-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...

-The Indian Express "There is no question of PM’s speech...if PM says March 31, 2017 but the law says December 30, 2016, the law will prevail over the PM. Let’s be clear about that first," the A-G submitted before a bench led by Chief Justice of India J S Khehar The Central government’s top law officer, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, told Supreme Court Tuesday that the “law will prevail over” Prime Minister...

-IndiaSpend This puts in peril the government's target to achieve 25 billion digital transactions in 2017-18 The value of digital transactions nationwide declined marginally (1.5%) to Rs 92.6 lakh crore ($1.4 trillion) in February 2017 from Rs 94 lakh crore in November 2016 ($1.42 trillion), according to representative data (provisional) on electronic payments released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The data do not cover all transactions across all banks. But, card...

-Livemint.com The focus should be more on making the prime minister’s crop insurance scheme a success than demanding farm loans waivers from banks Last week, the Indian National Congress at the Maharashtra assembly submitted a breach of privilege notice against State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya for “insulting farmers and the House” by her remarks on farm loan waiver. The leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil,...

-eSocialSciences.org The analysis in this paper suggests that demonetisation has impacted various sectors of the economy in varying degrees; however, in the affected sectors, the adverse impact was transient and felt mainly in November and December 2016. The impact moderated significantly in January 2017 and dissipated by and large by mid-February, reflecting the fast pace of remonetisation. The latest CSO estimates suggest that the impact of demonetisation on GVA growth was...