'The only two non-government members of India’s National Statistical Commission have resigned, leaving just chief statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog’s Amitabh Kant at the head of a body that is the apex advisory organisation for all of the country’s core statistical activities... Their exits were prompted, The Wire has learned, by the inability of the Modi government to interface with and effectively take on board the commission’s contributions. Another sore issue was delays in the release of the new NSSO employment survey data, which was vetted by the statistical body.
'Expressing concerns over “political interference” in influencing statistical data in India, 108 economists and social scientists Thursday called for the restoration of “institutional independence” and integrity to the statistical organisations. Their joint statement comes in the backdrop of controversy over revision of GDP numbers and withholding employment data by the NSSO.
'As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government gets ready to present its final Budget in a few days, here is a look at one of the key factors in fiscal calculations – debt. The combined debt of central and state governments stands at a staggering Rs. 97 lakh crore, up 59% since the end of March 2014, months before the BJP government took over in June 2014. The scale of this debt can be imagined by distributing it over the whole population (see chart below). This works out to Rs. 73,966 per person in 2017-18 as compared to Rs. 54,229 in 2014-15...
'The architects of demonetisation accelerated the downward spiral in investment in the formal sector, mortally wounded those in the agriculture and informal sectors, caused innumerable job losses, and seriously impacted GDP growth... The PM’s promise that Demonetisation would eradicate corruption was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the initial goodwill towards Demonetisation from the very poor, despite the hardships it inflicted on them. Sadly, however, this promise too was belied.
'The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday appointed former finance ministry official Shaktikanta Das as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, a day after former central bank boss Urjit Patel resigned abruptly. Das, a former finance secretary and current member of the 15th finance commission, shot into the public spotlight in late 2016 when he became the bureaucratic face of demonetisation in the weeks following the note-ban decision... In February 2017, he gave a speech that predicted that the positive effects of demonetisation would be felt from April 2017.
'Demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) are the two major headwinds that held back India’s economic growth last year, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said, asserting that the current 7% growth rate is not enough to meet the country’s needs. Addressing an audience at the University of California in Berkley on Friday, Rajan said for four years – 2012 to 2016 – India was growing at a faster pace before it was hit by two major headwinds... “What happened in 2017 is that even as the world picked up, India went down.
'On Tuesday, the Union government appointed S Gurumurthy as part-time, non-official director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India. Gurumurthy is co-convener of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, an economic pressure group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological parent – but has few other credentials that would call for association with the country’s central bank.
'...According to the 2017 International Migration Report, India tops the world in the number of migrants sent abroad with 16.59 million while Mexico stands second with 13 million. The number of Indian migrants living outside the country has more than doubled over the past 25 years, growing about twice as fast as the world’s total migrant population. India also receives more remittances from its own legal and illegal immigrants than any other country in the world, amounting to roughly 3% of the country’s gross domestic product.
'A district cooperative bank, which has Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah as a director, netted the highest deposits among such banks of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were abruptly demonetised on November 8, 2016, according to RTI replies received by a Mumbai activist. The Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB) secured deposits of Rs 745.59 crore of the spiked notes – in just five days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the demonetisation announcement.
'While the negative impact of demonetisation can still be felt, the gains have been minor and could have been achieved even without the disruptive move... Hundreds of millions of Indians went through toil and trouble for months after the announcement of demonetisation on November 8, 2016. It has got etched in their memory since they lost jobs, their businesses declined and incomes plummeted.
