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India’s former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramaniam had flagged in his economic survey some years ago that India faced a major economic issue – twin balance sheet problem wherein Indian banks suffered huge debts as corporates, which had overleveraged banks were suffering huge losses resulting in defaults. This piquant situation occurred as the corporate sector over-expanded during boom period leaving them with obligations that they cannot pay. This resulted in surging non-performing assets of banks choking their ability to lend. This had come to be known as twin-balance sheet problem meaning the balance sheets of both banks and corporates had gone awry.

Is the collegium system of choosing judges perfect? That’s what former Chief Justice of India, U U Lalit, has claimed in recent interviews. Indeed he has even suggested that it’s intrinsic to the basic structure of the Constitution. But is he right on either counter? Let us see what research reveals.

December begins with two very bad news – first, the warning by the Global Wage Report 2022-23 by International Labour Organisation (ILO)of rising inflation that has caused a striking decline in real monthly wages highlighting the urgent need for policies to prevent further poverty, inequality and social unrest, and secondly the November data by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data which shows rise in unemployment in India for the third consecutive month since September 2022 that reached 8 per cent.

The price cap of $60 for Russian crude is coming into force full steam, with EU countries joining the G-7 and American punitive measure aimed at squeezing out Moscow’s financial resources so as to force it abandon the Ukraine war. A few countries, such as Poland, had initially refused to toe the line, but were prevailed over in the collective drive.

New Delhi: India was assured of five medals after top seed Unnati Hooda, Gnana Dattu, Anish Thoppani and two doubles pairs marched into the semi-finals of the Badminton Asia Junior Championships in Nonthaburi, Thailand on Friday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the central bank digital currency (CBDC), nicknamed e-rupee or digital rupee, for the retail segment on December 1. It released Rs 1.71 crore in e-rupee format to four participating banks to roll out its use. As of now four banks and four cities have been selected for the rollout of e-rupee. Right now, it is a pilot project which will have multiple stages as per RBI’s plan to introduce the CBDC in a graded manner so that it doesn’t disrupt the existing payments and settlement systems.

The new avatar of the Indian Data Protection Bill 2022 is not simply the rebirth of the earlier 2019 one. The objective of the earlier Data Protection Bill 2019 was to give a legal framework for the Supreme Court's Puttuswamy judgement of privacy as a fundamental right. The 2022 Bill has a different purpose. This version proclaims the citizen's right to privacy but allows the government to override this right at its will. The other objective of the new Bill is to enable big business—Indian and foreign—to use our data for their benefit. In other words, the intent of the Bill is the opposite of what it claims: it is not to protect privacy but create the architecture of a surveillance state and build surveillance capitalism.

The post-second world war period had seen a spate of welfare state measures in the advanced capitalist countries, especially in Europe, in emulation of what the Soviet Union was effecting. Capitalism had to accept these measures, notwithstanding its hostility to them, because it was in the midst of an existential crisis, weakened by the war, shaken by the upsurge in working-class anger, and terrified by the spread of socialism in Eastern Europe.

The Narendra Modi government has recently signed an MoU and released recently to introduce a policy called digitalisation in the agriculture sector. What are the benefits of it? What are the losses? Discussions are going on. Recently a discussion forum was held in Delhi under the auspices of some voluntary organizations on November 21-22, 2022. More than 60 people from various farmers’ associations participated in it and expressed their views.

The uncharitable will say Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy should have given way to the ambulance much earlier, not wait for a turn in the road, and that the ambulance, on a medical emergency, must have been held up on the straight behind Modi’s poll-festooned saffron-garlanded SUV for kilometres. The nasty fellow will ask if the PM shouldn’t have known that a medical emergency could happen anytime, why the roadshow at all?