-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...

-Hindustan Times India’s obsession with keeping food prices low, even when there’s no inflationary pressure, has long hurt farm Incomes Farming is gloriously uncertain, thanks not just to uncertain weather, but also unpredictable policies. Let’s zoom into the finances of Bhupinder Pal Singh, a horticulturist from Babbain, a village in Haryana, a state that counts itself among the first places where India’s Green Revolution of 1960s began. In good years, Singh would earn...

-Newsclick.in This bounty for corporate houses comes at a time when common people are reeling under a slowdown, joblessness is at record levels and Incomes are stagnating. Continuing her series of press conferences, that are becoming like a treasure hunt for corporates, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced today that corporate tax rates will be slashed from the current 30% (average) to 25.17% including all cess/surcharge. Actually, if no other concession is availed...

-Financial Express We have been hearing the expression ‘Industry 4.0’ ever since the idea of ‘smart factory’ was unveiled in Hannover in April 2013. Many opine ‘Agriculture 4.0’ akin to 4G of telecom. I believe Agriculture 4.0 is “going back to basics, but with technology as its underpinning” to usher in sustainability, in the wake of climate change and degradation of our agricultural ecosystems. We need to re-look at agriculture with...

-CounterCurrents.org The single most important aspect of the Indian economy is its very large black economy. In fact, it impacts not just the economic aspect of society but also its social and political facets. All the macroeconomic variables like, growth rate of the economy, inflation and fiscal policies are affected by the black economy. The microeconomic variables like education, health, drinking water and other services received by the citizens are also...