On Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a conversation with Nobel Laureate, Abhijit Banerjee on the economic fall out of the COVID-19 crisis, as part of his series of discussions with experts.
As the duo began their conversation that addresses the coronavirus pandemic, Banerjee says "it's surreal and frightening." "It's because nobody actually knows what's going to happen next," he adds.
Further, addressing the coronavirus pandemic impact on the poor and the economic devastation, Gandhi asked Banerjee about the schemes put in place by the UPA government to which Banerjee said, " All these good schemes are not adequate."
Speaking about various schemes, Banerjee said that it would have been wonderful to have the Aadhaar card to be linked to the Public Distribution System."This would have saved a lot of misery," he comments.
Banerjee said that "several people are not eligible for NREGA because they are in Mumbai and there is no NREGA in the city."
Speaking about economy's revival, Banerjee says that "The government has not dedicated large enough financial package yet. It is important to revive demand, nothing bad will happen if we give the bottom 60 per cent with more money." He also cited the example of US setting aside 10 percent of GDP to tackle COVID-19 crisis.
"Give temporary ration cards to everybody; use those for transferring money, wheat and rice to them," he added.
He emphasised on how important it is to spend in order to revive the government. "Spending is easiest way to revive economy; spending will have stimulus effect," he says.
Well, while the interview was quite informative, Twitter slammed Rahul Gandhi and the UPA for causing the misery to the nation.
A Twitter user said," What has UPA done for the nation when it was in power?"
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi held a discussion with former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan as a part of his series of discussion with experts. Gandhi is slated to hold more talks every week.
Well, as Gandhi conducts interview after interview, Twitterati asks him he has decided to change his career and move to journalism.
Here's how Twitterati reacted to Rahul Gandhi's interview with Abhijit Banerjee;