-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's economy rebounded from a three-year low to grow at 6.3 per cent in the three months ended September 30. "The impact of the demonetisation and the GST is well behind us," finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday after the numbers were announced. The economy had slowed dramatically in the first quarter to record a dismal 5.7 per cent growth. Opponents had then accused the Modi regime of...
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Mystery of electoral bonds
-The Telegraph New Delhi: Two finance ministry departments, the Election Commission and the Reserve Bank have no information on the consultations over electoral bonds the Centre introduced nine months ago and touted as a "game-changing" decision to clean up political funding, an RTI query has revealed. RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak had sought from the department of economic affairs (DEA), a wing of the finance ministry, details of the number of representations it...
More »Rural incomes: Why farm prices are now more prone to falling than to rising -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The transition from a regime of ‘downward stickiness’ to ‘upward stickiness’ has relevance beyond economic jargon. Here’s how Agricultural commodity prices in India have traditionally exhibited what economists call “downward stickiness” — resistance to any declines, while rising at the slightest demand-supply imbalance. That conventional wisdom may have been turned on its head by demonetisation. The tendency now is for prices to be increasingly “sticky upward”. The accompanying table (right)...
More »A damaging and mindless act -Prabhat Patnaik
-The Hindu Business Line It was a gratuitous and direct assault on the informal sector by the state The retrospective defence being provided by the Government for its act of suddenly demonetising 86 per cent of the country’s currency is as mindless as the act itself. The main argument for demonetisation that was advanced a year ago was that ‘black money’-holders would not dare to bring their demonetised currency to the banks;...
More »Demonetisation anniversary: Why less cash in itself may not necessarily mean less black money -Sunny Verma
-The Indian Express It can also mean other things such as currency shortage, transaction mode shift. The government has presented a lower cash-to-GDP ratio as a key achievement of demonetisation, and a measure of black money being checked. Economists, however, caution against reading this metric in isolation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last month that the cash-to-GDP ratio is down to 9% after demonetisation, from over 12% earlier. “Was it possible if a...
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