View from the Outside

P Chidambaram

Description

Chidambaram illuminates the crucial interface between economics and politics . . . his style is simple, austere, impressive . . . there is much that I enjoyed in this book Meghnad Desai in PBI - Indian Express Economics is the science of the possible made to look like the art of the impossible is a definition that would strike a chord with any finance minister of PBI - India who, every year, has to perform the great PBI - Indian hope trick. Otherwise known as the Budget a careful balancing act between revenue and expenditure, tax rates and tax sops, growth and equity, reforms and the status quo. Within these constraints, however, there is much that a finance minister can actually accomplish, as P. Chidambaram, one of PBI - India s most accomplished economists and commentators, shows in A View from the Outside, a collection of columns that assesses the promises and performance of the NDA government in the period 2002 2004. The columns, originally published in the PBI - Indian Express and the Financial Express,reflect the views of Chidambaram, finance minister between 1996 and 1998 and again from 2004 onwards, on a range of issues that remain important regardless of the government in power. They also provide snapshots of the PBI - Indian economy in good times and bad. This collection covers subjects such as agriculture, reforms, budgets, forex reserves, economic growth and tax policies. It also offers perceptive political analyses and some telling comments on social issues. Far more than mere reactions to developments during that period, Chidambaram provides the reader with an extraordinarily clear understanding of the problems underlying the PBI - Indian economy and its politics and ways of solving them. Reviews There is a lot of wisdom in this book, as well as entertainment Gurcharan Das in Outlook

Sujets

• Economics
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184752090
• Langue: English

Extrait

P. CHIDAMBARAM
A View from the Outside
Why Good Economics Works for Everyone
Contents
About the Author
Foreword by Shekhar Gupta
Introduction
INDIA EMPOWERED TO ME IS
Agriculture
FARMERS DESERVE A BETTER DEAL
JASWANT SINGH S FORGOTTEN FIELDS
CROP OF GLOOM: A RURAL TALE
WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION
WELL DONE MR JAITLEY, NOW MOVE ON
WAKING UP TO WTO
CELEBRATE CANCUN, BUT WITH CAUTION
Foreign Investment
FOREX: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS NEVER ENOUGH
FREE FDI OF IDEOLOGICAL, ELECTORAL PULLS
WHY INVESTORS STAY AWAY FROM INDIA
YOU HAVE THE TOUCH DR JALAN, NOW IT S TIME FOR STROKE PLAY
FIRST, LIBERALISE THE ATTITUDE TO FDI
DESTINATION JOBSVILLE
The Finance Minister
WANTED: A PLAYMAKER AND A TEAM TO SCORE REFORMS GOALS
THE BUCK STOPS AT THE FINANCE MINISTER S DESK
FEEL-GOOD FACTOR ALONE CANNOT DRIVE UP GROWTH
LIFTING THE CURTAIN ON JASWANT SINGH S SOP OPERA
Budget
BUDGET THOUGHTS ABOUT POWER AND A MINISTER
RESTRAINED APPLAUSE FOR CAUTIOUS BUDGET
MR FM S EMPTY BAG OF TRICKS
JASWANT SINGH S LOW-DEFICIT COUP IS FULL OF JUGGLERY
Monetary Policy
A TAX BY ANY OTHER NAME
SAVINGS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
Ethics and Governance
KING GEORGE OF THE KARGIL FAME
BUILDING ETHICS WITH A STRONG ECONOMY
A CURIOUS CASE OF WHITELISTING COMPETITION
A CASE OF GUILTY TILL PROVED INNOCENT
Disinvestment
CALL MR FERNANDES S BLUFF-NOW
REFORMS FOR REFORMS SAKE
Policies and Governance
INDIA LIVES IN HER VILLAGES, AND HOW
LOOKING FOR GOOD NEWS
FORGET POLITICS, PROTECT CONSTITUTION
MUSICAL CHAIRS IS FINE, LET S GET SOME WORK DONE ALSO
MILLENNIUM GOALS A DREAM, TIME TO WAKE UP
NEITHER CIVIL, NOR SERVING
THE FOUR IMPERATIVES FOR FASTER GROWTH
LAW AND COMMERCE: AND THE TWAIN SHALL MEET
BLUES IN BRICK AND MORTAR
GOVERNMENT AS YOUR DELIVERY BOY
LET THE NEW YEAR USHER IN A LUCID POLICY REGIME
IS ANYONE LISTENING TO MR STIGLITZ?
COMMON GROUND FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
WHAT THEY DON T TELL YOU ABOUT INDIA SHINING
PEOPLE AND THE RULE OF LAW
Taxation
TRY TO SIT, HE LL TAX YOUR SEAT
MR FM, YOU MUST TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS
Politics and Governance
12/13 VS . 9/11: Don T Even Start
WANTED: SREEDHARANS, NOT TOGADIAS
ALLIES OR FOES? THE GLUE THAT BINDS ALL
WAKE UP TO THE STATE OF STATES
IT S THE SILLY SEASON OF POLICY STATEMENTS
POLITICS CATCHES UP, INDIA LAGS BEHIND
AN UNEVEN TALE OF TWO PEOPLE S REPUBLICS
FISHING FOR TRIVIA IN A SEA FULL OF TRAVAILS
NO LAKSHMAN REKHA IN RAM RAJYA?
Politics
BYE ANNUS HORRIBILIS
MR PM, YOUR WISHES MY WISHES FOR 2003
BORN TO SWEET DELIGHT, OR TO ENDLESS NIGHT
RELISHING THE BUSINESS OF POWER
NO MORE BJP CLONES PLEASE, WE RE INDIANS
BUSH, NDA GOVERNMENT: SAME DIFFERENCE
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Elections
LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE VOTE BANK
WHITEWASHING OPERATION CLEAN-UP
SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING LITTLE
WHY MODI IS TOO MYTHICAL TO BE REAL
WAITING FOR THE TWO
THE GREAT INDIAN VOTE TRICK
THE COUNTDOWN TO ELECTIONS 2004
WHAT ARE THE POLLS ALL ABOUT?
SILVER LINING OKAY, BUT SEE DARK CLOUDS TOO
BRAND BJP OR BRAND CONGRESS? HOW TO CHOOSE
VOTE FOR YOUR IDEA OF INDIA
International Relations
VIETNAM A BLOT, IRAQ A SCAR
THE REMAINS OF THE IRAQ WAR
OUR OTHER NEIGHBOUR IN THE NORTH
SRI LANKA: THAT SINKING FEELING
Away from Politics
AT STAKE, INDIA AS A CIVILISED SOCIETY
LET S CELEBRATE CHILDREN, THEIR CHILDHOOD
WOMEN S BILL: NO RESERVATIONS, JUST BIAS
KANCHI SEER HAS ONLY WIDENED THE DIVIDE
WHERE LIFE IS CHEAP
STEM THIS ALIEN NATION
AN ATTACK SEEKS ANSWERS
AFTER GQ, VAJPAYEE MUST ADOPT MISSION OF PREVENTING HIV/AIDS
Copyright Page
PORTFOLIO
A VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE
Palaniappan Chidambaram is a lawyer-politician in the best traditions of Indian politics. He holds degrees in law (Madras) and management (Harvard) and is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India. Elected to Parliament first in 1984, he has been returned five more times from his constituency, Sivaganga, in Tamil Nadu. Chidambaram has been a minister in the governments of Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, and now Dr Manmohan Singh. He has held a variety of portfolios but is best known for his stewardship of the Ministry of Finance from 1996 to 1998 and again from 2004.
Foreword
I got to know Palaniappan Chidambaram first as a young minister of state for internal security and, like probably all his friends over the years, was struck by his almost ascetic minimalism. Whether in his office or at his official residence, at his Chennai home or in his private Golf Links apartment when a practising lawyer, the same austerity leaps out at you, in the clothes he wears, the car he drives-often himself-when he goes to a friend s home even as finance minister. Many would say he is equally austere with words too. Businesslike, methodical, clinical, no-nonsense. Always.
That is why I find it even more fascinating that he, more than anybody else, should be the most prominent, persistent, committed-and successful-of a handful of instinctive reformers in our political system. For him, none of the flashiness or flamboyance associated with capitalism. He loves and cheers the markets, but his love of the market is almost entirely philosophical.
That is why his conviction comes out so strongly in these articles written and published in The Indian Express in the six years he was out of power. You can t miss the depth of his intellect, the strength of his commitment and the power of his writing. That is why this volume is so important, and a must-read for anybody with any interest in the Indian economy, politics and governance.
November 29, 2006 New Delhi
Shekhar Gupta
Introduction
Between 2001 and early 2004, I enjoyed an unexpected and unique political sojourn: I was a Congressman, but I was not in the Congress party. I was two steps away from the Congress. I was in a breakaway group of a breakaway group of the Congress, although all of us were generally regarded (especially in Delhi) as Congressmen and women. There is a long story behind these developments, a story that I do not tell in this book.
Absent that sojourn, there would not be this book.
Let me hasten to clarify. I did not intend to write a book. I do not think there is a book in me, at least, not yet. In that period of three years, I was in my own party, I was not a member of Parliament, I did not hold any public office, and I had many invitations to speak and write. I did just that-speak and write, and very freely. Speaking helped me to remain in touch with my friends, writing brought discipline to my thoughts.
So, between August 2002 and March 2004, I wrote a column every week for the Indian Express and, by extension, for the Financial Express . My editor was my good friend Shekhar Gupta, and we agreed that he would not edit or alter a word. Any way, I think he was too busy with a hundred other things to bother to take a red pencil though my columns. I am grateful to him for his hospitality and self-restraint.
A thousand words every week-give or take a few words-can impose a severe discipline. Some pieces were a breeze. I recall completing one, scribbled at a furious pace in long hand, in about 30 minutes, and I barely managed to meet the deadline. Most were written while I was travelling on work, on board an aircraft or in a hotel room. Some pieces required gathering or checking facts, and therefore took longer to compose, and I hope the reader does not find too many factual errors.
I am astonished that in the period of twenty months my column did not appear only in two weeks. I sent one from St. Gallen, Switzerland after taking the trouble of typing and e-mailing, but it is still floating in cyberspace. I cannot recall now how or why I missed the other week.
It was one column at a time. There was, believe me, no thought of a book. So, when Shekhar suggested, in August 2006, that we bring out the articles in the form of a book, my first reaction was Good heavens, who would want to read a collection of articles, and I began an elaborate effort to dissuade him from embarking upon the perilous course. But I had underestimated the formidable powers of persuasion of Shekhar and of the team-Ambreen Khan and Swarup Chakraborty of the Express Group and Krishan Chopra of Penguin Books-that he had already assembled.
If there is a case of premeditated homicide on the part of an editor, this is it. Most of my articles dealt with the political economy. They were about fiscal policy and budgets and promises; about plans and programmes and expenditure; about the finance minister and the prime minister and their obligations. They were about the NDA government. The NDA now sits in the Opposition, and I am the finance minister! What better way for Shekhar to remind me of what I ought and ought not to do? If I were looking for a perfect illustration of the expression hoist with one s own petard , I would not find anything more apt.
That is the story of the genesis of this book.
Every column bears a date. That date also sets the context. I would urge the reader to keep in mind the time and the context while reading the article. I have reproduced the articles accurately and faithfully, with a nod, in a few places, towards political correctness.
Reading the articles again, I found to my great relief that there was not really anything that I would have written differently or anything that I wish I had not written. Those were my views at that time and remain, substantially, my views today. Naturally, upon reflection, I may have modified some of the views that I had expressed in the column, but that is not a reason for retraction or regret. I wrote as I thought and as I felt at the time of writing, and consider it proper to let them stand as they were first published.
There are some statements that may seem controversial. For example, I wrote, In Mr Jaswant Singh s budget, unintended humour has taken the place of Urdu