Raghav's Take

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) nominated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the November elections in a uniquely spectacular manner. The fact that it was a COVID-induced ‘virtual event’ was perhaps the least of it. But the parade of Republican heavyweights at a Democratic convention was unprecedented, from Colin Powell, John Kasich to Cindy McCain. I shudder to think what legal convolutions would have gotten triggered if India’s moth-ridden anti-defection law was applied to these worthies! Tune in to the podcast! Music: Big Bang Fuzz

India taxes ESOPs, ie employees stock options, harshly, very harshly. Let me give you a quick history lesson. When I founded TV18 in the early 90s, we had given generous stock options to our critical team members. In that sense, we belonged to a clutch of ESOP pioneers in India. And since we were leaders in business news, we also drilled hard into issues around entrepreneurship, taxation and union budgets. Tune in to Raghav's Take!

It’s a familiar cacophony. Cut taxes. Invert the inverted duty structure. Control the fiscal deficit. Be honest about your arithmetic. Abolish equity taxes. Step up government expenditure, the fisc be damned. Bring back investment allowance. Slap inheritance taxes... And on it goes, a laundry list of standard policy tactics which could revive India’s economy. Frankly, the time for budget quick-fixes is over. If PM Modi genuinely wants to rejuvenate, he’s got to create ‘TRUST’ for India’s private enterprise which accounts for 90% of the economy. India’s bureaucracy has always been deeply suspicious of well-regulated markets. Which is why they love to micro-manage outcomes. But this time, their quest has become maniacal. If you create truly competitive markets, ‘super profits’ will vanish on their own — when will our policy-makers understand that? We should have learned from Ben Bernanke, who authored TARP (Troubled Assets Reconstruction Program) and saved America’s economy in 2008. The ‘criminalisation’ of business has now become quite outrageous. Therefore, it has also had the most harmful impact on India’s economy. Host: Raghav Bahl Editor: Mohammad Ibrahim Producer: Sonal Gupta Read the story on The Quint (https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/raghav-bahl-budget-2020-nirmala-sitharaman-trust-economic-policies-tax-fiscal-cuts)  

For over five years, I’ve criticised ‘state creep’ on Prime Minister Modi’s watch. This tendency hit a crescendo on 5 July 2019, when the second Modi regime’s first budget was read out in parliament. While that document was riddled with state over-reach, I will remind you only of the most egregious measure: a voluntary contribution under CSR (corporate social responsibility) was converted into a criminal liability! Mercifully, it was quickly aborted, but not before it had betrayed the underlying instinct. Inevitably, the sentiment, markets and financial indicators tanked after the Fifth July Budget. A concerned Modi tried to ‘talk up’ the economy by feting ‘wealth creators’ in his Independence Day speech, but it fell on deaf years. The markets continued to plummet. Tune in to this podcast for the full story!

The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress coalition in Maharashtra is perhaps the second most ‘unthinkable’ political alliance in India, next only to the most incompatible BJP-PDP coalition in Jammu & Kashmir, that ended with devastating consequences. So, what are the lessons from this most unusual, 80-hour-long Maharashtra political fiasco? Tune in to Raghav's Take!

India’s economy today can be described by a four-letter word. Oh c’mon, it’s not what you are thinking… Even the sarkari (government-owned) State Bank of India says that GDP growth could fall to around four percent when the July-September number is revealed, that’s what! And as usually happens in an acute crisis, everybody and her aunt is offering solutions. Fix this, increase that, cut here… If anything, Prime Minister Modi is getting buried under a million “miracle ideas”. But sadly, too many good fixes also become a bad thing, because only a bit of this and a bit of that gets done, and the problem never goes away. So let’s answer a small quiz. I will throw ten options at you. All of these are critical actions required to pull India’s economy out of its current funk. At the end, I will ask you one final question. Check if you’ve really got it figured out in your head. Listen to the podcast for the rest!

Coal output crashes by over 20 percent. Overall, eight core sectors lose a stunning 5.2 percent year-on-year over September 2018, contracting to an 8-year low. GDP hits a 6-year low. And yet, India’s stock markets hit an all-time high! Why, you ask? To understand this conundrum, let’s dial back a few months, to May 2019. Everybody thought that a struggling economy would dent Prime Minister Modi’s 2014 mandate. But he shocked the whole world by improving upon his tally, crossing a breath-taking 300 seats in Lok Sabha. The markets broke into a euphoric dance of crazy expectations. Surely, he would use his vastly enhanced political capital to finally essay deep, difficult reforms to unshackle the economy, once and for all, right? (https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/indian-economy-low-growth-sensex-high-modi-govt-corporate-policy) Full the full story tune in to the podcast!

I know that adjectives like “milestone”, “game changer” and “watershed” are frequently used after polls that throw up contrarian, unexpected results. But even adjusting for this caveat, I would call the October 2019 mini national elections a “juggernaut stopper”. Tune in to this podcast for my six takeaways from the recent state elections.

The PMC Bank scam was more audacious than any Bonnie and Clyde heist. A high-living father-son duo, Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan, had 44 bank accounts in a loosely regulated outfit in Mumbai called Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank.  They used these accounts to suck out nearly Rs 6500 crore, a mind-boggling 73% of the total loan book of the ill-fated bank. This robbery took place right under the noses of RBI and the auditors. How? The 44 Wadhawan accounts were “masked” by 21,000 – yes, get this, twenty-one thousand – fictitious accounts, many in the names of dead depositors. Allegedly, the bank allowed overdraft draw downs, with the cash travelling via hawala (laundering) channels to Dubai.  The tainted money was “washed back” clean into PMC accounts as deposits. While loans were given to the Wadhawans in the hidden-but-real ledgers, the fake loan accounts of 21,000 depositors were sent in the Advanced Master Indent to RBI. That’s “masking”, got it? Now listen to the podcast for the rest of the story! Host: Raghav Bahl

Finally. Finally! The Modi government has acknowledged the futility of trying to pump prime India’s GDP by ever-escalating government expenditure, which increased by an astonishing double-digit CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) over six years of impotent growth. Remember, Indian governments drive only 10 percent of our economy – worse, they do so inefficiently and bluntly. Finally, the Modi government has acknowledged that the budget presented on 5 July 2019 was a failed, vapid policy document. Finally, it has realised that India’s private enterprise is the most potent engine of economic growth, accounting for over 90 percent of GDP. And finally, after six excruciating years, it has shed its “I am the government and I can fix everything” stance and adopted the mantra of “I will free your animal spirits by empowering, trusting and enriching you.” Finally! The fiscal giveaway is an awe-inspiring 0.6 percent+ of GDP. Absolutely, it’s a generous Rs 1.45 lakh crore of additional cash created on corporate balance sheets. Optically, it’s a humongous 10 percentage points’ hack of the corporate tax rate by one swing of the axe (reminiscent of P Chidambaram’s audacious move in the “dream budget” of 1997/98 – ouch!). Yes, I am delighted. But no, I am not ecstatic. Why? Listen to the podcast for the reasons.

As tensions mount in sadda, aapro, aamchi (ie, “our” in what the Brits would have once called “three dialects of the natives”) London, how should India respond to this flurry of will-or-won’t-Britain-do-a-Brexit? As a nation, our feelings toward our former colonisers are complicated at best. For better and worse, the British profoundly shaped modern India, breeding insecurity and sectarianism while imparting some of their most enlightened institutions: Parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, rule of law, the English language (and accent), the university system, a robust free press, the civil bureaucracy and military architecture. Because of the British, we play cricket, drink tea and drive on the left side of the road. Despite Delhi’s efforts to change colonial place names, we still visit McCluskiegunj in Jharkhand, for example, which was once home to a large Anglo-Indian community, and fly into Jolly Grant Airport in Dehradun. We couldn’t erase the impact of British colonialism even if we wanted to! Listen to the podcast for the rest of the story!

Raghav Bahl pays tribute to former finance minister Arun Jaitley, recalling his meetings with his exceptional Xaverian schoolmate, who always greeted with a smile.

In Prime Minister Modi’s unexpected, stirring commendation of “wealth creators” – most tellingly, by using popular English terminology, instead of conjuring up a Hindi equivalent like poonji utpadak (as he is wont to do) – he was signaling a reach-out to new-gen entrepreneurs and elite business-people who have gotten estranged from him. And by obliquely acknowledging that his regime may have treated them with contempt/suspicion – mark his cutting words in Hindi, heen bhavna – he was being as contrite as Modi can ever be on a public platform. After finishing an energetic 94-minute speech from the Ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi is understood to have driven straight into a brainstorming session with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her band of policy-men on how to fix the economy. Read the rest of the story here (https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/navratri-nine-point-economic-reboot-for-a-puritan-pm-modi) .

Main jaanta hoon ki aaj desh ek aarthik mandhi main hai; lekin main 130 crore desh vaasiyon ko yeh vishwaas deta hoon ki hum jald hi isko aarthik josh main badal dengey! (I know that we are currently in the grip of an economic slowdown; but I want to assure my 130 cr fellow Indians that we shall soon convert this gloom into economic optimism!) I was yearning to hear these words from the Ramparts of the Red Fort. I wanted Prime Minister Modi to use his legendary oratory and hope-generating skills to assuage the economy. But alas, he did not even acknowledge that there is a severe slowdown of demand and investment. Instead his prescription was more of the same same, with an additional/unusual invocation to domestic tourists! After hearing today’s speech, I had almost resigned myself to an unchanged Modi-nomics 2.0 until my eyes fell on this quote (from The Economic Times, 12 August 2019). Tune in!

As always, the strapping 40-year-old swept into his corner room in a Gift City high-rise with the practised, breezy “I love Monday morning” air from his early Manhattan days. He was a celebrated first-generation entrepreneur, but in India he never took his Silicon Valley title of Founder-CEO; instead, he was simply PuFf, a dandy acronym for Pradhan (Chief) Foreman of a billion-dollar unicorn. While in Ahmedabad, do as Gujaratis do! Both his executive assistants (EAs) walked in, one carrying a steaming cup of coffee, the other a box of chocolate cake. What happens next? Tune in to Raghav's Take!

11:15 am, 5 August 2019. I stood stunned and immersed in a time-lapse video as Home Minister Amit Shah read out the Resolution abolishing Article 370 and the state of Jammu & Kashmir in Rajya Sabha. If you were a liberal, you castigated, by rote – “the Kashmir Valley will now become India’s Gaza”. If a conservative, you celebrated, almost crudely – “we will make the Kashmir Valley into another Switzerland”. But I stayed quiet – consumed by a deep, viscous silence – as I tried to understand this political whiplash. I did not want to give a quick, adolescent reaction. I wanted to assess the government’s invoking of Article 370 to kill Article 370 on the three touchstones of Mandate, Method and Morality. Listen to the podcast for the full story. Read the story here (https://www.thequint.com/videos/news-videos/raghav-bahl-on-revoking-article-370-35a-jammu-kashmir-laddakh) .

India’s forex reserves are nearly $430 bn and growing. If we can’t muster the stomach to raise $10 billion in the overseas market, let’s just quit. Raghav Bahl (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23RaghavBahl) backs Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s proposal on sovereign bonds. 

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made a default entry in India’s savagely polarised polls of 2019. Because the irrepressible Shatrughan Sinha made an awful faux pas at an election rally, where he included Jinnah, along with Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Indira and Rajiv, as “respected members of the Congress family who built our nation”.  This gave the BJP very potent grist for its “Congress is pro-Pakistan” propaganda – after all, if the founder of Pakistan was a cherished Congressman, then their allegation was irrefutable, right? Sinha had to beat a hasty retreat, saying it was a “slip of my tongue”. He had mistakenly said Jinnah, when he meant Maulana Azad. But it’s almost impossible to confuse Jinnah with Azad, for they were diametrically opposite politicians. Frankly, I’ve often wondered why Maulana Azad figures so little in contemporary political discourse, while his peers like Nehru, Patel and Bose dominate.  Listen to the podcast for the full story!

I am still reeling from Prime Minister Modi’s iconic, monumental (no, HE is not going to be happy with only two bombastic adjectives, so here goes a third), and “path-breaking” interview to Twinkle’s hubby. While everybody is scratching their heads over the “big why”, I think I’ve got it figured out. It was a clever (synonymously also desperate) ploy to wrest the initiative back from the hotheads in his party. But if the prime minister had read Mary Shelley’s 18th century masterpiece, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (“I used to read so many books at the village library”, Modi told the star struck Twinkle-hubby), he need not have done this embarrassing cameo. As per Wikipedia, it’s “the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a hideous, sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment”; but the monster murders Victor’s wife Elizabeth and brother William. Ever since then, “Frankenstein” has become a noun in English, describing a creature that turns violently upon its own creator. Now to the billion-vote question: when and how did Modi lose the narrative to his political Frankenstein(s)? Let’s begin at the beginning… Listen to the full podcast!

Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi castigating Rahul Gandhi for “running away from majority-dominated areas” to “take refuge in areas where the majority is in minority” (read Wayanad in Kerala)? The naked implication was that Gandhi had somehow demeaned himself, committed blasphemy, by espousing the cause of minorities. In this podcast the Quint’s Editor-in-Chief talks about how this one angry speech one angry speech,resurrected the binary of “separate electorates” – that Hindus should elect only Hindus, while Muslims do the same for Muslims – that ultimately led to the bloody partition of India in 1947. Tune in!

The prequel to this podcast analyses the four economic reforms that this writer is willing to acknowledge under Modi 1.0; towards the end, the article lists three other data points – on FDI, bond and equity issuances – that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been spinning at business summits to fortify his “economic dynamism.” In this sequel, The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl highlights Modi’s big economic missteps with stats and a barrage of data points - just the way Modiji likes it. Tune in!

Congress President Rahul Gandhi's NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana, or Minimum Income Plan), which involves giving Rs 72,000 each to five crore poor families, is a big political idea for the 2019 polls that sent BJP political heavyweights into a panic mode. Is the NYAY scheme actually feasible? The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl explains how it can be done. Tune in!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi 1.0 is done. With the Model Code of Conduct for the general elections now in force, his first innings has effectively ended. As he pitches to get re-elected, we should call in his report card. Tune in to Raghav's Take!

In the late 1940s, India and China won independence from colonial rule. While the trajectories of their respective freedom movements were quite different, there was one remarkable similarity. Both broke up into two enemy nations apiece, China/Taiwan and India/Pakistan. For seven decades now, these pairs of estranged siblings have stayed implacable foes. But as China closed in on Superpower status, it de-hyphenated from Taiwan without lessening its hostility. China is now America’s global rival, not Taiwan’s principal adversary. Unfortunately, India has remained fixated on Pakistan, even as our economic heft has multiplied manifold. Yet we continue to invest almost all our diplomatic capital in an India-Pakistan binary. This must change. A country’s standing in world affairs is defined by who its primary competitors are. India must raise its gaze from Pakistan, without lessening its chokehold, yet diminishing the high-pitched/overt importance we give it in our foreign policy narrative. Tune in to this podcast, where The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl talks about why India should get away from Pakistan crossfire and give primacy to China instead.

Never waste a good crisis! Because what we weathered this week was a blood-curdling dogfight between India and Pakistan that could have nuked half the global population in and around South Asia.  I concede there is an element of exaggeration here, but big wars often get triggered by tiny accidents of judgement. So better to exaggerate than get tortured in a nuclear winter. Yet a crisis of such proportions is also an opportunity to grow up, become a wiser person/country. So, will India and Pakistan seize upon this dangerous wrinkle to become mature, moderate nuclear neighbours?  Listen to the full podcast now!

For those who haven’t heard, a political debate is raging on whether the 2019 elections will be modelled on 1971, when Indira Gandhi trounced a hasty, ill-matched Opposition alliance, or on 2004, when the “invincible” Vajpayee crumbled before a seemingly weak, incoherent patchwork of parties. As with Modi in 2019, both elections were fought by towering incumbents against a bevy of disparate, but united, opponents. Arithmetically, it was a one-on-one contest in most Lok Sabha constituencies. But the two outcomes were like chalk and cheese. What will be Modi’s fate? Before you can answer that question, you need to know the “how, what, why” of the landmark general elections of 1971 and 2004. Tune in to Raghav’s Take for more.

On this episode of Raghav’s Take, The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief, Raghav Bahl explains how SP chief Akhilesh Yadav can unite Mayawati, Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, to pose a formidable threat to the Modi-led BJP in the 2019 General elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves to talk up all his “pioneering firsts”. Well, he’s now added a truly lethal one to that arsenal – India’s first post-truth Budget! Exactly 18 hours before the Budget was presented in Parliament, India dramatically upped its previous two years’ GDP numbers. Ironically, the most brazen “upgrade” was reserved for 2016-17 when demonetisation had clearly ravaged the economy. How did this happen? Well, it was simply a matter of tweaking a few numbers and changing the “denominator” against which all key figures and metrics are calculated against. Listen, as Raghav Bahl explains, on this episode of Raghav’s Take.

Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into active politics brought on a plethora of nervous and panicked responses from the BJP and several “star journalists”. But the Modi government’s uncouth television henchmen will bring Rahul Gandhi’s Congress roaring back to life, says Raghav Bahl. Listen to the podcast!

The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl argues that Lutyens’ Delhi did more to propel Modi into the PMO and may even be able to bring him down in 2019. Tune in to this edition of Raghav's Take.

As a Bollywood narrator would say, in dono stories main Modi hai, Patel hai, RSS hai, aur cash bhi hai! But there is a tiny difference between the two, and that is the letter ‘t’. You see, one was about a Statue, the other about a Statute. Prime Minister Modi helmed and orchestrated both the stories. In the first one, he redeemed his 6-year-old pledge to build the world’s tallest statue on river Narmada – a 182-metre salute to Sardar Patel, an icon of India’s independence movement. In the second but bigger story, Modi threatened the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a surgical strike.

By not going for a TARP-like bailout, Prime Minister Modi has given an extra gain of Rs 30,000 cr to crony capitalists who allowed IL&FS to crash, while levying an extra tax of Rs 2,00,000 cr on ordinary/innocent investors, like you and me.  The above is very simple arithmetic, but a team of IAS babus (bureaucrats) will never understand it, because it is deeply suspicious of market forces. And Prime Minister Modi has surrendered his economic policies to them, keeping entrepreneurs, tailors and firemen out.

Brahmastra, in the Mahabharata, is a “single projectile that is able to destroy the Universe”. Lord Rama is thought to have used it in his last battle with Ravana. Now let’s put it in context of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. After four years of a blessed existence, Modi is facing his first acute economic challenge. Today, India is again teetering at the edge of a severe macro-economic imbalance: treasuries have crossed 8 percent, the rupee has plummeted by 15 percent to over 74/dollar, oil is perilously close to three figures, and hundreds of stocks are in a severe bear grip even as market indices have crashed by over 15 percent. Does he have the gumption to deploy a policy Brahmastra, to kill the crisis before it careens out of control?

Ironically, Prime Minister Modi needs to take lessons from the swift, decisive actions of two politicians he holds in disdain, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, says The Quint's founder Raghav Bahl.

The University of Delhi (DU) immeasurably helped create Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political brand. His sprint towards the stunning 2014 victory had begun on 6 February 2013 at DU’s Shri Ram College of Commerce.

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hugely dissimilar personalities in outward conduct – one writes crude tweets, the other remains strategically silent – have nonetheless created equally polarised democracies ten thousand miles apart. And what about their attitude towards independent news platforms? Listen to The Quint's Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl!

On 28 July, the man responsible for securing our telecom and broadcast infrastructure, RS Sharma revealed his Aadhaar ID number and dared hackers to “harm”, but did he accept his defeat with humility? Listen to The Quint’s Editor-in-Chief Raghav Bahl talk about the culture of intimation in our current political environment.

Khichdi is also a colloquial description of weak coalition governments. The phrase acquired wide currency during 1996-97, when unstable United Front regimes were formed during a sickly interregnum in India’s democracy. Today it’s back in vogue, with several pundits wondering if the 2019 polls shall throw up another khichdi coalition. Listen to The Quint's Editor-in-Chief, Raghav Bahl analyse India's politics.

2019 coalition government: In an eerie replay of 1996, the BJP could become the single largest party, the Congress could come in second and a clutch of regional parties could dice the remaining seats. Here are three reasons why the 2019 "khichdi"coalition could be a political delicacy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government treats Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, as the God of all economic success. PM Modi cherry-picked and talked about all the good stuff, but "overlooked" many troublesome facts, about India’s economy. Here's a reminder from Raghav Bahl.

Unquestionably, the Mufti-Modi Pact to create the PDP-BJP coalition government on 1 March 2015 was a Coalition of Immense Hope. Unfortunately, in three years, it had transgressed into a "Coalition of Fear."