-The Hindu The circumstances under which New Delhi had distanced itself from the RCEP negotiations have hardly improved Last week, 15 East Asian countries agreed to take their economic integration several notches higher by forging the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the largest free trade agreement (FTA) ever. In 2019, RCEP members accounted for about 30% of world output and population and 28% of world trade. But more importantly, about 44% of...

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...

-Newsclick.in Two taxes – inheritance and wealth -- alone, levied only on the top 1% of the population, would be enough to fetch Rs.14.67 lakh crore. It is often believed that the ability to pass on property to one’s progeny is an essential element of capitalism, without which the capitalists’ incentives will dry up and the system will lose its dynamism. Nothing could be further from the truth; indeed the acquisition of...

-ThePrint.in In ‘How To Read Amartya Sen’, Lawrence Hamilton writes on the economist’s thrust on free press and public reasoning as the centre of a democracy. Amartya Sen is very clear that one of the central features of democracies which advance public reasoning in the world is support for a free and independent press. Unrestrained and healthy media are, he argues, important for five main reasons, the first four of which are: 1....

-Down to Earth As the new ordinance seeks curtailment of judicial intervention, the executive faces the real challenge of pushing difficult and inconvenient solutions to clean air President Ramnath Kovind has signed a new ordinance to form a commission for air-Quality management in the National Capital Region (NCR) and adjoining areas. This move, in one sweep, erases all other committees and authorities that were set up under judicial and administrative orders, seeks to...