Manmohan Singh donates 3,500 books from his personal library to his alma mater 04-12

India's former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has donated 3,500 books from his personal collection to his alma mater Panjab University (PU).

According to university authorities, the arrangements would soon be made to transport books and memorabilia, photographs and paintings from New Delhi to the university campus.

As per the IANS report, the books and other objects will be kept in the Guru Teg Bahadur Bhawan on the university campus.

Here's what the professor of Department of History told IANS:

"The 3,500 books and memorabilia, which include photographs and paintings, will be housed in Guru Teg Bahadur Bhawan. Until the place is ready for the installation, books and memorabilia will be kept in the main library," she said.

"It will be developed as a library where there would be a reading area where anybody can come and have a look at the material," she added.

India's former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has donated 3,500 books from his personal collection to his alma mater Panjab University (PU).

According to university authorities, the arrangements would soon be made to transport books and memorabilia, photographs and paintings from New Delhi to the university campus.

As per the IANS report, the books and other objects will be kept in the Guru Teg Bahadur Bhawan on the university campus.

Here's what the professor of Department of History told IANS:

"The 3,500 books and memorabilia, which include photographs and paintings, will be housed in Guru Teg Bahadur Bhawan. Until the place is ready for the installation, books and memorabilia will be kept in the main library," she said.

"It will be developed as a library where there would be a reading area where anybody can come and have a look at the material," she added. 

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Making of a mammoth tragedy 12-09

The decision to demonetise will cause grievous injury to the honest Indian who earns wages in cash. The dishonest black money hoarder will get away with a mere rap on the knuckles

It is said that “money is an idea that inspires confidence”. At the stroke of the midnight hour, on November 9, 2016, the confidence of more than a billion Indians was destroyed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared that more than 85 per cent of the value of money held in notes of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 was worthless overnight. In one impetuous decision, the Prime Minister has shattered the faith and confidence that hundreds of millions of Indians had reposed in the Government of India to protect them and their money.

The Prime Minister in his address to the nation said, “there comes a time in the history of a country's development when a need is felt for a strong and decisive step,” and propounded two primary reasons for this decision. One was to check “enemies from across the border… using fake currency notes”. The other was to “break the grip of corruption and black money”.

Both these intentions are honourable and deserve to be supported whole-heartedly. Counterfeit currency and black money are as grave a threat to the idea of India as terrorism and social division. They deserve to be extinguished using all the firepower at our disposal. However, the popular saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” serves as a useful reminder and warning in this context.

The underlying premise behind the decision of the Prime Minister to render Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 currencies as illegal overnight seems to be this false notion that ‘all cash is black money and all black money is in cash’. This is far from reality. Let us understand why.

Life thrown into disarray

More than 90 per cent of India’s workforce still earn their wages in cash. These consist of hundreds of millions of agriculture workers, construction workers and so on. While the number of bank branches in rural areas have nearly doubled since 2001, there are still more than 600 million Indians who live in a town or village with no bank. Cash is the bedrock of the lives of these people. Their daily subsistence depends on their cash being accepted as a medium of valid currency. They save their money in cash which, as it grows, is stored in denominations of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes. To tarnish these as ‘black money’ and throw the lives of these hundreds of millions of poor people in disarray is a mammoth tragedy. The vast majority of Indians earn in cash, transact in cash and save in cash, all legitimately. It is the fundamental duty of a democratically elected government in any sovereign nation to protect the rights and livelihood of its citizens. The recent decision by the Prime Minister is a travesty of this fundamental duty.

Black money in India is a genuine concern. This is wealth that has been accumulated over years by those with unaccounted sources of income. Unlike the poor, holders of black money have access to various forms of wealth such as land, gold, foreign exchange, etc. There have been various attempts by many governments in the past decades to recover this illicit wealth through actions by the Income Tax department, the Enforcement Directorate and schemes such as Voluntary Disclosure. These measures were targeted strikes at only those suspected to be holders of such unaccounted wealth, not on all citizens. Evidence from these past attempts has shown that a large majority of this unaccounted wealth is not stored in the form of cash. All black money is not in cash, only a tiny fraction is. Against this backdrop, the decision by the Prime Minister is bound to have obverse implications by causing grievous injury to the honest Indian who earns his/her wages in cash and a mere rap on the knuckles to the dishonest black money hoarder. To make it worse, the government has actually made it easier to generate such unaccounted wealth in the future by the introduction of a Rs.2,000 note. This brazen policy measure has neither tackled the stock of black money holistically nor has it stemmed the flow of it.

It is no surprise that the logistical challenge of replacing billions of old currency notes with new ones is a monumental one. It is a huge challenge in most nations, and in a country as vast and diverse as India it was bound to be doubly so. This is also one reason why most nations that have undertaken such currency swap operations have done so over a certain time period and not as a sudden overnight operation. It is heartbreaking to see and hear of millions of poor Indians standing in long lines to withdraw some money for basic sustenance. As someone who has experienced long lines for rationed food during war time, I never imagined that one day I would find my own countrymen and women waiting endlessly for rationed money. That all of this suffering is due to one hasty decision makes it even more disconcerting.

The macroeconomic impact of this decision of the government is likely to be hazardous. At a time when India’s trade numbers are at multi-year lows, industrial production is shrinking and job creation is anaemic, this policy can act as a negative shock to the economy. It is indeed true that India’s cash to GDP ratio is very high vis-à-vis other nations. But this is also an indicator of the Indian economy’s dependence on cash. Consumer confidence is an important economic variable in a nation’s growth prospects. It is now evident that this sudden overnight ban on currency has dented the confidence of hundreds of millions of Indian consumers, which can have severe economic ramifications. The scars of an overnight depletion of the honest wealth of a vast majority of Indians combined with their ordeal of rationed access to new currency will be too deep to heal quickly. This can have ripple effects on GDP growth and job creation. It is my humble opinion that we as a nation should brace ourselves for a tough period over the coming months, needlessly so.

Unintended consequences

Black money is a menace to our society that we need to eliminate. In doing so, we have to be mindful of the potential impact on hundreds of millions of other honest citizens. It may be tempting and self-fulfilling to believe that one has all the solutions and previous governments were merely lackadaisical in their attempts to curb black money. It is not so. Leaders and governments have to care for their weak and at no point can they abdicate this responsibility. Most policy decisions carry risks of unintended consequences. It is important to deftly balance these risks with the potential benefits of such decisions. Waging a war on black money may sound enticing. But it cannot entail even a single loss of life of an honest Indian.

Dr. Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

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25 years on, Manmohan Singh has a regret: In crisis, we act. When it’s over, back to status quo 07-03

SILENCE SPEAKS AFTER 25 YEARS, AND WHEN IT DOES, PEOPLE RUSH TO COLLECT THE GEMS FALLING IN THE FORM OF WORDS.....................

Dr. Manmohan speaks on 1991 reforms, that not only changed the course of Indian economy, It also changed the world opinion about India.

Please read Dr. Manmohan Singh's interview to Indian Express......

Today, July 1, marks the 25th year of the historic devaluation of the rupee that set in motion the irreversible process of opening the Indian economy. The Indian Express speaks to those who unlocked the power of change to ask what then – and what now.

TOMORROW will mark 25 years since the opening of the economy began with the devaluation of the rupee on July 1, 1991.

And yet the process of economic reforms in India continues to be trapped in the circumstances in which it began: act only when there is a crisis. That’s one of the key takeaways for its prime architect, then Finance Minister and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Reflecting on the reforms that he, working with Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, set in motion, Singh opened up to The Indian Express, in a rare conversation earlier this year, as he mapped the road ahead: opposition from within, role of the Prime Minister’s “political management,” fear of “blood and tears,” and the crying “need to revisit old orthodoxies.”

Edited excerpts:

1991 and the Budget of July was a watershed in India’s economic and political history. There was so much done. Industrial de-licensing on Budget day, trade policy, exchange rate management and much more. How do you look back on that period? Were those ideas or solutions known already to policy-makers or were they imposed by multilateral lenders as critics claim?

I don’t see much originality in those. These were ideas which were being discussed inside the government and outside, too. All I did was put them all together in a coherent whole, when I got an opportunity. The Budget for 1991 set out the roadmap that we wanted to adopt for the next two to three years. It gave SEBI legal status. Before that, SEBI was no more than an advisory body. The banking system needed reforms and I announced the setting up of the Narasimham committee on financial sector reforms. Then, there were tax reforms.

Edited excerpts:

1991 and the Budget of July was a watershed in India’s economic and political history. There was so much done. Industrial de-licensing on Budget day, trade policy, exchange rate management and much more. How do you look back on that period? Were those ideas or solutions known already to policy-makers or were they imposed by multilateral lenders as critics claim?

I don’t see much originality in those. These were ideas which were being discussed inside the government and outside, too. All I did was put them all together in a coherent whole, when I got an opportunity. The Budget for 1991 set out the roadmap that we wanted to adopt for the next two to three years. It gave SEBI legal status. Before that, SEBI was no more than an advisory body. The banking system needed reforms and I announced the setting up of the Narasimham committee on financial sector reforms. Then, there were tax reforms.

Trade policy reforms were critical, weren’t they?

Yes. There was some work done earlier I think by Montek Singh (Ahluwalia).
P Chidambaram was very supportive. Without him, the trade policy would not have moved as fast as it did.

Is it true that the trade policy reforms were finalised in a matter of just two days?

That’s certainly true, as we were in a hurry. Chidambaram and I went to meet Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and the Prime Minister turned to me and said, ‘What do you think?’ and I said, ‘I entirely endorse it’. That was the end of it, and the Prime Minister put his signature on it.

What was the level of opposition to reforms? How did you surmount it?

There was a lot of opposition in the country and within the party (Congress). But Prime Minister Rao’s political management made it possible to overcome all that. I was a loner and had no group. Even in the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting, when the Budget was being discussed, there was a lot of opposition and the only people who supported me, (were) in favour of what I had done, were Nathuram Mirdha and Mani Shankar Aiyar.

One of the steps taken was on exchange rate management. What strategy did you have in mind?

We had to tackle the exchange rate at the start because there was a lot of speculation on the rupee’s future. And if we had not acted creatively then, the whole system would have been impacted with dire consequences. We did the exchange rate adjustment in two steps. The first step was to test the waters: what the public reaction would be, the reaction within the government and reaction from the opposition. So although there was opposition to the move, it was manageable. So I said by July 3 (1991), we must complete the full thing. C Rangarajan was the Deputy Governor (of RBI). Even then there was opposition. And Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had doubts over the second instalment of the exchange rate adjustment and told me, in fact, to stop it. But when I called up Rangarajan, he said that he had already shot the goal. Therefore, that was the end of it. He had already announced the new exchange rate. What we had announced was not any formal devaluation. We said that it was a market-driven adjustment.

That government had to mortgage gold because of the BoP crisis. What are your recollections?

By the time the government took over, one instalment of gold had already been mortgaged and dispatched abroad. I allowed the second one to go without much fanfare. That really shocked the country… the mess that the economy was in. I used that occasion to honour the commitment of the previous government to mortgage gold but at the same time, I sensitised the country on how serious the economic situation was, and that if we do not want to go down the disastrous path, reforms were the only answer.

What about sequencing of reforms — real sector first, financial sector later?

On financial sector reforms, we relatively had only a vague idea. It was only after we appointed the Narasimham committee to do banking reforms that we got going. In the first Budget, we also mentioned granting legislative status to SEBI and abolishing the Controller of Capital Issues. Some reforms we thought through committees. I appointed Raja Chelliah also to work on tax reforms. That couldn’t be done in a month. So we bought time. By the time I announced the second Budget in 1992, those recommendations were taken on board. We introduced VAT and started the process of reduction in Customs duties.

Wasn’t there resistance to new stock exchange?

The National Stock Exchange was strongly opposed by Bombay stockbrokers and captains of industry. I thought some competition is good. The exchange has given a very good account of itself.

One of the biggest changes was in allowing foreign investment in a closed economy.

I was going to England and I knew the city would be interested. So I had prepared for that route of reforms. It was also in London, if I remember, and I may be wrong, that I announced the opening up of the Indian markets to foreign investment. Over a period of time, we built it and moved cautiously and opened up a lot later.

Were you surprised by the improvement in many macro economic indicators after a year?

The economy recovered faster than we (had) thought. When I took over, I said that the next three years will be nothing but blood and tears. Ultimately, I said that I had confidence that the economy would emerge victorious from this crisis but there were no shortcuts. And the economy recovered faster. Inflation came down, the Balance of Payments situation turned around sooner than I anticipated.

What about ideological differences at the start of the reform process?

Well, when you are in a hurry, you don’t worry too much about ideological issues that will come in the way. I knew that if it did not work, I could have been the scapegoat. I was prepared for that.

How was the famous Bombay Club opposition to the reforms tackled?

The Bombay Club and traditional industrialists were opposed to it. I talked to a number of people — industry, politicians, people in state governments. I talked to the press also often then, and we slowly managed to overcome the resistance. In the very first week itself, there was opposition to the reforms agenda. So I managed to secure the support of P N Dhar, K N Raj, I G Patel and R N Malhotra. They came out with a statement supporting the reform process. I think the Left was against it.
Again, without A N Verma, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, the support from the civil service would not have been as strong as it turned out to be. I wanted the PM’s Secretariat to be consciously involved in pushing the reform process.

Looking back now, how much of a change have those reforms signified to Indian industry 25 years on?

Certainly, Indian industry is much more confident. They are the children of the 1991 reforms. We removed wealth tax in the 1991 budget. That is one way in which the children of those who had wealth could put money honestly into their enterprises. Now they all feel that we did a good thing.

The fact is that some of the reforms launched in 1991 were being considered in the aborted Budget of the Chandra Shekhar government. What are your thoughts on that?

What I am saying is that what we did wasn’t original. There were ideas which were in the air. Several discussions had taken place but the political system was not responsive to implementing those reforms.

Halfway through, the government was hit by the 1992 stock market scam. How much of a setback was that?

It only gave a handle to the opponents of reforms to blackmail us. Fortunately, they didn’t find anything wrong in what I had done. They said that I should have been more active. In hindsight, there is always scope to do better. Even then, I submitted my resignation to the Prime Minister saying that since the constructive responsibility is that of the finance minister, I think it is appropriate that I resign. I gave the Prime Minister my letter of resignation, which he kept for six to seven days and sent it back later saying, ‘You continue’.

The 1990s were also marked by a convergence of like-minded policy advisors in the government and engagement of outside experts and economists to advise the government. How was it done?

I wanted to sensitise the people of India on the need to revisit old orthodoxies. It was therefore helpful when we got a group of young and learned people to back the process that we were embarking upon. So I got Nicholas Stern involved; Jagdish Bhagwati and T N Srinivasan; Vijay Joshi from Oxford. As early as 1973, I got Bimal Jalan from ICICI to join the government. Then, when I was the finance minister, I got Montek Singh to the finance ministry, brought in Shankar Acharya as chief economic advisor, Ashok Desai as advisor, Rakesh Mohan in the Planning Commission and Arvind Virmani in the Planning Commission.

Why was it difficult to do that subsequently?

Earlier, we could do all that because the Indian Economic Service was small and nobody felt threatened. So I could bring in a lot of young professional economists. But later, the IES felt that their opportunities for career advancement and promotions were being denied.

And similarly, lateral entry in the government was such a formidable challenge, wasn’t it?

But we managed to bring in Raghuram Rajan. I spotted him and first engaged him as an honorary advisor to the Prime Minister. Then when the position of the chief economic advisor fell vacant, we got him there and he told us that when the time for the RBI Governorship comes, he should be considered for the job. I was able to honour that commitment. P Chidambaram agreed with me, and that appointment turned out to be a creative one.

Having been a Governor of the RBI yourself, how do you see the differences between the central bank and the government?

There have always been differences between the finance minister and the RBI Governor. But in our time, the relationship was smooth. Rangarajan was a superb technocrat and I had known him for 20 to 25 years. During our time when I was the finance minister, we entered into a historic agreement with the RBI on doing away with automatic monetisation of the deficit. Rangarajan wanted it and I endorsed it. It was one way to ensure that financial policy was supportive of what we wanted to do. When I was the finance minister, I got on well with the RBI Governor.

But didn’t you offer to quit as RBI Governor when the government decided to take away the powers of the RBI on licensing of foreign banks?

I had strong feelings on that. Ultimately, the government saw reason and it didn’t happen. As RBI Governor, I felt strongly that the step would be detrimental to the status of the RBI.

Was your term as finance minister professionally satisfying?

Well, I came to India soon after a bypass surgery. When the offer came to become finance minister, my friends advised me not to take it up as it could kill me, they said. So I said, ‘how does it matter if I die in the process of serving one’s own country, it is alright’.

Twenty-five years later, with the economy now way bigger, and with a greater acceptance to opening up, why is it difficult to carry out reforms?

I think in a crisis, we act constructively. When it is over, status quo takes over. But I think it is remarkable that even if the process was put in place by a Congress-led government, the next United Front government, led by H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, carried forward the process. In fact, Chidambaram presented what came to be known as a ‘dream budget’. Then came the BJP government which also continued the reform process. 

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Mr.Arun Jaitely' Tributes to Dr. Manmohan Singh 05-27

From One intellectual to another.

Thanks Mr. Arun Jaitley, for the scholarly insight into political life of apolitical scholar Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh.

World will remember Dr. Manmohan Singh, P V Naramsimha Rao, & India for the bold and pragmatic reforms during nineties .

Given the political conditions, I don't think any scholar will ever venture into politics. We can celebrate Dr. Manmohan Singh as the last scholarly Prime Minister India ever had.

May god give Dr. Manmohan Singh and his family, a healthy & peaceful retired life.

न किसी की आँख का नूर हूँ, न किसी के दिल का क़रार हूँ
जो किसी के काम न आ सके, मैं वो एक मुश्त-ए-ग़ुबार हूँ

न तो मैं किसी का हबीब हूँ, न तो मैं किसी का रक़ीब हूँ
जो बिगड़ गया वो नसीब हूँ, जो उजड़ गया वो दयार हूँ
न किसी की...

Kindly keep the bad stuff out of your comments.

Now on to Mr. Jaitely's Insights 

Looking back at Dr.Manmohan Singh 13TH May 2014

The voting for the 2014 General Elections is over. 

The result is awaited. We have only the Exit Polls and our own analysis as a base to speculate upon. Dr. Manmohan Singh has announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister irrespective of the result and the mantle of the Congress Party leadership in Parliament would pass on to the next generation. I have had an opportunity of observing the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh from close quarters for the last ten years. In the last five years as Leader of Opposition I virtually have heard his every intervention in Parliament and dissected each one of his performances. I look upon him at the conclusion of his ten years tenure. 

Unquestionably Dr. Manmohan Singh was a very good Finance Minister. He got a lot of support from his Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao for initiating the economic reforms in 1991. For a Congress Party government which had always professed the virtues of regulation a reformist approach was creditable. 

Shri PV Narasimha Rao has never been given the level of credit which he truly deserved.

 I am sure history will reassess him. I had recently suggested to the Prime Minister that I personally would be interested in reading his memoirs particularly those relating to the period 1991-96. The footprints he left behind as a Finance Minister during this period will be remembered for a long time. 

Dr. Manmohan Singh became a Prime Minister on account of certain circumstances which compelled Smt. Sonia Gandhi to withdraw her name from the reckoning. He was literally a Prime Minister announced by Sonia ji. He had to function within that limitation. 

There were two strong qualities of Prime Minister that I discovered. Firstly, whenever you discussed a serious subject with the Prime Minister he came out as a man of scholarship . He was what we call to as “a Syana aadmi”. His words were measured and he would reflect before making a comment. Secondly, his personal integrity was always above board. With an element of scholarship he was always be well read and well prepared on any subject that he dealt with.
And yet, when he addressed the country, he never came out as a leader. The reason for not coming out as a leader was clear. He never wanted to rock the boat. He knew that he was vested with limited power and on all major decisions he had to keep the party and its first family in good humor. 

Thus when the reform process was blocked on account of decisions of the National Advisory Council or when Rahul Gandhi tore apart the papers of objectionable ordinance, the Prime Minister was perceived as a non-leader who had to accept everything without his opinion mattering significantly. It was his inability to overrule people which affected his functioning. He did not have the last word. Had he overruled his Finance Minister on the retrospective tax law knowing fully well the consequences of a retrospective taxation, the Prime Minister would have stood out. 

If he had stood up and cancelled the Coal Blocks allocation once the fraud was revealed or cancelled the 2G licenses himself rather than wait for the Court to do it I have no doubt that history would have recorded him very differently. It was the inability to speak up within his own party that may compel the historians to take a different view of the man. 

As curtains draw to a close and a ten year long period of providing leadership to the Government of India, the Prime Minister goes out with dignity and grace. He will remain an elder statesman and a man of credibility to guide the nation. Only if he had stood up at the right time and disagreed he would have been regarded with still a greater honour. 

I wish the Prime Minister a very good health and many more years of public service. If he were to write his memoirs and I will always want to read the chapter which deals with 1991-96 period.

On Rahul Gandhi, FM P Chidambaram hints PM Manmohan Singh's time is up 10-09

On Rahul Gandhi, FM P Chidambaram hints PM Manmohan Singh's time is up

Chidambaram dismissive of Narendra Modi vis a vis Rahul Gandhi's chances at the hustings.

In an interview on the eve of his visit to the US, FM P. Chidambaram hints PM Manmohan Singh's time at the helm as Prime Minister of India has passed.

Chidambaram said the economic downturn was no reason to think that his Congress party, which has been weakened by years of fractious coalition rule and a string of corruption scandals, would be ousted in a national election that must be held by May.

"Don't write us off so easily," he said, adding that the next leader of the Congress party would be Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled India for most of its 66 years since Independence.

"I am glad you acknowledge prime minister Rahul Gandhi, but that is a question you should put to him," Chidambaram said, when asked if he would serve again in a government led by the party's heir apparent if Congress wins a third straight term in office. "The time has come for the torch to be passed on to a new and younger generation."

Chidambaram dismissed the dazzling emergence of opposition figurehead and candidate for prime minister Narendra Modi on the national political stage as "largely media created".

He conceded that the Hindu nationalist leader had united the rank and file of the Bharatiya Janata Party and "gained some traction among urban youths", but said his party's challenger was someone with a "very, very chequered track record".

Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat when deadly communal riots raged there in 2002. He has always vehemently denied charges that he turned a blind eye to the violence, and a Supreme Court inquiry found no evidence to prosecute him.

The Indian government will have to rein in spending and cut subsidies to meet its fiscal deficit target, the country's finance minister said on Monday, underlining that an austerity drive will not be blown off course by an election due next year.

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