-The Hindu In a year of economic slowdown and growing inequality, we have been presented with a stingy Budget that fails to ensure the bare necessities for all While the country continues to grapple with the health and economic crisis as a result of COVID-19, widespread hunger and food insecurity is a silent emergency that has not been getting sufficient attention. Unfortunately, the Union Budget also does not include any significant measures...

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 Indian Express To achieve economic growth of 7-8 per cent, the government needs to start addressing some of the traditional sore points such as the large infrastructure deficit, the weak financial sector, archaic land and labour laws, and the administrative and judicial hurdles. India entered the pandemic with declining growth and limited scope for a conventional and large fiscal stimulus. We had noted in an article (IE, January 20, ‘Limited scope...

-Newsclick.in ‘It is upon the Department of Food & Public Distribution to give the green signal to the FCI for releasing approximately two million tons of rice which has been earmarked for producing ethanol…’ a senior official from the petroleum ministry told NewsClick. New Delhi: Not only has the Central Government’s decision to use surplus rice stocks in the country for producing ethanol, been criticised for being done at a time when...

-The Telegraph The large-scale unemployment the pandemic was set to cause would cost workers between $860 billion and $3.4 trillion in income losses Several workers’ organisations have demanded a special package to tide workers over the income slump entailed by coronavirus-induced social distancing and economic slowdown, at a time the International Labour Organisation has predicted a loss of 25 million jobs globally. An initial assessment by the ILO said the impact could be...