SRINAGAR: J&K People’s Conference President Sajad Gani Lone today termed the practice of blacklisting contractors on the basis of reports from agencies as being discriminatory and inherently biased.
He asserted that such a practice can have significant consequences for individuals who are already marginalized, particularly those who are trying to reintegrate into society following a conflict.
“The blacklisting of contractors on the basis of reports from covert agencies is discriminatory and inherently biased. In a conflict what would the golden concept of reintegration mean if a person is barred from almost all forms of economic activity”, Lone tweeted on the matter.
Lone further stated that this practice can create significant challenges for individuals who are trying to earn a livelihood and support themselves and their families.
“Honestly. It is baffling. What is a supposedly ex militant, or ex sympathizer, or relative of the either variety supposed to do. How will they earn their livelihood? Talk of scripting a disaster. Alas by the time disaster hits all these officers will have retired”, he added.
New Delhi: An SBI research report on Tuesday dismissed arguments that India is dangerously close to Hindu rate of growth saying such statements are “ill-conceived, biased and premature” in the wake of the recent GDP numbers and the available data on savings and investments.
“Interpretations of GDP growth based on noisy quarterly numbers is a game of smoke and mirror,” said the SBI report ‘Ecowrap’.
The report comes within days of former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan saying that India is “dangerously close” to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth.
Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying.
Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged 3.5 per cent. The term was coined by Raj Krishna, an Indian economist, in 1978 to describe the slow growth
“India’s quarterly Y-o-Y GDP growth has been in a declining trend in FY23 sequentially, prompting arguments that India’s growth is reminiscent of a pre – 1980 Raj Krishna coined growth rate,” the report said.
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Apart from the fact that, quarterly growth numbers are “noisy and should be best avoided for any serious interpretation (on an average, India’s GDP growth has witnessed Rs 2 lakh crores upward revision for the 3 year ended FY23), “we find such argument ill-conceived, biased and premature at its best when weighing the recent GDP numbers against the available data on savings and investments.”
The investment and savings data for the past decade reveals interesting points, said the report authored by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, State Bank of India.
Gross capital formation (GCF) by the government touched a high of 11.8 per cent in 2021-22, up from 10.7 per cent in 2020-21.
“This also had a domino effect on private sector investment that jumped from 10 per cent to 10.8 per cent over the same period,” it said.
In fact, Ecowrap added that the trends in GCF to gross output ratio or the plough back of funds for creation of fresh capacity shows that for public administration the ratio attained fresh peak in 2021-22 owing to the emphasis on capital expenditure in recent budgets.
At the aggregate level, gross capital formation is supposed to have crossed 32 per cent in 2022-23, the highest level since 2018-19.
According to the report, in 2021-22, gross savings have risen to 30 per cent from 29 per cent in 2020-21.
“The ratio is supposed to have crossed 31 per cent in 2022-23, the highest since 2018-19. The household savings increased sharply during the pandemic period on account of sharp accretion in financial savings such as deposits,” said the report by SBI’s Economic Research Department.
While household financial savings have since then moderated from 15.4 per cent in 2020-21 to 11.1 per cent in 2022-23, savings in physical assets have grown sharply to 11.8 per cent in 2021-22 from 10.7 per cent in 2020-21.
“Prima facie, a careful analysis shows that Incremental Capital Output ratio (ICOR), which measures additional units of capital (investment) needed to produce additional units of output, has been improving.
“ICOR which was 7.5 in FY12 is now only 3.5 in FY 22. Clearly, only half of capital is now needed for the next unit of output,” it said.
Such reducing ICOR in the current years reflects a relative increasing efficiency of capital. The talk on ICOR becomes relevant and shows that the economy is on a sound footing, it added.
The report further said it is also now clear that potential growth of the Indian economy (a global phenomenon) is now lower than earlier.
“From that point of view, future GDP growth rates even at 7 per cent could still mean a decent number by any standards!,” it said.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter (October-December) of the current fiscal slowed to 4.4 per cent from 6.3 per cent in the second quarter (July-September) and 13.2 per cent in the first quarter (April-June).
The growth in the third quarter of the previous financial year was 5.2 per cent.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday rejected Opposition charges of the Budget allocations for green and clean energy being made keeping the Adani Group in mind, saying it might be Congress culture to give benefits to ‘jijas’ and ‘bhatijas’ but not of the Modi government.
Sitharaman had in Budget 2023-24 provided Rs 35,000 crore for clean energy transition — a space where the Adani Group has announced massive projects ranging from renewable energy capacity to green hydrogen production. Such allocation has been tagged ‘green growth’ budget and the Opposition punned it to imply it was meant for Adani Group firms such as Adani Green Energy Ltd.
” … kyun ki mera naam le kar ek vipaksh ke neta bole, kya Nirmala Sitharaman ne green mei itna amount allot kiya, kya itna amount kisiko mann mei rakhte hue allot kiya? (Because one Opposition leader took my name and said, did Nirmala Sitharaman allocate so much amount to green sector keeping in mind a particular individual?)
“Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, any allocation is not made keeping anyone specific in mind, rather by keeping everyone in mind. The government keeps country in mind. Such kind of remarks is absolutely wrong…,” the minister said without naming any company or individual.
She was replying to the general discussion on the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha.
Proceedings of Parliament have been disrupted by Opposition parties demanding a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee or a Supreme Court monitored enquiry into allegations of financial fraud made by US-based Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group.
While participating in the debate, Congress’ Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury sought an explanation from the Finance Minister on how can investors have confidence when the market capitalisation of one of the richest persons in the world eroded by 47 per cent following allegations of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation.
Without naming the Congress, Sitharaman said there were times when phone calls were made to banks for giving loans to benefit certain people.
“…if phone calls were made, if relations were given benefit, if jijajis and bhatijas (brothers-in law and nephews) were given benefit, it might be their culture,” she said in an apparent dig at the Gandhi family.
“Under Prime Minister Modi, none of us do any of that. And therefore, any such allegation will be given back in the same language. I’m sorry…I can’t afford to have this kind of language,” Sitharaman said.
There were allegations that systems were bypassed to provide bank loans to people associated with the Congress party leadership during the UPA regime (2004-2014). The Congress party has rejected such allegations.
Sitharaman also said during earlier Congress regimes, there were massacres and cited examples of Nellie in Assam and the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. She also accused the then Congress party government for brutally suppressing Sadhus protesting cow slaughter in Delhi in 1966.
“Who will answer for these,” she said, adding the Modi government was not against any community and does not believe in vote bank politics.
