ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

LiberalisationSubscribe to Liberalisation

Impact of Bancassurance on Banking-Insurance Sector in India

Bancassurance is an agreement between banks and insurance companies to sell insurance products to bank customers. An insurance company develops a product line for bank customers as part of their collaboration, which is then distributed through bank branches, a hotline, or internet banking platforms. Though the insurance density had progressed significantly since its inception in 2000, the insurance penetration remained low even after two decades of liberalisation in the insurance sector.

Environment Justice and Caste after Liberalisation

This article discusses the interrelationship between environmental justice, caste, and liberalisation. The deep natural, social, and cultural processes involved in the making and unmaking of environment and labour in a caste-capitalist economy impact people’s sense of freedom, belonging, and values. It uses the brick kiln industry in the Jhajjar district of Haryana as a case study to explore the impact of liberalisation on the use of labour and the environment, which reproduce or repudiate structures of hierarchy. The article also investigates how migration of people and capital, promoted by liberalisation, affects the rights and dignity of labour and the sustainable use of natural resources. Economic restructuring post liberalisation is not only perpetuating discrimination and disparity in the economy but also aggravating climate injustices, where Dalits are increasingly facing the impact of rise in emissions and heat in their working and living areas.

Outward FDI and Cross-border M&As

Although the new foreign direct investment policy and other policy packages, including “Make in India,” is expected to tap more foreign savings and better technology and transform the Indian economy into a manufacturing hub, most successful firms are investing abroad. Given this context, this paper makes an effort to understand the trends and nature of outward foreign direct Investment by Indian firms and their implications. The paper argues that though the Indian overseas acquiring manufacturing firms perform relatively better than their counterparts, its adverse impact on the trade deficit and balance of payments need to be tackled.

India’s Tryst with Liberalisation

India after Liberalisation: An Overview by Bimal Jalan, India: HarperCollins , 2021, pp 240, $21.94 (paperback).

Is India Ready for Tariff Reforms?

Recent trade models with fi rm heterogeneity predict that trade liberalisation reduces the number of fi rms and the fi rms’ markups, while it increases the average size of fi rms. The present study attempts to test these predictions in the context of trade reforms in India with the Annual Survey of Industries data over two decades (1987–88 to 2017–18) by using a difference-in-difference approach and comments on the recent policy framework in that light.

Preparing the Script for Privatisation

The privatisation of Air India marks the gradual erosion of the public sector and inclusive employment.

 

India’s Far from Neo-liberal Economic Order in the Modi Era

India’s economic order is far from neo-liberal. The state, and thus politicians, have retained very substantial powers over market forces. Expectations that the Modi government would liberalise audaciously have been disappointed. Especially since mid-2019, it has used its remaining powers to intimidate corporate interests, in pursuit of its main objective: top-down control over all power centres. Thus, in crucial ways, the economic order has become less liberal (or neo-liberal) than before.

Is ‘Islamic Finance’ Islamic?

Riba could mean usury, interest, economic rent and even surplus value (in the Marxian sense). Riba is “un-Islamic.” Without riba, capital accumulation, and capitalism itself will not be possible. However, those who own capital in the Muslim world have taken charge of defining what is Islamic and what is not. The result? They find ways to multiply it in modes that benefit only themselves, just as their non-Islamic counterparts.

Effective Tax Rates for Indian Companies Post-liberalisation

This article studies the effective tax rate for Indian companies from 1990 to 2010, covering the period just before liberalisation of the economy and tax reforms in 1991 and later. It examines the effect of a declining corporate tax rate on the gap between book profit and taxable profit. A narrowing gap between statutory tax rates and effective tax rates after liberalisation indicates increased voluntary compliance.

National Policy on Education 2016

Any contemporary education policy will need to address the democratic and economic aspirations of the younger citizenry and must declare those concrete steps that would endure the realisation of those aims. But that has not been the case with the National Policy on Education 2016. The new education policy, as proposed, chooses not to address the fundamental issues plaguing the education system but instead, it propagates a corporate, neo-liberal, neo-cultural, a Sanskritised, global and market-oriented education system which is governed by a wholly separate and centralised bureaucracy, where state government power and oversight is minimal.

Bad Bank Proposal for India

There have been two main proposals to tackle the stressed assets problem of Indian banks since the beginning of this year. Both proposals are based implicitly on the financial intermediation theory of banking. The alternative credit creation theory of banking opens up other possibilities. One such possibility is a partial Jubilee financed by zero coupon perpetual bonds.

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