Latest news with #RishitaSachdeva
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Business Standard
02-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Careful steps, hidden triggers, and loud echoes
Some days, every step feels like it might blow up in your face. The ground doesn't tremble. It waits. Everything looks normal until it doesn't, and by then, it's too late. That's the thing about minefields: the danger isn't in what you see, but in what's buried just beneath the surface. So you step carefully, eyes scanning the horizon but mind tuned to what's right underfoot. In today's world, every move - political, economic, or social - comes with the weight of potential detonation. Some mines are legacy leftovers, others freshly planted. But none are easy to sidestep. Let's dive in. The Centre's decision to reintroduce caste enumeration in the next census is a step on contested ground. It hasn't been done since 1931, and it's arriving just as caste-based politics regains centrality. As our first editorial points out, the push for 'accurate data' comes with electoral echoes and policy consequences. Southern states fear under-representation, fresh demands for quota could erupt, and the country may step into a cycle of permanent identity math. Markets too are gingerly inching forward. The Nifty gained 3.5 per cent in April, marking its seventh straight monthly gain. But our second editorial highlights, the rally is increasingly narrow, driven by select stocks, while retail exuberance seems to be wearing thin. The underlying minefield? Global tensions, a stubborn US Fed, and a summer that could play havoc with rural incomes and inflation. Meanwhile, India's economic future is shifting geographically, but not without casualties. Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva map how cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gurugram and Dehradun are emerging as national growth nodes. But old industrial bastions like Ludhiana and Kanpur are fading. Uneven policy support and weak infrastructure are the buried charges under India's balanced growth dream. Whereas in the investment world, as Puneet Gupta and Siddharth Shekhar Singh write, private equity money is cautiously retreating from China and sliding into India. But the catch is control. Global funds now want decision-making authority, not just passive returns. India may benefit from this pivot, but only if it offers clarity, not complexity. Finally, in Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India, Karan Madhok's new book on cannabis in India, Amritesh Mukherjee finds a story of legal confusion and cultural contradiction. One step wrong, and what should be reform can quickly blow back as backlash. Stay tuned, and remember, some weeks you stroll and others, you listen for the click underfoot!
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Business Standard
01-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Decoding state growth: Focus on boosting existing economic centres
Strengthening existing economic centres, rather than building greenfield cities, is key to faster state-level growth Shishir Gupta Rishita Sachdeva Listen to This Article Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a clarion call for India to achieve developed country status by 2047. While there is near-unanimity that India's state governments will drive the future reform agenda, the jury is still out on what it takes to accelerate growth. Should states strengthen human or physical capital, or the quality of governance? Should they focus on existing cities or greenfield developments? And should all states pursue the same strategy? An analysis of the gross domestic product (GDP) growth performance of 20 major Indian states over the past 30 years reveals two fundamental axes for accelerated state Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of or the Business Standard newspaper
Time of India
22-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
India needs 7.3% annual growth to be a developed country by 2047: CSEP
India will require an average annual growth rate of 7.3% between 2024 and 2047 to realise the goal of emerging as a developed nation by the centenary of its independence, according to a paper by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). This requires states to be the dominant partners in reforms now, unlike in recent decades when the country's growth story was shaped mainly by the central government initiatives, it reckons. 'This is because the next-generation of reforms must focus on factor markets such as land, labour, and capital, coupled with human capital like education and health, where States have a crucial role,' economists Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva have contended in the paper. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo Indian average per capita growth was 4.9% between 1994 and 2020, the paper said, indicating the enormity of the task at hand. Of the nine identified growth attributes, six are in the state domain (crime, fiscal deficit, healthcare, transmission and distribution losses, labour reforms, and land policies), the paper says, highlighting their pivotal role in boosting national growth. Live Events The four crucial reforms driven by the Union government since the 1990s were de-licensing, opening up the economy to the world, de-reservation, and devaluation. These helped the per capita GDP growth to rise from an average of 3.1% between 1981 and 1994 to 4.9% in the next two-and-a-half decades. India is estimated to have recorded a growth rate of 6.5% in FY25. The Economic Survey has projected growth to be in the 6.3-6.8% range in the next fiscal. No uniform strategy Given the heterogeneity among states, in terms of their per capita income, growth attributes and other aspects, a 'one-size-fits-all strategy' for them would be imprudent, the paper argues. The paper focusses on states' performance on two critical aspects—their growth attributes and key economic centres (KECs). It says Gujarat, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and the combined Andhra Pradesh are strong on both the axes and need to work towards removing all potential obstacles to their key economic centres to become even more globally competitive, akin to Shanghai and Beijing. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Punjab need to step up focus on further bolstering their KECs, which are growing at a slower pace than the double-digit expansion in Uttarakhand and Gujarat, it says. Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Jammu & Kashmir could focus on improving their overall growth attributes. While Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are witnessing 'spill-over gains' from their proximity with Delhi, they would be better off improving their growth attributes, the paper suggests.
