-Scroll.in JNU professor Himanshu says the economic slowdown is not the result of a one-off event like demonetisation, the slump began almost two years ago. The economy is in a trough. The first quarter of 2017-2018 saw the growth of gross domestic product (the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year) drop to 5.7% from 7.9% in the corresponding period last year – the...

-Down to Earth MGNREGA budget has declined in real terms over the years, despite claims of “highest ever” allocations In 2004, before India had any legal welfare entitlements for the informal sector, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, was furiously debated in the Parliament and the media. The aim of this legislation was to address the crisis of under employment and unemployment in the rural economy and provide job opportunities through public works...

-PTI Washington: Basu said from 2003 to 2011, India was growing typically over 8 per cent per annum. The year of global crisis, 2008, it dropped briefly to 6.8 per cent, but over 8 per cent growth had become the new norm for India. The downturn in India’s growth is “very worrying”, World Bank’s former chief economist Kaushik Basu said, underscoring that this is the “hefty price” the country had to pay...

-Huffington Post blog A result of dysfunctional municipal planning and governance. The flooding woes of Indian cities have hit the headlines yet again, with Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Agartala being among the worst affected. As for the response to these crises—there is enough evidence to indicate that the patchwork solutions that have been employed will work like steroid shots that might mitigate the issue temporarily, but worsen it in the future. Planning in...

-Scroll.in Because the exercise was doomed to fail in its primary objective of rooting out black money, the government kept changing its aims. We have travelled a long way from November 8, 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi told us that the black money held in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes would become “worthless pieces of paper”. Now, we are told by the finance ministry that the government expected...