-The Indian Express The ongoing price recovery in major crops is in danger of being stymied by knee-jerk government response. A lot of analyst commentary on the latest quarterly GDP numbers for India has focused on the low growth in “nominal” terms: Gross value added (GVA) at current prices grew by just 6.3% year-on-year in July-September and 7.1% for April-September. If this first-half trend holds for the rest of 2019-20, it would...
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Dr. Surjit S Bhalla, economist and Executive Director for India on the board of International Monetary Fund (IMF), interviewed by Richa Mishra (The Hindu Business Line)
-The Hindu Business Line “Join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), but do not ignore your internal market and demand. Ninety per cent of our bad export story is domestic challenges, 10 per cent is external environment or external policy,” says Economist Surjit S Bhalla. Seventy-one-year old Bhalla has a tough task ahead — to make New Delhi’s voice louder at the international forums as he is set to take charge...
More »Towards true unnati, and ending MGNREGA
-Financial Express The government’s proposed Unnati scheme, if it works as planned, offers MGNREGA beneficiaries a ticket out of the programme, and, in the long run, out of poverty. It has been clear for a long time that MGNREGA is barely the poverty reduction tool it is often made out to be; at Rs 204 per day per person, the average wage rate across the country is too low to sustain a...
More »Strengthening MGNREGA for reviving the economy -Surajit Das
-Newsclick.in Even if the wage rates under MGNREGA are doubled and if jobs are provided for at least 100 days in a year as per the law, the extra expenditure would not exceed 1% of GDP. The growth rate is slowing down in India neither because of lower productivity of the labourers or that of the land, nor because of shortage of labour or productive capacity, but because of the lack of...
More »A difficult time for the economy -Renu Kohli
-The Telegraph It must be ensured that growth does not slide down further Economic news has been increasingly dismal for some time. The decline in economic activities since January-March 2018 accelerated this year, gathering pace in recent months and prompting concern it could turn into a recession. Some commentators argue the economy is in a recession; others disagree, saying growth is decelerating. Since recessions are defined as periods of negative real gross...
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