Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
COVID-19 in South Asia: India Lags Behind Pak on Stimulus, Lanka on Overall Performance -Deepankar Basu and Priyanka Srivastava
-TheWire.in In each of the four large South Asian nations, the response of the state to the pandemic has been shaped by long standing and underlying political faultlines. In parts one and two of this article, we have discussed the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, preparedness (in terms of health infrastructure), and the government’s public health responses to the pandemic in four South Asian countries. In this concluding part, we discuss two...
More »India facing 'Great Slowdown', economy headed to ICU: Arvind Subramanian
-PTI * Subramanian had flagged the problem of debt accumulated by private corporates becoming NPA of banks back in December 2014 * At that time, he was CEA to the Narendra Modi government NEW DELHI: India is facing a "Great Slowdown" with its economy headed for intensive care unit primarily due to a "second wave" of the twin balance sheet crisis at banks, former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said. Subramanian, who was...
More »Professor Amiya Bagchi, Marxist economist, interviewed by Subhoranjan Dasgupta (The Telegraph)
-The Telegraph "The government has miserably failed to stimulate the domestic economy. It has spent less and less on public education, healthcare and infrastructure because of its erroneous policy" The Modi government has an ambitious plan to create a $5-trillion economy in the next five years — but all data points are heavily stacked against it. The economy is floundering and the Reserve Bank of India has already trimmed its growth forecast...
More »Prof. Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, interviewed by Sayantan Bera (Livemint.com)
-Livemint.com In conversation with Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Neither the Narendra Modi government nor Rahul Gandhi have gotten minimum income scheme right, he says New Delhi: Income support is the big economic idea of the season. While the ruling BJP government announced a limited money transfer scheme targeted at farmers in the recent interim budget, the Congress has proposed to solve the country’s...
More »