-The Telegraph The last time that India faced a full-year contraction in its real GDP was in 1980 The Indian economy shrank by 23.9 per cent in the first quarter ended June 30, signalling that the road to recovery would be more arduous than most economists have projected. It marks the steepest decline since the National Statistical Office (NSO) started quarterly measurement of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1996. The slide in real GDP...

-Livemint.com The collapse of GDP growth by 23.9% for the Apr to Jun period isn’t a surprise. The economy was under a strict lockdown for most of the time to contain the pandemic. Nevertheless, a little digging throws up interesting trends. Mint takes a look. * What does the GDP figure highlight? One way to measure the GDP is to add private consumption expenditure, government consumption expenditure, Investment and net exports (exports minus...

-The Hindu The World Bank’s decision to halt its annual ‘Doing Business’ report on data authenticity issues has major implications On Thursday, the World Bank halted its annual publication, ‘Doing Business’ report, as it detected irregularities of data for a few countries. A World Bank Press release of August 27 said: “The integrity and impartiality of our data and analysis is paramount and so we are immediately taking the following actions. We...

-The India Forum Nandini Sundar teaches at Delhi University. Gowhar Fazili teaches at Ambedkar University Delhi. Academic freedom is about the right to study, teach and research a diversity of viewpoints. Yet, this right that is so crucial for the pursuit of knowledge has seen widespread attacks in colleges and universities across India. The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 claims it is based on principles that include creativity and critical thinking, constitutional values,...

-The Hindu “While some measures can be taken, several Chinese Investments are quite substantive. It is not possible to fully block them. A worrisome factor is that these Chinese companies have linkages of some sort with the Chinese military,” one government official said on condition of anonymity. Despite the uproar against the use of Chinese products amid the standoff on the border in eastern Ladakh and the government’s decision to ban several...