-Economic and Political Weekly An overwhelming proportion of the poor live in low-income states in India. These states are home to over two-thirds of the children in the 0–14 age group. Therefore, provision of comparable levels of basic social services and physical infrastructure is important to ensure balance and stability in the Indian federation. This underlines the importance of intergovernmental transfers. Conceptually, general purpose transfers are given to enable the states...

-The Hindu The transfer of the RBI’s surplus is only a stopgap measure which will not address the key problem of a lack of demand There is no longer any room for doubt on the parlous state of the Indian economy. The automobile industry, seen as a bellwether of activity in the post-liberalisation years, is in crisis, as automakers, parts manufacturers and dealers have laid off about 350,000 workers since April this...

-The Hindu Karnataka has over 6,00,000 small industries that employ over 70 lakh people Bengaluru: If the Union government fails to come up with precautionary measures to minimise the impact of the economic slowdown on the MSME (Micro Small & Medium Enterprises) sector, at least 30 lakh people will go jobless in Karnataka, cautions industry apex body, KASSIA (Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association). “The recession is no more a fear, but a...

In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...

-Moneycontrol.com The Rs 35,000 crore biscuit industry has several players, the top most being the Britannia and Parle, which accounts for 70 percent of the industry’s volume and revenues. Subdued rural growth has begun to show up in the cookies category of eatables, especially your tea-table humble biscuit plates. Reports have emerged that the staple biscuits category like Parle-G has slowed down in rural demand, although similar pains are not visible in...