-The Hindu The Government needs to stop India’s avalanching slide into a grossly divided society, made worse by the Pandemic On January 17, 2022, Oxfam International presented its annual global “Inequality Report”. Titled Inequality Kills, the report calculated and presented the quantum growth in wealth of a minuscule few, and the simultaneous impoverishment of millions of working people. During the novel coronavirus Pandemic, the report reveals, more than half the world’s new...

-Financial Express With the fertility rate falling below replacement, challenges of higher dependency, burgeoning healthcare and social security needs will emerge. India must mount the necessary policy-response The time has come for India to turn a new leaf on population policy. The country’s fertility rate has already fallen below the replacement level, 2, according to the latest data from the National Family Health Survey, which was largely collected before the nation felt...

-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 30 January, 2022 The stress on the economy became evident, especially in the aftermath of the raging Pandemic from the 7.3% contraction in GDP in 2020-21. The distress faced by poorer households has continued over a period of time with the Pandemic acting as a catalyst in increasing the woes of such households. In a latest round of survey conducted by People’s Research on...

-Newsclick.in India needs a larger government expenditure on transfers to the working people. For such larger expenditure, resources have to be raised through greatly increased taxation of the rich- a reversal of the perverse fiscal strategy the government has pursued so far. The Indian economy is currently caught in a vicious spiral of inflation, stagnation and a widening of the fiscal deficit. And this spiral is set to become even more vicious...

-TheWire.in How did the onset of the Pandemic affect already-struggling budget management, how did the second wave affect the measures taken in Budget 2021-22 and what should we look for in the upcoming Budget? The latest estimates suggest that India’s economic output in 2021-22 is likely to, once again, reach the level it was at in 2019-20. If this happens, the Pandemic would have delayed India’s journey to prosperity by two years....