-The Indian Express The Union budget should focus on enhancing credit flows to the small and marginal farmers, increase investment in health and education. The first advance estimates of GDP for 2020-21 are much better than the earlier market consensus and shows the inherent strengths of the Indian economy. The economy is expected to contract by 7.7 per cent implying a COVID-19 induced loss of Rs 9.61 lakh crore in real terms...

-Livemint.com The government will have to ensure its spending improves economy-wide productivity, and its own revenue-generating capacity, to avoid a stagflationary trap After dithering on a fiscal stimulus package for nearly a year, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has declared that she will not allow the fiscal deficit number to worry her too much as she pushes spending to revive growth in the upcoming budget. The government hopes that growth will generate higher...

-The New Indian Express Budget 2021-22: Rising poverty, falling health parameters, worsening educational outcomes, inadequate housing and widespread unemployment are the biggest challenges facing the Indian economy. MYSURU: From a distance, a house at Harthale, Nanjangud, looks like any other in the locality. But you step inside, and you will find recycled wooden windows and doors procured from demolished buildings, broken ceramics for surface, mud concrete blocks made out of building waste,...

-The Indian Express Raising the diet of our people from subsistence level to higher levels of nourishment by overcoming the triple deficit is the only way to improve the nutritional indicators of our population — amongst children, adolescents and adults. It is nearly a month since the first phase of the NFHS-5 survey was published. While we await a response from the government or any policy-making authority, several articles by public health/policy...

-The Indian Express Budget needs to ramp up spending on health and education. Pandemic has enhanced inequalities, shown up absence of safety nets. India is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and social sector development is important in reaching them. Progress in this sector has intrinsic (for its own sake) and instrumental (for higher growth) value. It is needed even to build a $5 trillion economy faster. Inequalities...