-Hindustan Times Don’t bank on V-shaped recovery. The Centre must discard dogmas, enhance investment News of a contraction of almost 24% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of this year would have come as a shock to every responsible citizen. The degree of contraction exceeds that in any major world economy. This is not surprising as India combined the world’s most stringent lockdown with the weakest Economic Stimulus. For...

-The Indian Express To achieve economic growth of 7-8 per cent, the government needs to start addressing some of the traditional sore points such as the large infrastructure deficit, the weak financial sector, archaic land and labour laws, and the administrative and judicial hurdles. India entered the pandemic with declining growth and limited scope for a conventional and large fiscal stimulus. We had noted in an article (IE, January 20, ‘Limited scope...

-The Hindu The relief measures do not seem to be commensurate with the economic disruption caused by the lockdown How does India compare in the quantity and quality of its COVID-19 response to other developing countries? Here we extend our earlier analysis of India’s fiscal response (The Hindu online, “India must enhance fiscal support for COVID-19 relief and rebuilding”, April 18, 2020) drawing on the International Monetary Fund Policy Tracker, the COVID-19...

-IndiaSpend.com Bengaluru: Global economic output is expected to contract by 4.9% in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. India announced a lockdown on March 24, 2020, which was extended over two months, and continues in pockets of states depending on the spread of the disease, which has now infected more than half a million people in the country. The lockdown impacted millions of inter-state migrant workers who form the bulwark of India’s...

-Down to Earth Distress among marginal farmers and unavailability of food to migrant labourers has been largely ignored in Union government’s Economic Stimulus   Agriculture and allied activities are considered ‘essential’ and officially face no restriction to harvest and supply to the market, even in the middle of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. But an agrarian crisis stemming from systemic failures needs to be considered for immediate policy response. The current distress...