At this pace, it is estimated that around the centenary of Indian independence, the power balance that existed for most of the past 2000 years will be restored, where China and India would be much larger economies than that of Europe or America.
India has come a long way in its 71 years of independence. The average Indian is today seven times richer than what he was in 1947. The education and health standards, despite being severely wanting, have witnessed significant gains as well. While only 18 percent of the population was literate in 1951, the figure has now risen to account for approximately three-fourth of the country. The gross enrolment in elementary education is also reaching near universal levels, although a lot of challenges remain to be addressed in the actual learning imparted. On the health front, Indians who used to survive to an average age of 32 at the time of independence, now live up to 68 years of age. Infant mortality rate has declined from 146 in 1951 to less than 34 as of today.
But, all of this seems less of an achievement when seen in relative terms. If the Human Development Index (HDI) is taken an approximation of social indicators, India still ranks 131 out of 188 countries in the world. On the economic front, an average Indian has an annual income of $1,940, which puts India firmly in the category of “lower-middle income” economies by the World Bank. By comparison, China, which was at the same level of per capita income as India from its independence till 1980, has achieved “middle income” country status with a per capita income of $8,827.
At best, India could be where China is today in the next decade or so. And only if it continues growing at that pace can India become larger than Europe and America by the middle of the century. It is the hope of such progress that excites the world about India. But this prospect presupposes a kind of sustained growth that no country has ever managed, with a unique exception of China. Brazil underwent a brief high-growth phase of around 8 percent annually from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Similarly, Thailand became the world’s fastest-growing economy for the decade beginning from 1985 before it was interrupted by the Asian financial crisis. Only China managed to sustain such rates for much longer than a decade, but that is a model which cannot, and probably should not, be replicated.
Yet if India manages to achieve the feat by the centenary of its independence with an estimated population of 1.7 billion, it will bring more people into prosperity than any other country in the history of the world. It will also be the first democracy in the world to do so rather than turning into one while it grew prosperous, which was the case with America and Britain. This is exactly where the Indian economy and its growth differs from the rest of the world and why its achievements are still wonderous despite their relative deficiencies.
The founders of independent India chose to adopt the path of democracy at a time when large swathes of the population were unaware of the concept. Indian leaders chose the path of universal adult franchise at a time when not even advanced Western powers had taken it up and at a scale that nobody in history had done before. As the eminent educationist, Sunil Khilnani, put it in “Idea of India”: “India became a democracy without really knowing how, why or what it meant to be one.” Yet the democratic spirit allowed the survival and progress of the country when almost everyone expected it to fall apart at some point due to its diverse mix of people and interests.
However, taking everyone’s interests into account and discussing and debating policies probably also slowed down the growth process for India. It is often argued that it might be better for economies to grow under authoritarian rule initially and slowly turn into a democracy as people become more prosperous and aware of their rights. India perhaps adopted democracy too soon. But India has led the way in making economic advances while taking the interests of its entire population into consideration. And throughout its independent history when a leader has gone awry, the democratic machine has voted him or her out of power, albeit with some lag in the mid-1970s. The Indian democracy is the miracle in its last 71 years of independence. Whether it is where we stand today or where we are headed in the future, the wheel of democracy plays a guiding role. It might take longer to get there but that is probably the price of its resilience.
(Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness and Chirag Yadav is senior researcher, Institute for Competitiveness. Their book, Age of Awakening, will be published later this year. The views expressed are personal)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, Markets, News, Politics
New Delhi : Indian stock exchanges need to further reconcile their regulatory functions with market interests in order to protect and promote the interest of retail depositors, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE)’s silver jubilee celebrations here at which the NSE unveiled its new logo, Kumar also urged domestic capital markets to bring about better reconciliation between the Indian spot and derivative markets so as to win the confidence of small investors.
“Our exchanges perform regulatory functions and here they need to consider if there is a trade-off between that and profit maximisation,” he said.
“This is required to protect the interests of retail depositors, so that the markets can go ahead with the work of inorganic growth.”
The NITI Aayog Vice Chairman said that a reflection of the situation is seen in the fact that despite best efforts of the NSE, only two per cent of Indian households have come into the capital market.
“In the common Indian mind, the stock market is still a ‘satta’ (gambling) bazaar over which they have no control … a place controlled only by the big players,” Kumar said.
“The NSE should aim like it is in the US, for instance, where 40 per cent of the households are involved in the capital market.”
Kumar noted in this regard that the size of derivatives trading in India is more than 40 times the “underlying equity trading” and called for better reconciliation between the two to boost retail investors’ confidence in the stock markets.
“While the stock exchanges have done a great deal to bring the SME segment of the economy into the capital markets, the bourses need to do more to integrate more small and medium enterprises with the capital market,” Kumar said.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was the Finance Minister when the NSE was established in 1994, was also present on the occasion, along with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
As per the World Federation of Exchanges, the NSE is 3rd largest exchange in the world in terms of volume of trades, while it is ranked No. 1 on index options contracts and No. 2 on currency derivatives contracts.
The NSE’s new logo is a reworking of its earlier one with the addition of marigold, yellow, red and blue, symbolising integrity, excellence, trust and commitment.
“The multiple colours capture the multifaceted nature of the business, with red denoting NSE’s strong foundation, yellow and orange being inspired by the marigold flower that signifies prosperity and auspicious ventures, and the blue triangle is a compass, always future-oriented and helping us find our true North,” an exchange statement said.
“The new brand identity reflects NSE’s multi-dimensional nature: multiple asset classes, multiple customer segments and its multiple roles including that of an exchange, regulator, educator and market developer,” it added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Markets, News, Technology
By Gokul Bhagabati,
New Delhi : By increasing productivity and reducing cost, Blockchain technology has the potential to create value of up to $5 billion in India in the next five years, a top official of IT industry’s apex body Nasscom has stressed.
“The Blockchain ecosystem is evolving in India. Creating awareness on how this technology is simpler and easier to use with the existing social media and Cloud technology can go a long way in helping the country realise its potential,” KS Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiative), Nasscom, told IANS in an interview.
Based on distributed storage of data, Blockchain technology can enhance the speed of transactions while increasing transparency. It is widely recognised as having the potential to transform several sectors of the economy, including banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industry, travel, retail, healthcare and supplsy chain, among others.
But despite its potential, the response of Indian organisations to adopt this technology has been far from enthusiastic.
The primary factors that are holding back the widespread deployment of this tehnology in India is lack of awareness, unavailability of adequate skilled persons and insufficient computing infrastructure, Viswanathan, who also head Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups initiative, said.
“There are currently just 20-30 good Blockchain startups in the country,” Viswanathan said, adding that one way to increase investment in Blockchain is to invest in startups.
To create awareness on the importance of the technology and develop skill sets for Blockchain adoption and deployment in India, Nasscom in February tied up with Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), Canada.
The two entities agreed to collaborate on various activities, including joint webinars and knowledge sharing.
The industry body earlier this month also launched a platform, called FutureSkills, for skills development in eight varied technologies — Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), robotic process automation, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, 3D printing, Cloud computing, and social and mobile.
This platform was launched with the aim of up-skilling two million technology professions and skilling another two million potential employees and students over the next few years.
While cyber security was later added to the list as the 9th skill, Viswanathan said that Blockchain will be added to the list as the 10th skill by October this year.
In collaboration with BRI, Nasscom also started the first Nasscom Industry Partnership Programme (NIPP) Blockchain challenge from June this year.
The shortlisted teams will come together for a 36-hour session in Bangaluru, to be held on July 28-29, to explore new opportunities for co-creating innovative solutions in the areas of Blockchain technology.
For the challenge, eight large corporates including Fidelity Investments, Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI), ICICI Bank, Amdocs, SAP Labs, Wipro and IBM (which is also the knowledge partner) have joined the initiative as strategic partners.
“Boosting skill levels, creating awareness on how this technology is simpler and easier to use with the existing social media and Cloud technology, organising multiple hackathons and getting international research papers on Blockchain published are among the priorities that Nasscom is focusing on to increase deployment of the technology,” Viswanathan said.
He said that time is not yet ripe for India to think about a regulatory framework specifically for Blockchain as it can come under the ambit of regulations on data security and privacy.
(Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
—IANS
