-The Indian Express Latest RBI bulletin projects contraction for a second consecutive quarter, which means the economy is in a ‘technical recession’. What does it mean, and how is it different from a ‘recession’ and a ‘recessionary phase’? In its latest Monthly Bulletin — for November — the Reserve Bank of India has dedicated a chapter on the “State of the economy”. The idea is to provide a monthly snapshot of some...

  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...

-Newsclick.in Offtake from the Public Distribution System is stagnating although there are millions who need more food. Cereal stocks of wheat, rice and coarse grains maintained in the so-called central pool hit an all-time high of 742 lakh tonnes in July this year and in August were only slightly lower at 713 lakh tonnes, according to the department of food and public distribution’s Monthly Bulletin. Compared with 2015, grains stocks have zoomed...

-Livemint.com The trends are perplexing since crop acreages till last week rose by an impressive 3.7 million hectares from the year ago The latest Monthly Bulletin from the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers has a curious table on Kharif season fertilizer sales till August. The data shows that except MoP (muriate of potash), sales of other major fertilizers fell from the year-ago period, deepening the mystery about agriculture inputs sales trends...

The low rate of inflation of 3.88 percent in Consumer Food Price Index during September, 2015 actually hides the high prices at which various pulses (dal) are available in kirana / retail shops across India. In terms of Consumer Price Index (combined), monthly rate of inflation in pulses and products during September 2015 (over September last year) stood at 29.76 percent as compared to the overall monthly retail inflation of...