-The Indian Express High inflation reduces room for rate cuts. With limited fiscal space, FM must spell out plans to revive growth. Latest inflation data seems to corroborate fears articulated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its December meeting when it refrained from cutting the benchmark repo rate. Retail inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), has surged to 7.35 per cent in December 2019, up from 5.54 per...

-Down to Earth Millions of Indian households transfer poverty to the next generation, making poverty eradication nearly impossible Something that has haunted me through my 22 years of reporting the rural India is how some people in certain regions always remain poor. I have visited them multiple times for various assignments, but have always found them talking about poverty. Like me, they too always wonder: “Why do we remain poor?” I have mostly reported...

-Down to Earth Latest NITI Aayog counts no state as ‘achiever’; overall performance of most ‘performing’, ‘laggard’ states towards cutting poverty dipped With every fifth Indian still below the poverty line, the country needs to take huge strides to alleviate poverty. For most states, though, it did not seem the priority, going by the poverty score card in the SDG Index 2019-20 released by the NITI Aayog just before 2019 ended. The index...

-PTI The World Bank said India's growth rate was likely to recover to 5.8 per cent in the following financial year. Washington: The World Bank has projected a five per cent growth rate for India in the 2019-2020 fiscal, but said it was likely to recover to 5.8 per cent in the following financial year. The growth rate for Bangladesh has been projected to remain above seven per cent through the forecast horizon...

-Down to Earth Indian farmers have accumulated huge debts due to crop damages and less remunerative price for produce When the National Statistical Office released the advance estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the 2019-20 fiscal year, the optimism for farmers — with an above-normal monsoon — fizzled out. India’s GDP growth for the current financial year was pegged at 5 per cent, the lowest in 11 years. In 2018-19, the...