A sea change in the knowledge of the young in India

In 1887, roughly 14 million children were born in India, and we got one Ramanujan. It seems reasonable to think that there were 9 others who went undiscovered. We may guess that the Ramanujan rate is roughly one in a million. Applying this to the 28 million newborns per year that we have today, we may guess that there are 28 Ramanujans being born every year. Our challenge is to find them and nurture them.So far, we are doing a terrible job of this....

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Capacity constraints in public policy

India's failures in defence and international relationsThe Economist has a great article about Indian strategic / defence thinking, in which they say:Strategic defence reviews like those that take place in America, Britain and France, informed by serving officers and civil servants but led by politicians, are unknown in India. The armed forces regard the Ministry of Defence as woefully ignorant on military matters, with few of the skills needed to provide support in areas such as logistics and procurement (they also resent its control over senior...

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FSLRC gives the draft Indian Financial Code

The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission closed its journey yesterday with the delivery of a report and the draft Indian Financial Code (IFC). Here is the report and here is the draft law. Here is commentary in the press on the subject:Interviews with Justice Srikrishna: Business Standard, Indian Express, Outlook magazine.K. P. Krishnan in the Economic Times.Turf war in the offing in the Financial Express, and Selling it...

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Important work by cobrapost that illuminates high-powered incentives

The investigative journalism by cobrapost, their videos, and Monika Halan in Mint add up to an important story.Most of us have enormous respect for the achievements of Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. But as Monika emphasises, there are also genuine problems there. We saw it first with the hard-driving mis-selling in recent years, particularly with ULIPs, and now we see it here, with staffpersons supporting illegal activities.Ordinarily, a media outlet in India bringing such information out has to worry about brazen strong-arm tactics being...

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Unanticipated consequences of Finance Bill provisions on securitisation

by Bindu Ananth and Kshama FernandesOver 2006-12, RBI and SEBI have created a strong and conducive regulatory environment for securitisation, listing of securitised debt instruments, and standards of transparency and reporting. Securitisation volumes have picked up and we recently witnessed the first listed transaction.In October 2011, the income tax authorities issued a claim on certain securitisation special purpose vehicles (SPVs), stating that the gross income of such SPVs was liable to tax. The matter is presently under sub judice with the...

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The Internet changes everything: Indian higher education edition

The old triusm `never let school interfere with your education' is particularly relevant in India, where most schools, colleges and universities are pretty bad. For almost every young person in India, the option of being institutionalised and on auto-pilot, of letting the curriculum and examinations define you, is a bad one.The contours of a better world are increasingly clear. Over the web, the person can plug into the likes of Udacity, edUx, Coursera, and M.I.T. Open Courseware, and get a world class education. The trouble is, there are no examinations...

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