What the Centre’s White Paper on Indian Economy says, and doesn’t say | In Focus podcast

In this episode, Arun Kumar speaks to us about the claims made in the White Paper on the changes in the Indian Economy, and how they stand up to scrutiny.

The Union Finance Ministry has come out with a ‘White Paper’ on the changes in the Indian economy in the past 20 years. In the 58-page document, which it presented in Parliament, the government compares the 10 years of UPA-rule from 2004 to 2014 with 10 years of NDA rule from 2014 to 2024. It claims that the NDA government in 2014 inherited a “deeply damaged economy” marked by “governance, economic and fiscal crises”. It further claims that the in the past 10 years, the NDA government has “turned around” the economy and “rebuilt” it from the foundations for long-term growth.

Incidentally, this is the second such major paper from the government making significant claims in the economic domain. Earlier, the Niti Aayog had released a paper claiming that multidimensional poverty declined in India during the NDA years. We did a podcast on that paper as well, and you can check it out here (hyper link here).

What are the various claims made in the White Paper, and how do they stand up to scrutiny?

Guest: economist Professor Arun Kumar.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.

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