-Newsclick.in Three transformative steps could dramatically change this dire situation – provided Modi Govt. has the will to take them. Wage growth of households has declined from 8.2% in 2012-2016 to 5.7% in 2017-2021, according to a fresh study by a ratings agency. It will actually be even lower – around 1% - if inflation is taken into account. This slowing down of wage growth has happened in both rural and urban...

-Newsclick.in A finance ministry note has reportedly warned against too much spending on food and other subsidies. The scheme for providing 5 kg food grain to every individual in addition to the subsidised ration given to ration card holders may be finished after September. Called the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), it was started during the first lockdown in April-May 2020 and has been extended every six months. It is...

-The Hindu Policy efforts to formalise the economy will have limited results as the bulk of informal units are petty producers Since 2016, the Government has made several efforts to formalise the economy. Currency demonetisation, introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), digitalisation of financial transactions and enrolment of informal sector workers on numerous government Internet portals are all meant to encourage the formalisation of the economy. But why the impetus...

-NetworkIdeas.org In terms of economic policy, the Modi government must be perhaps the most conservative in the world. During the entire period of the pandemic when millions of people lost their incomes and livelihood support, most governments around the world provided universal cash transfers to the people, but not the Modi government. True, many other third world countries too did not provide such universal cash transfers, but their hands were tied;...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...