-Hindustan Times Traditionally, Union budgets have mattered for people at large because of two reasons: prices of goods and income tax rates.There is some merit in the argument that inflation is a bigger dampener on economic sentiment in India than low growth rates There is some merit in the argument that inflation is a bigger dampener on economic sentiment in India than low growth rates. Traditionally, Union budgets have mattered for people...

-TheWire.in Today, fuel prices are at an all-time high. Once the genie of inflation is out of the bottle, as it does once in a decade or so, no amount of narrative spinning by the Modi government will work. This year is likely to herald the return of global inflation in ways not seen in the past 20 years. We have witnessed inflation remaining rather subdued from the beginning of this century....

-Hindustan Times Gross domestic product (GDP) statistics are released at both current and constant prices. The latter discounts inflation (more on this later) from the base year of the current GDP series. Let’s assume it takes a tonne of steel to build half a kilometre of road. Let’s also assume steel costs ₹1,000 a tonne and there is a tax of 10% on steel. Now, if steel prices doubled in a year,...

-Hindustan Times The Wholesale Price Index (WPI), which acts as a proxy for producer prices, grew 14.23% in November, the highest since April 2012, the earliest period for which WPI data is available under the current series. Retail inflation in India rose 4.91% in November compared with a year ago. The rise was far from unprecedented. And of the 119 months for which data is available under the latest series of Consumer...

-The Hindu Business Line It’s in India’s own interest to phase out free supply electricity and water and focus on productivity boosting infrastructure The macroeconomic impact of MSP has been neglected in the current debate. It worked, over the years, as a push keeping Indian inflation high. The short-term rise in farmer incomes it delivered was soon eroded, leading to another rise and so on. In recent years it has led India to...