-PRS Legislative Research The key findings of the report entitled: State of Agriculture in India by Tanvi Deshpande (March, 2017) are as follows: * The agriculture sector employs nearly half of the workforce in the country.  However, it contributes to 17.5% of the GDP (at current prices in 2015-16). * Over the past few decades, the manufacturing and services sectors have increasingly contributed to the growth of the economy, while the agriculture sector’s...

-The Hindu Strategic shifts are needed in the level of government control on the financing and provision of health India spends close to 5% of its GDP on health. While this may appear low when compared to 18% of the U.S., data show that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries spend 8-11%, middle-income countries close to 6%, and India’s peers, the lower-middle-income countries 4.5%. By these measures, India’s health-care spending,...

-Frontline.in Recently released data from the CSO, which claimed that demonetisation had had no significant impact on the performance of the economy, raise more questions than provide answers. Official data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) on the last day of February, which claimed that the national gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 7 per cent in the October-December period, the third quarter of 2016-17, came as a morale booster...

-The Indian Express GDP estimates are advance figures, but by the time they are revised only staid economists will be interested in them Unless we simply dreamt it, demonetisation delivered a massive shock to the economy in early November, which continued well into December because of slow pace remonetisation. The ensuing liquidity crunch affected most informal economic activity and some formal business, and economists generally agreed that declines in demand and disruption...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability Budget 2017-18 is placed at an important juncture when there has been a thrust by the government for a digitised and a consequent cashless economy with the demonetisation of high value currency notes undertaken in November last year. A number of claims have been made in the budget speech by the Finance Minister regarding longer term benefits of this move for the Indian Economy. To...