decent livelihood. this is not to disparage what has, and is, been done. the central and state governments have been creating a platform for strong and sustainable growth, and i am confident the payoffs are on their way, but until we have stayed on this path for some time, i remain cautious. we must remember that our international reputation is of a country with great promise, which has under - delivered in the past. this is why we are still the poorest country on a per capita basis among the brics. we need to change perceptions by delivering steadily on our promise for a long time – by implementing, implementing, and implementing. we cannot get carried away by our current superiority in growth, for as soon as we believe in our own superiority and start distributing future wealth as if we already have it, we stop doing all that is required to continue growing. this movie has played too many times in india ’ s past for us to not know how it ends. so in speaking to a foreign journalist the other day, who asked what it felt like to be the bright spot in the world economy, i used the phrase “ andhon mein kana raja ” or “ in the land of the blind, the one - eyed man is king ”. the proverb has a long multinational history. the dutch philosopher, erasmus, used it in latin when he wrote “ in regione caecorum rex est luscus ”, but he probably was inspired by earlier work. my intent was to signal that our outperformance was accentuated because world growth was weak, but we in india were still hungry for more growth. i then explained that we were not yet bis central bankers ’ speeches at our potential, though we were at a cusp of a substantial pick - up in growth given all the reforms that were underway. in our news - hungry country, however, our domestic papers headlined the phrase i used. to be fair, they also offered the surrounding context, but few read beyond the headline. so the interview became moderately controversial, with the implication that i was denigrating our success rather than emphasizing the need to do more. more generally, every word or phrase a public figure speaks is intensely wrung for meaning. when words are hung to dry out of context, as in a newspaper headline, it then becomes fair game for anyone who want to fill in meaning to create mischief. worst, of course, are words or proverbs that have common usage elsewhere

, nurturing a borrower back to health after a default can be a time - consuming process, besides causing severe inconvenience for the distressed families. traditional banking technologies rely mainly on a set of pre - assigned standards to determine whether a potential borrower will be able to service a loan. this lack of knowledge on low - income household circumstances restricts the banks ability to objectively assess whether the expected loan can be sustainable. sometimes, a two - track approach towards mitigation of borrower risks is advocated. in the near - term, credit counselling can constitute an integral part of banks ’ loan application, which can facilitate better assessment of credit risk and repayment capacity. in the urban areas, where people are more technosavvy, such counselling can take place over the internet or the phone. in the rural areas, such interface could be made more personalised through direct face - to - face interaction with the affected clientele. such preventative counselling would enable the borrower to determine the optimal level of sustainable debt and pre - empt deterioration of accounts at a future date. this is also likely to lower the incidence of customer complaints against banks. an important consequence of the counselling process may be that, as potential borrowers learn more about the way financial markets function, they may learn to behave more strategically and to prepay more often when interest rates are benign. if such behavior becomes prevalent, together with a positive effect of counselling on default, it may be an additional argument that counselling helps lowincome borrowers. issues it is necessary to recognise that there are several issues which require to be addressed in identifying possible approaches to initiate and popularise credit counselling for individual borrowers. let me flag some of these issues for your consideration. first, how well can we combine credit counselling with some elements of financial literacy? second, should credit counselling concentrate on ex ante or only on ex post elements or some combination of both? third, should credit counselling agencies devise differential mechanisms to take into account different credit segments such as housing loans, consumer loans, farm loans as well as different categories of individual borrowers such as salaried, self - employed, seasonally employed etc? is it better to have more general credit counsellors? fourth, given the differential nature of cash flows and consumption patterns in rural and urban areas, is there a need for a segmented approach towards credit counselling? fifth, should there be