NCAER in the News

Opinion: Poonam Gupta and Arvind Panagariya: All public sector banks (PSBs) should be privatised and only SBI— due to its better performance — may remain under government ownership for now, a policy paper by two influential economists has recommended. The policy paper is to be presented at the India Policy Forum on Tuesday. It has been...   Read More

Opinion: Sonalde Desai The size of our labour force is constrained by the absence of women from the workforce. Only about 30% of women aged 15 and above are employed either in wage work on family farms and businesses. The United Nations Population Division released a new set of population projections on July 11 World...   Read More

Opinion: Bornali Bhandari NITI Aayog’s effort though creditable has loose ends. PLFS should use 2015 worker classification and probe nature of contracts. At the outset NITI Aayog needs to be complimented for undertaking the onerous task of trying to estimate the number of gig workers. The report ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy: Perspectives and...   Read More

Opinion: Mridul Saggar: In China, 82% of adults made a digital merchant payment using a mobile phone. In India, the figure is just 8%. In China, 38% of adults have credit cards. In India, only 5% do. Is the lower per-capita income - and, therefore, higher default risks - sufficient to explain this? On June 29,...   Read More

Opinion: Sanjib Pohit The recent announcement by West Bengal transport minister Firhad Hakim has practically signaled the death knell of Kolkata tramways the only city in India which still operates trams. The plan is no more to revive the tram route in the popular north Kolkata route. The plan now is to operate trams only...   Read More

Opinion: Sonalde Desai A government job with its benefits and safety net is an aspiration for most Indians. Any perceived rollback in such employment opportunities is bound to fuel anxiety. What is surprising about the protests is that the government appears to be surprised that there should be any protest. To appreciate the anguish underlying these...   Read More

Opinion: Poonam Gupta and Kavya Singh It is widely believed there is an unevenness in the way rating agencies treat the countries in the Euro zone versus elsewhere. A better governance structure and operating framework are needed to ensure that in situations when EMs are grappling with capital flow reversals for no fault of theirs...   Read More

Opinion: Pallavi Choudhuri Sonalde Desai and Santanu Pramanik Economic insecurity caused by lockdowns during the early days of Covid-19 forced many households to rely on government welfare schemes to fulfil their consumption needs. Using data from the June 2020 round of the Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey this article shows that few households received both...   Read More

Opinion: Bornali Bhandari Whether in Tripura or Haryana there is little interaction between MSMEs and the ITIs. District Industries Centres should step in Developing and implementing a vocational skill development policy for micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) is a challenging exercise especially for emerging countries. While imparting of vocational skills should typically be demand-driven...   Read More

Opinion: Saurabh Bandyopadhyay Anupma Mehta and Laxmi Joshi Gram Swaraj recently got a fillip as Government okayed continuation of Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan One of the unique features of governance in India is that its rural landscape is characterised by a system wherein each village and local unit is responsible for upgrading its own administrative structure...   Read More