TK Arun

TK Arun

TK Arun is a Senior Journalist and Columnist based in Delhi.
  • Articles: 0

Budget 2023- 24: Pro-Growth and CAPEX Conundrum

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has come up with a Budget that did not deserve a thumbs down from the Nifty, which ended the day’s trading 0.26% lower. This was more on account of the troubles of the Adani Group and, by association, of public sector banks with exposure to the group.

The big boost to capital expenditure — including grants in aid of capex; the increase in capex is Rs 3.2 lakh crore, to Rs 13.7 lakh crore — is welcome and suggests that the Budget is pro-growth. That pro-growth glow loses some sheen when we take into account the total size of the Budget. It has come down from 16% of GDP in 2021-22 to 15.3% in 2022-23 and is slated to fall further to 14.9% next fiscal year. This reflects the longstanding inability of the system to significantly increase the share of taxes in GDP — the only way to raise total expenditure is to borrow, which means that fiscal correction also brings down the size of total spending.

India’s Economic Survey Omissions: Identifying Constraints and Making Recommendations

Telling the truth to power is, of course, the job of journalists. But it used to be the case that the pre-Budget Economic Survey took pains to highlight challenges (near-term and structural) that policy and Budget outlay need to address.

This year’s Survey has the unique distinction of brushing off two traditional responsibilities of the Survey: identifying constraints and making recommendations. Instead, it sings an erudite paean to India’s economic management over the last eight years and projects continued growth, even if the world economy slows down.

Budget 2023- 24: The Case to Build New Cities

By 2051, India may have an additional 335 million urban population. Several new cities will be needed to settle them.

ndia needs more than a pat on the back from fiscal-deficit-focused rating agencies and analysts, in order to regain economic vigour in a slowing world. A whole lot more. India needs a new New Deal, and, in the present national and global context, that would mean investing in a large project that creates demand for material and machines produced in India and for lots of labour, both skilled and unskilled, while adding to India’s future productive capacity. Building a new city is a good choice.

How Technology Access and Climate Gap Impact CO2 Removal?

The global cleavage on climate change is essentially between those that have grown rich enough to be climate-resilient and those that are not. The way to bridge this gap is not to set up any Loss and Damage Fund, but to spend any money that the rich countries have to spare on sucking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere.

The Need for IndOS: A Choice for a Fair Competition?

The government wants to create a mobile operating system (OS) to compete with the dominant Android, owned by Google, and Apple’s iOS operating systems that have pretty much divided up the global smartphone market (Chinese tech major Huawei uses its own Harmony operating system on its phones after US President Donald Trump ordered Google to deny Android to companies that violated the sanctions against Iran). The government has even come up with a name for it: IndOS. 

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