-The Financial Express The BJP's resounding Lok Sabha victory after years of policy paralysis raised a widely-shared hope that the government, led by PM Narendra Modi, will put India back on track by resuming inclusive growth. And that agriculture and rural development would be at the centre of the agenda. Half the employment still comes from agriculture, though it contributes just 14% to the GDP. India contains the largest number of...
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Inflation down, but pinch is back as two indices tell different tales -Zia Haq
-Hindustan Times Sharmilla Dar, a government schoolteacher in east Delhi, is irritated about a sudden surge in vegetable prices in the last week after they had cooled considerably since a year ago. "Why can't the government keep things affordable?" she asks. For middle-class consumers, food inflation worries are creeping back in. The farm sector is hurting badly after a full year of unprecedented weather havocs - from a partial drought last summer...
More »So Richie Rich? Have Another One On Us -P Sainath
-Outlook Corporate karza maafi reaches new heights, social spending new lows This year's budget write-off in customs duty on gold, diamonds and jewellery (all aam aadmi items, of course) is Rs 75,592 crore. That's well over twice the "record" amount allocated to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As Prof Jayati Ghosh points out, the MNREGA has given billions of person-days of work to tens of millions of poor...
More »The developing story -Sukumar Muralidharan
-The Hindu Business Line Will the growth-versus-distribution debate finally be settled in favour of the former? There are few areas of settled concord in economic theory. That the dynamic of power is often determinant in the limited enclaves of consent has been evident in recent times in the growth-versus-distribution debate. Residual doubts about the tilt of current policy were laid to rest with the Economic Survey for 2014-15. In this assessment of the...
More »A sketchy road map for health policy -Nidhi Khurana
-The Hindu Much of the National Health Policy document reads like a report of health issues and systemic challenges, and is sorely wanting on policy detail Health impoverishment - falling into poverty due to health care costs - affects 63 million individuals in India every year. This is a damning statistic, especially when read with the fact that 18 per cent of all households face catastrophic health expenditures (health expenditure greater than...
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