The More It Changes

The More It Changes...
BY laying a copy of the letter of intent sent to the IMF in August with the request for a $ 2.2 billion stand-by arrangement, the finance minister can claim to have kept his promise to take parliament into confidence about the conditions accepted by the government to secure the loan. This is something the government led by Indira Gandhi had baulked at doing in 1981 when the government had approached the Fund for a much larger SDR 5 billion credit under the extended Fund facility, though the conditions then stipulated by the Fund were notably less stringent than those demanded