Despite historical misadventures with socialism and recent positive experiences with liberalisation, India continues to regularly fight the market. The most recent example is the Delhi government’s move to ban Uber’s surge pricing, a regulation that can only result in a net social loss.
The export-oriented unit (EOU) scheme was launched in India in 1980 to boost exports and increase production. Under the scheme, Indian companies that produce goods solely for export can register as ‘export-oriented units’. In doing so, these producers become exempt from duty payments on a range of resources used in production.
According to a report by the World Bank, in 2015 India hit a decade low level of investment in public infrastructure from sources both public and private, foreign and domestic. The reduction appears akin to similar contractions in investments seen in other distressed emerging economies, like China and Brazil.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the services sector is the largest contributor to the country’s GDP. In 2015–16, the services sector accounted for 53.3 percent of India’s gross value added at current prices. It is predicted to grow at 9.2 percent a year at constant prices. However, is this growth sustainable?
India’s real GDP growth increased by 0.7 percent from the last quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016, rising from 7.2 percent to 7.9 percent. While both foreign and national media view this as a leap forward, the data and methods on India’s growth story should be taken with a pinch of salt.
What is interesting in the latest data on India’s growth rate is how, instead of aggregate production, the amount of ‘discrepancies’ in India’s growth accounting has drastically increased.
India has revamped its Middle East policy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid the foundation for strategic interdependencies with the region by focusing on counterterrorism cooperation, deeper economic and security ties, and by engaging the large Indian diaspora.
The World Bank and India signed a deal on Tuesday by which the nation will receive $100 million in loan funds to provide the citizens of Karnataka with a continuous supply of fresh, running water. The Karnataka Urban Water Supply Modernization Project will provide access to continuously piped water to the cities of Karnataka, a poor region of India.
On 10–13 April, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter paid his third visit in just 30 months to India — the seventh by a US Defense Secretary since 2008. The frequency of high-level visits reflects the prominence accorded to New Delhi within the Pentagon’s emerging strategy towards the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of ‘good days’ that underpinned his 2013 election campaign is premised on moving India away from its dole-and-entitlement development model to one that empowers youth by generating large-scale employment. In that context, recently released employment figures from the country’s Labour Bureau are alarming.
The Jat reservation agitation has caused considerable social and economic trauma in India, especially in the national capital region around New Delhi. The agitation began as a series of protests in Haryana in February 2016 by the Jat people who were seeking to be included in the list of so-called Backward Classes, which would entitle them to certain affirmative action policies.
