-The Hindu The reduction of out-of-pocket expenditure that the NHA highlights is essentially due to a decline in utilisation of care Low public spending on health in India has meant that people depend heavily on their own means to access health care. It causes rich-poor, rural-urban, gender and caste-based divides in access to health care, pushes people to poverty, and forces them to incur debt or sell assets. As a result, our...

-TelanganaToday.in Pvt consumption and investment (90% of GDP) have shrunk 35% and revised numbers could present a scarier picture On 31st August, the National Statistical Office (NSO) came out with the provisional estimate of the GDP. According to this, the GDP shrunk by 23.9% during April, May and June as compared with the first quarter of the last financial year (2019-20). Aggregate private final consumption expenditure contracted 26.7% and investment (including gross...

-The Telegraph Refusal to face up to economic problems will tarnish India’s reputation as an economy and a democracy The Narendra Modi-led government has done it again. The Centre has scrapped the all-India survey on household consumption expenditure conducted by the then National Sample Survey Office. A few months ago, the government had refused to make public the official survey conducted on employment in India. There was considerable pressure exerted by economists...

-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...

  Is it the case that the global economic downturn instead of shrinking domestic demand has affected our economy more? If the aforesaid statement is true, then ideally the trade related data should indicate improvement in our imports and deceleration in the country's exports. However, that is not the case and we get a mixed picture.   A press release by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry dated 13th September, 2019 shows...