-The Telegraph The November figures stand out vis-a-vis a modest 2.29 per cent in the same month last year Wholesale inflation spiked to a 30-year high at 14.23 per cent in November — a level that hasn’t been seen since India embraced economic liberalisation in 1991. The surge was led by a vault in the prices of food, fuel and power, basic metals and chemical products. Inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI)...

One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-Networkideas.org  The International Monetary Fund has announced a fresh issue of $650 billion Special Drawing Rights in August which would be distributed among member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. This amount is less than what had been demanded by many, which was a trillion dollars, but it does represent a small temporary comfort for the heavily indebted third world countries. Almost all of it will go into the pockets of...

-The Hindu India’s religious mix has been stable since 1951, says Pew Center study The religious composition of India’s population since Partition has remained largely stable, with both Hindus and Muslims, the two largest religious groups, showing not only a marked decline but also a convergence in fertility rates, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center, a non-profit based in Washington DC. The study, based on data sourced from...