Tag Archives: India

The Maternity Benefit Boondoggle

In March 2017, the Modi government amended the Maternity Benefit Act to increase paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks for all women employees in establishments employing ten or more people. At that time we wrote that the end result of this scheme will be more unemployment for women employees. Instead of getting any […]

Are the Prices of Petrol and Diesel Determined by the Market Forces In India?

The Indian government has supposedly deregulated the determination of prices of petroleum products like petrol and diesel in India. Every time prices of these two products go up, the government plays this card of deregulation to answer the critiques e.g., recently the Modi government reduced the excise duty on petrol and diesel by 1.5 rupees […]

Book Review: “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East”

The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013 by Timur Kuran Middle East, the region that includes the old Ottoman Empire, Iran, Egypt, the Maghreb (Tunisia, Algeria, Libya etc., countries), is marred with economic backwardness and wars at least since last millennia. This cradle of civilization, where […]

The Laws of Economics are always in Action

Last year the government of India passed a bill extending maternity benefit leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks for the pregnant women with lot of fan-fare. The objective of this law was to protect the employment of women during the time of pregnancy and entitles them to full paid absence from work to take […]

RBI Should Make the Cash Crunch Permanent

Many states of India are again experiencing situation like demonetization of 2016. ATMs all across India are running dry and we are seeing long lines outside banks. The finance minister Mr. Arun Jaitley said that this shortage of cash is because of unusual sudden spike in the demand for money. Newspapers are citing causes related […]