-TheWire.in Instead of giving freebies to the affluent, Sitharaman should have announced additional government spending in MNREGA and plans for filling vacancies in government jobs. After holding out for seven weeks, following her maiden budget, Nirmala Sitharaman finally blinked. For about a month now, pink papers and business-friendly pundits had been crying foul about India Inc’s shrinking sales. But, since you can’t sell a sob story about the rich, it was spun to...

-Business Standard Aiming for unachievable growth rates would compound past errors. The economy has to lower its sights, and do some hard thinking about how to come out of the present hole, writes T N Ninan There is a general sense that the economic growth problem came upon us suddenly in the last few months. In some ways, it did — for example, through the continuing fallout of the collapse 11 months...

-PTI Job cuts may affect technical staff too, says dealers’ association Around two lakh jobs have been laid off across automobile dealerships in the country in the last three months as vehicle retailers attempt to tide over the impact of the unprecedented sales slump, according to industry body FADA. With no immediate signs of recovery, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) fears that the job cuts may continue with more showrooms being...

-The Economic Times January-March quarter growth may have slumped to 6-6.3% against 6.6% expansion in the preceding one. NEW DELHI: India’s economic growth is likely to have slipped below 7% in FY19, the lowest in the past five years, because of a disappointing fourth quarter. That could prompt a further cut in interest rates by the central bank and renewed efforts by the incoming government to drum up demand and private investment,...

-The Hindu Slowdown has widened across sectors; the new government must hit the ground running A welter of data collectively and individually point to one worrying conclusion: economic momentum across sectors is slowing in the widening absence of that key ingredient, demand. Domestic sales of cars, commercial vehicles and two wheelers all contracted in April, from a year earlier, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has reported. The decline of almost...