-Newsclick.in The poor, salaried, businesspersons -- all are unhappy. For, the underlying macroeconomics is wrong – the finance minister is trying to solve the aggregate demand problem by supply-side economics. The annual budget of the Union government was placed in Parliament on the February 1, 2020. In the very beginning of her second budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned that “this is the Budget to boost their (people of India) incomes...

-Down to Earth This comes even as rural India is suffering its worst unemployment crisis in 45 years The Union government slashed budgetary allocation for its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Act (MGNREGA) in the Budget 2020-21, at a time when rural India is facing all sorts of crises including rising food bills and highest unemployment in the last five decades MGNREGA guarantees at least 100 days of employment to adults...

-Press released by All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) dated 1st February, 2020 Delhi, February 1st 2020: Budget fails to increase rural demand and purchasing power which would have boosted the economy - instead, the Budget only boosts the profits of big corporates and MNCs, said AIKSCC. When the crying need in India’s economy is to increase the demand and purchasing power in rural areas, and hence rural incomes, the...

-The Indian Express Boosting consumption by leaving people with higher disposable incomes is the key strategy The fine print of the Union Budget for 2020-21 notwithstanding, the central strategy of the government seems to be to boost the disposable incomes of the Indian consumers. * What was the problem slowing down the economy? Typically, there are four engines of GDP (gross domestic product) growth. These are as follows: Consumption of the private individuals (or...

  A recent report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) brings forth the dichotomy between digital divide and India’s transition towards a cashless economy. The rural-urban divide in access to computer and internet is quite stark, according to the report entitled 'Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, July 2017 to June 2018'.   The 75th round National Sample Survey (NSS) report on education finds that...