Category Insights

Insights, a blog published by IMPRI.

Budget 2023-24: Impact on Urban India & Local Governance

This year’s budget is a bag of misplaced government spending priorities and misses some crucial challenges facing urban development.

The last full Union budget of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government continues to be plagued with the idea that “the private capital will ameliorate some of the basic problems of India and that large capital-intensive technologies will usher in development, including inclusive development.”

How fallacious is this argument? We have seen this in the past three decades. The structural difference brought in by Manmohan Singh’s budget in 1991 was to “shift India’s economy away from the hands of the government to the hands of private enterprise, and embraced free trade.

Political Roots of the Budget’s Sobriety

How come the government has shown sober responsibility rather than wanton populism in the last full Budget available to it before the 2024 General Election? We see many pundits struggle with this puzzle on television and in newspaper columns and either remain puzzled or conclude that this government stands tall, beyond the temptations of expedience to which ordinary mortals are prone.

Economic Survey, Union Budget, Labour Law Reforms and Unorganised Sector

The Economic Survey 2022-23 is an information provider with little analytical thrust, at least on labour-related matters.

The Economic Survey (ES) 2022-23 prepared the ground for the focus points in the Union Budget 2023. The story on the labour front is as follows.

Opening Up to Foreign Universities, A Game Changer?

Can India create a higher education system worthy of its aspirations as a full-fledged knowledge economy? That’s still to be determined. But India is on the verge of taking a major, long-awaited first step in the right direction: With the recent release of draft rules by the country’s higher education regulator — the University Grants Commission — India is moving closer to allowing high-quality foreign universities to set up campuses to help meet the country’s growing appetite for advanced education.

India’s Shifting Focus from Pakistan

As we celebrate the seventh decade of our Republic, there are many achievements that India can be proud of. Today, the world looks at India with a new sense of anticipation as we emerge as one of the fastest-growing major economies. New Delhi is today seen as capable and willing to shape global outcomes and shoulder greater responsibilities in a world facing a leadership vacuum. There are challenges, but the optimism that radiates from India is a galvanizing force at a time when a fractured and polarised world has few bright spots.

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