-Livemint.com Industry estimates suggest two-wheeler sales for fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) will close out at 14.5 million units, the lowest volume in almost a decade. This betrays a deep distress in incomes of rural households. Mint explains the fault lines: * Why are two-wheeler sales falling? Rural demand contributes 50-60% of two-wheeler sales in the commuter segment. Price increases, rising fuel prices and unseasonal rains leading to poor crop realizations have hit the...
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What We Could Hope For – But Should Not Expect – in Budget 2022-23 -Jayati Ghosh
-TheWire.in Faced with a Union government that puts its own image-building ahead of the good of the people, let us imagine a scenario where Budget 2022-23 is, instead, drafted by a government which is willing to cooperate with the states and respond to the needs of the people. No matter where we look, bad news on the economy just keeps pouring in. Despite all the official and unofficial media attempts to talk up...
More »A reminder that India still trails in the hunger fight -Dipa Sinha
-The Hindu The Government’s objection to the methodology of the Global Hunger Index is not based on facts The Global Hunger Report (GHR) has once again made headlines in India for the country’s poor ranking in terms of the Global Hunger Index (GHI). The report ranks India at 101 out of 116 countries, with the country falling in the category of having a ‘serious’ hunger situation. The ranks are not comparable across...
More »Are we witnessing depeasantisation in Indian agriculture?
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...
More »Less Jobs, Even Lesser Income Crushing People’s Lives -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in Besides the dire jobs situation, what is even more distressing is falling income from surviving jobs. People in India are in the grip of a severe income crisis brought on by myopic government policies and aggravated by mismanagement of the pandemic. Part of this economic collapse is because the absolute number of jobs has shrunk. Another part – not much talked about – is because of low incomes from existing jobs. This...
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