A surfeit of good advice.

"Describing the recent two consecutive spikes in retail inflation beyond the 6 percent as a 'transitory hump', a Wall Street brokerage on Monday said it expects the RBI to overlook it and unanimously stick to the dovish stance at the forthcoming policy review, even though a further upward revision of its already-revised target is more likely," Economic Times (ET). "Non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans of banks have declined by Rs 61,180 crore (Rs 611.80 billion) to Rs 8.34 lakh crore (Rs 8.34 trillion) at the end of March 31, 2021, as a result of various steps taken by the government, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said on Monday," ET. The inflation situation is "very alarming", according to Prof Kaushik Basu. That is because wholesale price index (WPI) is very elevated and will seep into retail inflation, Outlook India. "The government's total tax collection in the April-June quarter grew about 86 percent to more than Rs 5.57 lakh crore, Parliament was informed on Monday. Out of the total amount, collection of net direct tax stood at Rs 2.46 lakh crore and of indirect tax was at Rs 3.11 lakh crore," ET. The price of crude oil is a worry. "So far in 2021, Brent crude prices have increased as much as 43% to touch $74 a barrel. India imports most of its crude oil requirements, and higher crude prices have a negative influence on the country's current account deficit (CAD) and inflation," Mint. The Indian economy is domestic consumption driven and "real consumption growth is 5.5%, which was 7.5% a few years back", said Soumyajit Niyogi of India Ratings. This is because households are paying higher taxes. "If you talk about the overall composition, the total household tax which includes household income tax plus any taxes other than the corporation tax, the total contribution to the tax revenue to government is now around 75% which was compared to 60% in the last decade." A big cause for this is the enormous increase in taxes on fuel. While having to pay higher taxes, unlucky Indian households are facing enormous debts due to medical bills due to Covid-19 infection. "Life has been tentatively returning to normal in India as new coronavirus cases have fallen. But millions are embroiled in a nightmare of huge piles of medical bills. Most Indians don't have medical insurance and costs of COVID-19 treatment have them drowning in debt," ET. "As of May, bank lending to industry stood at 26.8% of non-food credit. The retail lending of banks was at 25.9% of non-food credit," wrote Vivek Kaul. "As of March 2013, lending to industry made up 45.8% of non-food credit, while retail lending was at 18.4%." This is because banks are reluctant to lend to companies and companies are reluctant to borrow when domestic consumption is low. So banks prefer to lend to individuals against assets as collateral, such as home loans, car loans and loans against shares and fixed deposits. Can Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who has a Masters degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, get the economy out of the morass? asked Puja Mehra. "Surveys of food insecurity during last year's lockdown collated by Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi show that between 50 and 80% of households surveyed were eating less than before. Further, an estimated 230 million Indians have been pushed into poverty, reversing the gains made in past decades when poverty rates in India had halved." The stimulus package announced by Sitharaman last month amounted to only 0.5% of GDP. "None of her 'Atmanirbhar' packages so far will do much to address the key challenge that will define Narendra Modi's prime ministership in the long run: the jobs crisis." "The global economy is reviving, opening up a window for exports to again become an important engine of growth and employment creation. But India's increasingly protectionist trade policy lowers the shutters on even that source of demand." Prof Arvind Panagariya lists a number of reforms that must be undertaken urgently, from higher education to privatisation of public sector companies, and rationalisation of taxes, Times Of India. So much advice but is anyone listening?