-The Hindu Q1 surge in private consumption not just a function of pent-up demand but also rising employment levels, it says Demand for work under the national rural employment guarantee scheme hit a two-year low in August, signalling that the recovering economy is creating more jobs in rural as well as urban India, the Union Finance Ministry said on Saturday.    India’s inflation, the Ministry said, is “in control” and expected to moderate...

-Hindustan Times As the public sector has contracted, there has been no other good employer that has emerged to take its place despite the economic expansion of manufacturing and services sectors. Despite several decades of rapid growth of the private sector in India, the allure of a public sector job, historically associated with security, steady pay, and multiple benefits, continues to remain strong for most Indians. The protests following the announcement of...

Are public sector banks (PSBs) important for the economy? Have the PSBs served the purpose for which they were created? Could the PSBs compete efficiently against the private sector banks (PVBs)? These are some of the questions, which have been answered by a chapter in the RBI Bulletin's August edition. Efficiency of PSBs Co-authored by Snehal S Herwadkar, Sonali Goel, and Rishuka Bansal (2022) of the Banking Research Division, Reserve Bank of...

-Newsclick.in The high healthcare costs were expected to be addressed through the introduction of health insurance by the Union government, but it covers less than 30% of hospital charges leaving a heavy financial burden on the poor. Health outcomes have remained grossly unequal, with India's dalits and adivasis living shorter lives of poorer quality, as per a recent paper published by Oxfam India. Private infrastructure now accounts for nearly 62% of India's...

-The Hindu ‘Healthcare as an optional public service’ would ensure the legal right to receive free, quality care in a public institution The lingering COVID-19 crisis is a good time to revive an issue that is, oddly, slow to come to life in India — universal health care (UHC). Meanwhile, UHC has become a well-accepted objective of public policy around the world. It has even been largely realised in many countries, not...