Frameworks, indices and policy instruments that explain the economic news. 336 concepts, each with its definition, key details and a timeline of every news story that touched it.
Capital account convertibility (CAC) means the freedom to change local currency into foreign currency, and back, for buying assets abroad or bringing in...
The Yellow Revolution is the name given to the sharp rise in India's oilseed production from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Oilseeds are crops such as...
The Minimum Support Price, or MSP, is a price the government promises to pay farmers for certain crops, no matter how low the market price falls. It acts...
The VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 is India's law that guarantees paid work to rural families. Every rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled...
Gross State Domestic Product, or GSDP, is the total value of all final goods and services produced inside one state's borders in one year. It is the...
Defence exports are the weapons, equipment, parts and services that Indian companies sell to the armed forces of other countries. They include missiles...
The Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009 is a State law that stops farmers from sowing paddy nurseries and transplanting paddy too early in...
The Real Effective Exchange Rate, or REER, tells us how strong or weak the rupee really is against the currencies of all of India's main trading partners...
Stubble burning means setting fire to the crop residue (the stalks and stubble left in the field after harvest) to clear the land quickly for the next crop....
A bond is a loan that an investor gives to a government or a company. In return, the borrower pays a fixed interest every year and returns the full amount...
The composition scheme is a simple, optional way for small businesses to pay GST. Instead of charging GST on every bill and claiming credit for GST paid on...
Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) is the Ministry of Defence's scheme to get startups, MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), individual...
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006 is the main rulebook that decides whether a big project in India can be built. It says that...
The National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) is the Government of India's seven-year programme to make the country self-reliant in critical minerals...
The Liquidity Adjustment Facility, or LAF, is the set of daily tools the RBI uses to add money to the banking system or take extra money out of it. Banks...
The External Benchmark Lending Rate, or EBLR, is a way of setting the interest rate on a bank loan by linking it to a rate that the bank does not control...
The CRZ Notification, 2019 (issued under the Environment Protection Act, 1986) regulates development activities in the coastal zone to protect coastal...
The Indian Ocean Dipole, or IOD, is a swing in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern parts of the tropical Indian Ocean. In a positive...
A nuclear power plant works like a coal power plant with a different heat source. Instead of burning coal, it splits uranium atoms to make heat. This heat...
An Account Aggregator (AA) is a special kind of company, licensed by the RBI, that helps you share your financial information safely from one institution to...
GST rate rationalisation means cleaning up the rate structure of the Goods and Services Tax (GST): fewer tax slabs, lower rates on common goods, and fixing...
The Trade Receivables Discounting System, or TReDS, is an online platform where a small business can get paid quickly for goods it has already sold to a big...
Inflation means a general rise in prices over time. Economists explain it with two main causes. Demand-pull inflation happens when people want to buy more...
A Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region, or PCPIR, is a very large, specially planned area (about 250 sq km) where refineries, chemical...
BHAVYA-Rasayan is a central government scheme to build three large, ready-to-use industrial parks only for the chemical industry. Its full name is Bharat...
Forward guidance is when a central bank tells the public, in advance, what it is likely to do with interest rates in the future. Instead of only announcing...
The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is a government-backed financial institution whose main job is to help MSMEs get money. It mostly...
The Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme is the Government of India's plan to mix ethanol, a fuel made from plants, into the petrol sold at petrol pumps....
Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are a group of 17 metals with special magnetic, light-emitting and electrical properties. Tiny amounts of them make modern...
Money supply is the total amount of money available in an economy at a given time. It is not just the notes and coins in people's pockets. It also includes...
India's sugar sector is one of the most closely controlled parts of the economy. The government decides the minimum price that sugar mills must pay farmers...
The Goods and Services Tax, or GST, is a single tax on the supply of goods and services across India. It replaced a long list of separate central and state...
When the government fixes a crop's MSP, it first works out how much it costs a farmer to grow that crop. But 'cost' can be measured in different ways. 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...
The IBC, enacted in 2016, provides a unified framework for resolving insolvency of corporate persons, partnership firms, and individuals in a time-bound...
The Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) Scheme is the system India uses to give subsidy on fertilisers other than urea, mainly phosphatic (P) and potassic (K)...
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...
RoDTEP stands for Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products. It is a scheme through which the Indian government gives back to exporters the hidden...
The government's Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, launched in 2020, introduced two Positive Indigenisation Lists that prohibit direct import of items that can...
The FRBM Act, 2003, is the statutory framework governing India's fiscal discipline. It mandates the central government to pursue fiscal consolidation by...
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country's borders in a given period. India periodically...
WPI and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure different stages of the price chain: WPI captures wholesale/producer-level prices (excluding services and...
DPI refers to foundational, interoperable digital systems built as public goods that private and public entities can build services on top of — as...
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...
India is often called the 'pharmacy of the world'. It is the world's third-largest producer of medicines by volume. Most of what it makes are generic...
The GDP base year is the reference year against which real GDP growth is measured. Periodic revision of the base year is essential to keep the composition...
India's textile and apparel industry is one of the largest in the world and a critical pillar of the domestic economy. It encompasses an end-to-end...
The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, or APEDA, is a statutory body (a body created by an Act of Parliament) that...
The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) is India's flagship scheme to develop the fisheries sector. It aims to raise fish production, reduce waste...
The VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 received Presidential assent and comes into force from July 1, 2026, formally repealing and replacing MGNREGA. While the...
The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) is a leading economic indicator derived from monthly surveys of procurement and supply executives (purchasing managers)...
Customs duty is a tax the government charges on goods moving across India's borders, mostly on imports (goods coming in) but sometimes on exports (goods...
Monetary policy transmission refers to how a change (or non-change) in the RBI's policy repo rate flows through to bank lending and deposit rates, and...
Compressed Biogas, or CBG, is a clean fuel made from wet waste like cow dung, crop leftovers, sugar mill waste and kitchen waste. The waste is first rotted...
An Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) is a collective investment scheme that pools investor funds to invest in infrastructure assets such as roads...
Urea is the most used fertiliser in India. It is a white, grainy chemical that gives plants nitrogen, the nutrient that makes leaves green and helps crops...
The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is India's own fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, now being developed. It is designed by the Aeronautical...
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 Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) is the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy's flagship scheme to expand solar...
An FCNR(B) deposit is a fixed deposit that a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) can open with a bank in India, but in a foreign currency like the US dollar. The...