On the fourth anniversary of demonetization, Narendra Modi has claimed that it succeeded in curbing black money. He probably believes he can get away with making this claim because of the passage of time. But most people in the country…
In a move that was expected, the US Justice Department has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against internet search giant Google, alleging that it resorts to anti-competitive practices to ensure its dominance in the search engine space and, through that, over…
It is often believed that the ability to pass on property to one’s progeny is an essential element of capitalism, without which the capitalists’ incentives will dry up and the system will lose its dynamism. Nothing could be further from…
The past year has brought into sharp relief the significant differences between China and the rest of the world. The experience of the pandemic is probably the most extreme and definitive expression of that: the ability of China to contain…
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has for some months been bringing out a report that monitors the impact of the pandemic on the world economy, especially the labour-hours lost because of the lockdown and their ramifications. The statistics it provides…
Wealth distribution data are notoriously difficult to interpret. This is because variations in stock prices affect wealth distribution, so that a stock market boom suddenly makes the rich appear much richer, while a stock market collapse makes wealth distribution less…
A chapter in the October 2020 edition of the IMF’s biannual publication, Fiscal Monitor, argues that as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to support the recovery as Covid-19 induced lockdowns are relaxed and the world moves to a…
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced governments across the world to increase reliance on debt. The IMF projects the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP in emerging markets and middle-income economies (EMMIEs) as a group to rise from 4.9 per…
A theoretical analysis of the prevailing situation, from which the proletariat’s relationship with different segments of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry is derived, and with it the Communist Party’s tactics towards other political forces, is central to the Party’s praxis.…
The three Agriculture bills rushed through parliament by the Modi government seek to bring peasant producers into direct contact with corporate buyers without any intervention by the state. The government suggests that intervention in the form of the Minimum Support…
