Just before Dhanteras and Diwali this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the November edition of its monthly bulletin. The latest RBI Monthly Bulletin says that the GDP has contracted by -8.6 percent in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (i.e. July-September, 2020) as compared to the gross domestic product (GDP) during the corresponding period last year. It may be noted that India’s GDP shrunk by -23.9...
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A recipe to tear down trade unions -Gautam Mody
-The Hindu The new labour laws are a brutal attack on workers’ ability to safeguard their rights Labour law ‘reform’ has been on the table since 1991 as every government’s favourite solution for Economic growth. Yet, there was no consensus between governments, political parties, workers and their trade unions, and employers, on what this meant. Unlike other political formations, the BJP has been in unqualified agreement with employers that the existing labour...
More »Is the rural economy driving India’s recovery? -Richard Mahapatra
-Down to Earth Government spending has led to demand growth in rural areas; but what if it comes down? Rural India has emerged as the saviour of the shattered Indian economy. From Ratan Tata to the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, everybody is betting on the consumption demand growth in rural areas to boost the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic-stricken economy. There is a lot of talk on the ‘green shoots’...
More »Can the right to work be made real in India? -G Sampath
-The Hindu It can be made workable if there is political will and fiscal resources As economies around the world struggle to recover from the double whammy of a pandemic and a lockdown, unemployment is soaring. In India, the land of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the promise of jobs and the politics of unemployment have a long history. Can a citizen demand work as a right, and...
More »COVID-19, climate and carbon neutrality -Jairam Ramesh
-The Hindu In the post-COVID-19 world, we should make efforts to ensure that the ‘G’ in GDP is not ‘Gross’ but ‘Green’ History is divided into two periods: Before the Common Era or BCE and Common Era or CE. But given our experience this year, BCE could well stand for Before the COVID-19 Epidemic and CE for the COVID-19 Epidemic. To say that 2020 has been cataclysmic is to state the obvious...
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