-The Hindu Aadhaar link for registration proposed Panaji: From October 1, taking the family for a holiday is set to become a more economical affair, but the consumption of energy drinks will become more expensive, following a marathon meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council that lasted nearly nine hours on September 20.   While the tax rates were tweaked up or down for several goods and services, the Council left...

-The Indian Express Net direct tax collections during April 1-September 15 grew just 5% to Rs 4.4 lakh crore — against year’s target 17.3%. This below-than-expected growth in direct tax collections will muddy the government’s fiscal math The impact of a slowing economy is showing up in government revenues with net direct tax collections in the first five-and-a-half months of 2019-20 making up just a third of the full-year target. Net direct...

-Newsclick.in Measures announced by the finance minister are mere concessions to industry lobbies and stock market, and don’t address lack of demand. The raft of measures announced by India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for supposedly boosting a sinking economy are unlikely to rescue flagging economic growth and don’t even address the key problems of lack of purchasing power with the people and raging unemployment. It’s rearranging the furniture when the house is...

-The Hindu The former Chief Statistician on calculating GDP back series, on indicators of development, and the fall of the rupee The draft of the back series GDP data, which was made public by the government recently, is unlikely to change drastically even if other methods of calculation are used, says former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen. The noted economist discusses GDP, employment and poverty data; the value of the rupee;...

-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....