The Budget has announced the setting up of two new financial-sector watchdogs. Hopefully, they will have a clear mandate and visionary leadership

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech had two interesting announcements—the setting up of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) and the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC). Five days after the...

Ivory tower regulations have killed investor interest. Time for some intervention by the finance ministry

Over the past couple of months, many fund managers have been talking to us about the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI’s) investor education plans. It wants mutual funds to spend crores on lecturing investors and KN Vaidyanathan, executive director SEBI, has set stiff...

Retail investors are an endangered species. This will undermine the government’s disinvestment plans

The disinvestment of public sector undertakings (PSUs) has usually lurched from one controversial strategy to another. It started in 1991 with the strange decision to bunch PSUs into packets and auction them. The auction was compromised; banks fronted for brokers in the market madness...