Budget 2020, presented by India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Feb. 1, turned out to be worse than a damp squib. It was such a disappointment that its impact on an already weak economy now facing global headwinds, may verge on the…
It’s finally time to call the bluff: the Union budget has become a completely meaningless — even misleading —exercise. Those of us who take either the pronouncements or the numbers mentioned on expected revenues and projected spending in the budget…
Here’s what we do know: the Indian economy is in a deep funk, in a downward spiral of falling employment, consumption, and investment, and rapidly decelerating GDP growth. The problem, evident for several years now, has been created by a…
It’s that time of year again, when people start talking about what the Union Budget may bring in the shape of fiscal policy changes and what it will show about public finances in the previous year. But increasingly, such discussion…
An interview with Jayati Ghosh (by G. Sampath - The Hindu) The leading development economist speaks out on the predicted global recession this year and why the extremely adverse environment for small and medium enterprises is likely to continue Jayati…
Anyone who has been following the upsurge of protests across the country in the wake of the CAA-NRC moves of the government would have been impressed and inspired by the role played by young women. They have been forthright and…
With the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) registering negative month-on-month annual rates of growth over the three months ending October 2019, the perception, based on trends in individual industries, that Indian industry is experiencing or is on the road to…
It is now widely recognised that the Finance Minister misinformed Parliament when presenting the Revised Estimates for central government revenues and expenditures in the Union Budget presented in July 2019. That fact has, however, been largely forgotten, perhaps because to…
The experience of depositors in the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMCB) suggests that the government and the central bank are unwilling to protect the financial savings of ordinary households. Besides allowing depositors in the bank to access only a…
In 2015, United Nations member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which include an imperative to "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." Yet, in the last four years, matters have deteriorated significantly. Click here for…
