Vivek's Commentary

Hello everyone, today we have the noble prize winner, author, and composer of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh, Rabindranath Tagore. Welcome, Gurudev... Rabindranath: Hello Vivek. I always enjoy the discussion with young people.  Vivek: Gurudev, let me start this conversation with caste and religion in India. What do you think about the Indian caste system? Rabindranath: The idea of caste actually helps to maintain the co-existence of the diversities in Hindu Society. India's caste system is the outcome of a spirit of toleration, For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. But over a period of time, segregation happened and we built a social wall between the different castes. These social walls damage the fundamental spirit of freedom and create problems like untouchability. Such practices are actually again

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant’s comment on too much democracy ignites the debate on democracy and development. There is a section of “thinkers who” believes that democracy can work as a barrier to economic growth. A few years ago, at the Goa conference, I had an argument with a UK based researcher. He was arguing that India should have followed the China model meaning if India had less democracy at the initial phase then India would have been better in terms of economic growth. After achieving a certain level of economic development, the country can shift to democracy. But my point was that we do have seen the countries which have democracy at an early stage of industrialization and did well in economic terms. The association between democracy and economic growth is widely debated in the literature. It is also widely debated whether democracy affects economic growth or economic growth affects democracy. Lipset (1959) suggests that per capita income or more specifically economic wealth is

The main aim behind horizontal devolution is to equalize the provisions for public goods and services in states. Finance Commission of India aims to fill the vertical fiscal gap (i.e. matching the revenue and expenditure of different government level, to achieve the horizontal equity (by allocating the higher share to poorest states), to equalize the fiscal capacities of state i.e. rervenue equalization, to equalize expenditure by providing the cost differentials for public services and to create the incentive for states to mobilize own revenue and spend it efficiently.   Criteria and Weights in Previous Finance Commissions  Criteria and Weights in provided by XVth Finance Commissions The recent finance commission includes the criteria called demographic performance as 2011 population data is used instead of 1971. Therefore the states who successfully reduced the population raised the concern and therefore criteria for demographic performance (criterion for total fertility rate (TFR))

North India has given popular alliances. This Bihar election is also important as far as alliances are concerned. Mahagathbandhan is another such effort. What goes wrong for Mahagathbandhan, What goes wrong for Congress, Why exits polls were incorrect is being discussed everywhere. Apart from these highlighted part (i.e. caste equations, economic factors, etc), we will discuss the statistics, we will discuss some interesting points based on statistics. We will compare these statistics with previous elections. Lastly, we will discuss whether these alliances are helpful for fair representation, how Congress+ alliances can do better in the future.  In the previous election, left parties formed their own alliance. This time, left parties were part of the Mahagathabandhan (RJD+Congress+Left Parties). As far as the vote share is concerned, the vote share of parties forming Mahagathabandhan is increased. The vote share of Congress is also increased from 6.75% to 9.48%. The vote share of RJD i

The world is witnessing a crisis bigger than the previous crisis. The responses from the central bank are incredible and rare.  The monetary tools can be categorized into four main categories. First, today is a short-term interest rate that influences the cost of funds in the system. It also plays an important role as far as signals in the system are concerned. The second tool is lending to financial institutions to manage liquidity. Lending can be targeted to support certain segments. The third tool is asset purchases (assets can vary from government bonds to private sector securities like corporate bonds, equity, etc. This again can affect the liquidity. The fourth tool is regulation and supervision. The regulations like reserve requirements, capital, liquidity requirements can affect the markets.  In the advanced economies interest rate is close to zero lower bound. And that puts restriction over the central bank as far as the interest rate is concerned. As far as the Reserve Bank o

In the previous article, we discussed the point mention in The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020. We will continue the previous discussion.  1) Seeds Before continuing the previous discussion, let's discuss about Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001. The main aim of this act was to protect the plant varieties, the rights of farmers, and plant breeders so that they can be encouraged to develop new varieties of plants. This is very important as it upholds the farmers' right to save, use, exchange the seeds as well as gives the right to claim special forms of intellectual property rights over their varieties. Now keep this thing in mind and discuss the experience of contract farming in India. The potato contract farming by Pepsico in Hoshiarpur District of Punjab mentioned the following terms and conditions:  Parent seed of a certain variety, which is the exclusive property of  Pepsi  Food

 In this session, I am trying to analyze the ordinal: The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020 passed by Lok Sabha on 17th September and passed by Rajyasabh on 20th September. What are the key issues related to this ordinal? Let's discuss this.  1) The definition of Farmers discussed in the ordinal: Ordinal defines farmer as  Where NSS 70th round defines agriculture household as :  An agricultural household for this survey was defined as a household receiving some value of produce more than Rs.3000/- from agricultural activities (e.g., cultivation of field crops, horticultural crops, fodder crops, plantation, animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, piggery, bee-keeping, vermiculture, sericulture etc.) and having at least one member selfemployed in agriculture either in the principal status or in subsidiary status during last 365 days.  In 59th round definition was:  ‘Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers’, conducted in NSS

Finally, after 34 years, India got a new national education policy. The 484 pages long draft reduced to 66 pages long educational policy. It's always good to have a policy, have a vision regarding education. Let's hope that this vision will be reflected in fiscal policies and budgetary allocation.  The National Education Policy 2020 does include the points discussed in the World Development Report 2018 (Learning to realize education’s promise  https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018  ). The students are attending the school but not "learning". The world development report blames the learning crisis for high inequality, poor outcomes, and political inefficiency. The report suggests school management, unkilled teacher, unprepared learners as well as school inputs are the reasons behind the learning crisis where key players like political players don't give attention to the students learning.  The WDR suggests that countries should work on three parts: Asses

जाळणाऱ्या आणि जळणाऱ्या कातडीचा  हा खेळ, थांबला पाहिजे वस्त्या जळत राहायच्या आम्ही पावसाची वाट बघायचो डोक्यात दगड पडायची आम्ही वेदना पचवायचो काळ्या पांढऱ्या हिरव्या लाल सगळ्या uniform ला सलाम ठोकायचो... We the people आणि my Lord  मधला हा खेळ, थांबला पाहिजे... लोकांसाठी लोकांनी बनवलेल्या व्यवस्थेत  आजकाल मत मोजतात, मत विचारत नाहीत... मतमोजणीचा  हा असला खेळ थांबला पाहिजे... अपूर्ण

There are a few doubts correction in the billing method proposed by the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB).  The above picture shows that for 14-March to 14-April and from 15-April to 14-May, the billing amount is charged on the basis of average consumption as during lockdown it was not possible to take the reading. So last reading was "written on the bill" is 14-March and then the current reading is 13-June.  So the unit consumed is taken for period-> 14-March to 13-June (91 days). So the billing period (weight) is 91/30=3.03. And charges per unit for the slabs are increased from 31st March therefore for 17 days of March, the bill is charged on the basis of previous charges and then next days are charged on the basis of new higher rates. The adjustments are made so that the billing gets absorbed in lower slabs. So there is no issue of getting charged in the higher slab with a higher rate. So there is no issue regarding the slabs. But this bill is calculated on the

COVID-19 some puzzles  This article will be updated regularly...  Puzzle no.1 Lockdown and increasing numbers: The main reason behind lockdown is to isolate the COVID positive people from other populations to avoid possible contact. For that, one should know who is affected and who is not. So testing comes first then tracing and then isolation of the COVID positive people and then Lockdown if required. What will happen if we don’t follow this order? If we lock down the state before testing and tracing, then it will increase the possible contact between COVID positive people and others as no one knows who is positive and who is not. Is that a reason behind the contaminated zone in India? Is that a reason behind the increase in the total number even after lockdown? Data source: World Health Organization COVID-19 Global Data.  The number of confirmed cases is dependent on the number of testing done. As now every state is arguing that we have a high number of COVID-19 because testing is in