The race to Rashtrapati Bhawan may be over but the hunt has now begun to find a replacement for Pranab Mukherjee in the Finance Ministry. But what is corporate India's expectation from the new minister in this crucial portfolio?
The corporate India is looking forward to a reformer in the North Block. Former Infosys director Mohandas Pai said, "Corporate sector is disappointed with the Finance Minister's Budget which sends back to the pre-reforms days. India Inc is relieved and hoping for a finance minister who will be much more open, transparent and growth oriented."
But who will be that person? The spin-doctor of 1991 Dr Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister himself, is likely to hold the portfolio temporarily and sneak in some changes he wants.
The other options for the post are:
Jairam Ramesh, 58, Rural Development Minister: An economist, the MIT graduate is seen as close to the Gandhi family. He was one of the backroom players who shepherded the Congress party's election campaigns in 2004 and 2009.
Articulate and media savvy, Ramesh supports cutting fuel subsidies and opening up the supermarket industry, which he opposed earlier.
In a recent interview with a local business daily, he said time for "pussyfooting" on major economic reforms was over and the government needed to "take the bull by its horns".
To his advantage, Ramesh is able to build rapport with alliance partners as well as opposition parties. At a time when the government has been left hamstrung by unruly allies, Sonia Gandhi could settle for a person who can bring partners on board to push divisive reforms needed to revive the economy.
However, he carries an image of being anti-development. As an environment minister, he had red-flagged several mining and infrastructure projects on environmental concerns.
P Chidambaram, 66, Home Minister: A familiar face and a senior party stalwart who held the post during the global financial crisis in 2008.
His deft handling of the situation then, helping India avoid the worst of the downturn, makes him a leading candidate to take over an economy mired in the doldrums.
Although it's been nearly four years since he moved over to the interior ministry, his heart is seen to be in his previous job. Former colleagues from the finance ministry recall him as having an eye for detail and cannot be bluffed.
Considered to be a reform-oriented taskmaster and a market friendly face, Chidambaram enjoys the confidence of both Prime Minister Singh and Sonia Gandhi.
But an image of "intellectual arrogance" has earned him detractors both within and outside the party.
He is also under siege. Opposition parties question his role in a multi-billion dollar telecoms scam that has undermined the Congress-led government. His family is under scrutiny over a controversial telecom deal. Chidambaram, himself, is battling charges of rigging his election to parliament in 2009.
C Rangarajan, 80, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister: Seen as a dark horse in the running for finance minister, he is one of the most trusted aides of Prime Minister Singh.
Rangarajan has worn various hats both within and outside the government, and would bring long experience to the job. Unlike other contenders, he has generally avoided controversy.
He is widely perceived as a hawk who frowns upon expansionary fiscal policy and high inflation, and is an advocate for fuel subsidy reforms and long-pending financial sector reforms. He favours building consensus before allowing foreign investment in multi-brand retail and aviation.
However, Rangarajan is not seen as a political heavyweight, even though he was governor of Andhra Pradesh for six years and was a member of the Rajya Sabha. Congress is seen to prefer a politician who can deliver votes in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, 68, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission: The Oxford-trained economist has been a key figure in Indian economic policy since the mid-1980s. He is an influential adviser to the prime minister and is also India's Sherpa for the G20 Summit.
A supporter of open markets, he has been pushing the government to implement long-pending reforms like ending controls on fuel prices, lifting caps on foreign stakes in the insurance sector and allowing in foreign supermarkets.
He is close to Singh and was a key member of the team that navigated the economy out of the 1991 balance of payment crisis.
Ahluwalia is said to harbour political ambitions and was seen as front-runner for finance minister in 2009, but was thought by Congress to be too market friendly. A lack of political base also went against him.
He has also been hurt by controversies, including the definition of a poverty line at 32 rupees a day.
Anand Sharma, 59, Trade Minister: A lawyer-turned politician, Sharma is perceived to be reform-oriented and enjoys the confidence of the Gandhi family.
He is credited with arresting the slide in India's exports after taking over as trade minister in 2009 through a combination of bilateral trade agreements and diversification of export markets. He has also overseen bold steps to liberalise trade ties with arch-rival Pakistan.
Sharma has been pushing for liberalising foreign direct investment rules and succeeded in getting the government's approval for allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, an initiative thwarted by coalition allies. Permitting FDI in the aviation sector is the next big ticket item on his agenda.
Sharma's stature in the party could be a handicap. He is not seen as a political operator and does not bring a large base of political support. Blame for the embarrassing flip-flop on FDI in retail is often put at his doorstep.
The challenge is immediate and daunting. How to restore India's economic growth miracles, the omens are not good, a farewell to incredible India could also mean a farewell to the party in power.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Frankfurt's Greek bankers are torn over Germany's attitude to their homeland - Daily Telegraph
Mr Athanassiadis, 33, is well aware of the dangers. Having lived in Germany for 11 years, much of it in the country's financial capital, Frankfurt, he admits that he has adopted a Germanic attitude to debt, duty and legality.
"As soon as I arrive at the airport in Greece, the taxi driver asks where I am from and then begins ranting about how Germany is destroying Greece," he said.
"But then I say to the taxi driver: 'Are you helping Greece? Do you pay all your taxes?' and he will look shocked and say 'Of course not!'
"That is the problem; if we Greeks can live in Germany as dutiful, law abiding citizens then why can't we do it at home?"
He said that the last time he returned home to his village of Polykastro, in the north, he made few friends "because I told it to them like it is." It is little easier for him in Germany. The Pakistani sandwich maker who delivers to his central-Frankfurt office at lunchtime offered to give him a discount because he was a suffering Greek.
At work, colleagues joke whether Greece would still have been able to play in the Euros if it had dropped out of the euro.
"I still think Angela Merkel is just doing her job," he said. "It's like a big brother telling the rebellious little brother what to do. We need a more German system – albeit one with Greek flexibility. She is right that we need to change our way of thinking."
But Mr Athanassiadis's support for the German chancellor is far from universal among Greeks living in Europe's financial centre. Athanassios Kotsopoulos is a financial lawyer, who worked in-house for a German bank before setting up his own practice, specialising in Greco-German finance.
"Angela Merkel is not being straight with her own people," he said. "She is not explaining to them how essential it is for Germany that Greece stays in the eurozone, and the whole euro does not collapse.
"She won't admit to her electorate that, at the end of the day, she will have to do anything necessary to support Greece and keep the euro alive."
Mrs Merkel has so far refused to waver from her position: that Greece must stick to the austerity measures prescribed by the EU, and that greater EU fiscal integration is not possible without political union.
She dismisses the idea of "Eurobonds" – proposed by the French president, Francois Hollande and Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister - as "counterproductive" quick fixes.
"I'm hearing that she will be forced to accept a 'European solution' – meaning a common budget, pan-European financial oversight, Eurobonds, the lot," said Mr Kotsopoulos, who believes that it is inconceivable that Greece will leave the euro.
Others are not so sure. One German economist told The Sunday Telegraph he was certain Greece would leave the single currency.
"In the short term, they may buy themselves a bit more time. But in the longer term, there's no way they can stay in the euro," he said.
In a video-conferencing room above the trading floor of Commerzbank – one of Germany's largest banks - Christoph Weil, its Greek specialist, was more diplomatic.
"The only thing I know for sure is that Monday will be a very busy day," he said. "If Greece leaves the euro, it will cost Germany 75 billion. How much will it cost to keep them in the euro? The German public is not ready to pay forever, but then is this an acceptable cost?"
The German banker, who was part of a Commerzbank team that travelled to Athens to assess the situation last year, said that Greece was in dire need of a dramatic restructuring of its public sector, which he described as "over-sized, highly inefficient and nepotistic".
"It was absolutely wrong for Greece to enter the euro," he said. "People said 'It's only a small country of 10 million people; it can't possibly destabilise the EU' – but they were mistaken.
"And now we need a solution. A banking union is not a good thing, as the very problem is structural weaknesses in the peripheral countries. Eurobonds are not a good idea – but I think they will come. A fiscal compact is a good idea – but only if all countries stick to it."
And that may be a big ask. "The only solution for Greece is a return to the drachma," said Alexis Valavanis, a Greek businessman in Frankfurt. "Then we can devalue our currency, sort ourselves out, and return to focusing on growth."
Surely his friends back in Thessaloniki cannot share his view, given that every survey shows an overwhelming majority of Greeks want to remain in the euro?
"It's only because they do not understand what is happening. The press is all controlled by Pasok and New Democracy, the parties who insist that Greece will be destroyed if we leave the euro.
"But now we have a situation where we are not free to make our own decisions and do what is right for our country."
He pulled out his mobile phone and gleefully showed The Sunday Telegraph a video of Nigel Farage, the Ukip MEP, haranguing Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU commission, and Herman Van Rompuy, EU President, for depriving people of their sovereignty.
"I am flying back to Thessaloniki on Sunday morning just to vote," he said proudly. "We live in a world where democracy has been taken away from us. My vote is the only thing left for me and I must do it for my country."
Given all the obvious patriotism among Greeks in Germany, would any of them ever go back permanently?
"They say we Greeks all have the eyes of Odysseus – always looking for a way to go home," said Aris Athanassiadis, the investment manager. "But given all the turbulence at the moment, I don't think that will be for a while yet."
India's finance minister nomindated for presidency - india.nydailynews.com
June 16--NEW DELHI (The Statesman/ANN) -- The 77-year-old Congress leader from West Bengal and Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was yesterday nominated by the ruling Congress-led United Progressiv Alliance (UPA) as its candidate for the July 19 election to the post of the President of India.
The Trinamul supremo and West Bengal chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee thus appeared to have been isolated as her fledgling alignment with Yadav collapsed barely 48 hours after Yadav and Miss Banerjee, while ignoring the suggested candidature of Mukherjee or Vice-President Hamid Ansari, jointly went public with their own preferred list of three other nominees -- including ex-President A P J Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee -- for the President's post.
With a question mark hanging over the continuance of the Trinamul in the ruling alliance, an unfazed Miss Banerjee skipped the meeting of the UPA allies at the PM's residence late this afternoon, and instead flew back to Kolkata where she stuck to her pitch for Kalam as the Presidential candidate despite having been ambushed by the Samajwadi Part (SP). It was another matter that Kalam's own willingness to contest the Presidential election amid a clear lack of consensus over his candidature remained uncertain.
On his part, soon after his candidature was announced by the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, Mukherjee, while appealing to all political parties to support his nomination, also sought the Trinamul chief's support. "I also seek the support of Mamata Banerjee because she is like my sister... a valued colleague," Mukherjee told reporters.
At the meeting of the UPA constituent parties, Gandhi proposed Mukherjee's candidature for the country's highest post, which was unanimously approved by the allies, barring the absent Miss Banerjee.
Reading out from a statement, Gandhi said Mukherjee has had a long and distinguished record of public service spanning over five decades. "There is broad support for his candidature. The UPA appeals to all the political parties and all MPs and MLAs to support the candidature of Mukherjee for the office of President."
Within moments of the announcement, the SP welcomed Mukherjee's candidature and declared its support. Mulayam's brother and senior SP leader, Ramgopal Yadav, said, "I am very happy that Pranabda has been finally nominated for the candidate for the highest office. The party supports him and wishes him well." Another supporting ally, Miss Mayawati, pledged her party's backing for Mukherjee, saying he is the "most serious and deserving candidate" of all those announced. Later, Mulayam told reporters in Lucknow: "Pranabda is experienced, honest, intelligent and a capable person. We support him." Asked whether the SP would join the UPA government if the Trinamul quits the ruling alliance, he said: "It's an absurd question... Who has invited us (to join the UPA)?" Mukherjee expressed his gratitude to Gandhi and UPA leaders for the honour, accepting it with "all humility".
The PM swiftly started working his phones, reaching out to leaders of all parties to drum up support for Mukherjee. After speaking to the SP chief and Miss Mayawati, Singh also called up top leaders of the principal Opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, including L K Advani, Nitin Gadkari and Sushma Swaraj, and also the Left in this regard.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance had met here earlier in the day, but chose to defer their decision over the Presidential poll amid reports that the Janata Dal (United) had expressed reservations over supporting Kalam at the meeting. The Left parties are going to take their call at their June 21 meeting, but there were indications that they might also back Mukherjee's candidature.
Mukherjee is expected to file his nomination papers following the PM's return here on 23 June from his Mexico-Brazil visit beginning tomorrow. Before doing that, he will resign as the finance minister. The principal crisis-manager of the Congress and the UPA government, Mukherjee is also the Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha.
The PM is expected to keep the finance portfolio with himself initially at a time when the country is reeling under a severe economic crisis. Among the Congress leaders whose names were doing the rounds for the office of the Leader of the House were home minister P Chidambaram, urban development minister Kamal Nath and power minister Sushilkumar Shinde.
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