Articles written by
By Nantoo Banerjee

By Nantoo Banerjee It may be to the credit of the Indian National Congress and of Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao, who served as the country’s ninth prime minister from 1991 to 1996, for taking the initiative to pass the Constitution Amendment (73rd and 74th) Acts. The 73rd Amendment empowered state governments to take steps that […]

The post India’s Grass-Root Democracy Is Under Threat From State Political Leadership first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Notwithstanding the hype being built around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming official state visit to the United States, it would be wrong to expect any major economic benefit to India as a result of the trip. On top of the agenda are the strategic issues which concern both the US and India. […]

The post PM’s US State Visit Is An Admission Of Growing Indo-US Strategic Partnership first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The cat is out of the bag. India is not the only country using imported Russian oil to export processed petro-products. West Asian oil giants, led by Saudi Arabia, are buying millions of barrels of Russian diesel oil, which is banned in Europe, to sell the product to buyers in the European […]

The post More Russian Oil Is Making Backdoor Entry Into NATO Nations Via Saudi Arabia, UAE first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has probably never faced such a situation as it is now to engage in a positive diplomacy with the world’s three warring super powers — the US, China and Russia. India is getting increasingly trapped in the international power tussle following the Russia-Ukraine war. The growing […]

The post India’s Triangular Relationship With Russia, China And The US Is Under Pressure first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The government and the Reserve Bank may disagree, but the way the country’s trade deficits and external debt are rising it may be a matter of time before India goes for another IMF-World Bank bail out. The current indicators on the two counts are hardly comfortable. Take the debt position first. The […]

The post India’s Growing Trade Deficit And Debt Burden Are A Matter Of Concern first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee It is unfortunate that manufacturing is losing focus in India while all eyes are on so-called rapid growth of the services sector. Advertising and marketing campaigns have been peaking to impress consumers as well as investors while the manufacturing sector continues to struggle silently for growth. Barring in the areas of defence […]

The post Time Looks Tough For India’s Manufacturing-Led Growth first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee It is difficult to understand why the government is in such a tearing hurry to auction the recently discovered large lithium reserves in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district before the end of the current year itself. The secretary to the Union Ministry of Mines, Vivek Bharadwaj, said the ministry had written to […]

The post Militancy Makes Lithium Mining In J&K A Challenging Task first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The constant political exploitation of the reservation policy, framed in 1950, threatens to further divide the country not only on the caste and sub-caste lines, but also on their extension to rope in religions. As the situation stands today, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the author of the reservation policy, would have been […]

The post The Caste Cum Religion Based Reservation Policy Must End first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee At a time when India is aiming to become an industrial powerhouse and a $5-trillion economy by 2026-27, the country’s nearly 500-million workforce, the second largest after China, lives in deep uncertainty over life after retirement. The minimum pension continues to be Rs.1,000 per month for the last two decades despite pre-election […]

The post Life Is Dreadful For Millions Of India’s Industrial Pensioners first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Pledging inflated stocks to borrow big from India’s public sector banks seems to have become a routine practice in India. Surprisingly, the Reserve Bank (RBI), the banking regulator, and the government, are doing little to control such practices by holding bank management as responsible as those adventurous borrowers. There are reasons to […]

The post Unholy Bank-Borrower Alliance Is Behind Most Big Financial Frauds first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to substantially boost India’s manufacturing industry has impacted little on the country’s growing dependence on merchandise imports and large trade deficits. It is no wonder that the government and its commerce minister say little on the country’s growing annual merchandise imports bill and trade deficit while highlighting […]

The post India’s Merchandise Imports Continue To Grow Big first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The punishment meted out to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi by the Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case filed against him by a BJP MLA over his “why all thieves have Modi surname” remarks may have been considered by many as disproportionate to his sin of verbally abusing the prime minister […]

The post Punishment To Rahul Gandhi May Have Been Disproportionate To His Offence first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Notwithstanding Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s repeated statements during his recent tour in the UK saying that Indian democracy is under threat, the growing trend of elected political authoritarianism poses a big challenge to the system. The trend is also being witnessed in many other democracies outside the developed world. India would have […]

The post Corrupt, Poorly Educated Ministers Put India’s Democracy In Danger first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The arrest of Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia last month by a federal agency, CBI, for alleged financial corruption connected with the change in the state’s liquor policy, has understandably upset a large section of opposition parties across the country. Last year, Delhi’s health minister Satyendra Jain was arrested by another […]

The post Political Opposition Faces Witch-Hunt From Parties In Power first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The 12-point Chinese proposal to end the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war fails to address a vital issue that led to the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Subtle diplomatic nuances make the proposal look rather weak. It does not even name the belligerent nations. The proposal is somewhat silent on Russia’s key demand […]

The post China’s Peace Proposal To End Ukraine-Russia War May Not Work first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Much of BJP’s chances to return with clear majority to Lok Sabha after next year’s national election may depend on how the party fares in eight state assembly elections during this year.  They offer a big test for BJP. Only two of the eight states — Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh — are […]

The post Return To Lok Sabha With Clear Majority May Not Be Easy For BJP In 2024 Polls first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee With government banks and financial institutions involved in massive funding in the lately stock-crashed Adani group enterprises, legislators from India’s main opposition parties are understandably concerned. Last week, even the Supreme court sought to know from the government and market regulator the steps needed to improve the regulatory and statutory mechanisms to […]

The post Debt-Heavy Adani Group May Take Time To Overcome That Sinking Feeling first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The Russia-Ukraine war will complete a full year on February 23, this year. And, there is no sign of the war coming to an end any time soon. In fact, the armed conflict between the two East European neighbours is becoming deadlier by day. As of January 29, this year, the UN […]

The post West Unlikely To Stop Fuelling Russia-Ukraine War Soon first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The massive boost in infrastructure spending proposed in the 2023-24 budget is expected to be the biggest growth driver of the county’s economy with several sectors such as steel, coal, power, engineering, automobile and banking are expected to do well. The infrastructure spending along with the focus on tourism, urban development covering […]

The post 2023-24 Budget Provides Big Boost For Industry, Tourism first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The best thing the Narendra Modi government’s last full budget before the next Lok Sabha election can do is to focus primarily on job creation and provide attractive incentives to large industrial investments to help push quality employment. The government has done reasonably well in the infrastructure investment sector, despite various constraints […]

The post Union Budget 2023-24 Should Focus On Jobs first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s year-end assurance that China is ready to work with India for the “steady and sound growth” of bilateral ties and it is committed to upholding stability at the border areas where a stand-off has prevailed since 2020. The statement, believed to have been meant for an international […]

The post No Need To Trust In China’s Assurance To Work With India first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee It is rather depressing to note that the unemployment rate in the country reached 8.30 percent in December, the highest over the last 16 months. In urban areas, the unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent. The number of people looking for jobs last month increased to 40.48 percent, the largest in 2022, reported […]

The post Surging Imports Are Behind India’s Growing Unemployment first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee It is a pity that the government could not think of a better “new year gift for the country’s poor” than continuing to feed 81.35 crore Indians with free food grains for another year till December 31, 2023, under a 10-year-old National Food Security Act (NFSA), at a cost of over Rs.200,000 […]

The post Free Food Supply To India’s Poor Won’t Help Eradicate Poverty first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The capital budget for Indian Navy needs a rapid escalation in the coming years for its fleet expansion and modernisation to become a strong force to deter the growing threats from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the world’s largest naval power in size, in the Indian Ocean and Pacific regions. The […]

The post Indian Navy Needs Big Expansion To Take On China In Indo-Pacific Region first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The West Bengal government’s latest decision to take over 395 acres of prime industrial land lying idle at Uttarpara, near Kolkata, under CK Birla-controlled Hindustan Motors Limited (HM), for gainful use is most welcome. The giant HM factory has been closed since 2014. It may be high time that the state, starved […]

The post It’s Time To Unlock Lands Held By Closed Industrial Units first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Few manufacturing industries in India have done as consistently well as the drug industry over the last four decades. The Indian drug industry is currently ranked the world’s third largest in pharmaceutical production by volume. The production has been increasing rapidly supported by rising domestic consumption and exports. The industry has been […]

The post India Is Fast Emerging As World’s Major Pharmacy Hub first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee India may rank lowly at 104th position on the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) men’s table, dropped from 94th in 1996, its enthusiasm over the game is probably among the highest in the world. Over 300 million Indians, numbering close to the entire population of the United States, are watching on […]

The post India Must Spend Big On Sports To Build Global Reputation first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee The government may disagree, India’s economic performance in the last eight years has proved to be rather lacklustre. It has been facing a real challenge from the ever expanding black economy, substantially eating up the revenue income of both the national and state governments. Unaccounted money with the rich is hurting the […]

The post India’s Uncontrolled Black Economy Is Choking Real Economy first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Global investment banker Morgan Stanley may have predicted the current decade as India’s following economic slowdown in China. But, the Indian economy is not growing as fast as it should. Large foreign direct investments (FDI) seem to be fighting shy of India’s highly price sensitive economy. The complexities of an uncertain and […]

The post India Needs Large FDI Inflow To Become Factory To World first appeared on IPA Newspack.

By Nantoo Banerjee Indian Rupee (INR) is constantly depreciating against the US Dollar (US$). If the trend continues the exchange rate of INR vis-à-vis US$ may touch Rs.100 for a dollar before the end of this financial year. It could be a matter of great concern if India continues to import heavily from US$ trade […]

The post Rising US$ Could Be Bad News For Import Happy Indian Economy first appeared on IPA Newspack.