Govt rebuts ex-CEA’s contention on GDP; claims right methodology followed

Agencies
June 12, 2019

New Delhi, Jun 12: The government on Tuesday rebutted former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian's contention regarding over-estimation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data and stated that proper methodology was followed in calculating the country's overall economic growth estimates.

"The GDP estimates released by the ministry are based on accepted procedures, methodologies and available data and objectively measure the contribution of various sectors in the economy," the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation said in its rebuttal.

The rebuttal comes after Subramanian questioned the change in GDP calculation methods and numbers effected last year.

In his recent research paper published by Harvard University, the former CEA has said there is a possibility of substantial overestimation in the growth figures while stating that the actual GDP growth between 2011-12 and 2016-17 was around 4.5 per cent as against 7 per cent.

Subramanian has suggested that India's GDP growth estimate has been overestimated by around 2.5 percentage points between 2011-12 and 2016-17, a period that covers the years during both the UPA and the NDA governments.

The adoption of a new GDP series to measure the country's economic growth, months after the government itself slashed previous UPA-era GDP growth rate for 2010-11 from the earlier estimated 10.3 per cent to 8.5 per cent, has fuelled controversy.

However, the ministry said: "Estimation of GDP in any economy is a complex exercise where several measures and metrics are evolved to better measure the performance of the economy".

According to the ministry, the purpose of global standardisation and comparability, countries follow the System of National Accounts (SNA) evolved in the UN after elaborate consultation.

"In India, the Base Year of the GDP series was revised from 2004-05 to 2011-12 and released on 30 January, 2015 after adaptation of the sources and methods in line with the SNA 2008," the ministry said in its rebuttal.

Besides, the ministry pointed out that the methodology of compilation of macro aggregates has been discussed in detail by the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) comprising experts from academia and institutions like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

"It may be noted that decisions taken by these Committees are unanimous and collective after taking into consideration the data availability and methodological aspects before recommending the most appropriate approach," the ministry said.

As per the statement, structural changes in the economy have necessiated the revision of the base year of macroeconomic data points such as "GDP, Index of Industrial Production (IIP), Consumer Price Index (CPI) etc" on a periodical basis to ensure that indicators remain relevant.

"Such revisions not only use latest data from censuses and surveys, they also incorporate information from administrative data that have become more robust over time."

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News Network
June 19,2020

Kolkata, Jun 19: The nationwide clamour for boycott of Chinese goods is getting louder amid the Ladakh face-off, with traders urging the Centre to direct e-commerce firms to restrict the sale of items from the Dragonland, which imports products worth USD 74 billion to India annually.

Of the total import from China, retail traders sell goods worth around USD 17 billion, mostly comprising toys, household items, mobiles, electric and electronic goods and cosmetics among other things, which could possibly be replaced by Indian products, a national trading body said.

"We, at 'Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal', are advising our members to clear their stocks of Chinese products and refrain from placing fresh orders. We are also requesting the government to restrict e-commerce companies from selling Chinese products," V K Bansal, the association's general secretary, told PTI.

Sushil Poddar, the president of the Confederation of West Bengal Traders Association, said its members have been told to shun trading in Chinese goods as much as possible.

Another national traders' body, The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has decided to step up its movement against the boycott of Chinese goods, under its campaign 'Bhartiya Samaan-Hamara Abhimaan'.

It released a list of over 450 broad categories of commodities, comprising 3,000 Chinese products.

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News Network
January 18,2020

Kanpur, Jan 18: Kanpur has witnessed an Unnao-like incident as the out on bail accused in rape case attack the family members of the victim. The mother of the victim, who later died in the hospital, was brutally attacked by the accused. The accused reportedly attacked the victim's mother and her aunt on January 8.

The actual rape case goes back to 2018 when a group of men abducted a minor girl from her own society. The accused had reportedly raped her and also beaten up her mother.

A video of mother being beaten up reportedly went viral soon after.

The mother of the victim had reportedly filed a complaint against one of the accused for abducting and molesting her daughter two years ago at a tannery falling under jurisdiction of Chakeri police station. The main accused along with five others was booked under section 354 of the IPC (sexual assault of children) and sent to jail. Around two weeks ago, the accused got bail and on January 9 they attacked the deceased and her sister.

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Agencies
January 24,2020

New Delhi, Jan 24: The Election Commission of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that its 2018 direction asking poll candidates to declare their criminal antecedents in electronic and print media has not helped curb criminalisation of politics. The poll panel suggested that instead of asking candidates to declare criminal antecedents in the media, political parties should be asked not to give tickets to candidates with criminal background.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the ECI to come up with a framework within one week which can help curb criminalisation of politics in nation's interest.

The top court asked the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay and the poll panel to sit together and come up with suggestions which would help him in curbing criminalisation of politics.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and had called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.

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Satya Vishwasi
 - 
Saturday, 25 Jan 2020

What about those criminals who were already in parliament and vidahan sabhas? shall the ECI cancel their positions?

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