-The Indian Express The enhancement of state powers without control or transparency is not being done against our wishes The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the...

-Caravan Magazine Arun Kumar is an eminent economist WHO has been studying the black economy in India for close to four decades. His 1999 book The Black Economy in India is among the foremost accounts of the black-money problem in the country. In Understanding the Black Economy and Black Money in India: An Enquiry into Causes, Consequences and Remedies, released in February 2017, Kumar discusses the misconceptions around black money, the...

-TheWire.in Were the budget estimates for corporation and income taxes in 2016-17 a good coincidence or were they supposed to have been be qualified with a note? New Delhi: For the first time in at least ten years, the budget estimates (BE) of India’s corporate tax and income tax revenue receipts have exactly matched their corresponding revised estimates (RE) – give or take a couple of decimal points. A key part of every...

-NDTV The "highest ever allocation" to NREGA (which also led to it trending on Twitter)  in the Union Budget has provided a useful opportunity to raise some pressing issues related to the implementation of the scheme. It is natural, and welcome, that the government turn to NREGA to provide much-needed relief to those WHOse already precarious lives have been disrupted by demonetization, a man-made economic disaster. Widespread reports of job losses...

-Livemint.com On demonetisation’s impact on the agriculture sector, the Economic Survey said higher winter plantings may not necessarily lead to higher production New Delhi: India’s farm sector is entwined in regulation and is a living legacy of the socialist era, the Economic Survey released on Tuesday said, criticizing curbs on marketing of agriculture produce and imposition of stock limits on traders. “While progress has been made in the last two years, producers (farmers)...