Former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and notable economist, Raghuram Rajan spoke to Rahul Gandhi through a video conference where he said India will need to spend a sum of 65,000 crores to help the poor with food and cash.
In the video interaction, the former President of the Congress Party spoke to Raghuram Rajan about reviving the economy post the COVID-19 crisis. The video interaction is one such interview in the series launched by Rahul Gandhi which is supposed to feature global and domestic experts on issues related to the pandemic.
Rahul Gandhi asked Rajan about the cost required to help the poor amid the crisis. Rajan replied with a figure of 65,000 crores and also remarked it as ‘not that much’. The economist also batted for partial lockdown as he said total lockdown will not be sustainable for India that has a task to gradually come out of the health crisis and face the economic crisis that is looming around. While saying that re-imposing lockdown after lifting it once would seriously harm the fight against COVID-19, he said,
“We need to be cleverer in lifting the lockdown. We need to open up in a measured way as India does not have the capacity to feed people for long. We have to manage the reopening so when there are cases we isolate them.”
India needs a social change, says Gandhi
The question and answer swung both ways. When Raghuram Rajan asked Rahul Gandhi about the difference between governance in India and the west, Gandhi replied,
“The scale of the problem and at its heart the financial scale of the problem. Inequality and the nature of inequality. Things like caste, the way Indian society is structured, are completely different than American society. Some of the ideas that hold India back are deeply embedded and often hidden. I think there is a lot of social change that is required in India.”
Talking about the global order of economy post the COVID-19 crisis, Raghuram Rajan added that there is a high possibility of dialogue on reshaping the world economy and during that, India can push for a multi-polar global order.
Source: The Times of India
