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Akhilesh skips SP leaders' meeting; meets them separately

October 21, 2016

Lucknow, Oct 21: The chasm in UP's ruling Samajwadi Party grew wider today with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav skipping an important meeting called by state party chief Shivpal Yadav to strategise for the assembly polls due early next year where the latter declared him the party's chief ministerial face.Akhilesh-Yadav

Akhilesh, however, met the delegates, who earlier attended the meeting called by Shivpal, at his residence separately.

Shivpal had convened a meeting of SP district and city units presidents at the party headquarters earlier in the day but Akhilesh was conspicuous by his absence.

At the strategy session for the assembly polls due early next year, Shivpal, apparently seeking to bury the hatchet, declared nephew Akhilesh the party's chief ministerial face.

"Akhilesh Yadav will be the next CM, if party is voted to power. He will be our CM candidate," Shivpal said, days after Mulayam virtually left the field open by saying the newly elected legislators will choose their leader, something which did not go down well with the camp followers of the incumbent CM.

Though Shivpal, the younger brother of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, had met Akhilesh personally last night to invite him to the meeting, the Chief Minister kept away, indicating all was not well in the party despite repeated protestations by its senior leaders to the contrary.

After the meeting was over, a cryptic message went out from 5-Kalidas Marg residence of the Chief Minister that Akhilesh wanted to meet the district party presidents at a short notice.

At the brief meeting, Akhilesh apprised them of his 'rath yatra' scheduled from November 3 and said that they would be kept informed about it.

He asked them to work hard in their respective areas to reap a bumber electoral harvest and "everything will be fine".

The meeting of SP district heads was held a day ahead of the party' state executive meet. Mulayam has also convened a meeting of party legislators and ministers on October 24 to "gauge the mood" of partymen and people of their area.

Shivpal asked the district party chiefs to gear up for elections and also to make the party's silver jubilee celebrations on November 5 in the state capital a big success.

Akhilesh, with whom Shivpal is engaged in a running feud over the last few months, has already made it clear in a letter to the Samajwadi Party boss and his father Mulayam that he would be proceeding on his 'rath yatra' on November 3 to highlight the development work done by his government, in a clear indication that he would skip the November 5 event too.

With the tense stand-off between Akhilesh and Shivpal continuing, speculation about a possible split is rife with some even suggesting that a new party named National Samajwadi Party or Pragatisheel Samajwadi party with motorcycle as its symbol could be formed by the Chief Minister ahead of the assembly elections.

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Agencies
August 6,2020

Mumbai, Aug 6: Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan said on Thursday that overly focusing on what sovereign rating agencies think can take one's eyes off what needs to be done for the economy.

"It is also important to convince both domestic and international investors that after the crisis associated with the pandemic is over, we will return to fiscal responsibility over the medium term, and the government should do more to convince them of that," Rajan told the Global Markets Forum.

India was placed under one of the strictest lockdowns in the world in late March for more than two months to stem the spread of the coronavirus, but cases have continued to rise steadily since the government eased restrictions in June, stymieing hopes of an economic recovery.

The government has announced several initiatives to help the poor and small- and medium-size businesses, but actual cash outgo from the government's measures has been estimated at just about 1% of GDP.

Several attribute the fiscal prudence to fear of a downgrade after Moody's cut India's rating and outlook in early June followed closely by a change in outlook from Fitch.

The central bank on its part too has reduced the key lending rate by 115 basis points on top of the 135 bps last year and is widely expected to cut rates by another 25 bps later on Thursday.

"The RBI and government have certainly been cooperating, but it seems like it is elsewhere, the ball is in the government's court to do more," Rajan said.

He said the RBI needs to focus on whether credit is reaching the stressed areas of the economy and also if the viable firms were able to access credit and not the unviable ones.

"And I think that's where it has to focus its attentions, because resources, as you well know, are limited in India today."

Recently analysts, however, have cited the growing possibility the RBI may prefer to pause and cut rates only at its October meeting.

Government officials too have suggested the possibility of any more fiscal stimulus being announced, would only come in the second half of the fiscal year, once a recovery has taken root and coronavirus cases have peaked.

"What India should focus on at this point is protecting its economic capabilities, so that when it has dealt with the virus it can go resume activity in a reasonable way. That should be the focus," Rajan said.

"And if it does that, there is no reason why the rating agencies will not see that as an appropriate policy".

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News Network
June 1,2020

New Delhi, Jun 1: India's COVID-19 tally on Monday witnessed its highest-ever spike of 8,392 cases, while 230 more deaths related to the infection were also reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

The total number of coronavirus cases in the country now stands at 1,90,535 including 93,322 active cases, 91,819 cured/discharged/migrated and 5,394 deaths.

COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra continue to soar with the number reaching 67,655. Tamil Nadu's coronavirus count stands at 22,333 while cases in Delhi the number has reached 19,844

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Agencies
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said slowdown in growth is due to the current government focussing more on meeting its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economy.

India can still reverse its slowing economic growth by paying attention to key issues, he said. "It's a sad story, I think most recently, it is politics," Rajan said in response to a question on what was stopping India's growth which remains below potential.

In an interview to Bloomberg TV, Rajan said unfortunately the current government after a massive election win has "focussed more on fulfilling its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economic growth".

"Unfortunately, this drift has continued a pace of slowing growth, which was precipitated initially by some actions the government took such as the demonetisation and a poorly rolled out Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform," Rajan said.

India's GDP growth hit nearly 7-year low of 4.7 per cent in the December quarter, as per official data released on Friday.

The GDP growth for the quarter is the lowest since January-March of 2012-13.

In the interview, which was telecast before the official numbers were released, Rajan said India has not paid sufficient attention to cleaning up the financial sector and unfortunately, that is leading to the slowing growth.

"These are things that they can change if attention is paid to them and appropriate actions are taken," Rajan, Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said.

On being asked about the spread of the coronavirus globally and its impact, he said there will certainly be some legacy issues in terms of business rethinking in the global supply chain.

"If it is disrupted anywhere, the entire supply chain is held ransom and companies are going to start rethinking that should we actually have these really spread out global supply chain or to bring them back closer home and how much diversification should we have. Should we have multiple production sites across the world rather than have it focussed primarily in Asia," he said.

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