Opinion: Bornali Bhandari and Laxmi Joshi. Small farmers lack access to tools, as the tractor-dominated farm machinery sector suffers from demand, supply constraints India is simply not producing the sort of farm machinery that our small and marginal farmers want or can readily use at a price which appeals to them. Farm machinery comprises equipment... Read More
While we do not question the basic premise that air pollution has adverse health impact we are sceptical about the figures quoted and the methodology adopted in estimating the cost. In the past three years several studies have linked air pollution with health effects. For instance the State of Global Air 2019 published by the... Read More
On 29 July 2019 the government amended and added to the terms of reference (TOR) of the 15th Finance Commission (15th FC) asking it to “... examine whether a separate mechanism for funding of defence and internal security ought to be set up..." The amendment has been interpreted as an attempt by the Centre to... Read More
India’s relatively wet climate offers hope even in today’s dire situation. What is needed is the enforcement of programmes aimed at conserving our most precious resource Water water everywhere/ Nor any drop to drink.” These words from an evocative poem by the famous 18th century English poet Samuel Coleridge echo the helplessness of a harried... Read More
Arvind Subramanian’s paper ‘India’s GDP Mis-estimation’ published in June this year caused a lot of controversy. I was initially sceptical of his argument. But now having heard him at the India Policy Forum at NCAER on July 10 where he presented more data on India’s slowdown I am convinced about the significance of his research.... Read More
India had an opportunity to take major initiatives but what the bureaucracy gave us is just another incremental budget The Bharatiya Janata Party’s massive electoral mandate provided a great opportunity for introducing major fiscal and other initiatives through the budget. Unfortunately that opportunity has been missed. Following her meteoric political rise finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman... Read More
In India investing in the laggard States will ensure their role as being the greatest contributors of the future Last month the United Nations released the 26th revision of World Population Prospects and forecast that India will overtake China as the most populous country by 2027. The only surprise associated with this forecast is the... Read More
New Delhi (Wednesday July 10 2019): Dr Gurucharan Manna Senior Adviser at NCAER and former Director General of CSO and NSSO Government of India has been appointed a member of the National Statistical Commission. Dr Manna has nearly 40 years of specialized experience in sample design estimation procedures for household and establishment surveys and the... Read More
There has been a decline in economic activity since the last fiscal. Both economic activity and inflation showed falling trends throughout 2018–19. Akin to the rest of the world business uncertainty had increased in India post the Lehman bankruptcy in September 2008. A measure of volatility the standard deviation (SD) of the quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) growth... Read More
It is a national tragedy that women unable to find work are dropping out of the labour force If labour force survey data are to be believed rural India is in the midst of a gender revolution in which nearly half the women who were in the workforce in 2004-5 had dropped out in 2017-18.... Read More