Rumi Nations

I would not have written this but for the fact that I put in a comment on M. J. Akbar's article today. I came across the article in Mr. Akbar's Facebook feed although it may have been penned for his Times of India blog. All of Mr. Akbar's articles are available on his blog . There is much consternation and hand-wringing going on about India's current economic woes. So, is it entirely the fault of the UPA? Of Manmohan Singh and his co-conspirators Mr. Mukherjee, and Montek? Or Chidambaram and the ultimate Big Boss Sonia? I doubt it. For example take the currency de-valuation. It is interesting to note that while China attracts much criticism from its main business partner USA for keeping the remnimbi artificially under-valued, we see some weird nationalistic pride getting hurt when the rupee devalues. It seems almost axiomatic that the rupee's moderate de-valuation will help the export sector and India's dreams of becoming an economic superpower pr...

I am skeptical about all the song and dance about the falling rupee. Is India's economy on a fundamentally different trajectory than China's? What is the direction that the experts are hoping India's economy should take? What is going to be the path of India's development? The weak rupee probably makes it costlier to go on those frequent trips to Davos -- at least for the private sector who have to pay for their trips themselves. In all this tsunami of talk about the collapse of the rupee, we seem to have all forgotten about the China story which otherwise somewhere seems to be there almost as an alter ego.