17

Dear Readers,

Happy Diwali. During this fortnight, Bharatwasis celebrate the festival of lights. They pray to Mother Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, in love and devotion for happiness and prosperity and pray for Her presence in the homes and work places with spirit to work with righteousness while having Narayan and Her in consciousness. Mother Lakshmi lives wherever Lord Vishnu, her spouse, is, and both of them reside in our consciousness. We worship Lord Ganesha who is the remover of all obstacles. He grants success, prosperity and happiness. He represents humility as He has a rat as His charioteer despite his bulky body.

Cover Story: India is becoming a major digital economy. As per the World Bank, India is the world’s second largest telecom market and third largest internet market. It has great economic growth potential. The tele-density in the rural area is only 58.96% where more than 65% of the population lives. The urban areas have a tele-density of 137.35%. There is a great scope for the rural residents especially the farmers to have information and sell their products for better returns.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi is promoting digital India. There is a great potential to promote education, health, e-commerce and financial services through digital platforms. Rural India can enjoy access to doctors through tele-medicine portals.

As per various reports, digital India can boost GDP up to USD 1 trillion by 2025. It can play a key role in macro-economic factors such as GDP growth, labour productivity, growth in number of businesses and arresting revenue leakage for the government. But the down side is that it may endanger employment. There may be potential loss of 40-45 million jobs because of automation.

More and bigger corporate are coming in the field of e-commerce, which may intensify the retail battle but will also increase choice for consumers. Metro Cash & Carry, which has taken stores to tier II and tier III towns, is offering stores in smaller formats. Online payments are becoming popular.

Covid-19 has disrupted the physical education of the children. Students are confined to their houses devoid of physical and other activities. Digital courses have opened several online learning platforms.

Problems of data protection law: Data protection law in India is currently facing many problems due to the absence of proper legislative framework. There is an on-going explosion of cyber crimes on a global scale. The theft and sale of stolen data is happening across vast continents. India being the largest host of outsourced data processing in the world could become the epicentre of cyber crimes this is mainly due to absence of the absolute legislation. The Data Security Council of India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology should strengthen their efforts here. The optimal solution can come from good legislative provisions along with suitable public and employee awareness. It is high time that we pay attention to the Data Security and Right to Privacy in India. Cyber Security in India is missing and the same requires rejuvenation.

Cyber law of India must be supported by sound cyber security and effective cyber forensics. At the same time, sensitive personal data of individuals cannot be open to surveillance in a strong democracy. Right to security and right to privacy can be strong together.

Bharat economy: For the growth of investment and economy, the Prime Minister had a virtual deliberation with top funding houses, sovereign funds managers, business leaders and policy makers from several countries. It is hoped that the country will become a USD 5 trillion economy. India can emerge as a major world hub for manufacturing, as several companies are looking to de-risk their exposure to China.

To achieve USD 5 trillion economy, India needs to have major reforms, create confidence among the people, among the wealth creators and wealth generators and overseas investors. Without due diligence and court judgement, criminal actions against wealth creators and foreign investors should not be undertaken.

The country’s economy is getting back on track at a faster than expected pace. Manufacturing PMI rose to 58.9 in October, the highest in more than a decade. Power consumption grew 13.38% Y-o-Y to 110.94 billion units in October. India received the highest ever Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for the first five months of a financial year during April-August 2020. The total FDI inflow into India in the first five months was $35.73 billion. However, non-food bank credit growth decelerated to 5.8% in September 2020 from 8.1% in the same month previous year.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the growth rate in the current financial fiscal year might be near zero. The Reserve Bank of India and others are expecting a near double digit decline in real output this year. Finance of the union and state governments have become a huge problem and this is resulting in growth constraint.

SEBI should take a balanced view on capital adequacy. Several regulations are having impact on mobilisation of capital and thereto investment. Black Swan should be dealt differently and raising margin and capital adequacy norms will restrain investment.

World: World Bank president David Malpass has termed the Covid-19 pandemic as a catastrophic event for many developing and poorest countries. The world is having one of the deepest recessions since the great depression in 1930. The World Bank is recognising the problem and is providing extra support for social protection for the poorest populations. It is also recognising agriculture challenges.

Conclusion: May Lord Ganesha give strength to Bharatwasis to overcome all the problems being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and may Mother Lakshmi and Lord Narayana bless Bharatwasis to have the flow of fund for investment, growth thereto employment.