After Piyush Goyal, BJP's Rahul Sinha Speaks on Abhijit Banerjee

Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer will share the Economics Nobel prize for their "experimental approach to alleviating global poverty", the Swedish academy announced today. Mumbai-born Abhijit Banerjee of the US, his French-American wife Esther Duflo - a former advisor to ex-US president Barack Obama - and Michael Kremer of the US were honoured "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty," the jury said.

The  Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday (October 18) that Nobel winner Abhijit Banerjee is 'totally Left-leaning' and his theories have been rejected by the people of India "I congratulate Abhijit Banerjee the winner of Nobel prize in Economics. You all know that his thinking is totally 'Left-leaning'," said Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Abhijit Banerjee bagged Nobel Prize for Economics jointly with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Banerjee has been credited by Rahul Gandhi for his inputs in Congress proposed 'NYAY' scheme during 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In a 47-minute-long interview with Karan Thapar, Banerjee said the over-centralisation of power in the Prime Minister’s Office has played a role in causing the current economic crisis in the country, while also blaming demonetisation and the hastily-introduced goods and services tax.

However, Banerjee added that the problems the new tax regime created were inevitable and that no other government could have handled the GST better. With regard to corporation tax cuts, he said these are unlikely to fuel investment and spur growth unless steps are first taken to stimulate demand. This, he says, is best done not by the way of income tax cuts but by putting money in rural pockets through schemes like PM Kisan.

He further said, that the government must also pay its dues and not hold up money meant for suppliers, which inevitably ends up delaying projects. According to Banerjee, rural demand has collapsed because the government deliberately lowered minimum support prices for crops and depressed agricultural spending to contain urban inflation.

This was another significant cause of the economic slowdown, he said. Banerjee also called for labour reforms permitting hire and fire and easier land acquisition. Such reforms are only possible in a crisis and, as he put it, the government must not “waste this crisis”.He pointed at how the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is not performing as efficiently as it should, partially because the process of kickstarting it was too slow.

As a result, rural distress has not been ameliorated, he said, while also citing studies to show how MGNREGA has not been effective in times of drought though that was when it was most needed. On the topic of social media, Banerjee spoke of how it fuels polarisation, spreads false news and promotes intolerance, which in turn has an adverse impact on democracy and leads to a rise in violence against minorities.

Banerjee had assisted the Congress to formulate the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (Minimum Income Guarantee programme), its flagship social welfare programme in its 2019 Lok Sabha election manifesto. The scheme promised to give Rs 72,000 annually to each of the 20 per cent families in poorest of the poor category. The Congress, however, lost the election.

Reacting to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's comment earlier in the day that people of the country have rejected Banerjee's ideas on NYAY, Sinha said that people whose second wives are foreigners are mostly getting the Nobel Prize.

Recently, BJP National Secretary and the party's former West Bengal unit president Rahul Sinha stoked a controversy on Friday as he mocked the credentials of Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee days after the Indian-American was presented with the prestigious award.

Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said “thick skin” helps him deal with criticism and political nastiness, adding that he feels “silence is very costly”. Speaking to CNBC TV18, Banerjee said: “Thick skin, very thick skin and a little bit of - we are very political people, we live -politics is very much in our minds. So we feel that silence is very costly. We feel like influencing policy, influencing the world is in our genes.