Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on 14 February advised the Delhi Assembly Speaker against allowing tabling of the Jan Lokpal Bill by the Aam Aadmi Party government, which said it will not revisit the issue.Jung said the bill doesn't have the required clearance for introduction in the House.In a letter to Assembly Speaker M.S. Dhir, the LG said the AAP government did not go through the laid down procedures in getting approval for tabling of the bill and as custodian of the House he should consider these aspects while dealing with the issue.Top sources said crux of Jung's letter was that the Speaker should not allow tabling of the bill.Immediately after Lt Governor's letter to Dhir, sources in the AAP government said they will not "revisit" the decision to table the bill.Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had last night renewed his threat of resigning if the proposed legislation was defeated by Congress and BJP."We are ready to extend the session. We are not here to save the government. We will table the bill tomorrow. If they allow then it is okay, otherwise I will resign," he said.In his letter to Dhir, Jung has indicated that tabling the bill without his concurrence will be unconstitutional.Kejriwal has been maintaining that there was no need to obtain prior approval from the Centre or Lt Governor to table the bill while BJP and Congress are of the view that clearance was necessary under Transaction of Business Rules (TBR), 2002.The Law Ministry has held that the Transaction of Business Rules (TBR) make it mandatory that the Lt Governor refers to the Centre every legislative proposal which may necessitate additional financial assistance.The four-day session of the Assembly, which began yesterday, has been convened to pass the Jan Lokpal and Swaraj Bills. DPCC's Chief Spokesperson Mukesh Sharma said the party will not allow tabling of the "unconstitutional" Jan Lokpal Bill as the AAP government did not follow the laid down procedures."We will never allow the AAP government to table the bill. The Lt Governor has already advised the Speaker to not allow tabling of the bill. The Speaker should follow the LG's advice," Sharma said.Senior BJP leader Harsh Vardhan said his party will not support any unconstitutional move by the government.(PTI)
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India's wholesale price inflation hit a three-month high in March, snapping an easing trend that will give the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) less scope to support the economy amid fresh signs of slowdown. A pick-up in inflation, coupled with a slump in industrial production and merchandise exports and the risk of less-than-normal monsoon rains this summer, calls into question assumptions that the worst is over for Asia's third-largest economy. The wholesale price index (WPI), long regarded as India's main inflation measure, rose a much faster-than-expected 5.70 per cent last month from a year earlier, on higher food, fuel and manufacturing costs. It was the quickest pace since December 2013 and snaps a three-month easing trend. The rise compared with a 5.30 per cent increase forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. In February, wholesale prices, rose 4.68 percent, their slowest pace in nine months. The reading for January WPI inflation was also revised up to 5.17 per cent from 5.05 per cent earlier. Radhika Rao, an economist at DBS Bank reckons the data has raised the odds for a significant jump in consumer price data due at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Retail inflation was expected to have quickened to 8.19 per cent in March from a 25-month low of 8.10 percent a month ago, according to the median forecast of a Reuters poll. That will be a worry for the RBI which aims to bring down retail inflation to 6 percent by January 2016. After raising lending rates three times since last September, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left its policy repo rate unchanged at 8 percent this month. "The RBI is likely to stay concerned on the inflation outlook and stick to the tight policy stance," Rao said. "Policy bias will be for further rate hikes in the second half of FY14-15 when the potential El Nino development and impact on southwest monsoon become more apparent." India's 10-year benchmark bond yield jumped 3 basis points to 9.03 per cent after the WPI data. India has been battling a prolonged spell of high inflation and low growth. While economic growth has almost halved to below 5 per cent for the past two years, the worst slowdown for the South Asian nation since the 1980s, retail inflation has been averaging around 10 per cent. A sharper-than-expected cooling in vegetable prices in the past three months had raised hopes of breaking out of that spell. But recent unseasonal hail and heavy rains in parts of the country have damaged crops and driven up food prices again. A continuing slump in investment and consumer demand resulted in a surprise 1.9 per cent annual contraction in industrial output in February, which compared with analysts' median forecast of 0.9 per cent growth. Exports fell for a second straight month in March, widening the trade deficit to a five-month high. El Nino ThreatCompounding growth worries is an uncertain outlook for summer monsoon rains due to a possible El Nino weather event that affects wind patterns and can trigger both floods and drought. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology last week predicted that the chance of an El Nino weather event developing in 2014 now exceeded 70 per cent. A strong El Nino in India would trigger lower production of summer crops such as rice, sugarcane and oilseeds. In 2009, it had turned monsoon rains patchy, leading to the worst drought in nearly four decades which shot annual food inflation up to more than 21 per cent. Such a scenario would further compound the challenges awaiting a new government that takes over in New Delhi after national elections in May. Persistently high inflation has become a feature of the Indian economy in the last five years and is widely expected to haunt the ruling Congress party in the elections which began last week. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party's leader Narendra Modi, a hot favourite to head the next government, has been relentless in his attack on the ruling alliance over its failure to cool prices, demanding an apology for "cheating" the country. Modi says he will create a price stabilisation fund to combat inflation and set up special courts to try those who hoard goods.(Reuters)
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Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said he hopes policymakers will try to bolster growth with wholesale price index inflation easing to an eight-month low in January.Mayaram said he hopes there will be a "real push" to boost growth in Asia's third largest economy where economic growth has slowed to a decade low of around 5 per cent.Mayaram was responding to queries on whether the Reserve Bank of India's April policy decision will be guided by the recent easing in inflation.India's WPI inflation eased to 5.05 per cent in January, helped by moderating food prices compared with a 5.80 per cent jump forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.(Reuters)
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The direction and pace of policy reforms in India, more than which political party takes control after elections, will have a bearing on the sovereign rating, said Standard and Poor's rating agency on Tuesday (15 April)."An important factor is how fragmented the government will be. The more parties involved in the next coalition government, the more likely policies will be incoherent and less supportive of credit attributes," said Kim Eng Tan, sovereign credit analyst at S&P, in a statement.The world's biggest-ever election is under way in India, Narendra Modi, the prime-ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), taking on the ailing ruling Congress party and several regional parties.Most surveys predict BJP will win the biggest chunk of seats but fall shy of the halfway mark, forcing them to seek a coalition with the powerful regional parties. Voting runs until May 12 and results are due on May 16.S&P has a BBB- rating on India with a negative outlook and has warned of the risks of a ratings downgrade in the absence of structural reforms, fiscal consolidation and if economic growth decelerates further.(reuters)
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The government has not been able to make contact with 40 Indian construction workers in the Iraqi city of Mosul, with one leading Indian newspaper reporting that they have been kidnapped.Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said dozens of Indian workers were living in areas overrun by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). India is in contact with many of them, including 46 nurses, and has sent a senior envoy to Baghdad to support repatriation efforts."There are also reports which have been brought to the notice of our embassy that there are 40 Indian nationals in Mosul. Despite our best efforts at this stage, we haven't been able to contact them. So they remain uncontactable at this stage," Akbaruddin said.Akbaruddin said the government had no "confirmation or verification" of a story in the Times of India newspaper that the construction workers were being held by suspected ISIS fighters. (Reuters)
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The rupee is trading at 62.30/31 versus its close of 62.42/43 on Thursday (13 February).Weak US retail sales data has raised some investors' expectations for a slower reduction in the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy stimulus programme.The rupee is seen moving in a 62.20 to 62.60 range during the session.Local shares up 0.3 per cent and will be watched for cues on foreign fund flows during the session.Wholesale-price inflation data due around noon will also be key for direction.(Reuters)
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Time has come to move from the bravado of campaigning to the serious task of governing which includes all the difficult decisions on labour laws, higher education regulations, changing the Right to Education Act (RTE) from focusing on enrolment to focusing on outcomes, says Manish Sabharwal, co-founder and chairman of TeamLease Services to Rozelle Laha of BW|Businessworld. The fundamental problem in India is not money. What is needed is essentially a more holistic view of the three Es -- education, employment and employability.What are the key points for you in the forthcoming budget?The new government campaigned on jobs, won on jobs and therefore should focus on jobs. The budget should set an agenda for labour reforms, skill development and education reforms.How can the labour laws be best reformed? Which components of the law should be amended on priority?Make labour laws a state subject and let chief ministers decide on labour laws' legislation. Why should we decide from Delhi what needs to be done? Labour reform is a very important component. Labour laws in India are like marriages without divorce. It is very important to have labour law reforms to increase formal employment, so that we can reduce the capital intensity of India’s employment and increase manufacturing jobs. Hundred per cent of net job creations since 1990 have happened in the informal sector.Low wage workers see 48 per cent of their salaries earmarked for PF and ESI. People can’t live on half their salary. The labour law needs to be overhauled.What hurdles do you see in creating a business environment in India? What should be the primary agenda of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship?The regulatory framework makes life very difficult for small entrepreneurs in India. India has a hostile habitat for entrepreneurship. Things like complying with the labour laws and service tax have to be made easier to start a company. A massive simplification and de-regulation is needed. All these definitely won’t happen in the budget. The budget at this stage should focus on infrastructure – soft and hard. Soft infrastructure is the three Es (education, employment and employability). Hard infrastructure is the the Goods and Services Tax (GST), roads and power.The geography of work in India has to change. India has only 35 cities with more than a million people. China has 350 cities. We have six lakh villages, two lakh of those villages have less than 200 people. We need to take people to job and not job to people and hence, changing the geography of work in India is about infrastructure.Sixty per cent of India is already self- employed. The poor cannot afford to be unemployed. They are self employed. The Ministry of Entrepreneurship must be given the mandate to pray to one God, and to do everything to remove the barriers in job creation.What are the challenges in job creation and what are our recommendations for creating more jobs?There is obviously an infrastructure deficit and labour law hurdle in the long run for creation of new businesses. Fifty per cent of Chinese exports come from multinationals who have invested in China. We need to be open to foreign investments because they not only create jobs but train managers and transfer technology. The most important part of foreign investments is not the money they bring in but the management technique and technology they bring which train Indians. We need to think of attracting more FDIs which bring technology and management techniques.Infrastructure reforms, labour law reforms, Apprentices Act reforms, higher education reforms and employment exchange reforms are very important. Last year, the employment exchange has placed only 4 lakh people out of four crore registered jobseekers. We have only three lakh apprentices in India against three million in Germany, 20 million in China and 10 milion in Japan.Is there a need to reform education system?We should have a complete de-regulation of higher education. Higher education regulations confuse university buildings with building universities. A shift towards learning outcomes is needed. The only hurdle when we set up more and more IITs and IIMs is quality faculty. It’s not only more cooks in the kitchen, it’s about the recipe. We need to think about innovation and boldness.RTE should be re-named to right to learning act. Its focus should shift from hardware to learning outcome. Focus should shift from enrolment to learning. unemployability is a bitter problem than unemployment. Focus on learning outcomes than enrolment.
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Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said a moderation in the minimum support prices for agricultural products would help curb inflation in the country."Inadequate" or "inappropriate" price adjustments in these areas will mean the central bank has to bear a bigger burden to combat inflation, Rajan said at an industry event on Thursday (13 February).The annual consumer price inflation eased more than expected to a 24-month low of 8.79 per cent in January, helped by moderating food prices, government data showed on Wednesday.(Reuters)
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