Will Manmohan Singh Shake Up the Finance Ministry Again? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who took charge of the Ministry of Finance earlier this week, delivered a call to arms of sorts to the mandarins at the ministry, telling them that they needed to "restart the Indian growth story" and revive the economy's "animal spirit." But will his pep talk and his direct supervision of the ministry get New Delhi to wake up to India's economic problems when a year of slowing growth and several years of high inflation have not been able to rouse policy makers? Going by the reaction of the Indian stock market, which closed 0.4 percent higher after Mr. Singh's remarks on Wednesday, investors are hopeful but still skeptical. They have heard similar promises of action before, only to have their hopes dashed. For instance, the outgoing finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, failed to deliver a boost to the sagging rupee earlier in the week after promising big changes. Many of the items on New Delhi's economic agenda - lowering subsidies; letting foreign retailers open stores in India; speeding up infrastructure development; reducing bureaucratic red tape - remain stymied by political opposition or because officials seem unwilling to do the difficult spadework required to achieve those changes. Moreover, as The Indian Express wrote on Thursday, Mr. Singh has not been able to persuade his own party, the Indian National Congress Party, to support him in making difficult decisions that might not endear it to voters right away but that could be necessary for the party to secure a victory in the next national elections in 2014. "It's not an issue of whether he wants to but whether he is able to push reforms through," said Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank. I'm not sure if he's in a position to pull allies together for controversial decisions. All of this is probably not lost on Mr. Singh, who served as finance minister in the early 1990s when India began liberalizing its economy in a major way. The prime minister at the time, P.V. Narasimha Rao, encouraged -- some have argued directed -- Mr. Singh to push through policy changes that dismantled India's notorious "license raj." The economic situation today is not nearly as grave as it was in 1991, when Mr. Singh and Mr. Rao moved on a crisis footing because India was running out of foreign currency to pay for its oil imports. India now has foreign exchange reserves of more than $250 billion and the economy grew 6.5 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March. While that is a big decrease from the 8.4 percent pace set in the previous year, it remains respectable. And recently Coca-Cola and Ikea announced that they would invest billions of dollars in the country, a reflection of the fact that consumer spending remains strong in spite of the policy paralysis in New Delhi. Supporters of Mr. Singh say he will not be complacent in his stewardship of the ministry while the government looks for a replacement for Mr. Mukherjee. "I believe he has the technocratic and analytical skills as well as sagacity to take the right steps in the face of the looming economic crisis," said N.K. Singh, a former government official who worked with Mr. Singh at the Finance Ministry and is now a member of the upper house of Parliament representing an opposition political party. The two men are not related. In his remarks to ministry officials, Prime Minister Singh avoided painting an overly bright picture of the Indian economy as Mr. Mukherjee often did in recent months. He also broke from the former finance minister by signaling that he would not be as aggressive about seeking to retroactively tax transactions involving foreign investors. That appeared to be an attempt to placate foreigners who had been spooked by Mr. Mukherjee's tax policies. "Investor sentiment is down and capital flows are drying up," Mr. Singh said according to an abbreviated transcript released by the government. There are some external reasons and we need to work towards making our country resilient in meeting these external challenges. However, there are many domestic reasons as well. We need to address these quickly. For instance, on Thursday, the Mint newspaper reported that two foreign energy companies were pulling out of India after encountering lengthy delays in securing approvals for their projects from various ministries. In another indication of his desire for change, The Economic Times newspaper reported earlier this week that Mr. Singh might replace some officials from the ministry who appeared to be hostile to foreign investors. The newspaper also said that Mr. Singh might try to recruit Raghuram Rajan, an economist at the University of Chicago who is an adviser to the prime minister, to join the government. Mr. Rajan has been an outspoken advocate for more liberal economic policies in India and led a government committee that proposed sweeping changes to India's financial industry. Indian newspapers have often speculated that Mr. Rajan could one day become finance minister or head the Reserve Bank of India. In addition to his wish to push a different agenda, Mr. Singh might be able to carry out changes now that he couldn't earlier as prime minister because it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that the economy is struggling, said Ashutosh Varshney, a professor of international studies and social sciences at Brown University. "The moment is ripe again," Mr. Varshney said in an e-mail message. India is certainly not on the verge of external bankruptcy, as in 1991. But the growth rate has dropped, and economic mood is gloomy. Things have been going so wrong for the Congress that if economic sentiment changes, it can breathe a little.