In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...

-Hindustan Times Unfortunately, there is no high frequency income or consumption data for the Indian economy. What we do have is monthly data for rural wages, which is available until June 2019. On Wednesday, media reports said that India’s leading biscuit-maker Parle Products Private Limited could cut up to 10,000 jobs as “slowing economic growth and falling demand in the rural heartland could cause production cuts”. The company’s flagship brand Parle-G...

-PTI The retail price of onion in Delhi ranges between Rs 30 and 40 per kg. The government on Friday said it will sell onion, pulses and edible oil in the open market from its buffer stocks and take immediate action against hoarders creating artificial shortages. The retail price of onion in Delhi ranges between Rs 30 and 40 per kg. The wholesale price in the benchmark Lasalgaon mandi in Maharashtra was recorded...

-The Hindu Attention needs to be paid to both cyclical and structural dimensions of India’s present economic slowdown India’s current economic slowdown is due to a combination of two underlying trends. First, there is the short-run cyclical slowdown exhibited by a number of high-frequency indicators, reflecting a significant fall in demand, especially for sectors such as automobiles, consumer durables and housing. Second, there is the more serious long-term fall in investment and savings...

-The Indian Express Essentially, the ONORC scheme has been launched keeping in mind the internal migration of our country. Last Friday, the government launched the pilot project for the inter-state portability of ration cards between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and between Maharashtra and Gujarat, as part of its ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ scheme. “It is a historic day. We have started off inter-state portability of ration card pairing two states...