-The Telegraph Sitharaman spun a narrative, listed some intent but did little to give the economy a much-needed push The nation had swooned over Narendra Modi’s Mazboot Bharat narrative in April-May, giving the BJP a thumping victory in the Lok Sabha polls. The success of the saffron camp in spinning narratives was in full display on Friday when Nirmala Sitharaman rose to present the Union budget 2019-20 that the ruling dispensation in...

-The Hindu It would seem that since the government is unable to catalyse domestic investment or fund public investment, it is now turning abroad to fuel growth Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is mistaken if she thinks her first Budget is going to revive a slowing economy. The economy grew by just 5.8% in real terms in the last quarter of 2018-19. Yet, the Union Budget for 2019-20 assumes that the economy will...

-TheWire.in While Nirmala Sitharaman's maiden budget hit all the right political notes, its fiscal math is far fuzzier. The first budget of the Narendra Modi government 2.0 is very high on political rhetoric around empowering the poorest in ‘New India’, but does not have a clear road map of how a fully-funded welfare state will be sustained without a robust revival in growth, based on the twin engines of investment and consumption...

-The Hindu The rhetoric in the Budget of accelerated, inclusive and sustainable development receives only limited financial backing The general election is over and a new government has been formed. But the campaign does not seem to end. More than an hour of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s maiden Budget speech was largely devoted to underlining what she claimed were the remarkable economic achievements of the previous government. Given that legacy, she presented...

-Livemint.com India’s actual growth rate over the past few years may have been in the range of 5-5.5% over the past few years, according to a new study Last month, a research paper by the former chief economic adviser to the finance ministry, Arvind Subramanian, reignited the controversy surrounding India’s GDP calculations. In his paper, Subramanian suggested that India’s growth rate in recent years had been grossly overestimated --- a claim that...