-Scroll.in The Five Year plan is gone, several long- and short-term plans are in, but the government is still mapping growth in a supposedly market economy. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the dismantling of the more than six-decades-old Planning Commission in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2014, it seemed that India was at last formally breaking with the notion of planning, a socialist recipe for the anarchic market...

-The Hindu Business Line These bearer instruments can’t make political funding transparent; they don’t address the insidious corporate-politico nexus The Government is all set to introduce a scheme offering political bonds as bearer instruments which will conceal the identity of the bond buyers and enable a process of political donations that, it argues, will make funding political parties transparent. The argument is deeply flawed. Electoral bonds as envisaged here open up yet another...

-Livemint.com Mint’s rural distress index is below its median value, but it conceals varying distress levels across states Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s announcement of farm loan waiver has given credence to similar demands from across the country. Those making these demands include political parties, protesting farmers and even the judiciary. An earlier Plainfacts column had pointed out how farm loan waivers can be counter-productive in the long run, a fact...

-Business Standard Gold imports in January-March 2017 were the most since the same quarter of 2013 January-March 2017 has been the best fourth quarter in terms of gold imports since early 2013. Gold imports in the last quarter stood at 230 tonnes, and more than 100 tonnes is estimated to have been imported in March alone. But for the blip in December, gold imports have gone up significantly following the government’s announcement of demonetisation,...

-The Hindu As part of the first phase of the operation, the department had sent online queries and investigated 17.92 lakh persons out of which 9.46 lakh persons have responded. New Delhi: As part of the second phase of the 'Operation Clean Money' (OCM) launched Friday to unearth black money, the Income Tax department will probe over 60,000 individuals including 1,300 high risk persons for alleged excessive cash sales post demonetisation on...