-The Hindu Ministry concedes Q1 growth to be hit, bats for expanding vaccination pace. The second COVID-19 wave which is spreading fast beyond the worst-affected districts in the country, could dent economic activity till June this year, and expanding vaccination pace in the country is the “need of the hour”, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. The Ministry also indicated it is not in favour of a national lockdown to curb the pandemic,...

-Livemint.com The health crisis will boost the trend of India’s well-off opting out to create parallel infrastructure On 2 May, the total number of active covid cases in the country crossed 3.4 million. The number was at 5,80,387 on 31 March, implying a jump of around 488% in a little over a month’s time. Unlike the first wave, this time around the well-to-do middle class has also been heavily impacted by the...

-The Hindu The gradual deterioration in Parliament’s functioning has to be stopped if it is to fulfil its constitutional mandate The Budget session of Parliament ended on Thursday, two weeks ahead of the original plan, as many political leaders are busy with campaigning for the forthcoming State Assembly elections. This follows the trend of the last few sessions: the Budget session of 2020 was curtailed ahead of the lockdown imposed following the...

-TheCitizen.in The corporate capital has launched a final assault in its desparate bid to extricate itself from the worst crisis it has encountered. Having swallowed industry, trade and finance, it has now turned its greedy eyes on land and peasantry, along with peoples’ assets in the public sector including public infrastructure and services in health, education and social welfare. Most importantly, it has its gaze fixed on fertile tropical and subtropical land and...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...