Back in the 80s the country was on the verge of economic collapse; today after a series of recent events and policy changes reset the country’s direction, amidst economic crisis Indian market is trying to stabilise itself, finding opportunities amongst risk and overcome the crisis to continue its growth as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Paradigm is among those alien idioms whic
h enter our discourse carrying certain baggages with them and limit and condition our thinking. They force us to restructure our thinking, mind set and traditional and inborn character. Moreover, unlike in the past now changes are cataclysmic. This is not the first time such an idiom challenges our nation and culture. Since the advent of British we have faced a quantum of deep stirrings and challenges. The recent decisions taken by the US Fed Reserve to scale back quantitative easing has created instability and increase in capital outflows from countries like India. The Indian economy is at crossroads today. The Indian rupee has depreciated by more than 20% since January and is among the worst performing currencies in the emerging markets. The talks of a country downgrade are already looming over our heads. There have been a lot of recessions and recoveries from the past but the recovery which we are seeing at present is a little different this time around. Recessions are normally over faster than the most recent experienced by the industrialised economies. This underperformance has coincided with a slowdown in growth in the larger emerging markets, giving rise to the view that the world economy is stagnating. The need for financial inclusion has always been there but it’s high time we need to incorporate the bottom of the pyramid segment into our financial sector. The government has come up with a bountiful of policy changes in land acquisition bill, FDI, food security bill, 2G spectrum allocation etc. The impacts of these are yet to be felt and waited with bated breath. If the market has to improve and show what it is capable of doing, it needs to overcome the things that they have been doing wrong like over dependence of central banks for liquidity, push commercial banks to promote financial inclusion through various models like micro-finance, zero balance accounts, and lower interest rates on credit. Also to see whether Raghuram Rajan is as good at managing financial crisis as he is at predicting them. FinNiche, organizes RISCON 2013, with the sole purpose of discussing these issues. Thus, we, the students of IMT Ghaziabad, invite you with humility to grace the occasion and help us in our endeavour to lighten up the young minds of our institute.
