-Livemint.com The Union government has finally stepped on the gas when it comes to spending. But after a temporary splurge in the rest of this fiscal year, the finance ministry will tighten its purse strings to bring down debt levels, the budget numbers suggest Even as countries across the world raised spending aggressively to counter the economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic, India had remained an outlier. Throughout the pandemic, the finance...

-The Indian Express Budget needs to ramp up spending on health and education. Pandemic has enhanced inequalities, shown up absence of safety nets. India is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and social sector development is important in reaching them. Progress in this sector has intrinsic (for its own sake) and instrumental (for higher growth) value. It is needed even to build a $5 trillion economy faster. Inequalities...

-The Hindu “Economic conditions continued to improve through November on the back of the uptick in agriculture and manufacturing,” RBI officials say in an article in the central bank’s monthly bulletin. There is now more evidence to show that the Indian economy “is pulling out of COVID-19’s deep abyss and is reflating” at a pace that beats most predictions, RBI officials, including Deputy Governor Michael Patra, said in an article in the...

-The Hindu Policymakers need to focus on the larger picture with steps being taken to reclaim the space under public care India’s health care is a dark echo chamber. It is 70% private and 30% public in a country where 80% people do not have any protection for health and the out-of-pocket expense is as high as 62%. With public spending at 1.13% of GDP and a huge shortage of health-care workers...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...