-The Hindu An immediate stimulus is needed to regain the momentum to get India back to 8% growth The government’s move this past week to publish economic data for the April to June quarter of this year needs a look. The real growth of GDP, i.e. after removing the impact of inflation, was only 5.7%, much lower than expected. For the past six consecutive quarters, the growth rate has gone down steadily,...

-Livemint.com It is not just the low inflation reported in June which confirms a declining demand but also the macro fundamentals of the economy which belie any optimism of 7%-plus growth The second volume of the Economic Survey was presented on the last day of the monsoon session of Parliament on 11 August, preventing Parliament from holding a discussion on the state of the economy as outlined by the report. The second instalment,...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation: On digital transactions, too, RBI data shows that the volume of electronic payments, after peaking in December 2016 at 957.50 million transactions compared with 671.49 million in November, has been on a decline. New Delhi: When it launched the currency withdrawal in November, the NDA government had outlined four key objectives of the demonetisation exercise: detection of black money, elimination of fake currency, squeezing funds available for...

-The Hindu In contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, spoke triumphantly about how demonetisation drove ?3 lakh crore of unaccounted money into the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still counting old notes, and unaccounted money cases are ongoing. Thus, this number is at best a guesstimate, and cannot be...

-The Hindu Business Line A recent book shows how a cocktail of indebtedness, masculinity and consumerism acts as a trigger. For those who have wondered whether indebtedness can be the sole factor driving farmers to take their lives, here is a book that introduces much needed nuance and complexity to the debate. Nilotpal Kumar’s book, based on a study of 22 suicide cases in Ananthapur district (accompanied by a fascinating ethnographic study...