-The Hindu Alarming inequality, failing health care and border tensions loom large and the economic SITuation needs full attention As the country prepares to enter a new financial year after an ominous and gloomy 2020-21, there are great expectations about green shoots and the shape of the economic recovery. The havoc wreaked by the novel coronavirus pandemic on people’s lives and livelihoods is deep and enormous. The impact of the COVID-19 induced...
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Revise the text of the Budget speech -Jayati Ghosh
-The Hindu The Finance Minister must move to an expansionary fiscal stance that prioritises job creation, public service provision It is that time of year in India, when all eyes and ears turn to the Finance Minister to learn what she will unveil in the annual Union Budget. But it is a moot point whether, even in a year of the novel coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, that speech will be of...
More »Budgeting in a time of crisis -TCA Ramanujam
-The Hindu Keynesian economics offers guidelines for preparing the Budget The Great Depression wrecked the economies of the U.S. and Europe. In the words of Jonathan Alter, when Franklin Roosevelt became the American President in 1933, he was told: “Mr. President, if your programme succeeds you would be the greatest President in American history. If it fails, you will be the worst one”. Roosevelt replied: “If it fails, I will be the...
More »Once in a Century Budget: Statement of Fact or Hope? -Arun Kumar
-TheWire.in The pandemic and lockdown threw existing budgetary calculus completely out of line. But that provides an opportunity too. In December 2020, talking at a CII meet, finance minister Nirmala SITharaman reportedly stated: “100 years of India wouldn’t have seen a budget being made post-pandemic like this”. Was it a mere statement of fact, that never before had parts of the budget-making process been done in a virtual manner after a pandemic, or...
More »Neglect of small, marginal farmers: Why little space for livestock in India's agri-budgets -Sanjib Pohit
-Counterview.net It seems that that there is a complete breakdown of trust between the Union government and farmers. The multiple rounds of negotiations, offer to negotiate clause by clause of the farms’ bills fail to convince the farmers. As a result, there is no sign that the SIT-in by the farmers around Delhi’s border would go up in the near future. It appears to have tuned into a question of ego...
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