-The Telegraph ‘Farmers at mercy of corporates, food security threatened’ Eminent economist, professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and activist Prabhat Patnaik traces the downward and dangerous slide of the Indian economy, from the demonetisation to the new farm bills. * The first onslaught was in the form of the demonetisation. While Amartya Sen termed this step “despotic”, Narendra Modi gushed that there would be no black money after the demonetisation. In the...

Just before Dhanteras and Diwali this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the November edition of its monthly bulletin. The latest RBI Monthly Bulletin says that the GDP has contracted by -8.6 percent in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (i.e. July-September, 2020) as compared to the gross domestic product (GDP) during the corresponding period last year. It may be noted that India’s GDP shrunk by -23.9...

-The Hindu The fundamentals of the game have to change as they currently favour wealthy investors and not workers and tiny enterprises India has an Incomes crisis: Incomes of people in the lower half of the pyramid are too low. The solutions economists propose are: free up markets, improve productivity, and apply technology. These fundamentals of economics must be re-examined when applied to human work. Three solutions Economists say markets should be freed up...

-Down to Earth Creation of unregulated private points of sale will only ensure that the produce continues to be sold as before — at below MSP and without any government support More than 86 per cent farmers in India own or cultivate on less than two acres of land and have little surplus to sell. They are the victims of middlemen (arthiya) at the mandis (local exchange markets) and are forced, by...

-Livemint.com Government data claims that more than 10 million people went home after the lockdown, although experts and civil society groups say the number is much larger. Migrants who went home during the lockdown saw their Incomes drop by as much as 94% and an overwhelming majority of them are ready to return to the cities, a survey by a team of retired government officers and academics found. The survey on covid’s impact...