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...

-NDTV.com The Indian economy faces a potential threat of Stagflation from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, driven by trade disruptions and rising oil prices. The Indian economy faces a potential threat of Stagflation from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, driven by trade disruptions and rising oil prices which will push already high inflation further up, which will hurt growth prospects. Gross Domestic Data released on Monday showed the economy slowed in the October-December quarter, even...

-Livemint.com The government will have to ensure its spending improves economy-wide productivity, and its own revenue-generating capacity, to avoid a Stagflationary trap After dithering on a fiscal stimulus package for nearly a year, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has declared that she will not allow the fiscal deficit number to worry her too much as she pushes spending to revive growth in the upcoming budget. The government hopes that growth will generate higher...

-The Hindu Why is the scenario of rising prices and falling growth a cause for worry? Can the government or the Reserve Bank of India do anything? The story so far: The rise in retail price inflation to a nearly six-year high of 7.35% in December has led to increasing worries that the Indian economy may be headed towards Stagflation. The current rise in retail inflation has been attributed mainly to the...