Best of BS Opinion: Managing bad loans, Patanjali's Covid vaccine, and more

Here's a selection of Business Standard opinion pieces for the day

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday reduced India’s growth forecast for the current year to (-) 4.5 per cent from 1.9 per cent estimated in April. Although some of the indicators are showing signs of recovery, a broad-based revival would depend on how soon India is able to contain the virus. Business Standard opinion pieces of the day talk about the state of the economy among other issues 

The government should not be too sanguine at this moment in time. The fear should be that, as Covid-19 cases are still not falling in crucial areas, and the economy itself is showing relatively limited green shoots, India’s pandemic response has fallen squarely between two stools. Government must be on guard against overconfidence – there is a long way still to go, notes our lead editorial

How quickly bank balance sheets are repaired would be critical for recovery from the current Covid-19 shock. The government, of course, will need to take the lead and capitalise PSBs adequately, argues our second editorial

India’s defence preparedness cannot be improved on the cheap and this spending should be slowly increased to 4 per cent of GDP, writes Jaimini Bhagwati

Baba Ramdev’s creations to fight Covid must go through the rigorous of scientific verification and clinical trials before being sold in the market, notes Nivedita Mookerji

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“For the first time, all regions are projected to experience negative growth in 2020.”

 
International Monetary Fund