Chidambaram isn’t walking the talk

The February cover story of FinanceAsia magazine featured P Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, and his pledge to get the country’s budget in shape to return the country to 8% GDP growth by 2015.

The interview came on the back of the minister’s visit to Hong Kong and other cities, where he met with investors. The timing to win back investor favour was good Chidambaram, upon taking over as finance minister his third such stint, pushed through reforms in civil aviation and the retail sector. He was also believed to be supportive of tax reform, notably GST, a plan to create a consistent, national tax regime for goods...