Former Minister Yashwant Sinha addresses GIACC

By Mohamed Shaib and Kailash Khandelwal

When Narsi Narsimhan, President, GIACC, in his very brief introduction expressed his opinion about Mr. Yashwant Sinha as a different kind of politician, it was in a way sufficient to communicate to the audience in the packed banquet hall of the Palace Restaurant about the guest speaker, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, ex-finance minister of India.

For many of us, accustomed to watching with utter despair the unruly proceedings of Indian Parliament and State Assemblies (watch a video), it was indeed a pleasure to welcome an outstanding speaker, a dignified parliamentarian, an incisive thinker and an authority on the subject at hand.

Yashwant Sinha is not a rabble-rousing politician and relies more on facts and figures rather than empty rhetoric.   He spoke at length on the current economic scenario at the  dinner-reception organized by GIACC on 13th April at 6.30 pm at the Palace Restaurant.

Mr. Yashwant Sinha was born at Patna, India on 6th Nov 1937. He completed his primary and secondary education at Patna. He completed his master’s degree in Political Science in 1958, securing 1st class. Later on he taught Political Science at the Patna University from 1958 to 1960. He is married with three children. Mr. Sinha joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1960 overcoming the tough competitive examination successfully and spent nearly 24 years holding significant positions during his service. From 1971 to 1973, he was First Secretary (Commercial) in the Indian Embassy, Bonn. Germany. He then worked as Consul General of India in Frankfurt from 1973 to 1974. After working for over seven years in this field, he acquired extensive experience in matters relating to foreign trade and India's external relations with the European Economic Community. Mr. Sinha resigned from the Indian Administrative Service in 1984 and joined active politics as a member of the Janata Party. He was appointed All-India General Secretary of the party in 1986 and was elected member of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of the Indian Parliament) in 1988. He worked as finance minister from Nov 1990 to June 1991. He then became the National Spokesperson of the BJP in June, 1996 and was appointed as finance minister of India again in March, 1998. Apart from being a successful politician he also pursues interests in hobbies like reading and gardening.

Talking about the recent slowdown in the US economy and its global impact, Mr. Sinha made some interesting comments. He said that with a growth rate greater than 8% and a GDP savings rate of greater than 35%, India is likely to continue its success story of the last decade. He however cautioned about the recent spike of inflation in India and Reserve Bank’s aggressive strategy of raising interest rates to curtail inflation. The ex-minister also spoke about the latest contraction in the US economy and predicted some of its impact on world economy including India. He spoke about the US Fed lowering interest rates recently to slow US recession. Alongside Mr. Sinha commended India’s public sector enterprises especially Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. which is professionally managed and is aggressively pursuing oil contracts around the world. He felt that India has great potential as it diversifies from IT industry into expanding manufacturing and other services.

Mr. Sinha who had short stint of experience working in Germany in the early 70s spoke at length about the role Indian manufacturing is playing in Europe especially in Germany. He said that the phenomenal progress our country has made includes its determination to extend the economic growth to the poor sections. He spoke about his vision for a brighter India as he sees little girls attend schools even in the remote parts of the country. He said that although US still continues to be the world’s innovation engine, India and China would continue to play major role in the global economy.

Later on Mr. Sinha participated in a Q&A session with the invitees in which for a question about, if he sees decoupling of the Asian economies from USA, he suggested that the world is very much interlinked for decoupling to occur. And that US contraction will have some impact on Indian economy. For another question posed to him regarding the Sovereign Wealth Funds aggressively investing in India because of its attractive return, Mr. Sinha supported the project based investments versus large sums of capital moving in and out of the Indian economy. He said that India with more than 300 billion dollars in reserve is looking for quality inflow of capital and that India is a great place to invest because of its attractive returns. For another question about the recent nuclear deal with USA, the ex-minister said that he opposed the deal as deal of unequal. He felt that US had to acknowledge the strong presence of India in the nuclear field. He also demanded a permanent position for India in the UN Security Council. He said that India’s liberalization story will continue in the near future and the best days of India are yet to come. For another question about the India China trade, Mr. Sinha was very bullish. He said that India and China continue to trade aggressively with the trade surpassing more than 20 billion dollars. The size of the Indo China market is 2.3 billion people or 38% population of the world. This full potential is yet to be realized according to his view. He also encouraged young educated people to join Indian politics. He said that if good people don’t join then bad people would.
 

Standing L to R: Anil Agnihotri (Event Chair ), Narsi Narasimhan (President)

In answer to another question that if Lakshmi Mittal of Mittal Steel was still pursuing investments in his home state of Jharkhand, Mr. Sinha replied in affirmation that the investments of Mittal will continue as planned in Jharkhand area. He added that India is looking for natural resources everywhere like China and USA to protect its interests. He also commended the positive relations India has maintained with Iran and Iran who is supplying gas to us through Afghanistan and Pakistan. He expressed opinion that such projects should continue as India aggressively looks for natural resources. He also commended the effect telecom mobile industry had on India as the communication industry in India is becoming mature and India is now the second largest cellular market in the world overtaking USA. China is number one in cellular usage.

Replying to a question about the darker side of India, he acknowledged the problems. But he was confident and full of hope that India was on the right path to eventually tackle those issues.   Speaking about his past he said that he had a tough time making the decision about giving up the lucrative career in the civil services to join politics and has not looked back since then.
For a rather tongue-in- the-cheek question about the deteriorating standards of politicians in India he replied very frankly that instead of complaining, good people need to come forward and be part of our political system. He said that he never regretted his decision to join politics.

He later mingled with the guests and enjoyed his dinner with the gathering. His perspective on India was very informative and intensive. No doubt to say- India’s growth story is going on even though the ride looks bumpy sometimes.
 

Mohamed Shaib is a Investment Consultant.
Kailash is the editor of Atlanta Dunia