Columnists

Manish Sabharwal

The writer is chairman, Teamlease Services.

All models of bank ownership and governance have bugs and features. Let there be open debate

Tue, Dec 08, 2020

The RBI working group challenges us to shift Indian banking to being open, big and inclusive from its current closed, small and exclusive form. No change is finalised, but let’s have an open debate without canceling the question.

Indian entrepreneurs don’t require protection. They need freedom

Thu, Nov 12, 2020

Ant IPO drama exposes China's contradictions. As global economic gravity shifts to Asia, financial services entrepreneurs must be empowered to seize the opportunity

Court-ordered interest waiver and bad loan recognition ban hurts common man

Wed, Oct 21, 2020

It sabotages economic justice because fiscally funding banking diverts money from education, health and skilling expenditure.

Education, labour and agriculture reforms will usher in individual freedom

Thu, Oct 01, 2020

The recent reform is substantial but must be followed by civil service, banking, compliance, decentralisation, and urban reform.

COVID economic pain will pass but we need to create enduring change for firms, citizens with reforms

Thu, Sep 03, 2020

Let's ignore the breathless demands for the government to borrow 10 lakh crore by stealing from our grandchildren. Let’s, instead, create climate change for our entrepreneurs, firms, and citizens with reforms that will give them economic Poorna Swaraj.

Bank and the Covid pain: We must persist with a multi-year five-pillar strategy to raise credit to GDP ratio to 100%

Fri, Aug 07, 2020

Manish Sabharwal writes: God willing, we won’t test the RBI’s COVID worst-case scenario of 14.7 per cent bad loans but handling the inevitable COVID bank pain needs resisting short-termism. In the long run, we are not all dead.

A three-phase govt project uses COVID policy window for a much needed reform

Thu, Jul 09, 2020

India’s current gap between the digitisation of the private sector and government often reflects the 1972 Dandekar Committee recommendation that no entity install a computer without first “justifying” its use to employees and their trade unions.

Covid crisis underlines urgency of more inclusive employment, employability and education

Mon, Jun 15, 2020

Education reforms are an endeavour of profound optimism but have been stifled by purists, vested interests, and regulators. It is illogical to deny the poorna swaraj that comes with the Institutes of Eminence tag to Ashoka University and Ahmedabad University or pursue regulation-driven standardisation for our 993 universities.

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan lays strong foundations for raising our per capita GDP

Mon, May 18, 2020

The COVID-19 lockdown exposes how per capita GDP is more important for our citizens than total GDP.

RBI’s job involves trade-offs, not conflicts

Sat, May 02, 2020

The RBI must remember three things — acting prudently to balance the next quarter and quarter century, acting flexibly to blunt this economic cataclysm, and acting within their mandate to ensure institutional legitimacy and immunity.

How Covid-19 is reordering the world of work

Mon, Apr 06, 2020

April 15 and May 1 are important milestones for employers and economic policy. The lockdown’s continuance, partial lifting or end must be decided on purely medical grounds (even though it turns out epidemiologists are like economists — they don’t agree with their past selves or each other).

India has crossed a billion monthly digital payments. Now, to a billion transactions a day

Fri, Feb 07, 2020

There is more work to be done. The central government must deadline digitising all its payments. The RBI must implement the 100-plus action items arising from its own Vision 2021 document and the Nandan Nilekani Committee for Deepening Digital Payments.

Economic growth in 2020 will be higher than in 2019 because structural reform will start paying off

Mon, Dec 23, 2019

Why is the GDP of 1.3 billion Indians less than 126 million Japanese, 83 million Germans and 40 million people in California? Why is India’s GDP today 20 per cent of China’s when they were equal in 1991? Why did the world’s largest democracy — created on the infertile soil of the world’s most hierarchical society — not create the world’s largest economy?

The steel frame has become a cage. A $10-trillion economy needs deep civil service reform

Wed, Oct 09, 2019

The current economic slowdown is short-term pain for long-term gain because of overdue medicine.

For Naya Kashmir

Tue, Aug 06, 2019

Kashmiris have been let down by a politics that doesn’t create economic opportunity.

Justice, law and change

Fri, Jun 28, 2019

India’s policy choices around bankruptcy represent a rupture with the past. But there is work yet to be done

The only mantra

Sat, Jun 08, 2019

Policy must pray to one god — formal jobs.

Deals to rules

Mon, Mar 18, 2019

India’s bad loan policy is finally moving in the right direction.

It’s a wage crisis

Fri, Feb 15, 2019

India’s challenge is creating a complex ecosystem of high-productivity firms.

Diagnosing the job crisis

Sat, Jan 19, 2019

The regulatory framework that has choked MSMEs has contributed to farm crisis and quota demands.

Ludo vs Snakes & Ladders

Thu, Nov 29, 2018

Ease of doing business is more like Ludo. The detailed incremental improvements must be celebrated.

Bank as a trustee

Sat, Oct 13, 2018

It’s not a passing shower but climate change for banks. About time.

Accountable & adventurous

Sat, Aug 04, 2018

State must be both — to tackle both corruption and poverty. Political parties must stop fighting yesterday’s wars

The virtues of formality

Mon, Jul 02, 2018

A massive enterprise formalisation is taking place, and one year of GST has given the process a boost.

How knowing English helps

Mon, May 28, 2018

Delhi’s move to introduce spoken English lessons for govt school students taps into a long-felt desire.