Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu, Article 370

You will reduce states to colonies, and you think you are doing something which is constitutional

Don't dismember J&K, don't do that cardinal sin

Business Standard

NDTV: Arun Jaitley in an interview said to me the Congress and the media had got his initial statements wrong. He said he is going to disclose all the names. However, he said names will be disclosed to court. He said he has a basic agreement with Swiss authorities that once independent investigations have been done in India, there will be co-operation and he said expect big Congress names... How do you respond to Jaitley's  comments?P Chidambaram: Firstly, no one got it wrong. The affidavit filed in the Supreme Court clearly was a U-turn on the position that the BJP had taken. When we had told the court that under the bilateral agreements we cannot and should not be asked to disclose the names until charges are filed or prosecution is launched, the BJP criticised us. In fact, I remember a statement by Narendra Modi on February 17, where he said the finance minister is paying lip service to the cause and that when he comes to power they will disclose the names and they will bring back t

'BJP does not have the grace to admit they did a U-turn'

I asked myself how would the UTI crisis had been faced if we had all the instruments and all the institutions that have now been recommended by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC), the commission to rewrite our financial sector laws

'Indian Financial Code could be in place by 2014-end'

In my speech today, I wish to go into detail on the legal and technical issues that are involved in the apparent conflict between policymaking and policing.Safety is a "public good". Public good is defined around two tests: non-rival and non-excludable. Safety is non-rival: my safety while walking on a street does not reduce your consumption of safety. Safety is non-excludable: when one more child is born into the world, it is not possible to exclude that child from the umbrella of safety. Safety satisfies both tests and it is a public good. A fortiori, safety of the financial system is a public good. If we fail on safety, we will fail to get growth.Providing safety is the job of the government. A sound criminal justice system must ensure safety of the financial system. It must protect the financial system against theft, fraud, forgery, mis-selling, money laundering, hacking, cyber attacks etc. Hence the need for a first rate investigating agency.An investigating agency must build capa

'An investigating agency must build capacity'

In the next 10 minutes, I wish to speak to you about the microeconomic fundamentals that have given us one doubling of our gross domestic product (GDP) every decade. In my reckoning, there are at least six main stories:(i) Demographics: India has young demographics. Alongside, we are doing well on improving the quality of the workforce. Household survey data (the CMIE Consumer Pyramids database) shows that for children of age 12, literacy is now 95 per cent. We have a great surge in college enrolment: a full one-fifth of 21-year-olds now have a college degree. Every year, millions of young people are added to the labour force and their education is qualitatively superior to that of the elderly cohort leaving the labour force. We have also launched an ambitious national mission on skilling.(ii) The second growth fundamental is international economic integration. On the current account and on the financial account, India is now engaging with the world on an unprecedented scale. Gross flo

'Our job is to clear our minds of old cobwebs'

Sir, the last point I want to make is on the rupee. I have seen so much writing about the rupee in the last several days. I think, they have to go back to the drawing board to understand what the rupee is and how the rupee behaves. Yes, people have said that one rupee is equal to one dollar. Of course, it was in 1947 that one rupee was indeed equal to one dollar. Ten grams of gold cost Rs 88.62 in 1947. Today, ten grams of gold is about Rs 29,000.The rupee has depreciated. Do you not like the rupee? Don't take the rupee. I will give you $88. Please go and buy 10 grams of gold today. We will give you $88 if you don't like it. Please go and buy 10 grams of gold today. If the rupee has depreciated against the dollar, the dollar has depreciated against gold. Why? It is because in 1947 and earlier, nobody bought gold, there was no demand for gold. The per capita income was low. Wealth was concentrated in a few hands. There was nobody buying gold. There was a certain amount of gold supply an

'Don't get carried away by what you read about the rupee'

There are massive gains, both private and societal, from mergers and integration in industries: economies of scale, ease of information transmission, reduction of uncertainties, and synchronisation of demand and supply are just some of the benefits of integration. At the same time, we have to ensure that mergers do not substantially reduce competition and consumer choice.A good example is the telecom sector. Given the high costs and rapid pace of technological development, telecom is a market where there are obvious gains from integration. However, as has been shown by developments in the US and Europe, consumer experience is extremely sensitive to the prevailing market structures. What is important is not just to ensure current competition between existing players, but also potential competition between existing players and new entrants, and between current technologies and emerging technologies. At the same time, regulators need to keep in mind the feature this sector has of a natura

'Bank mergers lead to too-big-to-fail entities'

"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet" - thus, in the year 1889, wrote Kipling in his famous Ballad of East and West. Little did he know that globalisation was only less than a hundred years away.The rise of once-upon-a-time poor countries has been the central economic story of our time. More than the growth, it is the pace of the growth that tells a more fascinating story. It took Britain 150 years, after the Industrial Revolution, to double its economic output per person. The US, the emerging market of its time, took 50 years to do so in its period of fast development. When China and India began their period of high growth in recent decades, they took 12 and 16 years, respectively, to double the per capita gross domestic product (GDP). And while Britain and the US embarked on their take-off with a population of 10 million, China and India started out with a population of a billion or so each. So, in terms of force, as a McKinsey report on emerging markets

'While industrial nations need to save, emerging must spend'

Finance Minister P Chidambaram: The key words of money laundering are &lsquo;anything that is the proceeds of crime and projecting it as untainted property&rsquo;. The crimes are defined in the schedule. We have amended the schedule from time to time, and more crimes have been added to the schedule. This crime in the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) language is called a predicate crime.

'Fake currency is a crime that knows no boundaries'

Shortly after I assumed office, I issued a statement on August 6, 2012 outlining the steps that would need to be taken to meet the challenges that the Indian economy faces. At the top of the list was the need for fiscal consolidation. I had referred to the appointment of a committee chaired by Vijay Kelkar to assist the government in formulating a path of fiscal consolidation. The committee&rsquo;s report was put on the website a few weeks ago.