The same hubris that characterised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s premature declaration of victory over the pandemic last year is at play now in the declaration that an economic recovery is under way.

The creative sector, which holds immense potential for employment generation and a healthier, happier population, suffered a body blow during the pandemic. A new report by British Council and Art X company takes stock of the damage.

The Rs.2000 currency notes introduced at the time of the 2016 demonetisation are hardly seen anymore, and there are concerns whether they are being used to hoard black money.

The People’s Commission report cautions the government against privatisation, as it will find it difficult to deliver on the future challenges emerging on various fronts.

Interview with Aakar Patel, author of ‘Price of the Modi Years’.

The government’s jubilation over the ‘economic recovery’ hides the bitter reality of persisting low wages and poverty among a large section of the people.

Interview with Prof. T.V. Sekher, head of the Department of Family and Generations at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS).

The latest NFHS findings point to many areas that need improvement, but the Central government decides to give the whole report a positive spin, underplaying the harsh realities.

The COVID-induced devastation and the state’s tepid response have enhanced the severity of the current economic crisis and official claims of a V-shaped recovery amount to mere wishful thinking.

The cumulative effect of the Modi government’s flawed policies and the unfair tax burden have sent millions into unemployment, truncated the small and medium industry, and sapped vitality out of India’s working classes.

The RBI’s proposal to loosen regulations for private lenders in the microfinance space will have disastrous consequences for the poor, especially women in rural areas.

The Modi government’s move to privatise a public sector general insurance company, threatens to undo years of progress that nationalisation initiated 50 years ago.

The Tamil Nadu government wins all-round praise for setting up a well-balanced council of eminent minds to guide it in the path to economic recovery.

The euphoria with which the Budget was received petered out upon close examination of it. Instead, it is a disappointment because it fails to address the multiple crises facing the nation.

The budget reveals a shocking collapse of the Railways’ revenues and shows that no significant investments are likely to be initiated to build its neglected infrastructure.

The Budget shows no commitment to agricultural growth or farmers’ welfare. Against the background of the raging farmers’ agitation, this is only likely to widen the government’s trust deficit with farmers.

The Union Budget 2020-21 is biased in favour of those who were spared the worst effects of the pandemic and imposes even more burdens on those whose lives were ravaged by it.

Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget for 2021-22 is aggressively tilted in favour of the privileged and denies succour to those worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It marks a significant point in the journey of liberalisation in India.

By forcing SBI to take over Yes Bank, the government and the Reserve Bank of India appear to have abdicated their responsibility to ensure the systemic safety of the Indian banking system.

The Economic Survey recalls the Chinese success in industrial development and advocates a strategic focus on manufacturing but pays little attention to the role of the state in China’s industrial development.

The Finance Minister’s Budget speech signalled a possible transformation of Indian finance where the private sector is called upon to play an increasingly larger role.

The Narendra Modi regime appears to have perfected the art of subterfuge in Budget making, robbing it of its importance as an exercise in economic accountability in a democratic polity.

The Budget lacks any serious effort to address the main issues of unemployment, agrarian distress and falling incomes, revealing a high level of official insensitivity.

The Economic Survey for 2019-20 has little to offer on the ongoing economic crisis and reflects the government’s scant regard for either economic statistics or method.

THE Union Budget for 2020-21, presented in Parliament by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is as much of a non-budget as the one she presente

The Union Budget’s focus on the Indian Railways is cursory. An exercise in obfuscation, it reveals utter neglect of India’s largest enterprise.

The Finance Minister’s announcement of the intention to sell a part of the government’s “stake” in LIC, India’s largest financial institution, sparks outrage among millions of policy holders.

Going by the data put out by the RBI and other government agencies, the present slowdown is not a “soft patch”, not even “cyclical”, but substantially “structural”, mostly because of wrong policies, including demonetisation.

As the euphoria over India’s latest Nobel Prize win subsides, it is time to question the validity of randomised control trials advocated by the prize winners as the gold standard in the fight against poverty.

Ideal fiscal federalism in a market-driven economy calls for reassigning all the commodity taxes to States and effecting equalisation grants by the Union government.

The RBI’s transfer of a huge surplus to the Union government does not augur well for it from an institutional standpoint and in the context of management of the economy.

The Economic Survey waxes eloquent on the standout economic problems of our times, without offering solutions or a road map to nudge the country on the path of growth.

Budget 2019 sends the clear message that the second Modi-led government plans to use every trick in the financial innovation book in its desperate search for private financing of infrastructure.

As the crisis affecting India’s NBFC sector simmers, self-serving calls for a bailout rend the air ahead of the Budget.

A former senior adviser to the government on economic matters delivers another blow to the credibility of India’s growth rate, but the methodology of his study is seriously flawed.

HAL, a public sector Navaratna, stares at a bleak future as its order book dwindles and its cash reserves are raided by the Central government.

Interview with Wolfgang Streeck, German political economist.

The government’s late reaction to the IL&FS crisis is likely to achieve little, but the larger question is whether the company deserves to be saved.

The knitwear industry in Tiruppur has not recovered from the double whammy of demonetisation and GST implementation. With a stack of government policies blocking their way, the manufacturers feel that it is a matter of time before many units shut shop.

Interview with K. Kamaraj, president, Banian Workers Union.

The coerced takeover of the publicly owned IDBI Bank by LIC, the country’s largest insurer, will neither protect the interests of the beleaguered bank nor further the interests of the insurer or its policyholders.

Greater availability of data on GST will shine a light on the contributions of States towards the national exchequer and make a case for equitable distribution of the Centre’s shareable tax revenue among them.

The move to privatise Air India comes after years of deliberate neglect by the government and a series of measures taken over two decades to systematically run it into the ground.

The launch of the Goods and Services Tax amidst great fanfare, but without adequate preparation, marks a continuum with demonetisation and threatens the viability of millions of small and medium enterprises.

The government’s recourse to an ordinance to solve the “bad loan” menace in the Indian banking system raises serious questions of moral hazards and its motive in driving public sector banks towards privatisation.

This year’s Finance Bill takes an unprecedented turn, vesting the government with almost limitless authority, sabotaging key institutions in the process.

Industry continues to reel under an immense amount of job loss across various sectors following demonetisation, but the government remains oblivious to the ground reality.

Recently released data from the CSO, which claimed that demonetisation had had no significant impact on the performance of the economy, raise more questions than provide answers.

All that the government has is its unfounded belief that mere “reform” in the form of demonetisation, digitalisation and GST will deliver growth.

In the face of raised expectations post demonetisation, the Budget metes out miserly treatment to most areas of crucial social spending such as education, health care and social security.