-Livemint.com Taking into account a likely shortfall in revenue and off-budget spending, the real fiscal deficit could be as high as 5.5% of GDP in the current fiscal Mumbai: As India’s economic slowdown has intensified, so has the debate on whether the government should stick to fiscal consolidation or run a higher deficit to push growth in the upcoming budget, due on 1 February. However, data on revenue available so far suggests that...

-The Hindu Why is the scenario of rising prices and falling growth a cause for worry? Can the government or the Reserve Bank of India do anything? The story so far: The rise in retail price inflation to a nearly six-year high of 7.35% in December has led to increasing worries that the Indian economy may be headed towards stagflation. The current rise in retail inflation has been attributed mainly to the...

-Livemint.com The government’s inordinately large food stockpiles have resulted in an artificial market scarcity On 7 January, the ministry of statistics released India’s advance estimates of national income for 2019-20, pegging the economy’s growth rate this financial year at 5%. Based on data available for the first two quarters, this seems an overestimate. Most indicators suggest that actual growth may be lower than 5%. This is bad news, especially since there is...

-The Indian Express In his blog, S C Garg, former Economic Affairs secretary, has claimed that the actual fiscal deficit for the last financial year and the current one is more than a full percentage point higher than the official data. On the face of it, India’s fiscal deficit, which essentially maps how much money the Indian government has to borrow to make up the gap between its expenditure and its revenues,...

-The Indian Express High inflation reduces room for rate cuts. With limited fiscal space, FM must spell out plans to revive growth. Latest inflation data seems to corroborate fears articulated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its December meeting when it refrained from cutting the benchmark repo rate. Retail inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), has surged to 7.35 per cent in December 2019, up from 5.54 per...