Frameworks, indices and policy instruments that explain the economic news. 283 concepts, each with its definition, key details and a timeline of every news story that touched it.
The MPC was established by amending the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 through the Finance Act, 2016. Governed under Section 45ZB of the RBI Act, it...
The Minimum Support Price is a price floor announced by the Government of India for select agricultural commodities before the sowing season, intended to...
The Consumer Price Index measures changes in the price level of a weighted average basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. In India...
The IIP is a composite indicator that measures short-term changes in the volume of production in the industrial sector of an economy. In India, it is...
The India Semiconductor Mission was established to build a domestic semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Under ISM 1.0, the government approved 10...
The IOD is an ocean-atmosphere interaction in the Indian Ocean, measured as the difference in sea surface temperatures (SST) between the western and eastern...
The WPI measures the average change in prices of goods at the wholesale or producer level, before they reach consumers. In India, it serves as a leading...
The government's Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, launched in 2020, introduced two Positive Indigenisation Lists that prohibit direct import of items that can...
The IBC, enacted in 2016, provides a unified framework for resolving insolvency of corporate persons, partnership firms, and individuals in a time-bound...
The current account is the broadest measure of a country's trade in goods, services, and transfers with the rest of the world. A current account deficit...
The FRBM Act, 2003, is the statutory framework governing India's fiscal discipline. It mandates the central government to pursue fiscal consolidation by...
The Southwest Monsoon (June–September) is the primary source of rainfall for approximately 60% of India's net sown area and accounts for ~75% of India's...
The PLFS is conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). It was launched in...
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was established by the SEBI Act, 1992, to protect investor interests, regulate the securities market, and...
The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025 is landmark legislation that replaced the Atomic...
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country's borders in a given year, measured at constant...
The Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme was launched on January 1, 2021, replacing the earlier Merchandise Exports from India...
India adopted Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) in 2016 through an amendment to the RBI Act. Under FIT, the Central Government sets the inflation target...
Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises are classified under the MSME Development Act, 2006 (amended in 2020) based on composite criteria of investment in...
The Purchasing Managers' Index is a composite leading economic indicator derived from monthly surveys of purchasing managers across manufacturing and...
India's Balance of Payments (BoP) is compiled by the RBI quarterly. The Financial Account of the BoP records: FDI (inward and outward), FPI (equity and...
The EU's CBAM entered its definitive phase on January 1, 2026, imposing a carbon-adjusted levy on imports of steel, cement, aluminium, electricity...
India consolidated 29 central labour laws into four comprehensive codes to simplify compliance, extend social security coverage, and modernise labour...
India adopted a flexible inflation targeting (FIT) framework in 2016, with the amendment to the RBI Act. The framework made price stability — specifically...
The IBC, 2016, created a unified framework for resolving insolvency of companies, partnership firms, and individuals. It established the National Company...
The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) is a rights-based framework that entitles up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to...
Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are a group of 17 metals: the 15 lanthanides (lanthanum to lutetium in the periodic table), plus scandium and yttrium. Despite...
The Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative in defence, launched in 2020, involves a positive indigenisation list (PIL) — items that cannot be imported and must be...
India's EBP Programme has progressively increased ethanol blending targets over two decades. It began with a 5% blending target and escalated through...
Understanding when and how wholesale price increases transmit to retail prices is central to monetary policy. The RBI's MPC targets CPI, but watches WPI as...
India maintains two key inflation indices: CPI (consumer prices, measuring retail inflation experienced by households) and WPI (Wholesale Price Index...
The Income-tax Act, 2025 replaces the Income-tax Act, 1961, which had accumulated approximately 819 sections across 47 chapters over six decades of...
NCAP is India's flagship programme for improving air quality, launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in January 2019.
The Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme, implemented from April 1, 2010, provides a fixed annual per-kilogram subsidy on Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K)...
PMMSY was launched in September 2020 with the vision of 'Sustainable, Responsible, Inclusive and Equitable Development of Fisheries Sector.' It is a...
India adopted a Flexible Inflation Targeting framework in 2016 through an amendment to the RBI Act, 1934. The framework mandates the RBI to maintain CPI...
The fiscal deficit is the difference between the central government's total expenditure and its total receipts (excluding borrowings) in a given financial...
India's Ethanol Blending Programme was launched to reduce dependence on crude oil imports and promote cleaner fuel. The National Policy on Biofuels, 2018...
Launched on February 18, 2016, PMFBY is India's flagship crop insurance scheme replacing the earlier National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and...
The global semiconductor industry operates on a design-fabrication split model. 'Fabless' companies design chips but outsource manufacturing to dedicated...
Basmati rice holds a Geographical Indication (GI) tag recognising it as a product originating from a specific region in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. GI tags are...
The Index of Core Industries is a monthly production index released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (DPIIT). It tracks output in eight...
India operates a dual-track fertiliser subsidy system: a fixed Maximum Retail Price (MRP) system for urea, and a Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme for...
The Indian government maintains a comprehensive fertilizer subsidy regime to ensure affordable access to agricultural inputs for farmers. For urea — the...
India's civil nuclear programme is structured around a unique three-stage strategy developed by Dr. Homi J. Bhabha in the 1950s to utilise India's abundant...
LNG is natural gas (primarily methane, CH₄) cooled to approximately -162°C, at which point it becomes liquid, reducing its volume to roughly 1/600th of its...
The MSP system, recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), currently covers 23 crops plus sugarcane (under Fair and...
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM), launched in 2019, is the Government of India's flagship programme for solarising...
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional multilateral development bank established in 1966, headquartered in Manila, Philippines. It provides loans...
Coal gasification is a thermo-chemical process that partially oxidises coal at high temperatures and pressures in the presence of steam and limited oxygen....
The EAC-PM is an independent body constituted to provide advice on economic and related issues to the Government of India, specifically to the Prime...
India is the world's second-largest coal consumer and third-largest producer. Coal accounts for roughly 55% of India's electricity generation. Despite large...
Excise duty (now Central Excise Duty / Union Excise Duty) on petroleum products is a major source of central government tax revenue and a key lever for...
A fast breeder reactor uses fast neutrons (unlike thermal reactors that slow neutrons) to cause fission in fuel and, crucially, to convert fertile material...
A base year revision in national accounts updates the reference year against which economic output is measured at constant prices. When the base year is...
India is the world's third-largest pharmaceutical producer by volume (behind China and the US) and ranks 11th by value. With more than 3,000 pharmaceutical...
India is one of the world's largest tea producers and a historically dominant global exporter, but its export market share has declined as competitors —...
InvITs are a critical vehicle for channeling private capital into infrastructure assets. Their growth is directly linked to the success of both NMP 1.0 and...
The Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) Scheme was introduced in 2010 to rationalise fertiliser subsidies by fixing a per-nutrient subsidy rate (per kg of N, P, K...
OMCs are the backbone of India's downstream petroleum sector — they refine crude, transport, and retail petrol and diesel through a network of ~85,000+ fuel...