-The Times of India Former economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das , who played a key role during the demonetisation drive, spoke to TOI's Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta, four months after retiring from service in May. He says he does not agree with the criticism that implementation of demonetisation had serious shortcomings. Excerpts: * What is your assessment on the state of the Economy. The macroeconomic parameters, except the growth figures which are down...

-The Indian Express To suggest that demonetisation improved rural wages on the basis of rise in income of some workers is misleading. It halted the recovery of the rural Economy. which had begun after the 2016 monsoon. There is now a consensus that the Economy.has been slowing down and is headed for a hard landing. Many who matter have spoken out and as Yashwant Sinha points out (‘I need to speak...

-The Financial Express Indian agriculture’s reliance on monsoon rainfall has reduced considerably over the last few years thanks to the increase in area irrigated, although there are still pockets — particularly in east and central India — where rains still are a decisive determinant of crop. Key grain-producing states Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have most of the cropped areas under irrigation coverage (see table). Unless...

-The Indian Express The Indian Express points to spreading employment distress in a market where fresh hiring opportunities are increasingly limited. TEXTILE to capital goods, banking to I-T, start-ups to energy, the Economy.rsquo;s downward spiral is leaving a trail of job losses across both old and new Economy. sectors. In the near absence of consolidated employment numbers, disaggregated data collated from across these sectors by The Indian Express points to spreading employment distress...

-The Hindu Business Line Beneficiaries under DBT rise by only 2 crore, value of transactions by Rs. 443 crore New Delhi: The ambitious direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme now covers more than 300 Central schemes, but despite the significant increase in its scope, the number of government beneficiaries and the value of transactions seem to be plateauing. Between August this year and the last, the number of DBT beneficiaries increased by only 2...