-The Telegraph Hands-off RBI cuts forecast The Reserve Bank of India’s policymakers shocked economists, industry and the Street by deciding to hit the pause button on interest rate cuts after five downward revisions this year. The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) of the central bank also slashed its growth forecast for this financial year to 5 per cent from 6.1 per cent at the October meeting. The decision to retain the policy rate —...

-The Telegraph Refusal to face up to economic problems will tarnish India’s reputation as an economy and a democracy The Narendra Modi-led government has done it again. The Centre has scrapped the all-India survey on household consumption expenditure conducted by the then National Sample Survey Office. A few months ago, the government had refused to make public the official survey conducted on employment in India. There was considerable pressure exerted by economists...

-The Indian Express Government data always come with limitations. Now, they have a political dimension A new data-related controversy has erupted after the government aborted the publication of the report of the household consumer expenditure survey (CES) conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) during 2017-18. This survey is one of the oldest series of surveys — undertaken by NSSO since the 1950s — and is the precursor to the...

-Financial Express economists see no V-shaped recovery after Q2, say any spending cut will hit growth. The economy may be in the midst of a protracted phase of slowdown and the weakness could stretch into the next fiscal, as green shoots of a recovery in key indicators — from industrial production, exports and corporate sales to non-food credit growth — are barely visible. economists, who were earlier optimistic about a rebound in the...

-The Indian Express It is crucial for young girls to have female mentors because research shows that it encourages them to persevere ahead, despite difficulties. The person who convinced me to do a PhD in economics was Abhijit Banerjee of MIT, when I worked with him on one of the first randomised controlled trials in the field of economics in the late 1990s. During my PhD, I had the good fortune...