-The Telegraph After debunking faith in numbers, assertions by powerful and charismatic leaders can be projected as the truth The comment on the weaponisation of economics by the former chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, is a telling indictment of the way political Interests trump such other considerations as veracity and transparency. The latest round of revisions in the rate of growth of gross domestic product is a perfect example of the use...

-The Hindu How a business friendly government has failed to arrest the slide in private investment It may appear that the recent hullabaloo over GDP (gross domestic product) growth in the past decade has cast a shadow over assessment of the economy’s progress since 2014, but it is not so. There exists enough information for this as GDP is not the sole indicator on which one needs to rely in such an...

-Livemint.com India is increasingly jailing its young for online posts that ‘offend’ politicians. The impact on their lives and families is devastating Initially, they all thought it was a joke when the police turned up. Once the prison gates opened, reality sunk in. Entering the dark, stinking cells, filled with dangerous looking strangers, they all felt a mix of emotions. There was of course incomprehension, fear, and an unexplainable feeling of guilt...

-The Hindu Business Line TN entrepreneurs account for 10% of loans disbursed Pune: The growth of entrepreneurship in the non–corporate small business sector (NCSB) in smaller States has not received any major boost under the Central government’s ambitious MUDRA loan scheme. Data show that States that already have higher Credit–Deposit (C-D) ratios — a yardstick that indicates better access to institutional credit — are the ones reaping the benefit of the scheme. While six...

-The Indian Express After number fell from 2003 to 2014, UN data find trend reversed. Yet since 2014, global farm commodity prices have been falling. Here is why that has not stopped the rise in the number of hungry people A decade-long phenomenon of the number of undernourished people in the world falling between 2003 and 2014, both in absolute terms (from 961.5 million to 783.7 million) and relative to total...