Heena Sharma Blog

Here is a round-up of articles from Indian news publications on how the country is dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic . From India’s first recession that is not driven by agri sectors, to missing-in-action Parliament, and why a study suggests blood cancer patients usually survive Covid — read these and more in today’s India dispatch. This will be India’s first recession driven by non-agri sectors: India’s economy is now set to lose 10 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), thanks to the after-effects of Covid-19. Eight states in India contribute to more than 50 per cent of its GDP. Within these eight states, almost 42 per cent of the state GDP is driven by areas that are now considered red zones. How is it going to play out, and what is India’s overall economic prospect looking? Read this interview with D K Joshi, chief economist of the rating agency CRISIL. Read More

The monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.15 per cent — a 10-year low in its last policy review of the financial year 2019-20 (FY20). Consequently, the reverse repo rate stands unchanged at 4.90 per cent. Further, the bank said it will maintain 'accommodative' policy stance as long as it takes. The committee voted 6-0 in favour of the status quo of the interest rates. GDP growth forecast for the financial year 2020-21 (FY21) is projected at 6 per cent and in the range of 5.5-6.0 per cent in the first half of the next fiscal. while real GDP growth for 2019-20 was projected in the December 2019 policy at 5.0 per cent – 4.9-5.5 per cent in H2. In its last policy meet, the central bank had maintained the repo rate at 5.15 per cent points (bps). However, GDP growth forecast for FY20 was slashed to 5 per cent from 6.1 per cent. Read More

It was widely expected that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would cut interest rates on Friday for two reasons. The first is that by now it has become a habit where low growth tendencies, which have taken precedence over the original goal of inflation targeting gets thumbs-up for a rate cut. The second is that over the last month or so, the government has announced various steps to revive the economy with the last measure being the corporate tax cut. A rate cut after all these announcements appeared to be a foregone decision. The point of interest, however, was the quantum of the cut. The last time the Governor went in for 35 basis point (bps) cut, which was non-conventional and had popped up the choice between 25 bps and something more this time around. The RBI has settled for 25 bps this time. Given that the 110 bps rate cut so far has not quite led to the uptick in investment, one can look upon the series of rate cuts as being work in progress to lower the cost of capital ...

Each evening, the sun sets more than 90 minutes later in western India than in the east of the country, yet the entire country follows the same time zone. Later sunset means people stay awake longer, which induces sleep deprivation among children and negatively affects their study efforts, a new study by a research scholar at Cornell University has found. As a result of sleeping late, children are less likely to complete primary and middle school, and this effect is most pronounced among poor households, says the study, ‘Poor Sleep: Sunset Time and Human Capital Production’, which analysed the consequences India faces by operating under a single time zone. “ Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that India incurs annual human capital costs of roughly $4.1 billion (nearly Rs 29,000 crore) or 0.2% of nominal GDP [gross domestic product] due to the existing policy regulating time zone boundaries,” Maulik Jagnani, the author of the study, told IndiaSpend in an email interview. ...