 "Best of BS Opinion: How much change and continuity can we expect this year?")
Hello, and welcome to BS Views, our daily roundup of Business Standard’s opinion pieces. Today, we look at a number of issues, from energy security to job security to work flexibility to small-cap equities, and the RBI’s possible moves on interest rates. What stands out in all of them are the ideas of change and continuity, and how they play off each other and what it means for Indian policymakers.
Our first edit looks at the challenges that India’s energy security faces from the new set of sanctions imposed by the outgoing Biden administration on Russian oil. While sanctions on Russian oil are not new, the wide range of the new directives also affect maritime insurers and could impact supplies to Indian refiners which have relied on shadow fleets to ferry Russian oil. Things could change quickly and Indian oil firms will need to figure out a way to continue receiving Russian oil, even as they diversify their baskets to include Gulf and Atlantic crude.
The second one looks at the rapid adaptation of artificial intelligence across industries. Its impact will also ripple through India’s large software services industries as AI replaces lower-end programming and coding roles. What will survive will be creativity and critical thinking. It is incumbent upon the government to make changes to the education system in time so that future generations are equipped with the skills to negotiate a rapidly-evolving job market.
If our editorial sounds worried about job security, one of our columnists today, Ajit Balakrishnan, offers a way out. He writes about the wave of young professionals, mostly in the West, who are choosing to give up the 9-5 routine in exchange for freelance work that allows them to earn even as they free up time to pursue other interests. He notes that this is already catching on in India, and how digital tech is enabling more people to work on their own time for their own dime.
Our other columnist on the edit page, Debashis Basu, writes about the changes in the equity markets, particularly the small-cap segment. Where once these stocks were seemingly unstoppable, they have since September lost some of that momentum. Large stocks have reverted to their usual rate of growth. Small-caps he says, are going to see their own K-shaped recovery. Ones that depend in government spending could see their fortunes falter, while others in certain sectors will continue to grow. Investors would do well to take note of these changes and temper expectations accordingly.
For our book review, J Wortham takes a peek inside 'WE TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives' by Meredith D. Clark. The self-explanatory title looks at Black experiences self-chronicled on social media, specifically (then) Twitter (now X), and how it changed the way mainstream (read white) media reported on Black people, which has a direct impact on how Black lives, and their importance, are perceived. Clark, a professor of race and political communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also has a warning – to continue in the tradition of white media elites will further disenfranchise non-white people. Change must be had.
Writing elsewhere in the paper, Tamal Bandyopadhyay uses the Chinese Year of the Snake to analyse the banking sector and the Reserve Bank of India’s outlook. Will the sector see new changes under a new regulatory dispensation, like the snake takes on a new skin, or will it adopt a continuity-with-change approach. As global central banks approach their monetary policy based on local and global conditions, it will be interesting to watch the RBI’s moves on rate cuts and liquidity, he writes. Thank you for reading!