Modi’s economic policies are primarily driven by political objectives rather than substantive economic concerns
Modi’s policies have caused an unusual increase of income and wealth concentration in the hands of a few business houses. | Photo Credit: AMIIT DAVE/REUTERS The election results, which gave both the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance a far fewer number of seats than they had in the previous
India’s Booming Forex Reserves: Hidden Risks and Economic Concerns
The influx of foreign capital to India is creating domestic vulnerabilities by causing a credit boom, particularly in retail lending. | Photo Credit: REUTERS Figures on India’s balance of payments in financial year 2023-24, released by the Reserve Bank of India recently, have added to the hype on India’s growth
India’s Election 2024: Caste Politics Surge Exposes Economic Anxieties and Policy Vacuum
In the recent general election, many voters gave their material interests priority over Hindu nationalism, delivering a shock to the ruling BJP. In doing so, they demolished the hype about “India on the move”, propagated by both international and domestic elites. The hype—built on exaggerated GDP growth numbers and detached-from-reality
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Coalition Pressures, Middle-class Squeeze, and Execution Gaps Mar BJP’s Post-election Budget
In the snap TV analysis post Budget, an industry head struggled to find the right adjectives to commend what he had just heard. “Frankly, I like the Budget,” he said, and added, “I think it is a good Budget” before pausing to hit home the central takeaway: “It is time
Budget 2024 Shows That Modi Government Has Not Learnt From Its Electoral Setbacks
The hype around the presentation of the Union Budget is often overblown in India, but it still merits attention. Because it provides an indication of the nature and intentions of the Central government, at least for the year going forward, it is both economically and politically significant. What does this year’s
Narendra Modi’s Grand Rail Vision Speeds Past India’s Poor
In the Union Budget 2024-25 presented in Parliament on July 23, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi allocated Rs.2.652 trillion (lakh crore) towards capital expenditure in the Railways. The sum is a marginal increase of roughly 2 per cent over the revised estimate for
India’s Gender Budget: Big Numbers, Small Impact
In her 2023-24 Budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasised nari-shakti, or “women’s potential”, and stated that facilitating inclusive, women-led development was the government’s priority. This was also reflected in India’s G20 commitments during its G20 presidency last year. This year’s Union Budget also shows the government’s commitment to women’s economic
Modi’s Billionaire Boom: The Hidden Cost to India’s Public Sector
The Forbes World Billionaires annual list for 2024 included 25 new names from India, taking the number of Indians to 200. The Narendra Modi decade has undoubtedly been fantastic for a section of the super-rich, and through the years of COVID, reverse migration, agriculture crisis, and the collapse of many
The Nobel Prize for Economics: Celebration of Private Property and Capitalism
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize, the Nobel for “Economic Sciences”, has always been controversial. This is true of the 2024 award to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson as well. Typically, the economics Nobel is awarded to mainstream economists for work that directly or indirectly privileges the market in capitalist