-The Hindu The slowdown in private investments is visible chiefly in the informal sector, not the corporate sector It is now well recognised that there is an investment slowdown in India, which is delaying a full-blooded recovery in the economy. Private investments, the principle engine of growth, are out of steam. The fall is so severe that it has more than offset the government’s macroeconomic stimulus of increased public investments. The slowdown started...

-TheWire.in India’s jump in the ‘Doing Business’ rankings turns out to be mostly an “artefact of methodological changes”, according to a report by the Centre for Global Development. New Delhi: The Centre for Global Development (CDG), a US-based think-tank that studies global poverty and inequality, has dismissed India’s spectacular jump on the World Bank’s latest ease of doing business index as misleading, saying it is largely due to changes in the methodology...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Union Budget 2018-19 is the fifth and the final full-year budget of the current ruling dispensation. The major plank on which this government was elected in 2014 with an exceptional mandate were issues of development related to reducing corruption, generating meaningful employment opportunities, tackling inflation (especially food inflation, an issue plaguing the economy at that point of time), reducing inequality, and pushing the economy...

-TheWire.in The finance minister has made a big announcement on minimum support price, but he should make it clear whether all he is promising is to take the prices back to the UPA-II levels. The government has done it again. Like last year, there has been much hype about a pro-farmer Budget, but in actuality it rests on misleading claims which don’t address the farming crisis. Last year, the agriculture credit target...

-Scroll.in Subramanian’s document says 1.8 million taxpayers have been added to the net, but most are just at the Rs2.5 lakh threshold. The Reserve Bank of India’s report in 2017 confirming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation decision resulted in almost all of the withdrawn notes being returned prompted the government to look for other indicators as proof that the effort had not been a waste. One of those was supposed to...