The Indian economy's election-year syndrome cannot be ignored, says A K Bhattacharya.
'While the country has been hit hard from a strong second wave of Covid, we believe the markets are willing to look through that.'
The Reserve Bank's growth projection for next financial year is lower than 8-8.5 per cent projected by the finance ministry in the recent Economic Survey which was tabled in Parliament on January 31. Unveiling the bi-monthly policy, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said, "Recovery in domestic economic activity is yet to be broad-based, as private consumption and contact-intensive services remain below pre-pandemic levels."
In a submission to the federal government on the size of the immigration programme to be set in the May budget, Australian Industry Group has asked the government to increase intake of immigrants from 190,000 to 220,000 in 2014-15.
'Even for operational buildings, we are looking to smarten them in various ways.'
'When you forgive a farmer's loans there is this ideological economists lobby which says: 'That's socialism. And that's bad'.' 'But to forgive the loans of big people, so that they will be interested to invest further is capitalism and is good.'
'The answer for a quicker boost to growth is simple -- run a much larger deficit, use the resulting public resources to ensure adequate price support for agriculture, subsidise wage costs of MSMEs and accelerate public sector construction-intensive activities,' advises Nitin Desai.
The World Bank on Sunday said the coronavirus outbreak has severely disrupted the Indian economy, magnifying the pre-existing risks to its outlook. In its 'South Asia Economic Update: Impact of Covid-19', the World Bank estimated the Indian economy to decelerate to 5 per cent in 2020 and projected a sharp growth deceleration in fiscal 2021 to 2.8 per cent in a baseline scenario.
Perhaps the finance ministry or NITI Aayog could take a detailed look at what governments actually deliver and at what cost; how their services can be improved and expanded where necessary; how much money can be saved through doing things differently; and how many things the government does which it can safely leave to the private sector, argues T N Ninan.
Economist Dale W Jorgenson declares that India is doing "very, very well" and forecasts that India might continue to outrun world economies, including China over the next many years.
Germany is now sitting on a mountain of savings.
The panel noted that the macro-economic fundamentals of the economy are sound but challenges remain, several of which are structural in nature.
Moody's on Thursday raised India's GDP forecast for the calendar year 2020 upwards to -8.9 per cent contraction from -9.6 per cent contraction forecast earlier. Similarly, India's GDP forecast for the calendar year 2021 has been revised upwards to 8.6 per cent from 8.1 per cent projected earlier. The report released by Moody's Investors Service attributed the reason behind better growth to the falling of coronavirus cases in the country.
Nitin Desai suggests some concrete measures to revive investment and boost growth.
The recent surge in crude oil prices could shave off the gains made by India Inc in profit margins in the past few quarters. Worse, it comes at a time when consumer demand in the country is slipping and major global economies are witnessing a slowdown. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the margin expansion accounted for three-fourths of the rise in the listed firms' operating profit between the April-June quarter (Q1) of FY23 and Q1FY24, and only a quarter of profits gains came from revenue growth.
'Slowing down of the economy was mainly due to the demonetisation shock...' 'If you cut off the oxygen supply to a patient in the ICU and the patient dies, the patient does not come alive again when you restore the oxygen supply.'
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
'We are looking at the Budget with the hope that it will address all issues even at the cost of exceeding the fiscal deficit target.'
At a time of massive job losses that is what the much-vaunted Indian IT sector needs. Ritwik Sharma reports.
Economic Affairs secretary S C Garg said inflation has consistently come down since 2014 and will not cross 4 per cent this fiscal.
In the first eight months of 2019, 70 per cent stocks in the BSE 500 universe were down. These stocks account for 94 per cent of India's total market capitalisation.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
South and South-West Asia could witness an economic growth of 5.3 per cent in 2015, which will be a four-year high.
On the controversy surrounding the GDP numbers based on new calculations, he said statisticians have done as good a job as they can and economic growth is significantly high as costs have come down
In India, economic activity slowed substantially in 2019, with the deceleration most pronounced in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, whereas government-related services sub-sectors received significant support from public spending, the Bank said.
'This is what happens to a party when it gets trapped in the vicious circle of nepotism and dynastic politics'
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday decided to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance, implying rate cuts in the future if need arises to support the economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Modi government has handled inflation far better than any government in the past two decades. Both the stock market and currency indices have begun to show confidence in the economy, despite the mounting global headwinds of trade.
As more companies ask their employees to return to office after the pandemic, the share of women employed in regular salaried jobs in urban India decreased from 54 per cent in the first quarter to 52.8 per cent in the second quarter of the current financial year, according to the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data. The slump in the share is the lowest in wage employment in any quarter in the last six years when the National Statistical Office started releasing the quarterly PLFS surveys in Q3 of FY19. The share of women in wage work was highest in Q1 of FY21 at 61.2 per cent.
A pick-up in farmer income could have a cascading impact on the rural economy, though agriculture is becoming a smaller part of India's overall rural incomes.
'High denomination cash notes which was 1.4 lakh crores of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in 2004 became Rs 15.5 lakh crores in 2016.' 'If it had been allowed, by 2022, it would have been Rs 34 lakh crores, and that would have been the end of the Indian economy.' 'Demonetisation was a huge hit on the head of the economy, but without the hit, you could not U-turn the economy.'
India's economy is forecast to grow at 4.8 per cent in 2013, down 1.3 per cent from its earlier projection, the UN's World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 report said.
'As part of our D33 strategy, the plan is to establish 30 unicorns in Dubai within the next 10 years.'
'The first year of the Modi government's second term has laid the roadmap for the future and we will embark on it with gusto,' promises Gopal Krishna Agrawal, the BJP's national spokesperson on economic affairs.
'The government's full five-year term is unlikely to deliver more than 7+ per cent growth.' 'That's creditable, but no different from the 7.2 per cent achieved in the previous five years (2009 to 2014).' 'Those who expected the change of government to deliver a change of tempo would be disappointed,' says T N Ninan.
India's macroeconomic situation is certainly better than what it was a year ago, eminent economist Pinaki Chakraborty said on Monday, while expressing hope that the country will be back on the path of economic growth if there is no major third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with PTI, Chakraborty, who is the director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), said that inflation may remain at an elevated level as there was a significant fiscal and monetary expansion in the last 18 months. "The current macroeconomic situation is certainly much better than what it was one year back. We are seeing recovery in most sectors," he said. Chakraborty noted that COVID-19 vaccination has been going on at a very fast rate in India.
India must be prepared to deal with climate disasters, geopolitical confrontations, and social strife linked to global events, asserts Jayant Sinha, chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance.
'There is good indication that the economy is bouncing back, but the problem is, we should look at the eight quarters preceding March 2020.' 'The growth had fallen below 3.1% before March 2020.' 'So, the governments must realise that even if you transform the best of green shoots into banyan trees, you see only 3.1% growth.'
Bill Gates specifically complimented India's Aadhaar identity system and the country's performance in the financial services and pharma sectors.
The UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 report said a mild recovery in investment as well as stronger export growth will help in the gradual GDP pick-up.
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