-The Hindu As inflation is driven by supply-side factors, tax policy can be used to cushion its impact With the Union Budget 10 days away, many economic observers are now focused on what support the Centre can offer the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Some analysts believe that the government must keep its spending in check to prevent price rise from getting out of control. Retail inflation...

-Down to Earth All that was discussed in the House through the day   More than 150 million households have job cards under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the country as of December 18, 2021, Niranjan Jyoti, minister of state in the rural development ministry, told the Rajya Sabha. Uttar Pradesh had a maximum number of households having job cards (21,125,892) and Goa had a minimum number of households...

One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...

-Article-14.com The government has rubbished the 2021 Global Hunger Index report saying it does not reflect reality. But the reality is worse because it reflects India’s own pre-Covid data. Current estimates of foodgrain to various welfare programmes reveal serious under-nutrition and wide gaps in safety nets for poor. Mumbai: Jolted by the overnight choking of all sources of income for her household with the imposition of a nationwide lockdown on 23 March...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...