-Hindustan Times The key to this problem lies in the way political and electoral financing are conducted in this country The stranglehold of political parties on the electoral and political system continues to increase with time. The anti-defection law, passed in 1985, formalised the control of political parties even on Parliament. Despite a large number of candidates on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), the candidates with a realistic chance of getting elected...

-The Hindu The GST’s faulty design has prevented the economy from benefiting fully from the Indirect Tax regime A year ago, at a special midnight session in Parliament, the launch of the goods and services tax (GST) was heralded as the new freedom. A year on, what has the GST achieved? ? One should not expect instant results. There will be many short comings when a complex reform is rolled out. But...

-The Indian Express Aggregate revenues have done well, despite headwinds, especially for less developed, consuming states One fiscal year into the implementation of the GST, it is worth asking how it has performed in terms of revenue generation both for the country and for individual states. And here the news, based on analysing nine full months of data, is encouraging. Three important and new points stand out. One, aggregate revenues are highly buoyant....

The country’s agrarian sector in the last financial year expanded at almost half the rate at which it grew in 2016-17, shows the recently released provisional estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). As compared to a growth rate of 6.3 percent witnessed in 2016-17, the growth rate in real Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agrarian sector (i.e., increase in agricultural GVA after neutralizing the effect of price inflation)...

-Business Standard India studied the Malaysian model before implementing the GST and borrowed the anti-profiteering clause to ensure GST benefits are passed on to the end-consumer by the industry New Delhi: Malaysia deciding to scrap the goods and services tax (GST) on Wednesday, three years after its roll-out, may prompt India to tread with caution over the next few years to stabilise the new Indirect Tax regime implemented in July last year. Although...