Meaning of Financial Crises

A situation in which the supply of money is outpaced by the demand for money. This means that liquidity is quickly evaporated because available money is withdrawn from banks (called a run), forcing banks either to sell other investments to make up for the shortfall or to collapse. The term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics.

Introduction
It took some time for policymakers and analysts in India to recognize both the speed and the intensity of the effects of the global crisis on India. Indeed, there were arguments that India, along with China, is decoupled from the global system and capable of becoming an autonomous growth pole, based on its recent high growth from a low per capita income base, and a young population leading to falling dependency ratios. In addition, the strong domestic financial sector was also seen to be immune to shocks from the international financial system. However, it turns out that this presumption was wrong, and even involved a faulty assessment of the previous boom. Recent high economic growth in India was fundamentally dependent upon greater global integration and related to the deregulation of finance combined with fiscal concessions that spurred a consumption boom among the top two deciles of the population, especially in urban areas, even as deflationary fiscal policies, poor employment generation and agrarian crisis kept mass consumption demand low.

THE INDIAN APPROACH IN CURRENT SCENARIO

Today India stands erect to face this financial crunch with many advantages and strengths. One of the major strength is its nuclear technology which will aid India to battle out its biggest problempower. Cautioning against the use of word recession for Indian economy, Finance Minister P Chidambaram says Indias growth would moderate in this difficult year, but would still be second-fastest in the world at the rate of 7-8 per cent. According to him a recession is defined as two successive quarters of contraction of GDP.

Giving a positive projection on the countrys economic scenario, P.M Manmohan Singh said India could regain its annual growth rate of 8% to 9% as the worlds economy could recover partially the present crisis by September this year.