 "Paris Olympics 2024 3000m steeplechase final")
There are races, and there are the hurdles. Among them, the steeplechase is by far considered the toughest, with its array of hurdles and water obstacles, any of which could trip you up or send you sprawling with mud on your face. The subjects of our editorials and columns today find themselves in a similar run: many hurdles but with a podium finish awaiting if they can manage to avoid any falls.
Our first editorial notes that achieving high outputs of nuclear energy is not a sprint. It needs patience, stamina, and willpower, much like an obstacle course. India's journey to diversification of energy via small modular reactors and participation of the private sector is strewn with hurdles, key among them the civil liability clause that applies to both suppliers and operators. The government, in the Union Budget 2025, has sought to ease the way ahead somewhat by suggesting amendments to that particular Act. But the finish line is still a ways off.
Our second editorial celebrates the fact that a key focus of the Budget was on agriculture and allied services, which employ a sizeable portion of our labour force. The Finance Minister has tried to map a way to jump smoothly past the triple obstacles of crop diversification, yields, and credit access. While the aim is commendable, like in a steeplechase, these ambitions could slip at the R&D level.
Mihir Sharma lauds the Budget’s attempts to simultaneously cut taxes, manage the fisc, and invest in growth-friendly sectors and infra. But it would appear the real winner at the end of a hard race is the highly vocal so-called middle class, whose sledging must be heard above the hum of slowing growth.
In a hurdles race, the most important skill of all is to land cleanly and continue running, a fine balance. In her memories of the late Dr Manmohan Singh, environmentalist Sunita Narain recalls his constant endeavour to find this key skill – balance –in the post-liberalisation era when growth had to be set off against environmental concerns.
Come Friday, and the scene of the action will shift to Mumbai, where the Reserve Bank of India is running against a field of both domestic and global headwinds, writes Tamal Bandyopadhyay in Banker’s Trust. The government has already hinted at monetary policy stance as one of the factors behind slower growth even as global central banks are in a rush to slash rates to boost their own economies. The RBI has also to contend with liquidity issues and inflation fears, even as the rupee stumbles around to find its appropriate level. Will the Indian central be able to clear all these blockades and find strong legs down the last stretch?
Bill Gates has been a frontrunner in all the races he has run so far. In today’s book review of the first edition of his three-part memoir ‘Source Code’: My Beginnings’, Jennifer Szalai notices that Gates uses the turn to look back at the distance covered, and finds that he may have had a few unfair advantages to start with. Nonetheless, as she notes, he uses the first book to explore his childhood and young adulthood, when he had a free run but which also instilled a keen sense of competitiveness in him.
