Arun Kumar

Arun Kumar

Arun Kumar, Malcolm S Adiseshiah Chair Professor, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi and author of ‘Indian Economy’s Greatest Crisis: Impact of the Coronavirus and the Road Ahead‘.
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Budget 2023- 24: Policy Needs Boost to Change Economy

Focus has to shift from the automated large scale sector, to promotion of the rural economy and the small and micro sectors.

The Union Budget 2023-24 is around the corner. A budget is expected to identify the issues facing the economy and society and try to provide solutions to them. This may involve continuing policies or changing them. The budget represents the priorities of the government – what gets more allocation and what gets less. Changes in priorities take time to show any impact, so many analysts say that budgets do not make a difference. But, given that the budget is the largest single economic event, it matters even if priorities remain unchanged.

Indian Rural Economy: A Closer Look at the Issues

This marginalization of the rural economy is a result of the policymakers’ focus being on the organized part — the modern part of the economy. Modernization of the economy has been taken to be the copying of western modernity. India has not attempted its own modernity suited to the needs of the vast majority living in rural areas. No wonder the agriculture sector which provides the most important item of consumption — food — has been marginalized.

Supreme Court Decision on Demonetization

A flawed process led to erroneous policy which is counterproductive and which resulted in not only damage to democracy but to huge adverse impact on the public, especially the poor. The process by which a policy is arrived at, also determines the outcomes. Can it then be said that the process was legal, even if formally, so the achievement of the objectives does not matter? The Supreme Court’s majority judgment on demonetization is based primarily on the premise that demonetization had a `reasonable nexus’ with the objectives sought to be achieved.

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