India’s Big Government
Page 63
I sincerely hope that I am wrong about this one, but the signs are simply too ominous and portending for me to try and pretend that they don’t exist.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I said in the introduction to this book, this book was never meant to be written. But the fact that it did get written is because of everyone who helped me write it.
Andrew Cabral, who relentlessly edited the book and kept asking questions which inevitably made the book better, even if he did go off my radar from time to time. This book wouldn’t have been possible without him. And if I do get around to writing more books, I don’t think any of those books would be possible without him either.
Bill Bonner did me a great favour and agreed to write the foreword to this book.
And how can I ever thank Manjul for coming up with such a fantastic cover and the cartoons for this book? Their visual appeal add so much to the book.
Preeti Harkare was my first reader, who read through the chapters quickly to give me some sense of where I was heading. As far as first readers go, she makes for a very good one.
My father, Vir Krishen, who read through the book, picked up many mistakes and gave me some solid feedback to improve the book. Some of the mistakes, if they had made it to print, would have embarrassed me no end.
My grandfather, Soom Nath, read the book and pointed out many silly mistakes which I had missed. He is the best silly mistake catcher that I know of and very encouraging as far as grandfathers go.
Akhilesh Tilotia gave detailed feedback on the book, which, honestly, I haven’t been able to do full justice to.
The same stands true for Satyajit Das. His detailed chapter-wise feedback helped in improving the book, even though I couldn’t incorporate his suggestions completely.
Nupur Pavan Bang reads almost everything I write, and hence, this time was no different. Her feedback was very important to the way the book finally shaped up.
Many of the ideas discussed and detailed in the book were first written as a part of my regular columns. Given this, I would like to thank Rahul Goel (at Equitymaster), R Jagannathan (first at Firstpost and later at Swarajya), Rajesh Pandathil (at Firstpost), Dhirendra Kumar (at Value Research), and finally, B Mahesh and Ravi Joshi (at Bangalore Mirror). Developing upon the ideas presented in this book wouldn’t have been possible without writing and publishing the columns that I did.
Thanks are also due to a whole host of people all over the world who let me use their research very liberally in this book. This book wouldn’t have been possible without these full-time researchers, academics, journalists, analysts and economists.
These include TN Srinivasan, Sanjoy Chakravorty, Arun Kumar, Ram Singh, Maitreesh Ghatak, Parikshit Ghosh, Michael Levien, Ankita Aggarwal, Reetika Khera, Sandip Sukhtankar, Amit Amirapu, Seetha, R Jagannathan, NC Narayanan, Keith Wardrip, Geeta Kingdon and Martin Ravallion (in no particular order).
I would also like to thank the many unnamed economists and analysts who work for the government and write uncredited reports and documents for it. This book most certainly wouldn’t have been possible without the research carried out by these individuals.
Finally, I would like to thank Rahul Goel and his team at Equitymaster for publishing this book. Special thanks are due to Karan Janani at Equitymaster for helping me with the tables and charts that are a part of this book.
In the end, this book would not have been possible without the patience and blessings of my parents, Vir Krishen and Nimmi.
I would also like to thank my friends Abhijeet Bajpai and Sandeep Shanbhag for being there, as always.
Thanks are also due to my friend Malini for putting up with me while I wrote the book.
To anyone I have inadvertently left off this list, my sincerest apologies.
And finally, any mistakes that remain are mine.
ENDNOTES
Introduction
1 As quoted in T Gilovich and L Ross,The Wisest One in the Room—How You can Benefit from Social Psychology’s Most Powerful Insights, Free Press, December 2015.
2 Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184.
3 TN Ninan, The Turn of the Tortoise—The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future, Penguin Books India, 2015.
4 K Basu, An Economist in the Real World—The Art of Policymaking in India, Penguin Viking, 2016.
5 Ibid.
6 V Joshi, India’s Long Road—The Search for Prosperity,Penguin & Allen Lane, 2016.
7 R Hajela, ‘Shortage of Skilled Workers: A Paradox of the Indian Economy’, SKOPE Research Paper No. 111, November 2012.
8 This is an estimate made by the NGO Pratham.
9 National Manufacturing Policy, 2011.
10 Joshi, 2016.
11 Ibid.
12 KPMG,Urban Indian Real Estate – Promising Opportunities, August 2016.
13 R Singh, ‘Inefficiency and Abuse of Compulsory Land Acquisition—An Enquiry into the Way Forward’,Economic & Political Weekly, May 12, 2012.
14 S Morris and A Pandey, ‘Towards Reform of the Land Acquisition Framework in India’, IIM Ahmedabad Working Paper, 2007.
15 L Pritchett and LH Summers, ‘Asiaphoria Meets Regression to the Mean’, NBER Working Paper No. 20573, October 2014.
16 R Sharma,The Rise and Fall of Nations—Ten Rules of Change in the Post-Crisis World, Allen Lane, 2016.
17 M Wucker, The Gray Rhino—How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore, St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
18 Sharma, 2016.
19 S Baru, 1991—How P.V. Narasimha Rao Made History, Aleph, 2016.
1. Those were the Days, My Friend!
20 P Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Fresh Air, Random House, 2016.
21 ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’, May 14, 2014. Available at http://www.narendramodi.in/minimum-government-maximum-governance-3162. Accessed on May 10, 2016.
22 J Bhagwati, ‘Illusory Budget Numbers’, Business Standard, March 16, 2016.
23 B Bonner, Hormegeddon—How Too Much of a Good Thing Leads to Disaster, Lioncrest Publishing, 2014.
24 M Guruswamy, ‘Seventh Pay Commission: Is the Centre robbing the poor to pay its employees?’, Scroll.in, July 1, 2016.
25 G Das, India Unbound, Penguin Books India, 2000.
26 Ibid.
27 S Sanyal, The Indian Renaissance—India’s Rise After a Thousand Years of Decline, Penguin Books India, 2008.
28 Ibid.
29 S Tharoor, India—From Midnight to Millennium, Penguin Books India, 1997.
30 D Acemoglu and JA Robinson, Why Nations Fail – The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Profile Books, 2013.
31 Ibid.
32 Tharoor, 1997.
33 C Wheelan, Naked Economics—Undressing the Dismal Science, WW Norton & Company, 2002.
34 Tharoor, 1997.
35 Wheelan, 2002.
36 Tharoor, 1997.
37 Ibid.
38 D Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business, Oxford University Press, 2004.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Wheelan, 2002.
45 Ibid.
46 Tripathi, 2004.
47 TN Ninan, The Turn of the Tortoise—The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future, Penguin Books India, 2015.
48 Sanyal, 2008.
49 A Panagariya, India—The Emerging Giant, Oxford University Press, 2008.
50 Najinyanupi, ‘Some Philosophic Aspects of the Approach’, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. VIII Nos. 4, 5 & 6, Annual Number February 1973, pp 141-143.
51 E Porter, The Price of Everything, Random House, 2011.
52 JK Galbraith, A History of Economics—The Past as the Present, Penguin Books, 1987.
53 Das, 2000.
2. We have Spread Them too Wide and too Thin
54 KN Das, ‘Coal India struggles to produce half of normal output amid strike’, Reuters, January 7, 2015.
55 P Bhattac
harya, ‘Opportunities in a Crisis’, The Indian Express, September 29, 2014.
56 V Kaul, ‘Revealed: The real reason why Coal India unions were on a strike’, Equitymaster, January 8, 2015.
57 J Drèze and A Sen, An Uncertain Glory—India and Its Contradictions, Penguin & Allen Lane, 2013.
58 A Gulati, ‘Budget 2016: Sleight of hand in the farm sector’, The Financial Express, March 1, 2016.
59 A K Bhattacharya, ‘Goodbye to Privatisation’, Business Standard, October 27, 2015.
60 W Buffett, ‘Berkshire Hathaway—Annual Letter to Shareholders’, February, 2008.
61 Press Trust of India, ‘Air India plans hedging fuel costs up to 25 per cent’, March 6, 2016.
3. Perfect is the Enemy of Good
62 R Batabyal (edited by), The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Speeches, Penguin, 2007.
63 S Sanyal, The Indian Renaissance—India’s Rise After a Thousand Years of Decline, Penguin Books India, 2008.
64 J Drèze and A Sen, An Uncertain Glory—India and Its Contradictions, Penguin & Allen Lane, 2013.
65 The PROBE Team in association with the Centre for Development Economics, Public Report on Basic Education in India, 1999.
66 Ibid.
67 M Kremer, K Muralidharan, N Chaudhury, J Hammer and FH Rogers, Teacher Absence in India: A Snapshot, World Bank, 2004.
68 Ibid.
69 S Bhattacharjea, W Wadhwa and R Banerji, Inside Primary Schools—A Study of Teaching and Learning in Rural India, ASER Centre, 2011.
70 A Kazmin, ‘India: Learning a Hard Lesson’, Financial Times, May 7, 2015.
71 Kremer et al., 2004.
72 The PROBE Team in association with the Centre for Development Economics, 1999.
73 ASER Centre, The Annual Status of Education Report, 2014.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Bhattacharjea et al., 2011.
77 Drèze & Sen, 2013.
78 ASER Centre, Trends over Time (2006-2014): A Supplement to ASER 2014, January 2015.
79 ASER Centre, The National Picture: Rural Findings, 2014.
80 Ibid.
81 G Kingdon, ‘The Impact of the Sixth Pay Commission on Teacher Salaries: Assessing Equity and Efficiency Effects’, Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, 2010.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Drèze & Sen, 2013.
87 L Pritchett and Y Aiyar, ‘Value Subtraction in Public Sector Production: Accounting Versus Economic Cost of Primary Schooling in India’, Working Paper, Center for Global Development, 2014.
88 Ibid.
89 K Basu, An Economist in the Real World—The Art of Policymaking in India, Penguin Viking, 2016.
90 Kazmin, 2015.
91 Ernst & Young, Right to Education: Role of the Private Sector, March 2012.
92 ASER Centre, The Annual Status of Education Report, 2012.
93 PV Iyer, ‘Bring back exams, more weight on learning, teachers’, The Indian Express, September 14, 2014.
94 Ernst & Young, 2012.
95 ASER Centre, 2014.
96 A Kapur and S Iyer, Budget Briefs, SSA, GOI 2015-2016, Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research, February 28, 2015.
97 A Kapur and V Srinivas, Budget Briefs, SSA, GOI 2016-2017, Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research, February 26, 2016.
98 Kapur & Iyer, 2015.
99 Kapur & Srinivas, 2016.
100 AV Banerjee and E Duflo, Poor Economics—Rethinking Poverty and the Ways to End It, Random House India, 2011.
101 H Damodaran, ‘Learning’s not about enrolment, latrines in school. We’re failing children on a massive scale’, The Indian Express, February 1, 2015.
102 Kazmin, 2015.
103 ASER Centre, The Annual Status of Education Report, 2013.
104 Kazmin, 2015.
105 Damodaran, 2015.
106 ASER Centre, 2014.
107 ASER Centre, 2013.
108 KPMG-CII, Assessing the Impact of the Right to Education Act, March 2016.
109 A Tilotia, The Making of India—Gamechanging Transitions, Rupa Publications India, 2015.
110 ASER Centre, The Annual Status of Education Report: Findings from Punjab, 2015.
111 Ibid.
112 KPMG-CII, 2016.
113 GG Kingdon, ‘Schooling without Learning’,The Hindu, February 8, 2016.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 P Jain, ‘Recognition of 75% private schools in MP under “threat”’, The Hindustan Times, May 19, 2016.
117 M Subramanian, ‘Chhattisgarh is closing down schools in areas where it should expand them’, Scroll.in, July 9, 2016.
118 National Independent Schools Alliance, Research Brief, May 2016.
119 Ibid.
120 G Kingdon, ‘Schooling without learning: How the RTE Act destroys private schools and destroys standards in public schools’, The Times of India, August 26, 2015.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 TN Ninan, The Turn of the Tortoise—The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future, Penguin Books India, 2015.
4. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!
124 J Lanchester, How to Speak Money, WW Norton & Company, 2015.
125 Ibid.
126 S Sanyal, The Indian Renaissance—India’s Rise After a Thousand Years of Decline, Penguin Books India, 2008.
127 A Tilotia, The Making of India—Gamechanging Transitions, Rupa Publications India, 2015.
128 Ibid.
129 Ibid.
130 TS Papola and PP Sahu, Growth and Structure of Employment in India—Long-Term and Post-Reform Performance and the Emerging Challenge, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), March 2012.
131 Institute for Human Development, India Labour and Employment Report, 2014.
132 UNDP, Shaping the Future: How Changing Demographics Can Power Human Development, Asia Pacific Human Development Report.
133 Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
134 A Hoda and DK Rai, Labour Regulations and Growth of Manufacturing and Employment in India: Balancing Protection and Flexibility, written for the World Bank, ICRIER, 2015.
135 Institute for Human Development, 2014.
136 AV Banerjee and E Duflo, Poor Economics—Rethinking Poverty and the Ways to End It, Random House India, 2011.
137 Institute for Human Development, 2014.
138 Press Trust of India, ‘Unemployment rate increases to 5%, highest in five years in 2015-16’, September 29, 2016.
139 S Varma, ‘Joblessness at 5-year high, reveals survey’, The Times of India, October 1, 2016.
140 Press Trust of India, September 2016.
141 Papola & Sahu, 2012.
142 MS Sharma, Restart—The Last Chance for the Indian Economy, Random House India, 2015.
143 Tilotia, 2015.
144 D Joshi and V Mahambare, HIRE & LOWER—Slowdown compounds India’s job-creation challenge, CRISIL Research, January 2014.
145 Ibid.
146 Ibid.
147 Sharma, 2015.
148 Papola & Sahu, 2012.
149 Census of India, 2001, Migration Tables.
150 UNESCO, Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India, July 2013.
151 Census of India, 2011.
152 K Munshi and M Rosenzweig, ‘Rural to urban migration in India: Why labour mobility bucks global trend’,The Indian Express, March 26, 2016.
153 AK Dasgupta, ‘Disguised Unemployment and Economic Development’, The Economic Weekly, August 1956.
154 Sharma, 2015.
155 H de Soto, The Mystery of Capital—Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, Black Swan, 2001.
156 Institute for Human Development, 2014.
157 C Wheelan, Naked Statistics—Stripping the Dread from the Data, WW Norton & Company, 2014.
158 Ibid.
159 R Matthews, The Laws of Chanc
e and How They can Work for You, Profile Books, 2016.
160 Ibid.
161 RH Frank, The Darwin Economy—Liberty, Competition and the Common Good, Princeton University Press, 2011.
162 TN Ninan, The Turn of the Tortoise—The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future, Penguin Books India, 2015.
5. Why Engineers and MBAs Want to Become Peons and Sweepers
163 D Joshi, V Mahambare and P Munjal, Skilling India—The Billion People Challenge, CRISIL Research, 2010.
164 Institute for Human Development, India Labour and Employment Report, 2014.
165 NSDC-KPMG, Human Resource and Skill Requirements in the Building Construction and Real Estate Sector.
166 R Hajela, ‘Shortage of Skilled Workers: A Paradox of the Indian Economy’, SKOPE Research Paper No. 111, November 2012.
167 Ibid.
168 Aspiring Minds, Skills—Plumbers, 2015.
169 Hajela, 2012.
170 NSDC-KPMG, Human Resource and Skill Requirements in the Building Construction and Real Estate Sector.
171 MS Sharma, Restart—The Last Chance for the Indian Economy, Random House India, 2015.
172 Hajela, 2012.
173 Ibid.
174 Ibid.
175 Ibid.
176 Ibid.
177 From the website of the training institute: http://www.lntecc.com/HOMEPAGE/CSTI/curriculum.htm.
178 Hajela, 2012.
179 Ibid.
180 A Tilotia, The Making of India—Gamechanging Transitions,Rupa Publications India, 2015.
181 National Skill Development Corporation, Annual Report,2014-2015.
182 NSDC-KPMG, Human Resource and Skill Requirements in the Building Construction and Real Estate Sector.
183 The Financial Express, ‘Getting Skilling Back on Track’,October 17, 2015.
184 Outlook, ‘“The NSDC Had No Accountability” – An interview with Rajiv Pratap Rudy’, August 10, 2015.
185 D Joshi and V Mahambare HIRE & LOWER—Slowdown compounds India’s job-creation challenge, CRISIL Research, January 2014.