-The Hindu Business Line The government must simplify and rationalise GST, kickstart rural consumption, revive agriculture and tackle the lack of credit for capital creation, says former PM Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an eminent economist himself, feels that the Narendra Modi-led government needs to come out of its habit of headline management and address the economic challenges which the country is facing today. “We cannot afford to deny that India is facing...

-The Hindu The agenda to set up a development bank is a welcome initiative, but questions remain on its design Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s press conference on August 23, announcing a slew of measures to boost the economy and financial market sentiments, had an interesting idea. It was about setting up a development bank. Ms. Sitharaman said: “In order to improve access to long-term finance, it is proposed to establish an organisation to...

-Scroll.in Democracy requires a national character that isn’t grounded in ignorance and government policy that is not a sophisticated version of Whatsapp. It is now clear – 1,020 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi told India he was wiping out 85% of its currency, by value – that demonetisation was not just a failure but a spectacularly misconceived move. That its destructive effects took at least 100 lives in its immediate aftermath,...

-Newsclick.in Measures announced by the finance minister are mere concessions to industry lobbies and stock market, and don’t address lack of demand. The raft of measures announced by India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for supposedly boosting a sinking economy are unlikely to rescue flagging economic growth and don’t even address the key problems of lack of purchasing power with the people and raging unemployment. It’s rearranging the furniture when the house is...

-The Hindu Attention needs to be paid to both cyclical and structural dimensions of India’s present economic slowdown India’s current economic slowdown is due to a combination of two underlying trends. First, there is the short-run cyclical slowdown exhibited by a number of high-frequency indicators, reflecting a significant fall in demand, especially for sectors such as automobiles, consumer durables and Housing. Second, there is the more serious long-term fall in investment and savings...