Jaswant Singh; Covid-19 vaccine market; Restructuring; SME bankruptcy; Internet connectivity in the pandemic

Jaswant Singh is remembered for foreign policy milestones such as the Indo-US relationship. He was also one of the best finance ministers we have had. From his team, Vijay Kelkar (in the Financial Express) and S. Narayan (on the Quint) have nice articles remembering their experiences with him. They remind us of that lost age of economic policy, of the foundations for high economic growth.

Many research teams are building vaccines against Covid-19. I wrote an article on The Leap Blog on 27 September, The market for Covid-19 vaccines and the tipping point to herd immunity, which argues that in some places that have progressed towards herd immunity (e.g. Bombay, Delhi) there may be a short hot market with modest price points and number of units sold.

My column in the Business Standard today is For most stressed firms, the path should be restructuring and not bankruptcy. This is one important element of a flexible market economy, one in which negotiations grounded in commercial considerations generate outcomes.

The overheads of the IBC process are hard to reconcile with the problems of small firms. K. P. Krishnan, Susan Thomas and I have an article New thinking on resolution of small firms, in Insolvency and Bankruptcy in India: A narrative that was recently published by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.

On 22 September, Vrinda Bhandari wrote an article on The Leap Blog, unveiling her recent paper on improving Internet connectivity in the pandemic.