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There are well-known problems associated with the concept of gross domestic product as well as with its measurement. The inclusion of the service sector within GDP is something that Adam Smith would have objected to on the conceptual grounds that those employed in this sector constituted “unproductive workers”; certainly in the former Soviet Union and East European socialist countries, it was not the GDP but the gross material product excluding the service sector that was considered the relevant measure.

The interim Budget 2024 has not made mention of any measure or recommendation to address the very serious bottleneck that has been gripping India’s maritime trade for weeks now—the Red Sea crisis! This crisis is also known as the United States-Iran proxy war that began on October 19, 2023, when the Houthis from Yemen launched a series of attacks targeting southern Israel and the ships in the Red Sea which it claimed were linked to Israel.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the request of former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, and directing his lawyers Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi to approach the Jharkhand High Court for bail, has certainly not come as a big shock. What was still surprising though was the reluctance of the top court to look at the appeal that the ED was deliberately infringing upon his privacy and right to personal liberty.

New Delhi: Chief Coach Janneke Schopman on Friday promised better showing by the Indian Women's Hockey Team in the FIH Pro League starting in Bhubaneshwar from Saturday.

Bihar chief minister and JD(U) leader, Nitish Kumar, has somersaulted again. After leaving the BJP and forming a Mahagathbandhan government with the RJD in August 2022, Nitish has now defected back to the side of the BJP.

In the middle class residential areas of Kolkata and people are seen animatedly discussing the strained relation between Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi and also trying to decode the reasons for Mamata’s obstinacy towards Congress, especially her intransigent attitude towards Rahul. Her outright denial of the relevance of the Congress in Bengal and refusal to have any kind of relation with it has raised many improbable questions.

Pakistan has accused India, its long-standing enemy, of conducting unlawful killings within that country’s borders. It claimed having “evidence” of links between “Indian agents” and the assassination of two terrorists. This accusation comes at a time when there is a growing worry that the recent increase in the ongoing indirect conflict could jeopardize the fragile peace between the two countries that has held for the past three years. These accusations have grown more strident after reports last year about alleged Indian plots to hire people for murder in the United States and Canada.

Finance Nirmala Sitharaman’s interim budget speech sounded like a well-crafted compendium of compliments to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was as though she was singing her swan song, and an ode to the greatness of her mentor, rather than on what the government planned to do in the days ahead. It also had a well-disguised appeal for votes in the 2024 elections.

The interim budget presented on February 1 is a hopeful document, pinning its faith on the continued buoyancy of the Indian economy.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s sixth budget turned out to be an out and out election and political document. But it has still not sunk in fully that this could be Sitharaman’s last budget unless her “I’ll be back in July” is like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie ‘Terminator’. The bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-Governor did say "I'll Be Back" in the movie and kept his promise, too. Will Nirmala Sitharaman and her boss Prime Minister Narendra Modi also do a Terminator on the poor folks of India?