The first speaker for the session was Mr Amarjeet Singh, Regional Manager, Northern Region, SEBI. He gave an insight on Financial Environment: Regulatory Perspective. With increased liberalization in the economy, the regulatory policies of the government are sometimes issues of contention. Mr Singh discussed the role of regulations in the Indian Economy; the main objectives of regulatory policy being to enhance safety, transparency, effectiveness and fairness in the economy, bringing about overall protection for the investor. He described the regulatory strategies of the government as being reactive, preventive and proactive and gave the audience an insight into SEBIas surveillance tools. He briefly highlighted the types of SEBI regulations in place. The challenges to the growth of the Indian securities market were touched upon, factors such as investor education, insider trading, growing volatility being among the more serious concerns to the regulatory body. In fact, the national regulations system has its jurisdiction only within the boundaries of the countryas economy and in this time and age of truly global markets; regulatory policies are increasingly dependent on MoUs between countries.
The next speaker was Mr Ranjan Kumar Das, Head of Audit and Compliance at Axis Bank. Mr Das made his way around the audience, posing questions, sharing his insights and asking the audience to come up with their own opinions and thoughts. He started with the basics such as what exactly a slowdown in the economy meant, in a national and international context. From there the discussion progressed to the current global economic indicators which include rates of inflation, unemployment, real GDP growth, FDIs etc. The present scenario in terms on Indiaas rising inflation rate, now at a multi-year high, over spending by developed countries, the sub-prime crises, soaring oil prices and political and social instability was touched upon. The discussion then revolved around the domino effect of globalization and finally future perceptions of the Indian economy. There seemed to be a consensus that we were facing a credit crunch, a slowdown in the countryas growth rate but there would also be reduced levels of unemployment and a significant reduction in the poverty rate.
The session came to an end with Prof S K Jain of DMS, IIT Delhi giving his views on how the future of the Indian economy depended to a large extent on the political leadership, citing the 1991 economic reforms as an example. He reiterated the point that the extent to which an economy is dependent on other economies is based upon internal factors.