A Niggardly Response to an Extraordinary Crisis
| | | | |

A Niggardly Response to an Extraordinary Crisis

C.P. Chandrasekhar In a show of solidarity, some of India’s opposition leaders have declared the much-delayed relief package (titled Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana) announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26 to mitigate the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the poor as a welcome “first step”. But any serious scrutiny of the…

How Yes Bank’s Finances Quickly Deteriorated Over the Last 3 Years
| | |

How Yes Bank’s Finances Quickly Deteriorated Over the Last 3 Years

Anjan Basu   The most astonishing thing about the Yes Bank crisis is that everyone knew it was coming, and yet everyone seems to have been taken by surprise when it did arrive.   Consider the circumstances. Rana Kapoor, the private sector lender’s founder–CEO, was ejected out of his position in January 2019, after a…

Economy Sliding into Stagnation
| | | |

Economy Sliding into Stagnation

Prabhat Patnaik   Changes in estimation methods have of late made statistics on the Indian economy increasingly bewildering; besides, whenever the statistics show the performance of the economy in a poor light, the BJP government simply suppresses them. Nothing however can suppress the fact that the Indian economy is sliding into a serious state of…

Disinvestment of LIC to Affect Policyholders?
| | |

Disinvestment of LIC to Affect Policyholders?

Shilpa Shaji   Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement during the presentation of Budget 2020–21 proposing sale of a part of its holdings in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has invited much criticism from the employees’ unions within the public sector undertaking (PSU) and the civil society. So far, the government’s proposal stands at the sale of…

Deadly Algebra of Wage Freeze and Super Profits in India
| | |

Deadly Algebra of Wage Freeze and Super Profits in India

Courtesy: Newsclick   A recent analysis of official data reveals that workers in India across all types of occupations have been suffering a deadly squeeze on their incomes as inflation-adjusted wages have been barely increasing, or even declining for the past several years. This has not only devastated the living standards of already ill-paid workers…

Private Players Line Up to Run Private Trains
| | |

Private Players Line Up to Run Private Trains

Sabrangindia    After vehemently denying the entry of private players, the Indian Railways has proposed a plan to allow private players to run their trains on around 100 routes across the country, mostly for tourism purposes.   The proposal was also mentioned by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while discussing the Budget 2020 where she said…

No Roadmap in Budget to Increase Farmers’ Income
| |

No Roadmap in Budget to Increase Farmers’ Income

Kabir Agarwal   While the broad consensus among economists was that the government needed to focus on putting money in the hands of those who are at the bottom of the pyramid, the 2020–21 budget has stayed away from making any such commitments.   The focus, in particular, had to be on providing a fillip…

Smokescreen of Numbers 
| |

Smokescreen of Numbers 

Jayati Ghosh   It’s finally time to call the bluff: the Union budget has become a completely meaningless—even misleading—exercise. Those of us who take either the pronouncements or the numbers mentioned on expected revenues and projected spending in the budget documents seriously are being made fools of. So we should stop wasting our time poring…

Budget 2020: Impose Wealth Tax and Inheritance Tax on the Rich to Finance Increase in Social Sector Expenditures 
| |

Budget 2020: Impose Wealth Tax and Inheritance Tax on the Rich to Finance Increase in Social Sector Expenditures 

    The budget for 2020 is due. We have argued in articles published in Janata that imposition of a progressive wealth tax ranging from 2% on India’s dollar millionaires to 5% on India’s dollar billionaires would yield at least Rs 8 lakh crore in additional income for the government. Additionally, imposition of a modest…

India’s Worsening Unemployment Crisis
|

India’s Worsening Unemployment Crisis

Neeraj Jain   Soon after Modi-led BJP won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the government felt emboldened to release the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, that it had suppressed. The data show that absolute employment in the country has actually fallen during the years of Modi’s prime ministership – the first time it has…