In his address to the concluding session of the 17th Lok Sabha last month Prime Minister Narendra Modi unabashedly embraced economic reforms: “Reform, Perform and Transform.”
Further, he claimed that his government was able to target welfare benefits by deploying these process reforms like Direct Benefits Transfer.
Indeed, this is a first. Previous governments, fearful of the political backlash, preferred to covertly support economic reforms.
Has India normalised economic reforms? Has it managed a mindset reset?
To answer all this and more I spoke to Sanjeev Sanyal, economist, and member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC).