-Livemint.com Roots of disagreement lie in how farm support is calculated under WTO, with US blaming India for under-reporting subsidy given for wheat and rice Bengaluru: Farm subsidies seem to have become a major flashpoint in the escalating global trade war. In May, India came under attack from the US for its minimum support price (MSP) policy for foodgrain. India hit back, along with China, to demand that developed nations give up...

-The Hindu India’s GDP growth continues to be powered by consumption, not investments A question being raised about the GDP estimates for the first quarter of this year (April-June) is: How should 8.2% GDP growth be interpreted in, or reconciled with, the overall context of some of the pronounced trends in the economy? These include the depreciating rupee, rising bank bad loans, or non-performing assets (NPAs), a trade deficit that has shot...

-TheWire.in The new series GDP data has been mostly replaced with corporate financial data for estimating manufacturing value-added, resulting in manufacturing assuming a higher share in India’s GDP and growing at a faster rate compared to the older series. New Delhi: Does the new method by which India calculates GDP (gross domestic product) data overestimate manufacturing output? This apprehension has been flagged by a key member of the Reserve Bank of India’s...

-Livemint.com Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, whose report on Western Ghats was rejected by the Kerala government, on what caused the Kerala floods and how the rebuilding process should be carried out Ernakulam (Kerala): Submitted seven years ago on 31 August 2011, ecologist Madhav Gadgil’s report on the biodiverse Western Ghats—a portion of which falls in Kerala—had warned that the combination of massive ecological destruction and extreme weather events trigger disaster. His words proved...

-The Hindu The former Chief Statistician on calculating GDP back series, on indicators of development, and the fall of the rupee The draft of the back series GDP data, which was made public by the government recently, is unlikely to change drastically even if other methods of calculation are used, says former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen. The noted economist discusses GDP, employment and poverty data; the value of the rupee;...