WHY WE WILL MISS RAGHURAM RAJAN?

Bikash Choudhury 

Raghuram Rajan is the only global economist who could teach the complex formulations of Macro-Economic policy to a crowd; and, you will see people nodding their heads in confirmation in grasping the issues under deliberations. If you were at the venue of Harekrushna Mahatab Memorial Lecture at Bhubaneswar last month then you could have witnessed the phenomena; you would also have noticed how the auditorium was choke a block full, people standing craning their neck and people spilling over to the lobby with a desire to listen whatever they can from Dr. Rajan. You would have been surprised or becoming simply jealous to see the tall-dark and handsome guy getting all the ladies attention at the event; he was no less than a ‘Bollywood Diva’ or a “Rock Star’ of western make. However, it was not his good looks that was being feted that evening; rather, his razor sharp mind, intimate understanding about the macro economy & monetary policy, his intellectual honesty and of course ample amount of guts to say things in public that most central bankers avoid touching. The summary of his memorial lecture was centered on the wisdom of pursuing good macro economic policy that would be sustainable in long run against the perils of following an aggressive monetary policy that could bring the entire financial system to grief if the gamble did not pay off as most often that it does. He said “Helicopter Money” may not bring consumption growth as in uncertain times people would rather save the windfall gains than spending or investing. He was of the opinion that the innovation should be directed towards the problems of society to be able to add to the GDP. He was against the Oligopolies who buy out small innovative companies which fails to transfer real growth to the economy and fails to create enough jobs for the society. He also drew attention to the aging factor in developed economies that has impacted their growth numbers. This would remain a memorable public lecture at Bhubaneswar for long time to come.

                                          The contribution of Dr.Raghuram Rajan towards our monetary policy has been well documented to be repeated once again. However, his leadership abilities and his grasp over socio-economic-politics and his unorthodox approach to work and his capacity for free thinking and his extraordinary abilities of communicating with stake holders needs to be probed and written about to disseminate why he managed to earn admiration and adulation from a large cross section of people. He has a sixth sense in identifying problem and the courage of conviction to prescribe the most appropriate dose of medicine in terms of policy and remain rock solid pursuing his policies against all provocation; while, remaining calm and composed and at the same time making right noises for the stake holders to comprehend what he intends to do; whether they agree or disagree. In his initial days at the mint street he first enhanced the interest rates against popular expectations and tapered it off much later while controlling the inflationary pressures. He also dealt with the ultra volatility in our currency without employing traditional methods which emphasizes his grasp over global finance and various tools and techniques of Macro-Economic Engineering; therefore, non of his predecessors were as successful as he was in dealing with the currency market. He was very audacious in saying that the “Make in India” the export lead growth model may not be appropriate for India as the export market of western countries and North America has dried up because of domestic factors. This was later confirmed by our own slump in exports and recent Goldman Sach report that emphasizes on “Rural and Farming Sector” for Indian growth story. It was he who stumbled upon excesses committed by the US Financial System and its imminent dangers that hit Americawith sub prime crisis in 2008. Raghu Ram Rajan would be greatly missed in India not only for his economic & financial acumen alone; but for his immense potential to contribute to the society and politics, apart from his impeccable leadership qualities that millions of country men choose to follow voluntarily.    

HOW TO QUIT SMOKING?

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

A few years after I have started working, I get into habit of flying off a cigarette or two from the cigarette pack of our altruistic boss, just to show off that I am no longer a kid; can smoke like adult men; though, I did not relish the taste or even distantly liked the whole process of smoking. My benevolent boss, though, strictly warned me not to get into such stupid habit; which would be very difficult to get out of it, later; rather, it will make an unnecessary big hole in your purse. I did not listen to his sage advice then and suffered immensely for over 15 years becoming a mild version of a chimney--chain smoker, who will need a cigarette after tea, after a good meal, after closing a great deal, after loosing a order to competition, while meeting an old friend, while traveling in a train, before going to sleep and in the hotel room while alone or listening to music after dark; so as reader would have noticed that the excuse for a smoke went on adding which unknowingly killed a huge amount of time and money-in my last count I would have spent about Rs.3.5 Lakhs on cigarettes alone which is a huge amount of money in today’s date. In 15 years many family members, friends, neighbors and kids requested me to quit cigarette; one of them was very emotional and poignant one; as a little niece of mine after a discussion in her class room about the dangers of smoking; designed a special card herself and presented me to leave cigarette for good; I promised her but could not leave the habit in spite of my best efforts. There after I made many attempt to leave this killer habit; so much so that I organized a party by calling friends and family for dinner and boldly announced that I am quitting cigarette from today; some appreciated my boldness while others were critical about spending good money over bad money; nevertheless I quit cigarette for about 3 months; however, there was a strong urge to return to smoking as I was missing the process of smoking after a drink or a meal. One of those unfortunate days one shop keepers inadvertently offered me my brand of cigarette and I could not resist the temptation and smoked that cigarette and many more after that incident and returned to my old habit of chain smoking once again. I distinctly remember one cold evening in December 2014 sat down with myself in my study to figure out the New Year resolution for 2015; after spending a few hours over a few mugs of chilled non-alcoholic beverage and swirling a few cigarettes, jotted down on a piece of A4 paper, couple of things including “to quit cigarette” which was on the top of the agenda; I filed that paper very religiously in my box file. I again reminded myself again and again by reading and re-reading those resolution till 31^st December 2014 and took a cigarette after dinner before the “0” hour and stopped smoking for about two weeks in the new year and returned to the old habit once again during one such delayed celebration of the New year-2015; but, with a very heavy heart and great remorse for breaking the sacred resolution taken earlier. However, I continued to revisit that piece of paper containing New Year resolutions many times during the day while genuinely intending to leave smoking for good; however, the urge to smoke while getting up in the morning was too powerful to resist. And, the crime continued unabated during the day and even night. This bad habit of mine was also complicating my family life to an extent; but, still the magnetism of nicotine was drawing me to this and holding me in its grip with intoxication and also suffocation. This went on till December 2015; when I decided enough is enough and I shall Quit Smoking without wasting another piece of paper for New Year resolution and actually, crudely writing down 2016 on that old paper mocking at myself. However, before that I sat down alone with self and went deep into the recesses of the mind to figure out those temptations for smoking and erasing any thing written on those soft tissues about cigarette or smoking. This time I started early and benignly reduced the intake of cigarettes by half from 23 December 2015 and when there was an urge to smoke I replaced cigarette with an Amla mouth freshener; however, on 27^th December 2015; I completely stopped smoking cigarette much before the clock stroked the new year 2016 and even stopped taking the mouth freshener since 1^st January 2016 and I live today on the sixth month of 2016 to tell my story how I have managed to stay away from cigarette completely so many months; even daringly visited those same places where I used to smoke for a cup of tea and refused taking cigarettes from the smoking pals politely. Having conquered over the bad habit, on 31^st May 2016(World No Tobacco Day) I along with my spouse campaigned against the dangers of tobacco smoking in Bhubaneswar in which we counseled about 17 persons while they were smoking and handed over a leaflet prepared for the purpose. The campaign took us to Budha Park in the city where we met many people while jogging and educated about the danger of tobacco from the perspective of a reformed person like me. I only hope those who are struggling to leave tobacco can be inspired from my story.

GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

DISCUSSION WITH SRI AUROBINDO BEHERA IAS., Retd.

1-     Why in spite of over 60 years of our independence our Government record is so abysmal?

(a)    Need Inspirational Leadership in Bureaucracy.

(b)   Need Human Resources Development Model in Government like Google for efficiency and effectiveness.

(c)    Change the feudalistic culture in Government and replace with meritocracy. i) - Abolish Class-4 employees, ii) - Training & Development for managing the skill & knowledge gap in bureaucracy that would lead to a meritocracy culture.

(d)   Empowering the Bottom of the Pyramid in the bureaucracy that would facilitate emergence of new Ideas, new momentum and Speed in execution.

(e)    Adopt a program titled “Best Government of the World”: Comparing performance of Bureaucracy against the best private sector corporation in the World.

(f)    10% improvement in Government efficiency would translate into 20% growth in ease of doing business/growth in GSDP.

(g)    Aesthetic Design and Cleanliness to be adopted in all Governance model.

(h)   District Sachivalaya that looks after all revenue, security, governance departments in the district with District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police reporting to the Secretary of District Sachivalaya who would have 15-20 years of experience in administration. And, do away with RDC model.

DEVELOPMENT

800 years ago Odisha could construct Konark Temple with 12 years of surplus revenue of the State. Why our Farmers committee suicide now?

1.800 years ago our agricultural & agro exports used to be our surplus revenue.

2. We have to adopt Agricultural Model for growth.

3. We have to return to Natural/Organic Agriculture.

4. Encourage group of villages to come together for economic activity by sponsoring technical/managerial manpower by Government for limited period.

5. Encouraging village level Agricultural co-operative for farming purpose.

6. Encouraging Corporate Farming.

7. Target 40% of processing of Agricultural produce locally to reduce the cost of food mile-logistics cost.

8. Innovation-Excellence-Enterprise in all walks of life.

9. Adopting Art-Music-Literature in public policy for economic growth through tourism.

10. Women empowerment through part time jobs in strategically located production/service centers to use available skills for economic benefits.

11. Water conservation as economic policy.

12. Brand New Metro city in the circumference of Chilika Lake where urban & rural sector would co-exist having dedicated to Art-Music-Literature and Innovation-Excellence-Enterprise.