News Analysis India

Tag: Raghuram Rajan

  • Funds devolution rows: Siddaramaiah defends Raghuram Rajan, accuses BJP of twisting his report to defend itself

    Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday attacked the BJP, accusing the party of twisting former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan committee report to suit its political narrative. The saffron party had claimed that the committee had in 2013 suggested that Karnataka’s share of funds from the Centre should be reduced from 4.13% to 3.73%.

    The CM’s defense of the former RBI governor on social media platform X comes amidst reports of the Congress party considering fielding the latter for a Rajya Sabha ticket. “The narrative, suggesting that the committee headed by Raghuram Rajan recommended a reduction in Karnataka’s share of tax revenue is not only inaccurate but also a misinterpretation of the committee’s role,” Siddaramaiah said. The committee’s focus, he added, was on ensuring a balanced distribution of certain development funds to enhance the overall growth and progress of all states, particularly those lagging in specific development parameters.

    “These recommendations were not meant to replace existing methodologies for devolution of taxes allocation,” he said. The Finance Commission, he added, operated independently of such committees. “Was the 15th Finance Commission constituted in 2019 by [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi influenced by some committee which gave a report in September 2013?”The CM hit out at the BJP’s state party president BY Vijayendra- who had made the statements, accusing him of being willing to “forsake the very heart and soul of Kannadiga pride,” all for the sake of winning approval from BJP high command. The BJP leaders’ actions, he said, revealed a “chilling indifference” to the fate of the state. “This act of betrayal, this glaring abandonment of honesty, tears at the very essence of Karnataka Pride,” he added.

    With Lok Sabha polls a few months away, the Congress and its allies have been cornering the BJP on the topic of fiscal inequality towards the states, with protests in the national capital as well as social media campaigns.

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  • Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra: Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan joins Rajasthan leg

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: Reserve Bank of India’s former governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday joined Rahul Gandhi during the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Rajasthan.

    The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7, is passing through Rajasthan.

    The yatra will complete 100 days on Friday.

    A strong and sound economy is a combination of growth and welfare.Our vision is to reclaim that India.We are glad that Former RBI Governor & leading Economist, Shri Raghuram Rajan joined the #BharatJodoYatra in our endeavour to build an agenda for the future. pic.twitter.com/WeM0gq9uk7
    — Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) December 14, 2022
    The yatra resumed from the Bhadoti area of Sawai Madhopur on Wednesday and reached Badhshapura for a morning break.

    Rajan walked with Gandhi during this leg of the yatra on Wednesday.

    “#BharatJodoYatra Shri Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of RBI, shaking steps with @RahulGandhi ji… The increasing number of people standing up to unite the country against hatred shows that we will be successful,” The Indian National Congress tweeted along with a picture of Rajan walking with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

    Dr Raghuram Rajan was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2013 and September 2016. Between 2003 and 2006, he was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund.

    The yatra will resume at 3.30 pm and the evening break will be in Bagdi village of Dausa at 6.30 pm.

    JAIPUR: Reserve Bank of India’s former governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday joined Rahul Gandhi during the Congress-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Rajasthan.

    The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7, is passing through Rajasthan.

    The yatra will complete 100 days on Friday.

    A strong and sound economy is a combination of growth and welfare.
    Our vision is to reclaim that India.
    We are glad that Former RBI Governor & leading Economist, Shri Raghuram Rajan joined the #BharatJodoYatra in our endeavour to build an agenda for the future. pic.twitter.com/WeM0gq9uk7
    — Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) December 14, 2022
    The yatra resumed from the Bhadoti area of Sawai Madhopur on Wednesday and reached Badhshapura for a morning break.

    Rajan walked with Gandhi during this leg of the yatra on Wednesday.

    “#BharatJodoYatra Shri Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of RBI, shaking steps with @RahulGandhi ji… The increasing number of people standing up to unite the country against hatred shows that we will be successful,” The Indian National Congress tweeted along with a picture of Rajan walking with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

    Dr Raghuram Rajan was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2013 and September 2016. Between 2003 and 2006, he was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund.

    The yatra will resume at 3.30 pm and the evening break will be in Bagdi village of Dausa at 6.30 pm.

  • Learning loss a tragedy, but no mention in Union Budget: Raghuram Rajan

    Express News Service

    Former Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan has expressed concern over lack of focus on the learning loss caused due to Covid-19 among school children in the Union Budget, while a significant amount of money was allocated for production linked incentive (PLI) schemes meant for industries.

    Delivering a lecture on ‘Democracy and Indian Economic Development’ at an event organised by the Madras Institute of Development Studies on Thursday, Rajan said, “The Budget barely mentions the tragedy that is overtaking our school children, especially the poor ones. That very few extra resources are being devoted to rescue a potentially lost generation of children is a serious omission. Devoting money to physical infrastructure while neglecting human infrastructure is absolutely a serious problem.”

    He added that it revealed a serious failure to realise that human capital is as important as industrial capital. Lashing out at the Centre for neglecting the education sector in the Budget, Rajan said the government is not short of money as the Budget further increased production subsidies to industries under various PLI schemes. Rajan is of the view that India has a fixation with building physical infrastructure and becoming a manufacturing hub when its strength is human capital.

    He said that instead of spending on the PLI schemes, the Centre should invest in filling the gaps in our education system, strengthening higher education, skilling and research and development.

    “If we focus on the development of human capital, it will automatically lead to our growth,” said Rajan. He also urged that the PLI schemes be studied in a detailed manner to understand if these subsidies are actually helping industries.

    He noted that India is rebounding today with strong growth numbers despite the impact of war in Ukraine. However, he said, even with strong growth in the fiscal year 2022-23, India’s growth will still be significantly below the pre-pandemic trend line.

    “Our slow growth is not all the fault of the pandemic. Our underperformance predates the pandemic. In fact, we have been underperforming for over a decade, probably since the onset of the global financial crisis,” said Rajan, adding the under-performance is mainly due to the government’s inability to create jobs.

    Taking a dig at the Atma Nirbhar programme, Rajan said that instead of focusing on becoming a manufacturing superpower and trying to manufacture everything here, India needs to work on the service sector, which is its biggest strength.

    He said it would require huge subsidies for India to build an ecosystem from scratch for the manufacturing sector. Instead, this money could have been better invested in education and producing quality engineers and doctors who can provide services globally, thereby creating more jobs and tapping the global demand, he said. 

  • Ashoka University row: Free speech in India suffered grievous blow, says Raghuram Rajan

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has joined his voice to the chorus bemoaning Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s resignation from Ashoka University, saying the institute’s soul has been bartered away.

    In a LinkedIN post, the eminent economist and professor at Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, said free speech had suffered a “grievous blow” in India with Mehta exit from the Ashoka University.

    “Free speech is the soul of a great university. By compromising on it, the founders have bartered away its soul. And if you show a willingness to barter your soul, is there any chance the pressures will go away? This is indeed a sad development for India,” Rajan said, also referring to former chief economic advisor Aravind Subramanian’s resignation in protest against Mehta’s exit.

    His criticism comes a day after over 150 academicians from some of the world’s top universities wrote an open letter to the trustees of Ashoka saying they “should have treated defending him (Mehta) as their institutional duty” instead of forcing him to resign. 

    Academicians from universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Oxford, London School of Economics and Massachusetts Institute of Technology averred that Mehta, “a prominent critic of the current Indian government”, became a “target for his writings”.

    Agreeing with this view, Rajan said, “The reality is that professor Mehta is a thorn in the side of the establishment. He is no ordinary thorn because he skewers those in government and in high offices like the Supreme Court with vivid prose and thought-provoking arguments.”