Beyond Assumptions

Rupee, the driver of $2.6 trillion Indian economy, has fascinated every economist but lately with a fall and anticipated inflation situation at the horizon, it has started fascinating those who dwell on politics too. The currency of world’s fastest growing economy is on a growth, but beware, it’s negative. Where will it end, is it a precursor to something like what happened in Venezuela or Turkey, a situation which existed before the gates of Indian economy unbolted for the world? Or is it just a normal situation arising out of external conditions which were long overdue?
The Indian Rupee has been one of the worst performing currencies amongst the major emerging market currencies in the last quarter. The Indian Rupee has lost around 9% of its value in past few months, and around 2000% since Indian independence. The free fall of Rupee has significantly affected Foreign Institutional Investments (FIIs). Imagine a situation where you are an investor with $10,000 in your pocket. In year 1, when $1 = ₹60, and interest rates in USA and India are 2% and 10% respectively. At the same time, Rupee falls in the year in which you are going to invest, from ₹60 to ₹66. So when you invest that sum in US market, at the year end, you get 10,200$ and when you invest the same in the Indian market you get ₹6,60,000, i.e, $10,000. So despite better interest rates, Indian markets are not able to provide same return as US market, due to which investors are withdrawing their money from the Indian economy, leading to further depreciation of the Rupee. In this year, until July, investments worth almost ₹32,000 crores have been withdrawn from the Indian economy. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the equity inflows into the country have moderated, averaging $2.9 billion (Rs 19,823 crore) a month in January-February 2018, compared to a monthly average of $3.6 billion (Rs 24,608 crore) in October-December 2017.

Global trade war fears, under the present scenario of retaliatory import tariffs by US and China have also contributed to weakening of the Rupee. The other significant reason for weakness in the value of Rupee is the rise in US bond yields which has made the dollar attractive. Higher US yields are attracting investors to the US treasuries and making the currencies of the emerging markets such as India, weaker.
“Currency weakness is a factor of dollar strength rather than anything else. But, I would say that investors should look at countries with large current account deficits as well as high level of debt,” is what Raghuram Rajan said in an interaction with CNBC. In fact several economists are of the view that this depreciation was long overdue and Rupee is still overvalued! So what is important here is not subscribing to political ideologies and panic in this situation.

By – Raj Agarwal

I have placed my demands

I have voted for change.

My work here is done.

Every year elections are held at our college, and with students spending ludicrous amounts on campaigning, a considerable amount of time and money is devoted to the entire process, from canvassing to taking out rallies, plastering each possible corner with posters and other creatively irresponsible ways of letting students know they’ve arrived. There have been attempts to improve this process by organising presidential debates and interacting one on one with students, but focusing on improving the election process just seems pointless and fickle when the entire political year is reduced to nothing but the campaigning season, and the “means” simply become the “ends”. It just seems as if, it was all just to put up a grand show, an unwarranted ritual like a reality TV series that comes alive every year, is strife with fights and ends with a dhol celebration ceremony, which is the last time you ever get to see these faces. But is this what the highly acclaimed student politics of Delhi University has been reduced to? Doesn’t democratic politics go beyond that, and towards creating a dialectical environment of debate, discussion, dialogue and dissent, all in a peaceful setting.

I think there is a certain amount of pride associated with being “busy” in our lives. Busy with attending coaching classes, going for internships and thus making our future prospects brighter but isn’t it all pointless when we’ve forgotten the basis of our education, we’ve forgotten to question. The goal of a university is not myopically defined to train students only in a particular subject, but to prepare students for unforeseen and unimagined things. In the words of Nehru, a University stands for humanism, for  tolerance, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for the search of truth.

Voting is an integral part of the electoral process, but what if it didn’t mark the end of our political interaction, but just the beginning of it.

This article marks the beginning of an initiative called – “Townhall Meetings”, wherein we plan to put our student representatives and students on the same platform. In the words of Ankush Chikkara, the vice president of the student union, – a student body is elected to be the medium between the authorities and the students.

For all the cynical souls who are about to write this off,  just remember – a week prior, The Pinjra Tod movement managed to storm into the hostel after breaking two locks with nothing but their enthusiasm and zeal. Also the ruling on mid-semester exams in SGTB Khalsa College was struck down due to the collective efforts of the college union and, pleas and uproar from the students.

Let’s create a dialogue. Let us be the change we wish to see in the world.

By – Ria Kaur Sethi