Page 96 - EducationWorld Aug 2020 Flipbuilder

Books

This model ridiculed by threatening jobs and
professional economists livelihoods worldwide, the THE LOST DECADE (2008-18):
may well make a come- authors advance the new HOW INDIA’S GROWTH STORY
DEVOLVED INTO GROWTH
back in the post-Covid idea of universal basic WITHOUT A STORY
age. However, it’s a model income (UBI) defined as Puja Mehra
based on the premise “the government paying PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
of people limiting their everyone a substantial
wants to essential needs, guaranteed income (the Rs.527 Pages 240
a philosophical construct amount of $1,000 per
which flies in the face of month has been floated
the modern consensus in the US) irrespective of the Covid-19 pandemic
that continuous economic their needs”. Proponents prompting a countrywide
growth and improvement argue that if this is imple- lockdown of factories and The Lost Decade is
in standards of living is the mented, much of the fear business establishments, a journalistic work
natural human condition. of the tech revolution and and taking an economic through and through,
This philosophical AI would melt away. toll on industry with a allowing the book to
construct is also addressed Regular readers of Edu- huge population depen- be a comprehensive
incisively in the context of cationWorld are perhaps dent on the informal document of record,
climate change and envi- aware that your editor economy, unable to earn albeit dry in some
ronment destruction. Are advocates a variant of UBI, daily wages. places
people in the US, which as an antidote to the mass The current crisis is
enjoys higher per capita loss of jobs and incomes arguably not the govern-
GDP, happier than in Italy following the outbreak of ment’s fault. A pandemic the case. In fact, the lack of
which has a huge public the on-going Covid-19 cri- of this nature is not some- such coordination, coupled
debt and fiscal deficits? sis and national economic thing anybody expected, with episodes of individual
Why do so few young men lockdown. It involves and a fool-proof solution mismanagement, allowed a
of Greece which has gone payment of Rs.9,000 for India’s 1.3 billion strong growth momentum
bankrupt, leave the coun- per month to 150 million population is a tough task to slip away from India’s
try to work in other Euro- poorest households (out at the best of times. These grasp over the last decade,
pean countries to which of a national total of 260 are far from the best of as succinctly explained in
they have free access? million) until end March times. Government reve- Puja Mehra’s book.
What about rising anger 2021 — an amount aggre- nues are down, the private The tale begins with
against income inequali- gating Rs.8.09 lakh crore, sector was hurting even in the global financial crisis
ties in high GDP coun- a mere 3.5 percent of GDP. the run-up to the lock- of 2007-08. The book
tries? Are the incomes and But alas, this qualified UBI down and is now nearly highlights this crisis as
wealth of the rich insuf- proposal received no sup- terminal, and people paid a turning point for the
ficiently taxed in rich and port or traction. Neverthe- barely enough to get by, Indian economy then
poor countries? And how less, the pros and cons are getting fired. poised for take-off. As
valid is the universally of UBI are satisfyingly At a time like this, it Mehra points out, “The
accepted Reagan-Thatcher debated in this volume. is essential that there’s global financial crisis had
nostrum that higher taxes Raghuram Rajan and perfect coordination be- the effect of freezing the
result in lesser work effort Thomas Piketty are right. tween the government and Indian economy, from the
by successful business- GEHT is an essential guide various sector regulators. monetary side, from the
men? These and other and a must-read. Indeed, we have already financial side and from
important conundrums of DILIP THAKORE seen several signs of this exports side”. At this point,
our troubled times are ad- coordination, with the RBI and the government
resolved, in this stimulat- Lost opportunity ministry of finance, bank- were at a stage when rela-
dressed, even if not quite
ing regulator RBI, stock
tions were good and so,
ing compendium. market regulator SEBI, even though the two did
Yet perhaps the most HE INDIAN and insurance regulator not always see eye to eye,
impactful chapter is saved economy has been IRDAI all coming together things did not break down
for the end. Against the Tlurching from crisis to present a comprehen- in the way they did later.
incremental rise of arti- to crisis for more than a sive package to tide over While 2008-09 was
ficial intelligence, robots decade. The latest crisis this crisis. This type of co- a year of resilience for
and machines which are is still unfolding with ordination was not always the Indian economy, the

96 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2020