Credit Policy
RBI must tell more
THE Reserve Bank of India's Monetary and Credit Policy is noteworthy also for its detailed review of the previous year, issued as a separate document. Not many central banks prepare such a document. The RBI brings out in October a half-yearly progress re port on the economy. It would do well to come out with a quarterly report for April-June. No other institution in the country has access to such a wealth of information as the RBI. Often, national institutions of lesser standing get the limelight publish ing the limited information they have. In fact, when the RBI Bulletin was revamped a decade ago to bring it out without delay, quarterly economic reviews were published in the place of the traditional monthly financial reviews. The latter had little econ omic content and merely paraphrased the tables. As a result, no serious student of the economy read it. The quarterly reviews, on the other hand, were appreciated by the financial press and economists. It is time to revive them.

Economy
White is white, black is black -- And the twain shall never meet?
CINCINNATI, an important city of Ohio in the US, and the eighth most segregated in the country, was recently rocked by three days of arson and violence following the shooting of an unarmed black youth of 17. Wanted for 12 traffic violations and with two warrants for running away from the police pending against him, he was chased and surrounded by 12 police officers. A white police officer, mistakenly assuming that the boy was reaching for a gun, shot him dead. This is the latest tragedy in a series of s imilar incidents all over the country resulting from the inherent suspicion and hostility governing relations between the police forces and the Afro-Americans in the US.

Vision 2020 -- Leveraging NRI coffers and sincerity
THIS article is being written in the US where I am on a lecture tour. I have been asked repeatedly how the NRIs can help India's economy. Interacting with the expatriate Indians here makes one re-think how they (and we too) can attempt to build a new and resurgent India. Specifically, if the NRIs want to help, they should observe six basic rules.

SEZs: India has no Hong Kong, Mr Maran
IF CHINA is a lesson for the Industry and Commerce Minister, Mr Murasoli Maran, and if he thinks that setting up SEZs (Special Economic Zones) would accelerate the future growth of export, he is wrong. May be China and India are economically similar on v arious issues, but China owes the success of SEZs to certain special characteristics. During his short visit to China before converting the Exim policy, Mr Maran was upbeat with the success of the SEZs and was convinced that they should be the plank for India's export growth. Consequently, the SEZ concept made a formal entry via the last Exim policy and climbed up in priority in the latest edition.

Editorial
Smart NPAs
OVER-SMART, PIN-UP BANKING of the ICICI genre seems to have run its course with the lead financial institution reporting a fourth quarter loss for the last year with net profit dropping by 55 per cent to Rs 537 crore.

Politics
Democratic matrix
IT IS strange that so far no reliable yardstick has been evolved to measure the maturity and health of a democracy. On the contrary, even those with the best democratic credentials have been flummoxed by its nebulous nature. Winston Churchi ll, for instance, only half-jokingly said that democracy was the worst form of government, save for all the others! Much confusion is caused by the fact that every country, however regimented its polity may be, calls itself a democracy. China is a people's democracy. Pakistan under Ayub Khan was a guided democracy. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, many brutal dictatorships in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere are all democracies according to their Constitutions.

Debate that is not on: Waiting for Godot
With five States going to the polls on May 10, India is having a sort of a mini general elections where the issue is not the role of the Union Government but the performance of the State governments belonging to a variety of parties.

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