-Delhi Solidarity Group Following the ritual, Government of India presented its budget with much fanfare, claiming it to be pro-Poor, but the larger question that looms is whether it will really change the lives of the marginalized sections of the society. For a country like India which is ‘democratic, socialist, sovereign, republic’ working towards the ‘welfare’ of its citizens, one, either out of innocence or honest belief, tend to assume that...

-India Water Portal Tamil Nadu continues to witness cycles of flood and drought annually. Mismanagement of traditional water management systems is one of the main reasons. That Tamil Nadu qualifies to be dubbed as a land of climate paradoxes is beyond debate. The massive flood of 2015 was quickly followed by a punishing drought in 2016. Though the state benefited marginally from the south-west monsoon, as is usually the case, the biggest...

-Livemint.com While higher production of foodgrains may help better the agriculture growth rate of 4.1% estimated last month, a record crop will also help keep food inflation in check New Delhi: Farmers in India have planted the highest ever area under wheat and pulses in the ongoing winter crop season, raising hopes of a bumper crop in 2016-17, surpassing past records. While higher production of foodgrains may help better the agriculture growth...

-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...

-Livemint.com One of the key trends underlying huge concentration of wealth and incomes is the increasing return to capital versus labour Given the demonetisation undertaken by the government in November 2016, the current budget was presented at a historic moment in the Indian economy. To understand the government’s emphasis on the rural economy, we have to understand a key narrative that must influence economic policies in democratic countries. As several governments in developed...