-Newsclick.in Why has there been a tendency toward persistent ‘excess supply’ in the foodgrain market when growth rate of foodgrain output has barely exceeded the population growth rate? The pandemic and the lockdown are certainly causing an absolute shrinkage in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Indian economy. But these tend to obscure something very serious that was happening even earlier, namely, a real income decline for vast numbers of working...

-Livemint.com 30% of India’s urban population may deplete their lifetime savings by the end of June and would find it difficult to meet essential consumption In the best of times, India’s poor lead a fragile existence but in the worst of times their situation becomes extremely precarious. The lockdown of the country over the past few months has discomfited everyone but it has hit the urban poor the hardest. Measuring vulnerability accurately is...

-Livemint.com With no significant spending increase to boost consumption or other major reform, the 2020 budget may lack the firepower to reignite the economy A growth slump, a precarious fiscal position and rising inflation: these are extraordinary times for the Indian economy. Yet in the 2020 Budget, these extraordinary times did not lead to the extraordinary measures so many economists were clamouring for. Like previous budgets under this government, the latest one...

-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while Consumption Expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...

-Press release by Peoples' Action for Employment Guarantee dated 1 February, 2020 The Peoples’ Action for Employment Guarantee is distressed to note the total lack of responsibility and sensitivity accorded by the Union Budget 2020-21 to the rural economy in General, and MGNREGA in particular. It is telling and obviously callous that the Budget estimate for this year at Rs. 61,500 crores is Rs. 9,500 crores less than the revised estimate...