📰 Cracks in the framework
With the systematic weakening of institutions, the government risks pushing all resistance to the streets
•The Government of India has reportedly suppressed its own data on current employment, or rather job loss, in the country. It has, thereby, compromised the autonomy and the standing of the National Statistical Commission. This is the latest instalment in the rather sordid story of institutional decay in India, overseen by the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This is not to suggest that previous governments did not undermine institutions. The internal Emergency imposed on the country from 1975 to 1977 initiated the process. The government tried to tame bureaucrats as well as the highest court in the land. Postings and appointments were manipulated to suit the ruling dispensation. The BJP government has, however, earned the dubious distinction of sabotaging the autonomy of several political institutions in rapid succession.
Necessary checks
•Institutional decay occasions worry because it affects ordinary citizens in disastrous ways. All governments, even those which have been democratically elected, betray an inexorable will to power. Expectedly, expansion of government power violates constitutional rights to freedom, equality and justice. The only way citizens can be protected against any arbitrary and unlawful exercise of power is by limiting the power of government. Liberal democrats, always sceptical of state power, have tried to contain dramatic surges of power by charting out of constitutions and institutional design. Institutions, as the embodiment of formal and informal rules, assure citizens that the government exercises power according to some norms that enable as well as regulate state capacity.
•This makes for good political sense when we remember that most human activity is structured by systems of rules — take the intricate and rule-bound game of chess or cricket. Relationships, households, the economy, society, the games we play and do not play take place and develop within the framework of rules. Human beings are social, but we cannot be social unless we know what is expected of us, and what we should do or not do. Without rules that govern relationships — for example, the norm that friendship is based on trust— we will not know what is worthwhile and what is not, what is preferable and what should be avoided, and what is appropriate and what is expedient.
•The Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor has argued in his famous work, Sources of the Self (1989), that institutions embody ‘strong evaluations’. We learn to discriminate between right and wrong, better and worse, and higher and lower. These evaluations are not judged subjectively by our own desires or impulses. Institutions, which stand independently of us, give us standards that allow us to evaluate. Following Taylor, we can rightly wonder why political power should be exercised, implemented and executed without rules. Assertions of political power adversely affect our interests and our projects. We should be in a position to judge when this power is exercised fairly or unfairly. Rules in a democracy assure us that justice is synonymous with fairness.
•Moreover, rules make our worlds predictable. We know what the boundaries of the freedom of expression are, we know that if the police arrests us tomorrow, we have the right to appoint a lawyer and appeal to the judiciary. Without institutions and rules our life would be chancy, unpredictable and fickle. We would inhabit a space empty of certainties, expectations, aspirations and evaluations.
Rules, not whims
•In a democracy, individuals are governed by institutions, and not by men. If we do not live in an institutional universe, we will be at the mercy of capricious individuals. Democrats would rather be administered by a system of rules we can scrutinise and evaluate. Of course, rules can be, and are, unfair. But at least we can struggle against rules. We do not have to commit murders to get the ruling dispensation out of power. We might have to carry out a thousand peaceful demonstrations, approach the courts, lobby our legislative representatives, engage in civil disobedience, or withhold our vote. In a world stamped by the decline of institutions and the exercise of arbitrary power, the only way to dislodge a government is through violence.
•The present government has tampered with institutions by appointing its own people to positions of authority, and by using the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax authorities, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the police as bulldozers to flatten out any site of opposition. In civil society, human rights organisations have been pulverised by blockage of funds, raids and arrests. The shameful way in which human rights activists have been incarcerated without a shred of evidence testifies to the subversion of the rule of law. The ultimate aim of government action is to dismantle institutions, and the delicate relationship of checks and balances among them. This bodes ill for democracy.
•The development contravenes the spirit of the freedom struggle. As far back as the 1928 Motilal Nehru constitutional draft, the leadership of the national movement opted for constitutionalism to abridge unpredictable use of power, and grant basic rights to citizens. On November 4, 1948, B.R. Ambedkar, responding to criticism of the draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly, clarified that the Constitution provided but a framework for future governments. But: “If things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we have a bad constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile.” The Indian Constitution established major political institutions, Parliament, executive and the judiciary, laid out the relationship between them, provided for judicial review, and codified political and civil rights. The constitutional framework does not provide thick or substantive conceptions of how we shall think, and in what we shall believe. It provides us with a thin framework that guarantees constitutional morality, or respect for the Constitution as the basis of political life.
•Today the ruling party wants to legislate a thick conception of the good. We are instructed to worship the nation, respect the cow, glorify the coercive arm of the state, and listen on bended knees to leaders. Frankly the discourse is reminiscent of the naïve, and often crude, nationalist scripts authored and acted out by the film star Manoj Kumar in the 1960s. We can avoid watching his films without fear of harassment, but we cannot defy the government without being abused and subjected to violence of the pen and tongue.
Upending the balance
•The government arrests civil society activists who engage with policy, and vigilante groups attack individuals who dare transport cattle, legitimately, from one part of India to another. Immediately the sympathies of the police and magistrates, some sections of the media and public opinion swing towards the perpetrator, not the victim. The leaders of our ruling dispensation seem to have no respect for the rule of law, nor for the rules that regulate speech in public spaces.
•Ultimately institutionalised power that is subject to regulation, and that can withstand the scrutiny of the political public, is meant to protect citizens. Unfortunately, in the India of today institutions are used to protect the ruling class, and its sins of omission and commission. The people who rule us should know that when the relationship between citizens and the state is governed not by institutions but by individuals, politics takes to the streets. And then a thousand revolts happen. We pay heavily for institutional decline.
📰 A series of unfortunate missteps
Fixing the federal fallout of the Kerala flood relief funding row requires care
•The differences between the Kerala and Central governments over the denial of external assistance to rebuild the State after the devastating floods of August last year surfaced again last month, in the Kerala Governor’s policy speech in the Assembly as well as the statements of a Kerala Minister at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi. Governor Justice P. Sathasivam had said that the Kerala government had requested the Centre to enhance its borrowing limit to mobilise additional resources for rebuilding the flood-hit State. “We are still awaiting a favourable response from the Central government in this regard,” he added. Minister K.T. Jaleel, who represented Kerala at the conclave, complained that he was not allowed to raise the issue there. The bitterness over the flood money still persists.
•Competitive federalism, in the context of interaction with foreign countries, promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has proved to be a double-edged sword. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan now stands accused of violating rules regarding the seeking of foreign assistance. He remains unclear on how to make up for the shortfall, of several crores. The Central government is unable to provide the funds while Kerala has been stopped in its tracks from seeking resources from abroad, either from the Kerala diaspora or from friendly foreign governments.
•The present situation is a result of a series of errors of judgment and misunderstandings on both sides. Mutual political suspicion and a lack of appreciation of the complexities of the international situation have brought about a confrontation. The Chief Minister may have even made diplomatic and tactical misjudgments.
Diplomatic trajectory
•India had no qualms about receiving foreign assistance for disaster management till 2004. But when India’s aspiration for permanent membership of the UN Security Council met with strong resistance, New Delhi hit upon the idea of forcing a vote in the General Assembly. The game plan was to secure a two-thirds majority and then attempt to embarrass the permanent members into supporting the expansion of the Security Council. The two false presumptions were that India would win the required number of votes and that the Security Council would wilt under pressure from the General Assembly. In fact, many Assembly members were opposed to the veto even for the existing permanent members and had no interest in creating more permanent members with veto. India thought that it could win over the other countries if it was seen to be helping them in emergencies rather than seeking such assistance for itself.
•The tsunami of 2004 and the threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean provided India an opportunity to test its new posture. Everybody was grateful, but it made no difference to India’s claim to permanent membership. There were other factors too which militated against India’s claim. The Modi government decided, however, to lay down the rules regarding foreign assistance in order to bring some clarity to the situation.
•The rules, which were framed in 2016, clarified that India would not solicit any assistance but would receive relief assistance, even as cash, from individuals, charitable institutions and foundations. If cash were to be offered bilaterally by foreign governments, the matter would be considered on a case-by-case basis. Even before the extent of the damage was fully known, I had urged the Central government in early August 2018 to make a suitable amendment to the rule as the damage in Kerala was beyond the capacity to handle it. Needless to say, nobody responded at that stage.
The UAE’s offer
•The saga of the offer by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began well when the Prime Minister was informed by the UAE authorities that relief assistance was being put together as a special gesture, which the Prime Minister reciprocated with a warm reply of gratitude. But the Kerala Chief Minister’s announcement that the UAE would provide ₹700 crore, made on the same day as the Central government’s announcement of a provision of ₹500 crore, opened a Pandora’s box. It appeared as though the UAE was more generous than New Delhi was to Kerala and that the Central government was not empathetic to Kerala’s plight because of political considerations. Moreover, the source of the information was supposed to have been an Indian businessman in the UAE. An embarrassed UAE government then asked its Ambassador in New Delhi to deny that there was any specific offer of ₹700 crore.
•An immediate consequence was a reluctance by other governments to make any offer of bilateral assistance. No one could answer the question whether any offer from other governments would be accepted. When the Thai Ambassador in Delhi was stopped from being at a ceremony to hand over relief goods to an Indian official, the world was convinced that India would not accept resources. The issue was politicised as one between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala.
•It was against this backdrop that Kerala put forward an unwise proposal to despatch its Ministers abroad to collect donations. This was unacceptable in the context of the policy that had crystallised after the floods in Kerala and the Central Government having refused permission for Ministers other than the Chief Minister to travel to countries. Apart from the ignominy of soliciting donations, there was a clear likelihood of receiving very little by way of cash donations. The possibility of loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank became distant as the Centre refused to raise the limits on loans from these global organisations that a State government could take. The emergence of the Sabarimala crisis further eroded the credibility of the State Government and much of the empathy over the flood damage was also lost.
•The Prime Minister had always maintained that marshalling of resources is the responsibility of the Union government according to the Constitution. Now the only option before Kerala is to demand more funding from the Centre to make up the shortfall. Undoubtedly, the situation is a tragedy of errors caused by an inadequate familiarity with decision making and the complexity of international relations.
•India is a federal state, but unitary in nature when it comes to national security and foreign policy. Individual States may have some advantages in dealing with some countries in their neighbourhood, but they will do well not to transgress the thin line when it comes to managing international relations. Now it will take longer for trust to be established to have competitive federalism work again.
📰 100% use of VVPAT for Lok Sabha polls: EC
Madras HC dismisses PIL plea
•The Election Commission on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court that it had made it clear way back in 2017 that there shall be 100% use of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system during the Lok Sabha election this year to gain voter confidence.
•Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad were informed by EC counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan that the VVPAT allowed every voter to see a printed slip for seven seconds to verify and confirm that the vote cast had gone to the candidate of his or her choice. The system would be used fully during the Lok Sabha election.
•The submission was made during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition seeking 100% use of the VVPAT during every election.
•The judges dismissed the petition after recording the submissions of the EC that it had already decided to use VVPAT in all booths in accordance with a 2013 Supreme Court directive.
Permanent staff
•In his affidavit, the petitioner, S. Packiaraj, 67, of Anna Nagar here regretted that the EC did not have its own permanent staff in every district of the country.
•He said that using government staff to conduct elections did not help in prosecuting election offences because the EC had no powers over their service after the polls.
•Nevertheless, leaving the subject to the discretion of the EC, the petitioner emphasised the need for introducing the VVPAT system in all polling booths to ensure transparency in voting especially at a time when there was a widespread scare that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were not tamper-proof and could be tinkered with.
Opposition concerns
•Leaders of Opposition parties had approached the EC in New Delhi on Monday to express concerns about the possibility of EVMs being doctored.
•They had demanded that the EC should ensure that 50% of the EVM results were matched and cross-checked with VVPATs before it declared the results in the Lok Sabha election.
•Opposition leaders, who met the CEC and other members of the EC, told the poll panel that the issue needed to be addressed as people now doubted the efficacy of EVMs.
•“All the parties told the Commission that in the past three or four years, there have been instances when a voter presses the ‘Hand’ [Congress symbol] button or ‘Elephant’ [BSP] or ‘Cycle’ [SP] buttons and the vote gets registered against ‘Lotus’ [of the BJP]. This has led to fights and arguments at booths. EC officials, however, have never been able to satisfactorily explain to political parties why this has happened,” said Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.
📰 Russia to develop new missile systems by 2021
Move comes after key treaty pullout
•Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday said the country must develop new types of missile systems in the next two years after Washington and Moscow ripped up a key arms control treaty.
•The United States has repeatedly accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement and on Friday President Donald Trump said Washington was starting a process to withdraw from the treaty in six months.
•In a tit-for-tat move on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was also leaving the treaty and beginning work on new types of weapons that would breach the crucial Cold War-era agreement.
•At a meeting with officials on Tuesday, Mr. Shoigu said Russia should develop two new missile systems in the next two years. “During 2019-2020 we have to develop a land-based version of the seaborne Kalibr system equipped with a long-range cruise missile which showed good results in Syria,” he told Defence officials.
•“Over the same period we will also have to create a land-based missile system with a long-range hypersonic missile,” he said.
•The Defence Minister said the plans had been approved by Mr. Putin.
•The INF agreement forbids ground-launched, short- and intermediate-range missiles, but not those launched from the air or sea — which Russia already has.
📰 Taliban demands new Afghan Constitution
•The Taliban demanded a new Constitution for Afghanistan and promised an “inclusive Islamic system” to govern the war-torn country at a rare gathering with senior Afghan politicians in Russia on Tuesday that excluded the Kabul government.
•The manifesto, outlined in Moscow, comes a week after the Taliban held unprecedented six-day talks with U.S. negotiators in Doha about ending the 17-year war. The Moscow meeting — the Taliban’s most significant with Afghan politicians in recent memory — saw the insurgents praying together with sworn enemies, including former President Hamid Karzai, as they discussed their vision for the future.
•“The Kabul government Constitution is invalid. It has been imported from the West and is an obstacle to peace,” Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, who headed the Taliban delegation, said at a central Moscow hotel. “It is conflicted. We want an Islamic constitution,” he said, adding that the new charter would be drafted by Islamic scholars.
📰 Bullet train gets green light via flamingo haven, national park
Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan-led panel gives nod.
•A committee, chaired by Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, has accorded wildlife clearance to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed train corridor that encroaches upon a flamingo sanctuary and the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the home to leopards, in Mumbai.
•The proposal involves diversion of 3.2756 ha of forestland from the Thane Creek Flamingo Wildlife Sanctuary and 97.5189 ha of land close to the boundary of the forest’s protected area.
•The project for one of India’s first ‘bullet trains’ was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Ahmedabad in September, 2017. It is expected to be ready by 2022.
•A wildlife clearance is a critical part of the forest clearance process. A person privy to the process said forest clearance wasn’t part of the original agenda of the meeting.
•“In some cases, a file can come in through the intervention of the Chair [in this case, Mr. Vardhan]. This was one of those projects,” said the person, who didn’t want to be identified.
•The project was accorded wildlife clearance on 10th January, according to records of the meeting.
•The TCF in Thane, Mumbai, came into being August 2015 and the 1,690-hectare bird haven — 896 hectares of mangrove forests and 794 hectares of a water-body — is on the western bank of the creek, between the Airoli and the Vashi bridges connecting Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.
•Apart from the creek, the proposal also involves diverting 32.75 ha of forestland and 77.30 ha of non-forestland from Sanjay Gandhi National Park and from 0.6902 ha of forestland and 4.7567 ha of non-forest land from Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary.
•While according clearance, the National Board of Wildlife-- the apex body tasked with according permissions to allow forest land to be diverted for industrial development-- has laid pre-conditions for the bullet train project. These include paying Rs 10 crore (2% of 500 crore—the component of the project in Mumbai) for habitat improvement of the sanctuary, barricading the work site to ensure that no debris fall outside the project area and ‘…providing site and funds for penal plantation of at least 5 times the number of mangroves plants anticipated to be lost in this project..’
•Largely funded by a soft loan by Japan, the Rs 1 trillion Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has a track-length of 508 km, and will originate at the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai and terminate at the Sabarmati, in Gujarat. The length across the State of Maharashtra will be 155.64 km 4.3 km across Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The total length across the state of Gujarat would 348.2 km and would pass through the districts of Ahmedabad, Kheda, Anand, Vadodara, Bharuch, Surat, Navsari, and Valsad in Gujarat.
📰 Timely review: On start-up tax
The very idea of an ‘angel tax’ on start-ups must be reconsidered
•Start-ups troubled by the so-called angel tax may soon receive some concession from the government. On Monday, the Centre set up a five-member working committee to look into revising the norms of the angel tax imposed on start-ups. The tax, which was first introduced in 2012 to curb money-laundering through the sale of shares of private unlisted companies at bloated prices, has caused a lot of anguish among start-up investors in the country. Start-up owners have complained that income tax officials have asked many start-ups to cough up money when they try to attract capital into their entities by issuing new shares. For its part, the IT department fears that start-ups may be used as convenient tools to launder illegally acquired money, so a tax on investments beyond a certain threshold is necessary to deter such shady operations. But while the intent of such an angel tax may be justifiable, the arbitrary nature of it means the cost of unintended consequences could be larger than the supposed benefits. In trying to curb money-laundering, Section 56(2)(viib) of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961 gives income tax officials a free hand to harass even genuine start-ups looking to raise investments for their growth. Under the Act, the IT department is free to arbitrarily decide the fair value of a company’s share and tax start-ups if the price at which their new shares are sold to investors is higher than the fair value of these shares. The broad-brush tax on all investments means an unnecessary cost is imposed on the wider start-up community simply because of the lack of better means at the government’s disposal to tackle black money.
•The committee set up by the government will, among other things, consider raising the threshold beyond which new investments into start-ups will be taxed. It is expected that start-ups with aggregate paid-up share capital and share premium of less than ₹25 crore, against the previous threshold of only ₹10 crore, will not be taxed while attracting new investment. This would definitely make life easier to a certain extent for angel investors and start-ups. But it will not address the real problem with the angel tax, which has to do with the unbridled power that it vests in the hands of the income tax authorities. Investors, foreign or domestic, may become wary of investing in new ideas when they are taxed while risking money on untested ventures. So the government should look to withdraw the angel tax and focus instead on building the capability to better identify and rein in illegal wealth. Otherwise it risks killing the nascent start-up ecosystem in the country.
📰 Risks to global growth
Instead of resorting to nationalism and unilateral action, countries should strengthen the multilateral framework
•On the surface, the world economy remains on a steady trajectory. Many developed economies are operating close to their full potential with unemployment rates at historical lows.
•Yet, headlines do not tell the whole story. Beneath the surface, a worrisome picture of the world economy emerges. The newly released World Economic Situation and Prospects for 2019 illustrates how rising economic, social and environmental challenges hamper progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There are many risk factors that could inflict significant damage on longer-term development prospects. Over the past year, trade policy disputes have escalated, and financial vulnerabilities have increased as global liquidity tightens.
•Should such a downturn materialise, the prospects are grim. Global private and public debt is at a record high, well above the level seen in the run-up to the global financial crisis. Interest rates remain very low in most developed economies, while central bank balance sheets are still bloated. With limited monetary and fiscal space, policymakers around the globe will struggle to react effectively to an economic downturn. Given waning support for multilateral approaches, concerted actions — like those implemented in response to the 2008-09 crisis — may be difficult to arrange.
•Even if global growth remains robust, its benefits do not reach the places they are needed most. Incomes will stagnate or grow only marginally this year in parts of Africa, Western Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Many commodity exporters are still grappling with the effects of the commodity price collapse of 2014-16. The challenges are most acute in Africa, where per capita growth has averaged only 0.3% over the past five years. Given rapid population growth, the fight against poverty will require faster economic growth and dramatic reductions in income inequality.
•Most importantly, the transition towards environmental sustainability is not happening fast enough. The nature of growth is not compatible with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In fact, the impacts of climate change are becoming more widespread and severe. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing, damaging vital infrastructure and causing large-scale displacement. The human and economic costs of such disasters fall overwhelmingly on low-income countries.
•Many of the challenges are global in nature and require collective and cooperative policy action. Withdrawal into nationalism and unilateral action will only pose further setbacks for the global community, especially for those already in danger of being left behind. Instead, policymakers need to work together to address the weaknesses of the current system and strengthen the multilateral framework.
📰 Govt. subsidy spend on the rise again
May constitute 9.83% of overall total expenditure in 2019-20; LPG dole takes the major chunk
•Rising LPG prices and higher subscribers have resulted in the government’s subsidy expenditure over the last two years reversing a declining trend established in the previous six years, an analysis of Budget documents by The Hindu shows.
•The data show that the government’s total expenditure on subsidies is expected to make up 9.83% of its total expenditure overall in 2019-20, according to the Budget estimate for the year, up from the 9.65% in the revised estimate for 2018-19. This increase might not seem significant by itself, but it becomes noteworthy when viewed against the backdrop of a consistent annual fall from 18.2% in 2012-13 to 8.15% in 2017-18.
Sharp rise
•A deeper dive into the data shows that the reason for this reversal is the sharp rise in food and petroleum subsidies over the last two budgets of 2018-19 and 2019-20. Food subsidies increased to ₹1,71,298 crore in 2018-19, up a whopping 70.8% over its allocation in the previous year. Similarly, petroleum subsidies have been budgeted to increase a significant 50.9% in 2019-20 to ₹37,478 crore.
•While the increase in the food subsidy allocation is a reflection of the increase in the Minimum Support Prices hiked across the board, the reason behind the increase in the petroleum subsidy has to do in particular with the government’s focus on LPG as a source of cleaner cooking fuel. “The reason for the increase in the petroleum subsidy is because of an increased allocation for the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme for LPG,” a petroleum ministry spokesperson told The Hindu.
•“LPG prices have been rising, and the number of subscribers has been increasing, so the subsidy amount will naturally increase.” According to data with the Indian Oil Corporation, subsidised LPG prices in Delhi have risen from ₹399.26 per 14.2 kg cylinder in June 2011 to ₹500.9 per cylinder in December 2018.
•The price of an unsubsidised cylinder was ₹809.50 in December, which means the subsidy was ₹308 a cylinder. And the Centre subsidises 12 cylinders a year per customer.
•The government has two major schemes in the LPG sector. PAHAL scheme, the first, involves direct cash transfers to LPG consumers for 12 numbers of 14.2 kg cylinders per year. The second scheme, the Ujjwala Yojana, seeks to give free LPG connections to poor households. In terms of consumption, data with the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell show that LPG consumption has grown in tandem with the launch of the PAHAL scheme. While LPG consumption grew 1.6% and 4.4% in 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively, the growth averaged 9.4% in the years since the scheme was launched in 2013.
•Budget provisions have grown in consonance with this growth rate, with the government providing a huge ₹29,500 crore for the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme, operated by the Petroleum Ministry, up from ₹16,477.8 crore in the previous year and ₹13,097.13 crore in 2017-18. Interestingly, the allocations for Ujjwala Yojana have fallen nearly 15% in 2019-20 compared to the previous year despite the ministry increasing the coverage of the scheme to cover all poor households rather than just those identified by the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). According to economists, the fact that the subsidy expenditure for social welfare schemes is increasing is not a serious matter of concern if it is in reaction to global prices.
•“However, if the trend of rising subsidy prices continues into the future, then it could certainly be a matter of concern when it comes to the government’s fiscal consolidation plans,” D.K. Srivastava, chief policy advisor at EY India said.
