Interim Budget: Vacuous Claims and Massive Expenditure Cuts

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceUSUALLY greater allocation for expenditures that directly impact the poor are termed as ‘populist’ by the mainstream media and ironically sops given to the rich in the form of corporate tax cuts or capital subsidies are considered to be prudent and responsible fiscal measures facilitating ‘efficient’ allocation of resources.

Big Data and Capital’s Control over Consumption

THE critical need of self-valorisation of capital is not only expanding production of values but also an equally expanding realm of circulation that realises produced values through consumption. As capitalism grows, this expanding production and consumption is related to not only expanding the consumption of what may be called ‘luxuries’ but also creating greater needs which are increasingly included in necessaries. This is in any case a dynamic process.

Private Investment Slump: Plummeting New Projects

ADVANCED economies had been worst hit by the financial crisis when real GDP fell in 34 out of 37 advanced economies of the world. The growth rate recovery was slow and it took about three to five years for most of these countries to get back to their pre-crisis levels. Some argue that western capitalism has entered into a phase of secular stagnation characterised by low private investment and declining productivity. Capitalism is a system driven by investments mobilised by capitalists in view of future expectation of profits.

Longer Working Hours: What about Returns?

ONCE again a moral appeal to the young people of India came from the doyen of IT industry that they should be diligent and be ready to work longer hours up to 70 hours a week. Currently the youth that is the age group of 15-29 constitutes 28 per cent of India’s population which is going to come down to about 23 per cent in 2036.

Glossing Over Dismal Performances through Futuristic Claims

THE euphoria on India becoming the third largest economy by 2030 or a 5 trillion-dollar economy soon backed by estimates by rating agencies assuming 7 per cent growth rate in 2026-27 and further, has been showcased as one of the great achievements of the current regime that seem to have exalted India’s position in the global scenario. To begin with some initial facts, India’s GDP in current prices is 3.39 trillion US dollars and in constant 2015 US dollar prices it is 2.95 trillion US dollars.

Public Sector and Innovation

ALMOST four decades of neoliberal regime uninterruptedly continued with an ideological posture that public sector and State owned enterprises are less efficient and need to be replaced by private players. This ideological campaign in favour of global finance was carried out with a mission to transform national wealth into privately owned assets which can be traded in financial markets and speculative gains can be derived out of that.

Towards Socialism of the Twenty-First Century

THE collapse of the Soviet Union was a sigh of relief to the imperialist forces of the world who were desperately trying to suffocate the emerging alternative that in a lightning pace not only could achieve the growth and development of the advanced economies of the world but more importantly could offer an alternative system against the global hegemony of capital.In 1931, Stalin remarked that Russia was about fifty to hundred years behind the level of growth of productive forces achieved by advanced capitalist countries and that gap needs to be covered within ten years.

Concerns of Service-led Growth and Employment

THE trajectory of growth in India is often characterised by a service led growth which seems to be a general pattern of many developing countries undergoing pre-mature deindustrialisation. It is also evident from the fact that the importance of manufacturing and industry in India’s GDP remained more or less stagnant as the share of industry in India’s GDP only increased by 3 percentage points from an average of 24 per cent in the 1970s to 27 per cent in 2021-22.

Periodic Labour Force Survey and Youth Employment Trends

THE Periodic Labour Force Survey quarterly bulletin released by the National Statistical Office, Government of India on October 9 for the quarter April-June 2023 has attracted media attention for a 0.1 percentage point increase in worker population ratio (WPR) and 0.3 percentage point increase in labour force participation rate (LFPR) for the working age population in the urban segment compared to the previous quarter.

Income Protection and Neoliberalism

CHANGING production structures, pervasive intermittent employment and rising income inequalities have necessitated a discussion on income protection in different forms. Sometimes it is designed for a particular group or segment of population on condition of satisfying certain social behaviours or fulfilling human development goals. In others they are conceived as unconditional and universal claiming to protect a minimum income for the citizens at large.

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Peoples Democracy

economic policy & Labour