India is always three steps forward, two steps backward, one step sideways: Rashesh Shah

In a chat with ET Now, Ashok Wadhwa, Ambit Holdings and Rashesh Shah, Edelweiss Group discuss the Modi report card -- how the government fared in first two years. Edited excerpts

ET Now: How do you think the Modi government fared in the last two years? What steps has it taken that stand out?

Rashesh Shah: No government has had the guts to look at the Indo-Mauritius Treaty and clean up that ambiguity or that loop hole. This government had the courage to address that and get that out of the way along with banking and tax reforms. We all talk about or GST because it is not getting passed but nobody talks about bankruptcy code that got passed. I think bankruptcy code is going to change how banks and the financial sector works in this country. How industry works will also change.

The tax reforms that are going on, refunds on tax, the clearing of the old claims and a lot of things have happened on the ground.

The banking sector, the bond markets even what RBI has done have all contributed. I think the government and RBI has worked in conjunction on a lot of the financial sector reforms -- small banks, payment banks, now on-tap banking licence this is path breaking. In last two years we have done more than we have done in the last 10 years as a whole so a lot of things have happened they will result in efficiency and growth and all of that. We need a little bit of tailwind from the global economy and a little bit of tailwind from the rain gods as we go along.

Ashok Wadhwa: Perhaps one more thing. The Prime Minister and his party need to rein in the factors which I would call marginal factors. These cause disruption from time to time because they want to be heard for the sake of being heard without necessarily contributing any substance to the issues. So somewhere the government, the prime minister and his party need to address these marginal factors because it is a serious distraction. It takes away from all the good work that the government is doing.

Rashesh Shah: But it will always be there in a democracy. Not only in India, you go to the US and you will see the marginal people making claims. US has gone through its own occupy Wall Street. The Tea Party... it goes on.

ET Now: We will see it more till the final verdict is out.

Rashesh Shah: And it is part and parcel of a vibrant democracy and we have to learn to see the signal from the noise. There is a lot of noise in India and India is one of the noisiest countries that has been there. When we look at the stock market, there is lot of noise you encounter all the time. But there are also signals which are there and the ability to focus on the signal and not get distracted by the noises is what we as investors and as the corporate sector need to be able to achieve because India will always be like this. And I do not think in the last 25 years of my career in India I have seen a calm India, I have never seen a good everything is going well kind of in India. India will always be like this three steps forward, two steps backward, one step sideways and to make any meaning out of it but if you look at the trend over the last even 20 years -- the Indian economy size was $300 billion 20 years ago.