In each of the last three years – from 2020 through 2022 – Indian banks lent more money to retail customers purchasing homes than they did to farmers. In fiscal year (FY)2021-22 commercial banks gaveRs. 17.54 lakh crore worth of housing loans, while agriculture and allied activities got Rs. 15.16 lakh crore. That is nearly 14 percent less. In FY 2021 and FY 2020 – one of which saw a...

There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-Press release by Oxfam India dated 15 September 2022 New Delhi: Oxfam India’s latest ‘India Discrimination Report 2022’ finds women in India despite their same educational qualification and work experience as men will be discriminated in the labour market due to societal and employers’ prejudices. The academically recognised statistical model applied in the India Discrimination Report is now able to quantify the discrimination women face in the labour market. The lower...

-TheWire.in * As of last year, financial institutions from India were the third-largest investors out of six countries financing 80% of the world’s coal investments. * A 2021 report found that ICICI, the State Bank of India, Axis Bank, Trust Group and HDFC were among the fourth-biggest group of financiers of coal-based projects worldwide. * Indian commercial banks’ large-scale investment in Big Infra has exposed the Indian people’s savings and personal investments to...

-The Hindu Dehumanisation is the likely outcome when humane aspects of governance get outsourced to technologies The right to live with dignity is a constitutional imperative. However, it rarely manifests in discussions surrounding digital initiatives in governance. Centralised data dashboards — valuable as they are — have become the go-to mode for assessing policies, relegating principles such as human dignity and hardships in accessing rights to its blind spots. Often when technological...