-Livemint.com Loan waivers and the promise to raise MSP cannot solve the problem The victory of Congress party in the recent assembly elections of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan has brought the agrarian crisis in rural areas to the centre of political debate. While there are several factors in election victories, the severity of the agrarian unrest was surely a major factor. While there is consensus that the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party...

-The Hindu Business Line NITI Aayog’s document sets out economic goals, but there’s no roadmap The NITI Aayog’s Strategy for New India @75 lays out a checklist of priorities for economic policy-makers over the next three years. It sets out as an immediate priority, the ramping up of the investment rate to 36 per cent of the GDP by 2022, from 29 per cent at present in order to hit a growth...

-Livemint.com As we enter the new year, investors will do well to factor in a moderation in consumption demand due to the liquidity crisis and farm distress Analysts are getting increasingly wary about the outlook for consumption demand, even though investors are brushing aside these risks for now. In its 2019 India outlook, Credit Suisse said it would prefer investment-related stocks over consumption-focused ones in the coming year. The brokerage expects sharp...

-The Indian Express In the absence of patience and vision, the loan waiver remains the most favoured response to farm distress Thousands of farmers from different parts of India marched to Delhi on November 29-30 to register their protest against the Narendra Modi government’s perceived apathy and neglect of farmers’ demands. They were basically demanding three things: One, debate in Parliament to discuss farm distress; two, one-time loan waiver; and three,...

-The Hindu How a business friendly government has failed to arrest the slide in private investment It may appear that the recent hullabaloo over GDP (gross domestic product) growth in the past decade has cast a shadow over assessment of the economy’s progress since 2014, but it is not so. There exists enough information for this as GDP is not the sole indicator on which one needs to rely in such an...