-The Hindu The trend across developing countries is to give State governments as much discretion as possible India urgently needs to increase fiscal support for COVID-19 relief and rebuilding. Among comparable developing countries with similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, India has spent the least as a share of its GDP. While the Central government has announced measures amounting to 0.8% of GDP, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that State-level relief...

Most reports and studies by official agencies, international think tanks and private entities indicate the cataclysmic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and society. They anticipate that lockdowns imposed by various countries across the globe to reduce the exponential diffusion of COVID-19 (i.e. for flattening the curve by social distancing and quarantines) would adversely affect economic growth and disrupt supply chains in most sectors, on top of causing...

-Scroll.in/ India Spend In Qila Nau, Jat Sikhs are sending food to the homes of Dalits, who are not allowed to enter langars or touch vessels in their gurdwaras. Jagjit Kaur, 35, a Dalit resident of Qila Nau village in Faridkot district of Southwestern Punjab, has not cooked a single meal since March 25, when the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 began. Her husband, a mason, has been left...

-Hindustan Times Almost 3,000 families of labourers are struggling to make ends meet as jobs have dried up following the curfew because of the Covid-19 outbreak Chandigarh: It is 9 am, but hundreds have gathered at the Tin-Shed Colony in Sector 52 for free meals to be distributed four hours later. Among them are 14-year-old Ranjana and her 8-year-old brother. They are surviving on the two meals provided by the UT administration in...

-The Hindu The virus reveals how dependence on private sector-led economic growth has proved to be disastrous  Dr. Manmohan Singh’s 1991-92 Budget speech marked the beginning of the end of the ‘Licence Raj’ in India. The Budget also announced the reduction of import duties and paved the way for foreign-manufactured goods to flow into India. Following this, most of the manufacturing sector was opened up to foreign direct investment. India’s industrial policy...