Development/Growth
India’s former energy secretary E.A.S. Sharma writes in The Wire: Everyone knows that the NPA problem is due to the lack of due diligence on the part of banks. If banks were to refuse new loans to some of these indebted companies, nearly 40% of the coal blocks assigned to them would not get developed….
Read More about India’s massive corporate bad debts and natural resource auctions
Gujarat-based Amul kick-started the milk revolution in India
Consumerism/Lifestyle
Many people think that milk is normal good food. But a large part of the world until recently never consumed the milk of other animals. Even today, Eastern Asia as a rule does not use milk. So, for some, milk is the greatest food, while for others, milk is one of the five white poisons….
Read More about How Indians started drinking milk (and what it has cost us)
Consumerism/Lifestyle
The digital economy is a design for atomisation, for separation… Imposing the digital economy through a “cash ban” is a form of technological dictatorship, in the hands of the world’s billionaires. Economic diversity and technological pluralism are India’s strength and it is the “hard cash” that insulated India from the global market’s crash of 2008….
Read More about Vandana Shiva: Beware of digital dictatorshipEconomy
Devinder Sharma writes: After a month of demonetisation, the picture in the rural areas remains too bleak. I know of villages where the farmers had to return empty handed even after seven days of queuing up. As a TISS study points out, nearly 81 per cent of the villages do not have access to banking….
Read More about Demonetisation, not drought, behind farmers’ woes
Economy
Shankar Gopalakrishnan writes: Demonetisation’s biggest impact will be on the distribution of resources within the economy, whatever happens to the economy as a whole. Demonetisation’s a giant vacuum, sucking up the resources of the weak and delivering them to the powerful, while acting like it’s doing the opposite. More importantly, this transfer will be permanent….
Read More about Demonetisation is a permanent transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich
Representative pic
Economy
Acclaimed journalist P. Sainath reports from rural Maharashtra: The “Modi masterstroke”, a term contrived by assorted anchors and other clowns on television to hail an unbelievably stupid action, is spreading agony and misery in its wake across the countryside. If there’s been any stroke, it’s the one the heart of the rural economy has suffered….
Read More about Heart of rural India has suffered a stroke: P. Sainath on the note ban
Bloomberg
Digests/Specials
Is ‘crony capitalism’ behind Rajan’s impending exit? RBI has been cracking the whip on major banks, collectively saddled with Rs 5,00,000 crore of bad loans. The banks in turn started forcing big debtors–including Reliance, Essar and Adani-to sell prized assets to repay debts. The numbers in this May 8 report in The Hindu speak volumes….
Read More about Corporate debt crackdown: Is it what pushed Raghuram Rajan out?
Shanker Chakravarty/The Hindu
Development/Growth
The Union Budget 2015-2016 will be presented in amid dwindling fortunes of the NDA government. Agriculture is already on a downswing while the economic slowdown is perceptible – all this when nine states are going to polls in 2016-17. Down to Earth presents a series of analyses of the Union Budget from the environment and development perspectives….
Read More about Make (Or Break) In India: Down to Earth special issue ahead of the Union Budget
