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Articles by Abheek Barman
Tracing PV Narasimha Rao and His Mixed Legacy
Despite PV Narasimha Rao’s linguistic and manipulative abilities, the overall verdict on him can’t be positive. For impactful stories you just can’t miss (This article was first published on 28 June 2015. It is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.) Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao, the first prime minister of India to have emerged from south of the Vindhyas, in 1991, passed unheralded in Delhi in 2004.
View: It’s time the GST regime is totally overhauled
BCCL Scrap five rates in favour of two, at, say, 3% for stuff like healthcare, social services, processed food and so on. For everything else, have a single rate of, maybe, 15%. By Abheek Barman What on Earth could a European politician who died 336 years ago teach 21st-century economic ministers and mandarins?
View: The growth grind-down is a fallout of policy blunders and failure to revive public funding
India should revive public funding for MNREGA, pump funds into healthcare and areas where it matters. By ET Bureau | Updated: Sep 03, 2019, 06.14 AM IST We are now crawling at 5%, the lowest growth since 2014-15, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi first stormed to power.
View: The growth grind-down is a fallout of policy blunders and failure to revive public funding
BCCL We are now crawling at 5%, the lowest growth since 2014-15, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi first stormed to power. By Abheek Barman One day Raja Krishnachandra, the 18th-century zamindar of Krishnanagar, Nadia, in today’s West Bengal, decided he wanted a Lake of Milk to be spun into sweetmeats for his people to eat and sell far and wide, spreading happiness and wealth.
RBI To Transfer Record 1.76 lakh Crore To Modi Govt: How Bimal Jalan Struck The Deal With Modi Government
RBI To Transfer Record 1.76 lakh Crore To Modi Govt: Thank your stars that Bimal Jalan was around to stamp his authority on the number. Given a free hand, the raid could have sucked out cash worth 10 times or more from the Treasury.
Arun Jaitley's death leaves gaping void in BJP's perception game
Arun Jaitley, who died Saturday at a relatively young 66 years, is a difficult politician to categorise. Many of his friends – and he had legions, across media, sports, the legal profession, business, entertainment and rajneeti – preferred to label him a ‘strategist’ or ‘player’ or ‘analyst’, rather than an activist politician in the dust bowl of Indian elections.
A Damage Control Exercise?
On 23 August, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman redacted, revised - and essentially, mauled - a Union Budget presented little over a month ago. As TV scrambled for soundbites and news agencies released highlights, few paused to ask, how come?
Indian Economic Crisis: CEA Krishnamurthy Subramanian’s ‘Papa Bachalo’ Comment Will Not Be Taken Lying Down By Capitalists
Indian Economic Crisis: For more than five years, businesses had tolerated "papa's" irresponsible neglect like a stalwart. But Subramanian could be the last, schmaltzy straw that breaks the capitalist's back.
View: India should have naturalised the poor, desperate immigrants
AFP Destitute, landless and homeless folk – mostly economic refugees, now herded together in prisons in Assam – will now get a jail of their own, across states. The home ministry has asked all states to establish at least one centre to house illegal immigrants. These should be modern, allow families to stay together, monitored by CCTVs and restrict the movement of illegals till they are deported or repatriated.
View: Is India as fiscally fit as it is shown to be?
Agencies All of a sudden, people started asking how, when every individual sector was sputtering, their sumtotal, the economy, was racing ahead? In 1995, when the US’ growth dipped from the previous year’s supercharged 4% to 2.7%, one of the finest macroeconomists of our time was the vice-chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. He had earlier advised President Bill Clinton as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Beyond the facade of feel-good numbers lies a picture of gloom
On June 11, the former chief economic advisor to the finance ministry, Arvind Subramanian, released a paper called ‘India’s Growth Mis-estimation.’ The paper’s title was enough to ensure it never hit bestseller lists, or become popular for bedtime browsing. But would you believe it?
New Delhi must reform, instead of picking Mumbai’s pocket
BCCL New Delhi says, globally central banks keep only about 14%, half what the RBI now holds and so the Old Lady of Mint Street can afford to relax her grip on purse strings. The geographical distance between New Delhi and Mumbai is little more than 1,450 km; but the gap in attitude, priorities and economic thinking is much wider. And drifting farther apart every day.
Beyond Hand Gestures
Two days after Lok Sabha 2019 results were declared, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met on May 25. There, Rahul Gandhi took responsibility for the defeat and said he’d step down as party president. Many, including party veterans, believed this was a ploy to garner sympathy and goad loyalists into ‘persuading’ Gandhi to stay on. They forgot Gandhi’s mother Sonia refusing to occupy the chair of prime minister in 2004.
Economic Survey 2019: Its woolly, irrelevant and of little use
ANI As a guide to policy, the Survey is of little use. But if you’re sailing to the Bahamas, make sure to take a copy with you. Christopher Columbus started off from Spain to discover India, but ended up in the Bahamas. In similar fashion the Economic Survey, 2018-19, probably started out as a policy document but ended up as a sort of none-too-coherent textbook on economics.
Tracing PV Narasimha Rao and His Mixed Legacy
(This article was first published on 28 June 2015. It is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark PV Narasimha Rao’s birth anniversary.) Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao, the first prime minister of India to have emerged from south of the Vindhyas, in 1991, passed unheralded in Delhi in 2004. PV was a complex man, an autodidact, who taught himself to read and write in several Indian languages: Marathi, Kannada, Urdu, his native Telugu – and English, French and German.
A Deluded, Delusional Bengal
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was one of India’s greatest reformers. A polymath, he rationalised Bengali grammar and script, educated thousands as a teacher, and though Brahmin, he fought conservative Brahminism. Most importantly, he won the battle to ensure widows could marry again — despite opposition from the vast majority of upper caste Hindu males. He died 128 years ago. On Tuesday, June 11, chief minister Mamata Banerjee ceremonially unveiled a bust of Vidyasagar.
A Deluded, Delusional Bengal
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was one of India’s greatest reformers. A polymath, he rationalised Bengali grammar and script, educated thousands as a teacher, and though Brahmin, he fought conservative Brahminism. Most importantly, he won the battle to ensure widows could marry again — despite opposition from the vast majority of upper caste Hindu males. He died 128 years ago. On Tuesday, June 11, chief minister Mamata Banerjee ceremonially unveiled a bust of Vidyasagar.
View: The real consequences of Harry Potter numbers
BCCL There is no obvious political motive behind Subramanian’s paper. It is non-partisan in the sense it covers data during both UPA and NDA periods. In a paper published this month, Indian-born, US-based economist, now faculty of the Centre for International Development at Harvard, Arvind Subramanian drops a bombshell – well, for folks who care about things like measuring growth and making policy.
More Votes, Less Earned
At 10.30am, Thursday, May 23, Nifty 50, the blue-chip index hit 11,994 points. This is its historical high. This means the overwhelming victory of Narendra Modi, and the general rubbing in the dirt of the Opposition across India, is expected to be good for future company profits and, therefore, shareholders like you should rejoice. Markets seem to have celebrated Modi’s second coming. But why? I’ll go with evidence of what happened in the last five years, as compared to 2012. Why 2012?
Money Where Their Mouths Are
On April 18, two of India’s wealthiest people — Mukesh Ambani, the controller of Reliance Industries (RIL), and Uday Kotak, who runs India’s second-highest valued private bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank — announced their support for Milind Deora, aCongress candidate from the Lok Sabha seat of Mumbai South. It is epoch-making.
ET View: Ruling on electoral bonds a positive move to reform campaign finance
Reuters SC has asked all parties to submit details of purchasers of so-called electoral ‘bonds’. The Supreme Court has asked all political parties to submit details, including bank account numbers of purchasers of so-called electoral ‘bonds’. We welcome this as a step towards greater transparency in electoral funding. These bonds, unlike government or corporate debt, offer no return and no repayment.
What makes Bengal politics so different from the rest of India
Kolkata’s media, run by and addressed to, bhadralok consumers, has its pyjama strings in knots. Will a saffron wave sweep Bengal? Or will Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) dominate Lok Sabha seats, like the Left Front did before her? Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha constituencies, the third highest in India after UP and Maharashtra. In the 2009 general election TMC surprised everyone, including itself, by winning 19 of these. Unfazed by the Modi wave in 2014, it did even better, bagging 34.
When political fortunes change dramatically in many states across India, why are incumbents so sticky in Bengal?
Kolkata’s media, run by and addressed to, bhadralok consumers, has its pyjama strings in knots. Will a saffron wave sweep Bengal? Or will Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) dominate Lok Sabha seats, like the Left Front did before her? Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha constituencies, the third highest in India after UP and Maharashtra. In the 2009 general election TMC surprised everyone, including itself, by winning 19 of these. Unfazed by the Modi wave in 2014, it did even better, bagging 34.
Our Shrinking Shrimp Industry
On March 28, ICICI Securities, a brokerage, published a report, which if widely disseminated, would send temblors from Kolkata to Kochi. It has the innocuous title, ‘Agriculture and Aquaculture: Revival on the Cards’. The bombshell follows: after growing 18% each year for nine years, India’s shrimp exports actually fell during April-June 2018. Remember, this is a $40-billion market, worth more than Visa, Intel or Walmart. But between June 2017 and October 2018, shrimp prices crashed 23%.
If Budget Could Win Elections, UPA Would Have Ruled Forever
If Budget Could Win Elections, UPA Would Have Ruled Forever SHARE, SAVE, COMMENT Image of Interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal used for representational purposes.(Photo: Kamran Akhter/TheQuint) The only rule in a TV slugfest in the post-Twitter era is this: On cue, blurt out something, anything, knocking around in the brainpan right now. It’s irrelevant if, during the ad-break, you’ve drifted off wondering what monkeys eat for lunch, or the future of India’s economy.
The Unemployed Hero of 1970s Indian Cinema is Back Under Modi Govt
The Unemployed Hero From ‘70s Cinema is Back Under Modi Govt SHARE, SAVE, COMMENT Unemployment in 2017-2018 among the labour force was 6.1%, the highest level in India after 1972-1973.(Photo: The Quint) In 1971, Mrinal Sen made a film called ‘Interview’. Written by Ashis, my father, Ranjit Mullick debuts here as a personable young fellow looking for a position in a boxwallah firm.
Does India need a minimum income guarantee? Can we afford it? Will the poor actually receive the benefits? Yes, yes and maybe
In Chhattisgarh, January 28, Rahul Gandhi said if elected to power in May, Congress would roll out a minimum income guarantee (MIG) for every poor Indian. He didn’t spell out details, but if implemented, this is likely to be the world’s largest social safety net. Three questions: Does India need such a scheme? Can we afford it? Will the poor actually receive benefits intended for them? Short answers: yes, yes and maybe. One, contrary to smart-set chatter, India’s farms are in acute distress.
George Fernandes: The Descent from Idealism to Vanity
George Fernandes died age 88, on January 29, of complications related to a virulent flu. A decade earlier, he had slipped below the radar of politics. Most Indians under 45 will respond with blank stares at the mention of his name. Few recall his ascent as a scruffy, scrappy anti-authority figurehead in the 1970s, and his later, loving embrace of the seductive charms of Delhi’s right-wing politics.
This is Rahul’s chance to take a stand where Rajiv once faltered
It started innocuously, then cascaded into confusion and tragedy. One day in 1986, 41-year-old Wajahat Habibullah, entered the office of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and found him with acolyte M J Akbar. India was debating whether 70-year-old Shah Bano, abandoned with five children by her husband, should get alimony. Her ex-husband Mohammad Khan, a lawyer, had cut off her paltry allowance 32 years after talaq. Now destitute, Bano sued.
With the Citizenship Bill, India just took a turn to becoming a religion-based State
On Tuesday, January 8, GoI shoved a Bill to amend India’s 1955 citizenship law through the Lok Sabha. It’s a small step downhill from the world’s largest democracy to a possible ‘Hindutva-Pakistan’. The tweak makes it simple for illegal Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Parsi, Jain and Buddhist immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to become citizens. The original law doesn’t allow citizenship for illegals. It says, immigrants must be here 11 years to become Indians.
Taking on the Chowkidar, one funny tweet at a time
At 6pm, December 20, the top tweet on prime minister Narendra Modi’s handle read: “Do you have an idea for this month’s #MannkiBaat on the 30th?…” Instructions followed. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi’s account said: “The Congress Party has finally jolted Narendra-Ji from his deep slumber on Gabbar Singh Tax. Though still drowsy, he now wants to implement what he had earlier called the Congress Party’s, ‘Grand Stupid Thought’.
It’s Not His Gotra, Stupid
In November, two priests at Pushkar, site of a Brahma temple, said that Rahul Gandhi belonged to the Dattatreya ‘gotra’. So, his lineage can be ‘traced back’ to that mythical sage who may or may not have been an incarnation of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva. BJP, which pretends to have a monopoly on Hinduism, wasn’t amused. It said Gandhi’s gotra was ‘Itlus’. For the perplexed, Itlus was supposed to stand for Italy, where Rahul’s mother was born. Pity BJP’s wags.
BJP's loss of Hindi belt to Rahul's new image: 7 poll result takeaways
The winter of 2018 has sent a chill up the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) spine, and Christmas has come early for the 133-year-old Congress party. At the time of writing, it looks as though in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the incumbent BJP regimes have been toppled by the Congress in head-to-head contests.
Seven Big Takeaways from the Assembly Elections Results
The winter of 2018 has sent a chill up the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) spine, and Christmas has come early for the 133-year-old Congress party. At the time of writing, it looks as though in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the incumbent BJP regimes have been toppled by the Congress in head-to-head contests.
Before you take sides, here's a curious thing about GDP you must know
How fast did India’s economy grow during the 10 years when Manmohan Singh headed two successive UPA governments and during the four years of Narendra Modi’s current administration? The answer should be a couple of simple numbers, like weighing bags of bhindi, right? Wrong. Today, our growth figures are distilled from steaming potions and boiling brews, concocted in the bowels of some mathematical Mordor.
Twitter & Brahmanical Patriarchy: What Would Pandita Ramabai Say?
Poor Jack was mauled after a photograph of him holding a poster that read, “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy”, on a visit to India went viral. Brahmanical patriarchs (BPs) worldwide weren’t amused, and expressed themselves in language that would’ve shamed any khalasi. This included a serving central police officer who mused why Dorsey shouldn’t be jailed for ‘provoking’ caste riots. Thankfully, such conflagrations have not occurred.
View: Govt must get down to the real work of repairing a distressed financial system
The central government and banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seem to have been at each other’s throats the last few days. I’m not the least surprised at this, only at the fact that it took so long to happen. The latest development is a none-too subtle hint from the government that it might enforce Article 7 of the RBI Act of 1934.This rule, stripped of polite jargon, allows the government to arm-twist RBI ‘in the public interest’.
It’s the Economy, Stupid
The resignation of M J Akbar, minister of state for external affairs, from the NDA government on Wednesday, is a reputational crisis for the present regime in Delhi.
View: With economic indicators sagging, the Modi government has reasons to worry
The resignation of M J Akbar, minister of state for external affairs, from the NDA government on Wednesday, is a reputational crisis for the present regime in Delhi.
Low Supplies for a Famished Re
On Thursday, the rupee crashed to 70.11against 1US dollar, mirroring a similar low hit on Tuesday, August 14. The soggy rupee reflects short-term events in the US, where the Federal Reserve hinted at an interest rate hike “soon”. In June, US consumers spent 0.4% more than a year ago, an impressive jump for the world’s largest economy. The size of the economy, measured by GDP, surged 4.1% in the April-June quarter, from a year ago. Inflation, unsurprisingly, is up to 2.2%, a sixyear high.
Croatia's World Cup dream: Not too big for their boots
Count Ruritania as your favourite holiday destination? But how many nations are there? According to the United Nations, there are 192. And there are 211, according to the Switzerland-based Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( Fifa ), which governs international football.I’ll take the football number. Every four years, after a long build-up, 32 countries qualify to try and win the Fifa World Cup.
Trolling the trolls: How Congress is trying to better the BJP
But why ‘Let It Be’ and not something else? “Actually it’s one of my favourite songs and I was listening to it on the way to work that morning. So, while we were talking, the words just kept coming to me in sync with it,” says Banerjee, all of 23. “We wanted to keep it cool and polite and the song seemed just right,” he adds. The Congress team had done some research and found several interesting facts.
On Jyoti Basu’s Death Anniversary, Remembering the PM-in-Waiting
On Jyoti Basu’s Death Anniversary, Remembering the PM-in-Waiting SHARE, SAVE, COMMENT Jyoti Basu never gave a speech, he chatted. (Photo: Reuters) Abheek BarmanUpdated: 00H 30M AGO (This article was first published on 8 July 2015. It is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark Jyoti Basu’s death anniversary.) Here’s the thing, I was born in the late 1960s, in Calcutta. Then seething with political unrest: thousands of migrants were streaming in from what would become Bangladesh.
Trolling the Trolls: How Congress is Trying to Better the BJP
But why ‘Let It Be’ and not something else? “Actually it’s one of my favourite songs and I was listening to it on the way to work that morning. So, while we were talking, the words just kept coming to me in sync with it,” says Banerjee, all of 23. “We wanted to keep it cool and polite and the song seemed just right,” he adds. The Congress team had done some research and found several interesting facts.
Trolling the Trolls: How Congress is Trying to Better the BJP
But why ‘Let It Be’ and not something else? “Actually it’s one of my favourite songs and I was listening to it on the way to work that morning. So, while we were talking, the words just kept coming to me in sync with it,” says Banerjee, all of 23. “We wanted to keep it cool and polite and the song seemed just right,” he adds. The Congress team had done some research and found several interesting facts.
As hawa changes, BJP allies light a Bonfire of the Vanities
On February 7, 1497 in Florence, followers of friar Girolamo Savonarola made a bonfire of objects of ‘vanity’ supposed to be misleading Christians to the path of no redemption. These included cosmetics, mirrors and dresses favoured by the elite. The idea behind this Bonfire of the Vanities was to purge people of hubris, sin and corruption.
Football’s Balkan Spring - how this World Cup has wrecked the Soccernomics formula for success
In 2009, sports writer Simon Kuper teamed up with Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist, to write ‘Soccernomics’, an analysis of the ingredients that brewed international football success – or failure. Their conclusion: wealth, population and experience were the key to glory. Nine years later, in Russia 2018, these results have been blown away.
World Cup 2018: Of Predictions, Past Patterns and, Well, India!
The Economist magazine recently speculated that autocratic, totalitarian regimes do well in sports that need rigid discipline and little individual creativity. It pointed to China’s success at the Olympics and its failure in football, which requires a mixture of teamwork and individuality. It sounds plausible, but I wouldn’t push the link between football and politics too hard.
View: In Karnataka, as elsewhere, the game of snubbing voters and subverting democracy is on
It’s ironic, this. Congress taking lessons from BJP on how to subvert democracy. But here you have it, in Karnataka, after its poll results came out on Tuesday. BJP with 104 seats is the largest single party, but without a majority in a house of 224. Yet Congress, with 78 seats, has vowed to back JD(S), with 38 seats, to form a government.Democracy, literally, ‘the rule of the people’ didn’t have many supporters among the ancients.
In Karnataka, as elsewhere, the game of snubbing voters and subverting democracy is on
It’s ironic, this. Congress taking lessons from BJP on how to subvert democracy. But here you have it, in Karnataka, after its poll results came out on Tuesday. BJP with 104 seats is the largest single party, but without a majority in a house of 224. Yet Congress, with 78 seats, has vowed to back JD(S), with 38 seats, to form a government. Democracy, literally, ‘the rule of the people’ didn’t have many supporters among the ancients.
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