Ashoka Mody on Indian corruption, growth, jobs, and more

Mody explains why India's government lacks accountability, doubts the country’s ability to assume a Chinese-style role in manufacturing, and more. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Say More]( This week in Say More, PS talks with Ashoka Mody, Visiting Professor of International Economic Policy at Princeton University and the author of [India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today](. To read the full interview – in which Mody explains the roots of the lack of accountability in India, highlights shortcomings in human capital and gender equality, casts doubt on the country’s ability to assume a Chinese-style role in manufacturing, and more – [click here](. Ashoka Mody Says More... Syndicate: Much of your recent work exposes the cracks in the foundations of India’s economy – cracks that the government is taking [great pains]( to [cover]( up. Such “brazen unaccountability,” you say, is “corroding Indian politics and society,” and you examine its roots in your new book, [India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today](. What has contributed to the erosion of accountability in India, and where are the historical milestones of this decline to be found? Ashoka Mody: In June 1951, just months before independent India’s first general elections, Time magazine described the Congress Party as harboring many “timeserving officeholders” and well-known “black-marketeers.” The early corruption was mainly in government construction contracts. But from small beginnings, the lack of accountability in India’s government became increasingly pervasive. By the end of... [Continue reading]( By the Way... PS: In India Is Broken, you explain that, since independence, “Indian leaders and policymakers had one task above all: to create jobs for vast numbers of people.” But a “grotesque imbalance between jobs and applicants” persists, serving as a reminder of how “pitifully little” India’s liberalization policy has achieved. But even if closing India’s employment gap – 200 million jobs over the next decade – is an “impossible order,” are there any low-hanging fruit or obvious missed opportunities that can be seized to improve the job picture in the short or medium term? AM: I am pessimistic precisely because I don’t see any low-hanging fruit. Though India has had success in some high-skill services, these sectors cannot create jobs on the scale required. For the Indian government and many observers, the hope is that... [Continue reading]( [PS. Watch our Climate Week NYC event.]( [PS Say More: Mónica Araya on electric vehicles, US climate policy, the EU-Mercosur trade deal, and more]( [Mónica Araya on electric vehicles, US climate policy, the EU-Mercosur trade deal, and more]( Mónica Araya welcomes progress toward zero-emission transport, laments the fossil-fuel industry’s outsize influence over governments everywhere, argues that European climate action should be based on a people-centered political narrative, and more. Araya is Executive Director, International, at the European Climate Foundation. [Read now]( [PS. Subscribe to PS Premium to secure your copy of PS Quarterly: Stayin’ Alive.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. Receipt of this newsletter does not guarantee rights to re-publish any of its content. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.