2018

by Hiranmoy Roy and Anil Kumar
Infrastructure is the backbone of any economy for growth and development. For development and growth of any economy, infrastructure needs to be strengthened in a proper and adequate manner. the Government of India is taking a lot of initiatives in the field of infrastructure. Due to the strategic importance of this sector, we are analysing the opportunities and growth-drivers of infrastructure development in India.
The recent trend and pattern of Indian (…)

TRIBUTE
Dr Usha Shrivastava, a lifelong Marxist and an eminent medical professional, passed away in New Delhi on February 6, 2018 at the age of 62 after a long and brave battle with cancer. She was currently serving as the Vice-President of the National Federation of Indian Women.
Known for her caring and generous nature and sharp intellect, Dr Usha Shrivastava began her innings as a Marxist as a student leader. She served as the President of the Delhi unit of the All India Students (…)

by Amarjeet Kaur
I lost my very good friend for the last 46 years, Dr Usha Shrivastava, who breathed her last on February 6, 2008. I felt a vacuum somewhere within me with the news of her demise I was not prepared for. Our work together as AISF activists from 1972 when I was a student of B.Sc (H) Physics in Ramjas College and she was doing MBBS in Lady Hardinge College brought us close and we became good friends. She was known as Usha Vyas, daughter one of the legendary communist leaders, (…)

MUSINGS
Just as I’d begun writing this week’s column focusing on the brutal murder of Delhi’s Ankit Saxena—a young man murdered by the parents of the Muslim girl he loved—I realised that we are not the only country where young innocents are hacked in full public view. Of course, different countries adopt their very own special ways of hacking innocence if not innocents.
We, in India, surviving in the midst of communal hatred, are busy killing love and lovers. Even married couples are not (…)

TRIBUTE
Professor Arun Mohanty, 64, who held a Ph.D degree in Economics from the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, passed away in New Delhi on February 3, 2018 after suffering a brain stroke in November last year. Prior to his appointment as a Professor of Russian and Central Asian Studies at the School of International Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Professor Mohanty taught at the Moscow State University, Moscow City Pedagogical University and Moscow Institute of (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
As the Prime Minister was reeling off in the Lok Sabha yesterday a long list of never-before achieve-ments of his government during the last three-and-a-half years (with a liberal dose of anti-Nehru venom thrown into his speech for good measure), in Mumbai Urjit Patel was spelling out the new credit policy of the RBI. He announced that the lending rates would remain unchanged at six per cent because inflation still remains a matter of concern. But a much greater cause of (…)

COMMENTARY
The picturesque Indian Ocean archipelago, Maldives, is gripped by a serious political crisis and turmoil.
On February 5, Maldives President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency in the country for 15 days. This followed a ruling by the Maldives Supreme Court on February 1 to immediately release nine Opposition leaders, including exiled former President Mohamed Nasheed. The Apex Court had then maintained that these leaders’ trials were “politically motivated and flawed”. (…)

The Union Budget 2018-19, presented on February 1, 2018, has confused the lay public. It purports to give something to every section and yet it is being criticised by the Opposition and the media has largely called it an election Budget. The implication of the criticism is that the Budget does not do what it should have and instead it has indulged in ‘populism’. Usually, when the media calls a policy ‘populist’ it means that it is pro-poor and does not benefit the corporate sector. Another (…)

by Sunil Ashra
One of the important features one notices about the new Economic Survey 2017-18 is that it has been restructured almost entirely. Most of the chapterisation of the earlier Economic Survey has been done away with. So a comparative picture from the previous Surveys is difficult to make.
The Survey this year starts with ‘Ten New Facts’ and the first one is the huge increase in the number of individuals and firms who have been filing returns compared to last year. This seems (…)

It’s understandable that this year’s Budget should have an eye on rural India which constitutes some 70 per cent of voters. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had no compunction in mixing politics with economics. In the past whenever the Budget was mixed with election, political parties would protest against such a practice.
Over the years, economics has got mixed with politics. And, unfortunately, there is no go from this. The emphasis is on bettering the lot of those living in villages, the (…)