Special Features

If we ignore the hype that accompanies and follows the presentation of the Centre’s annual budget, there are principally two strands in it that have attracted attention. The first is the claim of the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman that in…

The most outstanding feature of the Indian economy today is the sluggish increase in real consumption expenditure. Between 2019-20 and 2022-23 for instance the per capita real consumption expenditure has grown by less than 5 per cent which is less…

The annual budget is generally supposed to be a statement of not only the Union government’s actual and proposed revenue raising and spending plans, but also of its general economic policy intent. If so, the indications this year are chilling.…

This was never going to be an easy Union Budget to present for any finance minister, even before last week. Despite all the hype about a resurgent Indian economy, almost all the indicators that matter suggested that economic conditions were…

Denials and rejections of the most pressing issue in the Indian economy today – which is providing employment as minimum livelihood options for the majority – need to be underscored in the current budget. Added to the above are the…

Denials and rejections, of the most pressing issue in the Indian economy today which is providing employment as minimum livelihood options for the majority, needs to be underscored in the current budget. Added to above are the woes related to…

In her budget speech 2022, the finance minister claimed that the centre pieces of the budgets for both the current financial year (2021-22) and the next (2022-23) are sharp increases in capital expenditure driven by enhanced public investment. That expenditure…

No budget in recent memory has been presented at a time when the economy is in such dire straits: unemployment is so bad that there are job riots in Bihar and UP; wealth and income inequalities are among the worst…