Op-Eds

Increased focus on horticulture crops will be a win-win formula: it will help increase farm income and support nutritional security A remarkable but lesser-known fact about the National Horticulture Mission (NHM) is the crop diversification it has brought in.  The NHM a centrally-sponsored scheme was launched in 2005-06 with one of its major objectives being...   Read More

It is expected for COVID-19 vaccines to be classified as 'global public goods' given their development is being substantially funded by people's taxes Unrelenting efforts to find a vaccine or vaccines to combat the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are currently underway across the world. There has earlier never been a race against time to produce...   Read More

Although India does not have an explicit carbon tax till date it has an implicit or de facto carbon tax in the form of a coal cess since 2010. Low-carbon inclusive growth (LCIG) as a strategy has been the hallmark of India’s vision on clean environment. This strategy is a multi-pronged one which broadly includes...   Read More

It involve a choreographed dance of multiple institutions and individuals over long periods. Today’s policy announcement is typically yesterday’s thinking. Policies like ideas are usually path-dependent. “Aarthikam Chintanam” or “thought(s) on finance or economy” is a monthly column that will explore the evolution of economic policy ideas in India. The media tends to sensationalise the...   Read More

If India doesn’t smooth the kinks and create a world-class infrastructure it can kiss its $5 trillion economy dream goodbye Developing transport connectivity across the country has been the endeavour of the Government since 2014. Indeed this is essential if programmes like Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India are to succeed and the country is...   Read More

The study noted that 79% households reported a fall in income with 29% of them left with literally no source of income. For restructuring the Indian economy we need to strengthen the household economy. The National Council of Applied Economic Research and the Nossal Institute for Global Health University of Melbourne conducted a study called...   Read More

Loose monetary and fiscal policies can’t be sustained for long and we need comprehensive structural reforms to drive growth The coronavirus death toll in India has crossed 50000 and is still rising though at a declining rate. The growth in daily deaths has slowed from 20% in early April to less than 2% now. The...   Read More

Studies reveal households self-employed in agriculture or engaged in salaried jobs fared better those employed in informal sector. COVID-19 has now started sneaking into the hinterlands whose contexts happen to be drastically different from the large metros where the fight against the virus has mostly been concentrated so far. The emerging dilemma now is whether...   Read More

The country’s demographic future will see peaking and then declining numbers driven by a sharp fertility reduction A new study published in the highly regarded journal The Lancet and prepared by the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has shaken up the world of population policy. It argues that while India is destined...   Read More

The NCR-Mumbai route tops in performance. NCAER finds harassment of truck drivers a major hitch across the routes surveyed The Indian economy is going through a difficult phase due to the Covid crisis. Most of the rating agencies have downgraded the economy. And with Covid slowing down the world economy as well it implies that...   Read More