THE budget season is upon us, and soon there will be pundits appearing on television channels to tell the government what it should do. And the typical advice will be: restrict or wind up the “populist” schemes of the UPA; use the funds generated by such restrictions to provide “incentives” to capitalists to stimulate growth, so that the Indian economy, which has been woefully stagnant of late, experiences a revival. The moral of their story in short would be: an income redistribution from the poor to the rich is good for growth. Is it in fact the case?

THE global economic crisis is usually seen as the sequel to the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States. This understanding however is inadequate. The formation of that bubble and its collapse are episodes which are themselves embedded within a deeper structural crisis that afflicts contemporary capitalism, one related to the phenomenon of “globalisation”.

NOW that the 16th Lok Sabha election results are out and the country is in the high political mode about the formation of the next government, one may well cast a look back on the forecasts of the exit polls and compare them with the real outcome.

A REPORT in The Hindu (May 6) suggests that the Planning Commission is at its old game again which is to “remove” poverty in the country through a sleight-of-hand, by taking recourse to spurious statistics. Consumption expenditure estimates from National Accounts Statistics show a far higher level than those arrived at on the basis of the National Sample Survey.

THERE is nothing surprising about a party that believes itself to be riding the crest of an electoral wave by appearing to be all things to all persons, delaying the release of its election manifesto almost until the elections have actually started. Since a manifesto is supposed to state what a party specifically stands for, the fear is that any such explicit statement would break the spell.