Even before taking office, Jo Biden, the new American president, has announced a rescue package of $1.9 trillion, of which as much as $1 trillion will be in the form simply of transfers to the working people. Since the estimated…
It hardly needs emphasizing that the context for the Union Budget for 2021-22 is an exceptional one. The country continues to face a highly uncertain future on both the pandemic and economic fronts and their mutual impact on each other.…
The union budget for the year 2021-22 would be placed in the parliament on the 1st February in India. This budget would be placed in a context of extreme demand depression following the Covid-19 induced lockdown. The economy needs to…
In the second half of 2020, while the country was struggling with COVID-19 pandemic and impacts of a crippling 10-week national lockdown, the Indian government enacted three national laws related to agriculture. These laws created a new national framework for…
It is that time of year in India, when all eyes and ears turn to the Finance Minister to learn what she will unveil in the annual Union Budget. But it is a moot point whether, even in a year…
There are really only two numbers to look out for in the forthcoming budget: how much did the government claim to have spent in 2020-21, and how much does it intend to spend in 2021-22. These two numbers will determine…
India’s Constitution puts the bulk of responsibility for the basic goods and services to be provided to citizens on to state governments. That is also why it mandated that independent Finance Commissions be appointed every five years to determine the…
Budgets over the years have become a tiresome spectacle. Much print space and airtime are devoted to the exercise, which on each occasion is presented as an event that would alter the nation’s economic course. Governments and Finance Ministers back…
In its systematic attempt to vilify the farmers’ movement against the three infamous agriculture bills that open peasant agriculture to corporate take-over, the government keeps using the argument that the opposition to these bills is confined to farmers only from…
As the Sensex hit the 50,000 mark this week for the first time ever, it is clear that the widening gulf between financial and the real sectors remains a matter of concern, both on grounds of the underlying inequities and…
