Just a few months ago, India was being lauded for how well it had handled the Covid-19 pandemic and how the severe lockdowns that were imposed in 2020 actually worked. Never mind that they were cruel on the lives of millions of migrant workers and their livelihoods. Still, the fact that the government quickly scrambled… Continue reading Indian Economy Caught Between a Raging Pandemic and Politics
The Indian Union Budget presented on February 1, 2021, by the Indian finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman was unusual in many ways. For one thing, it was much shorter, as many commentators noted, and one of the reasons was that allocations for each Central Government scheme was not spelled out, as on previous occasions. Yet, on… Continue reading India Budget 2021: Spending Our Way Out of the Pandemic Economy
Hello readers and subscribers. Just to let you know that since 2020 is drawing to an end, I have compiled all my Owl Wisdom Podcasts of 2020 as a pdf document and uploaded it on slideshare.net. So more people can read, listen, download and share some owl wisdom! Given the kind of year 2020 has… Continue reading Owl Wisdom Podcasts 2020
Hello and welcome to what is certainly my last Owl Wisdom Podcast of 2020. It might be a while before I share another Owl Wisdom Podcast, because I have exhausted the three hours of podcast time that I am allowed on a free SoundCloud account. I had planned at the outset a year ago, for… Continue reading Self-Reliance in a Covid Economy: Owl Wisdom Podcast
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Let us not mistake today’s economic crisis in India for a purely Covid-related one. The Indian economy has been in slowdown mode since 2015. The past 5 years have been marred by one economic blunder after another, causing untold hardship and misery to millions of Indians. I won’t go into the details of those bad… Continue reading What Can Help the Blundering, Comatose Indian Economy?
"Howdy Modi" was returned with "Namasté Trump" in equal pomp and splendor. No stone was left unturned in welcoming Trump to India: he got to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad, in Modi’s home state, and the city got a new wall (one that would make Trump proud) to keep the slums and… Continue reading Of Bluster, Braggadocio and Burnt Embers
It has been several months and quarters of agony for the Indian automobile industry, what with vehicle sales falling. The rapid growth rate registered in the 2004 to 2013 period seems to have sputtered to a slow growth, if that. Newspapers and magazines are suddenly full of news about falling vehicle sales and job losses;… Continue reading Stuck in the Slow Lane
While the news in and out of India in recent days has been, quite rightly, hogged by the Kashmir issue, I would like to draw your attention to the economic slowdown in India. There probably isn’t a soul anywhere in the world who hasn’t heard of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to foreign investors, “Make… Continue reading A Made-in-India Economic Slowdown
At the moment, India is in the grip of election fever and it is not surprising that each political party is promising sops to the farmers and the poor. Well, the ruling party started doling out a farmer income support programme called PM KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi) from December last year which promises… Continue reading Universal Basic Income: A Gift for All?
Peripatetic Perch 