-Outlook A Tax Holiday is expected to push more farmers to turn entrepreneurial The Budget’s announcement of a five-year Tax Holiday for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) with a turnover of up to Rs 100 crore came as a relief to the thousands of farmers who are members of around 4,000 such companies in the country.  In December 2017, a sizeable number of farmers gathered at a national conference org­anised in Pune were...

-TheWire.in The Modi government’s attempts to reshape the economy lie entirely in the financial realm; they come on the back of concerted efforts to strip workers of legal protection in not just the informal sector, but also the formal. The Narendra Modi government has made two major interventions in the economic sphere, demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), with the ostensible aim of expanding the formal sector at the expense...

-Livemint.com Mere demonetization would not serve the purpose, it would have to be taken in conjunction with other measures to correct systemic faults and not just destruction of cash Most of the country and even foreigners are going gaga over the move by the government to demonetize high-denomination notes. A presumption has been made that they mostly reflect black money or unaccounted wealth. A bold move indeed and there are many who...

-The Hindu The pursuit of full employment of labour cannot primarily rely on domestic private investment, much less FDI. Only public investment will steady us in the long run. We are increasingly told that the inflow of capital — particularly the foreign direct investment (FDI) variety — increases employment levels and contributes to economic growth. In a rare interview given to The Wall Street Journal in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced...

-The Hindu Medicines remain overpriced and unaffordable in India. In a country mired in poverty, medical debt remains the second biggest factor for keeping millions in poverty. The international pharmaceutical industry has found its cash cow in India’s beleaguered consumers. With a minimum wage of Rs.250/day for a government worker, a basic wage worker afflicted with a chronic disease like multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis faces penury. His treatment, with drug combinations, which works out...