As election 2019 approaches, the Modi government, damaged by agrarian distress, is also being challenged by evidence that its record on employment generation has been extremely poor. To recall, in its campaign during the 2014 election which brought it back…
I Since independence and even earlier, India has been characterized by an enduring duality in which the reality of an inegalitarian and oppression-ridden society has co-existed with a widespread and even growing urge for equality and justice. The inequalities prevailing…
For some time now there has been a debate in the country that is as esoteric as it is misleading, namely whether the Reserve Bank of India’s reserves should be drawn down by the government to finance its expenditure. On…
The decision of the newly elected Congress-led governments in Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to implement the manifesto promise to waive farm debt has set off a controversy. Opposition to the move comes not just from opposing parties. In fact,…
Former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has come out openly against the Indian government’s measure of demonetizaton of currency notes in November 2016, in a speech delivered recently at the University of California at Berkeley. Since Rajan is an economist…
As the state election results trickled in on December 11, to the surprise of many, the Sensex after a hiccup rose and closed 190 points above its previous end-of-day level. The following day too, the Sensex moved upwards. This was…
The so-called ‘synchronised recovery’ that global policy makers periodically refer to, seems to have bypassed much of the world’s working people. According to the just released Global Wage Report 2018/19 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the rate of growth…
Nothing shows the crisis of neo-liberal capitalism more clearly than the popular uprising in France that is occurring under the banner of the “Yellow Vest” movement. Thousands are congregating in Paris over week-ends to protest against the intolerable burdens being…
The sheer ineptitude of economic policymaking under prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has been evident from almost the beginning of its tenure. What is also now well-established is the aggressive and rigid approach of the political leadership, which generally pushes…
Third world economies are now facing a reduced export demand for their goods and services for two distinct reasons. One is the world capitalist crisis which entails a reduced aggregate demand in the world economy and hence reduced aggregate exports…
