-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...

-Hindustan Times With the assembly elections over, one of the big issues which will hog public attention in the coming days is the Jat agitation. Before leaving Delhi after their protests on March 1, the Jats promised to come back on March 20 and convert the city into “Jat land”. Whether they will manage to do that or not only time will tell but the reasons for their anger --- lack...

-The Economic Times The enigma around the GDP growth numbers has compounded, as it understated the impact of demonetisation. Eliminating the dissonance created by large revisions, nominal GDP growth in December quarter may have been impacted by 240 bp and 320 bp on a year-on-year and sequential basis, respectively. The 7 per cent real GDP growth print for Q3FY17 released by the CSO on Tuesday gives an impression that the demonetisation shock...

-The Times of India A striking feature of the poll campaign in Uttarakhand is that neither of the two major political parties have any concrete strategy for a crisis that's haunting nearly half the state's population. Since 2000, when the state was created, foodgrain production has gone down by 6% and land under cultivation by 11%. In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, with similar mountainous terrain, foodgrain output increased by 29% while the country...

-Livemint.com One of the key trends underlying huge concentration of wealth and incomes is the increasing return to capital versus labour Given the demonetisation undertaken by the government in November 2016, the current budget was presented at a historic moment in the Indian economy. To understand the government’s emphasis on the rural economy, we have to understand a key narrative that must influence economic policies in democratic countries. As several governments in developed...