In the absence of income or expenditure-based headcount ratio, the growth in the real wages (i.e., nominal wages adjusted against retail inflation) of the manual workers is considered to be a good proxy to assess the trends in poverty. This is because the manual, unskilled/ semi-skilled labourers exist at the bottom of the pyramid or economic hierarchy, and most of them belong to the social categories Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

-TheWeek.in Well-off are doing fine; stagflation confined to middle and lower-middle classes Kaushik Basu, former chief economic adviser to the government and former chief economist of the World Bank, is currently teaching at Cornell University in the US. In an exclusive interaction, he talks about the current challenges before the Indian economy and its future growth prospects. Excerpts: Q/ Is the Indian economy moving in the right direction? A/ The performance of the Indian...

-The Telegraph The three population groups number above 450 million, or a population greater than that of the US New Delhi: Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims in India have lower life expectancy than higher caste Hindus, a study has found, underlining how social exclusion and discrimination might be contributing to health disparities. Life expectancy is on an average about four years shorter in Adivasis, three years shorter in Dalits and around a year shorter...

-Hindustan Times The National Council of Applied Economic Research recently conducted a study, titled, Livelihood and Health Challenges of Riverine Communities of the River Ganga, in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Tata Centre for Development to explore the social & economic engagement of the riverine communities on the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. A large section of the population living in the Ganga river basin still depends on the...

-Deccan Herald The life expectancy for Dalits and Adivasis is similar to those of the poorest countries in the world The life expectancies of Adivasis and Dalits in India are significantly lower than upper-caste Hindus, a new study reported using decade-old government data on 20 million individuals from nine states. The life expectancy differences of more than four years in Adivasis, three years in Dalits and one year among Muslims as against upper-caste...