[Just be ready for the biggest bank heist ever. And, face the consequences, sometime later, maybe after enjoying some pre-poll sops, in the immediate aftermath.
<<Demonetisation is the reason Shaktikanta Das should not become governor of the Reserve Bank of India. It tells us two unnerving things about him. He either doesn’t understand how India’s economy works – or, he does understand that, but is willing to do what the government tells him. Neither trait bodes well for the country’s economy.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II below.) <<The big shift came in 1977, when M Narasimham became the first RBI cadre officer to head the central bank of the country. All his successors before Shaktikanta Das were established economists except Venkitaraman. The list includes IG Patel, Manmohan Singh, C Rangarajan and Bimal Jalan. ... Shaktikanta Das was a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer. In 2016, when Shaktikanta Das was the economic affairs secretary, a controversy from the past cropped up. It was related to land allotment to a US company in Tamil Nadu. The US company had got 100 acres of land about 50 km from Chennai in 2007 at a price that allegedly existed in 1970. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy brought out the charge of irregularities in the concessional land allotment. Swamy also accused Shaktikanta Das of illegally favouring P Chidambaram, the Congress leader and former Union finance minister. The Narendra Modi government has appointed Shaktikanta Das for a tenure of five years. Both his predecessors, Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan were appointed for three years. While Rajan decided not to seek an extension Urjit Patel became the first RBI governor since 1990 to resign before end of the tenure.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. I below.)] I/II. https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/shaktikanta-das-non-economist-rbi-governor-1407702-2018-12-12?fbclid=IwAR0XgKyklqjJDnOt6ujvzKM9VpfJQQ4mbY1efscIzW_Xqxnnz1R6KhyC-5A MA in History, Shaktikanta Das is first non-economist in 28 years to be RBI governor The last non-economist RBI governor was S Venkitaraman, who was appointed to the office in 1990. Prabhash K Dutta New Delhi December 12, 2018UPDATED: December 12, 2018 14:10 IST Shaktikanta Das appointed RBI governor Retired IAS officer Shaktikanta Das is the 25th RBI governor. (Photo: PTI) HIGHLIGHTS 14 of 25 RBI governors have been bureaucrats including 12 coming from IAS/ICS Immediate predecessors of Shaktikanta Das were economists Shaktikanta Das has got tenure as RBI governor till 2023 There are no fixed eligibility criteria for appointment of a person as the RBI governor. According to the RBI Act, appointment of governor is approved by the PMO on the recommendation of the finance minister. Shaktikanta Das is the 25th RBI governor and 14th career bureaucrat including 12 IAS/ICS officers to hold the position. With the appointment of Shaktikanta Das as RBI governor, the position has gone back to an IAS officer after two economist incumbents. The last IAS officer to hold the office of RBI governor was D Subbarao, who was also an economist like his predecessor YV Reddy. However, Shaktikanta Das holds degrees of graduation and post-graduation in History from Delhi University. He later pursued a financial management course from IIM Bangalore. His predecessors Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan were economists of repute. Both Raghuram Rajan and Urjit Patel earned their reputation as top economists during their association with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Incidentally, Shaktikanta Das is the first RBI governor since 1990, when S Venkitaraman was appointed to the office. Venkitaraman was an IAS officer and like Shaktikanta Das had served as a secretary in the finance ministry. Venkitaraman was the finance secretary. Shaktikanta Das was first the revenue secretary and then the economic affairs secretary when he oversaw demonetisation drive of the Narendra Modi government. What about previous appointments as RBI governor? Osborne Smith was the first RBI governor, appointed in 1935. He was a professional banker. His successors were all bureaucrats drawn mainly from ICS (Indian Civil Services) till BN Adarkar in 1970. Adarkar was an economist but his stint was a stop-gap arrangement for 42 days. But his appointment was in sync with the growing realisation that the RBI governor had much more to do than just put signatures on various currency denominations. Shaktikanta Das, then economic affairs secretary, with then RBI governor Urjit Patel displaying new currency denomination of Rs 2000 in 2016, when demonetisation was announced. (Photo: PTI file) The big shift came in 1977, when M Narasimham became the first RBI cadre officer to head the central bank of the country. All his successors before Shaktikanta Das were established economists except Venkitaraman. The list includes IG Patel, Manmohan Singh, C Rangarajan and Bimal Jalan. Four retired IAS officers were also appointed as the RBI governor during this period - RN Malhotra, Venkitaraman, Reddy and Subbarao. Of them Malhotra, Reddy and Subbarao were also economists. Two more things about Shaktikanta Das - a controversy and his tenure Shaktikanta Das was a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer. In 2016, when Shaktikanta Das was the economic affairs secretary, a controversy from the past cropped up. It was related to land allotment to a US company in Tamil Nadu. The US company had got 100 acres of land about 50 km from Chennai in 2007 at a price that allegedly existed in 1970. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy brought out the charge of irregularities in the concessional land allotment. Swamy also accused Shaktikanta Das of illegally favouring P Chidambaram, the Congress leader and former Union finance minister. The Narendra Modi government has appointed Shaktikanta Das for a tenure of five years. Both his predecessors, Urjit Patel and Raghuram Rajan were appointed for three years. While Rajan decided not to seek an extension Urjit Patel became the first RBI governor since 1990 to resign before end of the tenure. If Shaktikanta Das serves his full tenure as the RBI governor, he would be in office almost the full tenure of the next government at the Centre. The term of the NDA government ends in May, when fresh election to the Lok Sabha is scheduled to take place. II. https://scroll.in/article/905356/opinion-shaktikanta-dass-actions-after-note-ban-suggest-that-he-is-a-poor-choice-to-be-rbi-chief?fbclid=IwAR2fRRh9amtPeHA2LQuAcj5xkMLWyOiaOkgAXK5PbK5aVN33BibHg1zTojU Opinion: New RBI chief Shaktikanta Das’s actions after note ban show why he is a poor choice Demonetisation revealed two unnerving things about the former economic affairs secretary. Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das. | HT Photo 11 hours ago M Rajshekhar By appointing Shaktikanta Das as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is exposing India’s economy to significant risk. Das, a former Union economic affairs secretary and current member of the 15th Finance Commission, became a familiar face to many Indians during the tumultuous weeks that followed demonetisation in November 2016. In this period, he held two kinds of press briefings. At the first kind, he defended the government’s decision to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes saying, among other things, that the policy would cripple the black economy, remove counterfeit notes, spur digital payments and bring domestic savings lying idle at home into banks, making it possible for institutions to make loans at lower rates. At the second kind, he announced several of the government’s panicked measures aimed at containing the situation as the decision to ban notes spun out of control. As queues lengthened at banks because of the severe shortage of cash, it was Das who announced the government’s decision to reduce the daily withdrawal limit from Rs 4,500 to Rs 2,000. It was also Das who announced, as new currency entered the economy slowly, the government’s decision that people could exchange their Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes at bank counters only once till December 30, 2016. It was he who defended the government’s decision to mark citizens swapping their notes with indelible ink. That was because, he said, the same people were standing in queues over and over again to exchange notes. However, this decision was announced, without alerting the country’s solitary producer of indelible inks. On the fly It was a time when the government seemed to be learning about the effects of the note ban only as they became evident. So, when press reports wrote about the difficulties of farmers left cashless just before the rabi season, it was Das who announced the government’s decision to let farmers withdraw up Rs 25,000 against sanctioned crop loans. At the same press conference, following other press reports, he said that families preparing for a wedding could withdraw Rs 2.5 lakh as a one-time exception – after, however, proving to the bank manager’s satisfaction that a wedding was indeed on the cards. Through it all, as government clarifications and tweaks came in fast, Das defended them all. Three months later, in February 2017, he underplayed the impacts of demonetisation saying sectors like agriculture had not been affected by it. He told Hindu Businessline: “The impact, if any, of demonetisation will not spill over to next year,” he emphasised. “It would have impacted in the last two to three months but now we are almost back to normal.” As we know now, none of the claims Das advanced to support demonetisation materialised. India’s black economy stores illicit gains in gold, land, benami shares and offshore accounts. Demonetisation did not touch any of those. The proportion of counterfeit notes in the economy, again, was not large enough to warrant such a sledgehammer-like approach. Digital payments have slowly fallen back to pre-demonetisation levels. As for domestic savings entering the banking sector, in the months and years that followed demonetisation, families have pulled out the cash they deposited to rebuild their cash reserves at home. The only difference was: with lower trust in the banking sector than before, people began stockpiling more cash than earlier. Impact on agriculture That is not all. Agriculture was indeed hurt by demonetisation. Also, the ban’s impacts are evident to this day. The earnings of businessmen and self-employed people in India’s informal economy are yet to return to pre-demonetisation levels. That is one reason why, in the assembly polls of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, voters have punished the Bharatiya Janata Party. Financially, they are all worse off than they were before demonetisation. Demonetisation is the reason Shaktikanta Das should not become governor of the Reserve Bank of India. It tells us two unnerving things about him. He either doesn’t understand how India’s economy works – or, he does understand that, but is willing to do what the government tells him. Neither trait bodes well for the country’s economy. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
