- “A changing global order, energy transitions and climate change and rapid technological advancement – India’s next government has the difficult task of steering the country through an interesting and crucial time. India 2024: Policy Priorities for the New Government, is a compendium of policy briefs from scholars at Brookings India, which identifies and addresses some of the most pressing challenges that India is likely to face in the next five years. Each policy brief is based on longer, in-depth and academically rigorous publications from the scholars.”
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An excellent set of links to bookmark and keep handy to get a useful set of information about a) where India is today, and b) what she might need to do in terms of policy reform.
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.. - “While some of these issues can be resolved only in the next base-change exercise, greater transparency on the methodology and better data dissemination standards can help improve the credibility of the official GDP numbers. The CSO, which has now been merged with NSSO, can learn from the latter’s dissemination policies and start releasing unit-level data for all databases used in national accounts estimation (including MCA-21) in a machine readable format so that independent researchers can assess the quality of the data being fed into national accounts.”
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Here’s a useful thumb rule to keep in mind when it comes to thinking about GDP. If the exercise doesn’t give you a headache, you haven’t thought hard enough about it. I am joking, of course – but only just. In this article, you get a sense of the myriad problems with the measurement of GDP in India. As the author of the piece above has mentioned on Twitter, what we need is a more reasoned discussion about how to measure economic data in this country, rather than fall into partisan debates of a political nature.
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.. - “Here is our contention: How far and how fast we can go below current 3.4 per cent as far as the centre’s fiscal deficit is concerned against the current demand slowdown? Do we stay put at 3.4 per cent (assuming it is met) for the first two years of the current government and then move down aggressively, as growth comes back to the system? We propose a radical shift in thinking as far as fiscal is concerned. The alternative to targeting fiscal deficit is that like most advanced economies and several emerging market economies India should target a structural deficit, which serves as an automatic counter-cyclical stabiliser.”
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Lots to take away from this review of an article penned by two authors worth following in their own right, but rather more useful as a way to realize that this is how articles ought to be read: critical reading is exactly this.
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.. - “The government has completed laying optical fibre cables across more than 100,000 gram panchayats in the first phase and had aimed to complete connecting the remaining 150,000 councils by March 2019. The second phase has seen “zero progress”, according to government officials close to the matter. Pained by poor utilization of digital infrastructure, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) suggested auctioning BharatNet infrastructure on an “as is where is” basis after a meeting held in December at the prime minister’s office to take stock of the mission.”
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Livemint on what needs to be done to revolutionize access to the internet even more in India. The role of gender in this case was not something I had thought about before, read the article to find out more. The bottom line is that we have come a long, long way – but also that there is a long, long way to go.
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.. - “There could be no compromise over values. And to understand those values, he rediscovered the wisdom from India’s ancient stories to bring clarity to our ambiguous present. And thus Karnad told us the meaning of what it means to be human.”
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Livemint again, and this time it is Salil Tripathi mourning the passing away of Girish Karnad. RIP.
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