Vivek's Commentary

Recent state election results talk less about any wave and more about the framework of the Indian democracy. In the representative parliamentary democracy, seat numbers matter more. Therefore it becomes important to distribute vote share to maximize the winning seats. In Rajasthan, the winning party wins more seats by managing the vote shares. Graph no.1: Year wise difference between seat share and the vote share of parties winning seats in Rajasthan (Data sources: Election Commission of India) All small parties hold more vote share but fail to convert it into seats. That shows the importance of the small parties in regional parties. Managing the vote share of small share will definitely help the big state as well as national parties to win more seats. Graph no.2: Year wise difference between seat share and the vote share of BJP and Congress in Rajasthan (Data sources: Election Commission of India) Congress party managed the vote share well in 1998, 2008

Farmers are in Delhi, demanding special session for agricultural issues. To support their protest, I am trying to highlight the main issues through small articles.  Let's first discuss the main highlighted issue: APMC and Prices... The agricultural prices are always debated on every platform.  In 1960s several states passed the Agricultural Product Market Committee act. The main aim of this act was to provide an efficient marketing system and effective infrastructure for marketing of agricultural produce. All produce should be brought to the market yard first and be sold through auction so that farmer would get proper returns. Old APMC act didn’t allow any kind of private player to take part. There was no place for contract farming. But now APMCs act is amended and there is a provision for contract farming. According to the new act, private person, farmers can set up their own market.  However, there are still problems. Agents i.e. middle-men are taking the advantages of

Statue of Unity will improve livelihood, promote job creation & tourism: PM Modi Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in his speech said that the tourist city will be developed and the jobs will be created by the statue of unity. But in India, neither monuments nor so-called tourist cities have created formal jobs. Most of the monuments are not even able to generate the revenue to overcome the expenditure.  Data sources - Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Culture Except for Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Group of monuments, Fatehpur Sikri, other monuments are struggling to generate the revenue. The revenue from Taj Mahaj is highest among all monuments. It was 21,84,88,950 Rs in 2013-14 i.e. around 21 Crore Rupees. For simplicity, let's assume that the statue of unity will generate 21 crore Rupees and so-called tourist cities will generate 41,73,16,987 Rs (It's a total expenditure on all World Heritage Monuments in India in 2013-14. I couldn&

The speech given by Deputy Governor Viral Acharya intensified the conflict of interest between RBI and Central Government. Let's examine that. The real facts behind the conflict are not clear but the most highlighted issue is the transfer of reserves to reduce the fiscal deficit. The government of India is committed to reducing the fiscal deficit to 3% of GDP under the FRBM framework. In March of 2018, the target is revised and 3.5% becomes a new target. On the other hand, we have foreign exchange reserve of US$393524 million on 18th October 2018. It was $ 426082.4 million on 13th April 2018. It is declining from last few months.  Data source - Reserve Bank of India What if we use this reserve to control the fiscal deficit? One should understand that the RBI also holds the government securities and lend the money to the government. Therefore borrowing money and taking money will have a huge impact on inflation. This will put more inflationary pressure on the economy

All the characters and incidents in this writing are imaginary, resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental. The writer doesn’t intend to outrage, insult, wound or hurt any idea or the ideological sentiments, beliefs or feelings of any person(s) or class or community. Marx: Ohh what was that? It’s a disclaimer. It’s required. Marx: Ohh. You are living in a state. That’s why. In a stateless system, it won’t be required. Maybe. Maybe not. Okay, I don’t want to get into that debate. Today I want to discuss the first chapter of Capital – Commodities. Marx: Okay. Tell me what is the problem? I want more discussion on the use value. You said, “Use values become a reality only by use or consumption”. According to you, use value is different than exchange value. At one point you said, “As use values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange values, they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not con

Marx, yesterday someone asked me one question. I am asking you the same question  – Do you really think that you are still relevant?  Why do you think I am not relevant today? Vivek, tell me, is capital still being accumulated?  Yes… Thomas Piketty found that the rate of return on capital (r) > growth of the economy (g).  It means capital is still accumulated.  Figure no. 1  Above figure shows that the pure rate of return to capital (after tax and capital losses) r is below the growth rate of world output g for the only period of 1913 to 2012. Now r is greater than g. This itself shows that the capitalist can still accumulate the capital as the rate of return on capital is higher than the economic growth.  Okay what do you think, is profit falling?  Ummm. This I am not sure but it’s very difficult to comment in one word. Few sectors are experiencing fall in profit and few sectors are growing. But yes if the monopolization of the market is a sign of the f