In 2015, I was summoned to the North Block from the office of the then Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha. For somebody who worked in a bank, my first thought was that some hell had broken loose somewhere; I may have written something that was a slip-up or something. We ended up having a one-hour long conversation and that was it. Nothing … Read More HippoBrain conversation
India can learn a lot from its experience in managing cash – getting a billion people what they need can be planned effectively. A vaccine for Covid-19 is expected to come sometime over the next few months – hopefully in this year. Once a vaccine is available, getting it to India’s billion plus people is a logistical challenge with many moral and ethical questions … Read More Getting the vaccine to a billion plus people
As the Centre and States try to find GST compensation cess monies, it is time to look beyond the present, to see how the future could unfold for State finances. The financial relationship between states and the Centre has been in news recently. The Fifteenth Finance Commission submitted its report to the president; there have been some delays in payment of the GST compensation … Read More State finances: Finding the monies
A house is not merely a place to live and build a life, it is also one of the most significant assets of the family. An investment in a house roots a family to a location, giving them a significant stake in the development of the local area. Housing is a fundamental requirement of human existence. The requirement of shelter is so basic that … Read More Housing needs a stronger mortgage market
This requires confidence, coordination and capital; resolution can’t be imposed using policy actions. When commemorating anniversaries, we tend to reserve our special attention for round-number, decadal years. Last year, around this time, the world—and India—remembered and recounted its lessons from the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) that reverberated across the globe in September 2008. Since it is the nature of history to repeat, but not … Read More Guiding markets from crisis to calm
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The Financial Express For the citizen to be confident, the state has to first believe that it can enforce the rule of law In Mumbai (and this may be true in many other cities in India), many traffic signals start blinking the yellow lights after around 10 pm. These traffic signals are not tucked away in the low density residential areas; they are a … Read More Building State capacity to protect citizens
Akhilesh Tilotia 