“States should ensure effective public distribution system” Fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent of GDP a challenge Dip in exports due to low demand following economic downturn in foreign markets Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said increasing food grains productivity, ensuring effective distribution of subsidised essentials to vulnerable groups and allowing duty-free import were some of the steps taken to control the spiralling prices of essential commodities. Speaking at the 109th...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Receding hopes
The World Trade Organisation’s seventh ministerial meeting held earlier this month at Geneva ended without anything substantial to show. But then the meeting was not meant to be “a substantive negotiating round.” It did not face the kind of controversies that marred previous ministerial meetings at Seattle (1999) and Cancun (2003), which collapsed amidst intense acrimony. At Geneva, trade ministers were given an agenda that deliberately skirted the subst antive...
More »Moving from crossroads
The Union finance ministry’s mid-year fiscal Review, tabled in Parliament last week, notes very correctly that the “current period represents a crossroads for the Indian economy”. Having weathered the global economic downturn, the Indian economy has performed better than expected. Hence, the Review’s upbeat tone is understandable. Yet, the Review offers an honest account of the challenges ahead, hence the view that India is at a crossroads. Much of the...
More »The Great Stabilisation
The recession was less calamitous than many feared. Its aftermath will be more dangerous than many expect IT HAS become known as the “Great Recession”, the year in which the global economy suffered its deepest slump since the second world war. But an equally apt name would be the “Great Stabilisation”. For 2009 was extraordinary not just for how output fell, but for how a catastrophe was averted. Twelve months ago,...
More »Built on illusion by Jayati Ghosh
The collapse of the Dubai dream is not without any implications; it may be an indication that the travails of finance capitalism are not over. GLOBAL capitalism is in a phase in which it must deal with the fruits of the overextension during the previous boom, and there is no doubt that this is going to be painful. The financial crisis in the United States and some other developed countries...
More »