India's Two Decades On A Roller Coaster

Two decades back the country was led by BJP stalwart late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and today it is still governed by a BJP Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Seemingly, things are the same. However, petrol today costs 86 per litre whereas back in 1998 it was 23.84 per litre. The USD-INR pair stood at 39.50 (April 1,1998) whereas today it is 71.72 (Sept,2018). We look back at the financial events in India and the world that have shaped the last two decades.

- Deepika Asthana

Global Financial Crisis 2008

The global financial crisis of 2008 was largely perpetuated by a host of factors including housing collapse in the United States (US) and unscrupulous lending in economies across the globe. The crisis might have originated in the US but its impact was felt worldwide. As Archana Hingorani, Founder and Managing Partner of Siana Capital, points out, “This event has left an indelible impact on the globe from an economic perspective.” Meltdown in the US housing markets stirred up a storm. Banks found themselves in the position of holding repossessed homes. This led to a credit crunch and had a domino effect on the economy as financial institutions that had sanctioned these loans as their underlying, now became redundant.

Demonetisation

November 8, 2016 is a day not many are likely to forget in a hurry. It was on this day that the BJP government announced the demonetisation of 500 and 1000 banknotes. Besides having caught the nation unawares, the announcement also threw all and sundry into a state of panic. As per the government, the main aim of this action was to curtail the shadow economy and crack down on the use of illicit and counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism. However, two years down the line the benefits of this move are still not apparent to a large part of the population.

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