-TheWire.in The Modi government’s attempts to reshape the economy lie entirely in the financial realm; they come on the back of concerted efforts to strip workers of legal protection in not just the informal sector, but also the formal. The Narendra Modi government has made two major interventions in the economic sphere, demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), with the ostensible aim of expanding the formal sector at the expense...

-The Hindu The slowdown in private investments is visible chiefly in the informal sector, not the corporate sector It is now well recognised that there is an investment slowdown in India, which is delaying a full-blooded recovery in the economy. Private investments, the principle engine of growth, are out of steam. The fall is so severe that it has more than offset the government’s macroeconomic stimulus of increased public investments. The slowdown started...

-TheWire.in The Dalit and Adivasi community’s analysis of the budget shows gross under allocation – only 50.7% has been allocated towards targeted schemes for SCs and 51.24% for STs. On the 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in the social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will recognize the principle of one man one...

-Scroll.in Subramanian’s document says 1.8 million taxpayers have been added to the net, but most are just at the Rs2.5 lakh threshold. The Reserve Bank of India’s report in 2017 confirming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation decision resulted in almost all of the withdrawn notes being returned prompted the government to look for other indicators as proof that the effort had not been a waste. One of those was supposed to...

-Hindustan Times Farmers have experienced a growing mismatch between their production efforts and incomes under the Narendra Modi government. The coming union budget will have to find a balance between two contradictory FDs: farm-distress and fiscal discipline. The choice is not going to be an easy one. Ignoring farm-distress in the last full-fledged budget before elections could be politically suicidal. Meanwhile, there are at least two things that could make the government slip...