-Newsclick.in It’s just a parlour trick to disguise financing of government spending that does not appear in the formal Budget. We all know by now, that economic activity in this country has come to a grinding halt. That’s not just bad for our earnings, but also for the Government of India (GoI). Because, when people don’t buy or sell things, or even produce them, the government doesn’t get enough taxes. So, economists...

-Hindustan Times The nature-development equilibrium is broken, leading to climate disasters. At least 100 people have died in floods in three states in peninsular India — Kerala, Karnataka, and Maharashtra — in August due to monsoon floods. There are several reasons, as reported in a series of articles in Hindustan Times, for the havoc and deaths, such as changes in land-use patterns, excessive quarrying and unscientific PLAntations (Kerala), poor management of dams...

In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...

-TheWire.in Instead of giving freebies to the affluent, Sitharaman should have announced additional government spending in MNREGA and PLAns for filling vacancies in government jobs. After holding out for seven weeks, following her maiden budget, Nirmala Sitharaman finally blinked. For about a month now, pink papers and business-friendly pundits had been crying foul about India Inc’s shrinking sales. But, since you can’t sell a sob story about the rich, it was spun to...

-Moneycontrol.com The Rs 35,000 crore biscuit industry has several PLAyers, the top most being the Britannia and Parle, which accounts for 70 percent of the industry’s volume and revenues. Subdued rural growth has begun to show up in the cookies category of eatables, especially your tea-table humble biscuit PLAtes. Reports have emerged that the staple biscuits category like Parle-G has slowed down in rural demand, although similar pains are not visible in...