India: The perverse strategy of the budget

India: The perverse strategy of the budget

The most pressing problems of the Indian economy at present are: the phenomenal rise in economic inequality, whose magnitude now is higher than at any time during the last one hundred years; the massive increase in absolute poverty as initially defined by the Planning Commission by taking into account a daily calorie-intake norm; and the enormous increase in unemployment which now even afflicts a vast chunk of the country’s educated youth.