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We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions Hardcover – 1 October 2023
by Subhash Chandra Garg
The book talks candidly about controversial decisions from the first tenure of the NDA government, such as the politics of 'minimum support price' to farmers, electoral bonds, recapitalizing of banks, monetizing national assets and the controversial resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel, among others. As the author of three Union Budgets, Garg also talks about what it takes to put the Budget together: the pressures, the processes, the calculations and, above all, the politics.
account of how Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took an intense dislike to her senior-most bureaucrat in North Block, which eventually led to his early retirement from the civil service; how former Home Secretary R.K. Singh, who later became Union Power Minister, was a socialist of sorts because of his support for public sector corporations in his ministry, or so Garg would have us believe; and, most sensationally, how Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared the then RBI Governor, Urjit Patel—who was unwilling to part with the Central bank’s reserves for use by the allegedly profligate Indian government—to a snake zealously guarding its stash of gold.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/reviews/story/former-finance-secretary-subhash-chandra-gargs-we-also-make-policy-gives-a-peek-into-modi-raj-557420 With this book, Garg’s circle of friends in the bureaucracy is certain to shrink; beginning with senior Punjab IAS officer Anurag Agarwal and including then Principal Secretary to the PM Nripendra Mishra, who he burdens with the responsibility of pushing through the PM Kisan scheme in an interim budget, a morally dubious move, and without firm numbers of farmers in the country because general elections were round the corner. Garg also mentions several who in his view deserved credit and none more than Arun Jaitley.
Garg also punctures the Central government’s myth that it increased the MSP by 150 per cent for all crops. Or that foreign direct investment and e-commerce have been runaway successes. What if the policies, at least the economic ones highlighted by Garg, were not sudden directives from the top and an attempt to fit round pegs in square holes?
The Bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, privatisation, the IL&FS resolution or the much talked about confrontational years with the RBI — much of it is in the public domain. What spices up the incidents this time is that Garg takes the reader into the hallowed rooms on Raisina Hill with a meeting-by-meeting and a note-by-counter-note account of each of the policies framed in his tenure. If sometimes the build-up, as in the chapter on SEBI or monetisation, appears technical and tedious, perseverance opens a delightful window into the years of the Modi government straddling the 2019 general elections for the reader as well as for RTI enthusiasts.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-modi-compared-ex-rbi-governor-urjit-patel-to-a-snake-claims-ex-finance-secretary-in-his-book-101695542331881.html Prime Minister Narendra Modi compared the then Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel as a ‘snake who sits over a hoard of money’... the Narendra Modi government's ‘frustration’ with the then central bank chief had grown as early as February 2018 and escalated a month later when he accused the government of its inability to shed regulatory authority over nationalised banks, which according to him left the RBI with inadequate regulatory authority over the public sector banks compared to private-sector banks.
Ladakh starts 21 Days climate fast to save the Himalayas | Sonam Wangchuk
Sonam Wangchuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euAQOFNmX8I
comment u WA OPS..and yet he refuses to call out the PM and HM for their actions..
चुनावी बॉन्ड और आर्थिक पारदर्शिता | हमारा पैसा हमारा हिसाब
क्या देश के सबसे बड़े बैंक को आर्थिक पारदर्शिता से नहीं पेश आना चाहिए? स्टेट बैंक जैसे विश्वसनीय बैंक का ये कहना की वो चुनावी बॉन्ड का डाटा नहीं दे सकता मात्र चौकाने वाली बात नहीं है, ये संकेत हैं हमारे लोकतंत्र के स्तम्भ हिल रहे हैं। हमारे संविधान के मूल्यों के साथ खिलवाड़ किया जा रहा है।
#HumaraPaisaHumaraHisab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AddsdSDXmO8
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