Mumbai

INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi's five-month administration must start taking unpopular steps to boost economic growth, the country's former central bank governor said.

Falling oil prices have taken some pressure off Indian policymakers by slowing inflation and making it easier to reduce the fiscal and current-account deficits, Duvvuri Subbarao said. Now is the time to ease labour laws, make it easier to acquire land and implement a goods and services tax, he said.