-The Times of India NEW DELHI: You may soon need to shell out less if you pay digitally. The government is looking at giving a 2% incentive over the applicable GST tax rate in case of digital payments where the bill is up to Rs 2,000, in a move aimed at discouraging cash payments. According to sources, the proposal - which may give the benefit in the form of a discount or...

-The Hindu In contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, spoke triumphantly about how demonetisation drove ?3 lakh crore of unaccounted money into the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still counting old notes, and unaccounted money cases are ongoing. Thus, this number is at best a guesstimate, and cannot be...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's growth juggernaut has started to lose steam. In the mid-year Economic Survey, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian flagged big risks to economic growth and fiscal targets while asserting that the country had entered a "new phase of relatively low, possibly very low, inflation". In the first volume of the survey published in January, the government had forecast GDP growth in the range of 6.75 to 7.5 per cent...

-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...

-Livemint.com Farm loan waivers will strain the finances of states, and harm both farmers and banks over the long run In its policy statement released last week, the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) pointed out that the implementation of farm loan waivers across states could hurt the finances of states and make them throw good money after bad, and stoke inflation. How much of an impact will...