'Coalition governments, sometimes assumed to mean years of political instability, actually saw key institutions emerging with greater strength -- the Election Commission, the judiciary, the press, and civil society at large, among others.' 'The question now is whether the clock is being turned back in a new political phase,' asks T N Ninan.
'There is merit in appointing people with ability and energy, then leaving them to do the job.' 'The Modi government would have had a better record if it had stuck to this formula from the beginning,' argues T N Ninan.
'Every Finance Commission creates its winners and losers' point out T N Ninan.
'Else they will form a growing 'hospital sector' -- and the taxpayer will be asked to pick up a mounting bill,' warns T N Ninan.
'We have here the world's largest economy and dominant superpower thrashing about as it wrestles with its own decline.' 'It has become everything that China was supposed to be: A threat to the world order, and as a country that is not playing by the rules on trade, on climate change, international commitments and nuclear deals,' says T N Ninan.
'The one sector where there is still a sense of crisis is banking, but the government has regrettably set its face against privatising any of the government-owned banks,' says T N Ninan.
'The government must find worthwhile private owners for some of the banks, increase the share of private sector banking in the system, and then ask the remaining government banks to face the discipline of the market and compete, or shrink into irrelevance,' says T N Ninan.
'Milking poorly performing or easily marketable assets is the way to deliver more money for key programmes,' says T N Ninan.
'Banks, fund managers, NBFCs, rating agencies, those buying into debt funds -- all of them will have to watch their step as India's financial system enters a new phase,' warns T N Ninan.
'The only credible explanation for the niggardly approach to defence expenditure must be that the government does not expect a war.' 'But wars can happen when you don't expect them, and re-arming at the last minute is not possible,' says T N Ninan.
'You have to hand it to Mukesh for sheer daring.' 'Who else in India would have sunk a stupendous $30 billion in a business that was yet to get a single customer?' 'With that, the older of the Ambani siblings has shown that he is in a class of his own,' says T N Ninan.
'No other language can now take its place. English is the language of professional education, which gives you a passport to a bright future,' says T N Ninan.
That is the number for job creation that India needs to achieve, argues T N Ninan.
'The estimates of tax forgone on this item run into hundreds of billions.' 'And there is neither fairness nor rationality to support continuing with this tax holiday for just one class of investors, those who put their money in shares,' says T N Ninan.
'While investors in Reliance have had to play a game of patience for long stretches, for Anil the challenge is to do what used to be his brother's forte -- generating cash by putting assets in the ground and making things,' says T N Ninan.
'At least three top bureaucrats have been declared guilty in recent years in connection with scams where they had no pecuniary benefit.' 'But in the telecom case, a money trail is declared irrelevant because no scam has been proved in the first place.' 'Fair enough; so we must punish illegality without criminality, but ignore possible criminality as suggestive of illegality,' points out T N Ninan.
A modern economy with strong global linkages must switch to million, billion and so on, says T N Ninan.
The problem is not GST itself, but the nature of an economy dominated by small businesses unable to cope with the complexities of the tax, points out T N Ninan.
'The history of Moody's India ratings tells its own story,' points out T N Ninan.
'The only way to minimise logical inconsistencies and confusion is to develop the two rates of 12% and 18% as the ones that apply to almost all items.' 'At a later stage, these two rates could be merged into a single rate,' advises T N Ninan.
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