-The Telegraph The slump in the GDP and the pain ahead The -23.9 per cent shrinkage in the April-June GDP is not a surprise as nearly half the period witnessed a national lockdown. It’s also not surprising that this loss is the world’s steepest for India’s lockdown was the most stringent and the accompanying fiscal policy response the weakest. But the quarter per cent slump did surprise most analysts who have since...

-The Indian Express The contraction seen in first-quarter GDP data is severe, but not unexpected. What should be done — or not done – at the level of govt policy so that the economy gets a chance to rebound as quickly as possible? * How should one read the first-quarter GDP data and the contraction by 23.9%? What signal does it offer for the future? And does it give any idea of...

-The Indian Express To achieve economic growth of 7-8 per cent, the government needs to start addressing some of the traditional sore points such as the large infrastructure deficit, the weak financial sector, archaic land and labour laws, and the administrative and judicial hurdles. India entered the pandemic with declining growth and limited scope for a conventional and large fiscal stimulus. We had noted in an article (IE, January 20, ‘Limited scope...

-The Telegraph Why are animal spirits in quarantine? Animal spirits, the primordial driver of growth that is unquantifiable, are once more in the spotlight. The current context is the dire growth outlook from the Covid-19 impact, future prospects and how to improve these. However, the absence of animal spirits has been felt and commented upon longer than that. It can be traced as far back as the 2012-13 slowdown, or the shortfall...

Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...