-The Hindu The former Chief Economic Adviser on India’s current slowdown in economic growth and the mix of policies needed to reignite it In a career spanning more than four decades, economist Kaushik Basu has donned many hats. He was Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India (2009-2012) and Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012-2016). At present, he is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies...

  Budgetary allocation to a particular sector indicates how much priority the government assigns to that sector as compared to the rest. A preliminary analysis by the Inclusive Media for Change team indicates that the actual expenditure (net of receipts and recoveries) by two of the country’s most important ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was less than 1 percent...

-The Economic Times The art of good governance is through trial and error, figuring out what works where and how, and scaling up from below. Only then can one have a solid foundation. Aadhaar literally means something that holds (dhaaran: to hold). The word is interpreted either as a foundation or base (such as, to a building), or a container (such as, of water), even though given that it is an identity-verifying...

-The Hindu Many States have initiated ‘reforms’ of the public distribution system that are hurting millions of people India’s public distribution system (PDS) is in danger of being derailed in several States across the country. Recent disruptions of the PDS have taken different forms, from compulsory biometric authentication to so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT). The consequences are alarming, but tend to go unreported. Biometric mix-ups Jharkhand is a prime example of this problem. By...

-Livemint.com Jean Drèze’s new book of essays defends action-oriented research, especially in the field of development economics Designing government policy to eradicate corruption is not easy. As the “demonetization” exercise demonstrated, such earnest endeavours can have big and unintended consequences and they often might not proceed according to plan. Although not concerning itself with demonetization, a new book by economist Jean Drèze delves into the challenges of making public policy for India....