Came across a tweet that shared the editorial by redoubtable Ashok H Advani, Editor Business India, regarding the slide of INR vis-a-vis USD. The article very powerfully argues how the outdated Exchange Control is being used to artificial determine rupee’s real value, leading to its great slide versus USD. It suggests that by abolishing exchange control and treating foreign exchange as just another commodity, rupee can be allowed to realise its real inherent value.
It’s a bit of a mystery that for all the openness and democracy, why we still have great secrecy around the functioning of bureaucracy and why even the most powerfully mandated governments, like the one currently in power, are not able to follow the best global policies and practices, the ones that have made much smaller and naturally constrained countries such as UAE and Singapore economic superpowers.
I had once earlier suggested that why in India, post elections, we can’t cut across the party lines to build a super think tank. What if erudite economists such as P Chidambaram are in opposition, Yashwant Sinha is out of favour with the government, Montek Singh advised the previous governments and above all the former PM and architect of economic reforms Dr Manmohan Singh headed Congress led coalition government for two terms? Can’t their inputs and experience be pooled in to devise ways and means of stopping rupee’s slide? Is political agenda in this country above everything? Even national agenda?
We have the wherewithal, capacity and know how. We only need to pool it all together by overcoming our narrow and myopic established positions.
Arvind Arya blog 