Subhash Chandra Garg- Economy, Finance and Fiscal Policy Strategist

FIRST GENERATION LAND REFORMS IN INDIA (1947-1990) (Part I of the two-part series on Unfinished Agenda of Land Reforms in India) SUBHASH CHANDRA GARG (Economy, Finance and Fiscal Policy Strategist; Also, former Finance and Economic Affairs Secretary) Prime Minister, in his address to the nation, on 12 th May, spoke about reforms of land, labour, liquidity and laws. Finance Minister was to spell out specific reform proposals. She proposed three reforms- agriculture produce marketing law, essential commodities law and another for quality assurance in agriculture produce. However, land reforms agenda has not been spelt out. In this blog, I review the land reforms carried out in India in the first phase, the socialist economy phase which lasted until 1990, of India’s economic policy making. I would examine the state of land reforms required in the second phase of economic policy making, post liberalisation of 1990s, in the blog that follows tomorrow. State...

NEXT GENERATION CURRENCY: THE DIGITAL RUPEE Barter economy valued and transacted goods for goods. One goat for x kilograms of wheat and the like. It was an extremely complex and limiting system. Humanity looked for and experimented with various ‘things’ of value in terms of which every other good and service can be valued and transacted. That thing of value is money. Precious metals like gold and silver appeared to excellent money. Sell the goat for x grams of silver and use that bullion to buy wheat or anything else. Further refinement in pursuit of finding perfect money led to the idea of turning gold or silver into a standard coin, which will contain a fixed amount of pure gold or silver in it. That standard coin can be used as money for undertaking all economic transactions. Sell the goat for x number of silver coins and use the silver coins to buy wheat or any other goods or service. With gold or silver standard coins, the metallic coin currency was borne. It was ...