-The Telegraph The Union budget is an embodiment of unequal fiscal policy The finance minister and her ministry have betrayed, once again, their lack of understanding of the Indian economy or the conditions under which most Indians are living today. Despite attempts to ‘talk up’ the supposed recovery, the economy is weak and most people are hurting. India has seen one of the biggest increases in the number of poor and hungry people...

-TheWire.in With revenues of the government expanding significantly, this was an opportunity to present a more expansive budget. Unfortunately, the budget made a clear choice. Unlike last year, this year expectations from Budget 2022-23 with respect to the social sector – particularly with respect to schemes for nutrition – were low. While India relied heavily during the peak of the pandemic last year on its welfare architecture, trends on the release of funds...

-The Hindu The trends in employment have not shown any clear and consistent patterns over the years The two important indicators of structural transformation in any economy are rates of growth and changes in the structural composition of output and the workforce. India has experienced fairly consistent changes in the first indicator, especially after the 1991 reforms, but the trend in employment has not revealed any consistent or clear pattern. The growth rate...

-The Hindu Business Line While data from CMIE and EPFO present a contrasting picture, jobs in the unorganised sector continue to be difficult to assess Employment Data in India have always been controversial as the concept per se is quite nebulous. While corporate data on employment is foolproof as the headcount is known and revealed in annual reports, the same cannot be said about the non-corporate sector. Often, data on employment exchanges...

-The Hindu Business Line Economy is recovering but rural labour market still in distress Even as the economy is on the recovery track — spurring optimism about job creation and better employment prospects — a large part of the labour force, especially in the rural areas, continues to face challenges. Data from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) indicates that stress in the labour market, which escalated after Covid-19 lockdowns,...