Mihir S. Sharma Quotes & Sayings

13 million Indians will join the workforce every year from now till 2030. They know their prospects aren't good. Here's why: in the years from 1972 to 1983 - not celebrated as a time of overwhelming prosperity - the total number of jobs in the economy nevertheless grew 2.3 per cent a year. In the years between liberalization in 1991 and today, jobs have grown at an average of only 1.6 per cent a year. But, if these young people have to be absorbed, then jobs must grow at least 3 per cent a year - almost twice the rate at which they have since liberalization. This is simply not happening. In other words, one out of every two youngsters who starts looking for a job next year won't find one. — Mihir S. Sharma

Somehow, India needs to make Indians think Rocket Singh is more likely than Guru. — Mihir S. Sharma

The name 'JSW', you will note, is not particularly imaginative. Nor is it the kind of thing you would imagine is incredible intellectual property. Yet, in 2014, JSW Steel told shareholders that it would pay Rs 125 crore a year to a firm entirely owned by Sajjan Jindal's wife, Sangita. In return, Sangita Jindal would graciously permit her husband to use the 'JSW' acronym, which JSW Steel insists her company, JSW Investments, owns. — Mihir S. Sharma

This is the kind of corruption we understand, the corruption of the petty clerk writ large, and so this is the kind of corruption we look for. This is the kind of guilt we expect and understand: personal, targeted, involving suitcases. We really need suitcases. — Mihir S. Sharma

Better people are possible to create, even in Delhi. — Mihir S. Sharma

The main goal of the regulatory policy has been to control the size of Mumbai by penalizing any new development, fearing that economic success would attract more people.' Yes, we have deliberately planned for our cities to fail. That has been our intent. If they succeed, then more people would move there, 'who would have to share an already deficient and immutable infrastructure'. Bertaud concludes: 'This is a very pessimistic view of urban development.' An understatement, so classically French! — Mihir S. Sharma

At some point, economists must study the Business Family Wedding Gift Economy. It is an extraordinary, closed bubble. What happens is this: a woman marries into a conservative Indian business family. She may well be energetic and bright, but there's no place for her at work, nor can she work elsewhere. So, instead, she's urged to 'take up something'. Scented candles, usually. Sometimes kurta design. Or necklaces, or faux-Rajasthani coffee tables. She then becomes a 'success', because every other woman in the family buys her candles as wedding presents, at hideously inflated prices. In return, she buys their kurtas as wedding presents. Eventually, everyone is buying everyone else's hideous creations at hideously high prices, and nobody can ever tell anyone else their stuff sucks, and that nobody really likes the smell of lavender anyway. The most amazing thing is, this is not a very different economy from the one their husbands are in. — Mihir S. Sharma