-Networkideas.org We are economists and social scientists who are deeply concerned about the major implications for the Indian statistical system, of the attempt to combine data collection for the 2021 Census of India with that for the proposed National Population Register. The Census of India, which provides a basic household and population listing based on anonymous data, is an essential requirement for the country and provides the statistical basis for all assessments...

-Livemint.com With no significant spending increase to boost consumption or other major reform, the 2020 budget may lack the firepower to reignite the economy A growth slump, a precarious fiscal position and rising inflation: these are extraordinary times for the Indian economy. Yet in the 2020 Budget, these extraordinary times did not lead to the extraordinary measures so many economists were clamouring for. Like previous budgets under this government, the latest one...

-Livemint.com * There is no such thing as a freebie in economics because ultimately somebody has to bear the cost of the supposedly free giveaways * CAG’s financial audit for 2013-18 concluded that Delhi has no debt sustainability issues as its GSDP grew faster than its public debt The Aam Aadmi Party’s win in the Delhi elections has inspired others to replicate its strategy. The West Bengal government’s last full budget before state...

-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...

-The Hindu ‘Allocation to job-intensive sectors cut’ “Every single number in the Budget is a lie,” Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), said in Mumbai on Sunday of the Union Budget. India’s current slowdown is worse than that of 1991 and 2008, and the Budget has cut allocations to all employment-intensive sectors, further adding to the mess, said Ms. Ghosh, one of the world’s leading development economists. “All the...