-NetworkIdeas.org India is often mistakenly seen as a country with relatively low economic inequality. In fact, there were always very significant economic inequalities in India, which intersected with social and locational inequalities in complex ways. More significantly, the country’s inequalities widened after the internal and external economic liberalization measures from the early 1990s, which attracted global financial investors and boosted economic growth considerably. The estimates of low inequality are usually based on...

-Livemint.com A consumption-driven growth not only fuels inflation, but also can arguably lead to a slackening of future growth Economic growth of 8.2% for the June quarter may have beaten all estimates, but the big question is: what kind of growth is it? Is the economy firing on all the engines of domestic consumption, investment demand and external demand? Let’s look at the numbers. The anecdotal evidence of a spurt in consumption growth...

A recent report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) enlightens one about the state of farmers' income and indebtedness in 2015-16. Entitled NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17 – in short NAFIS 2016-17 – the report says that between 2012-13 and 2015-16 the average monthly income for agricultural households grew by around 39 percent. One may recall that the Key Indicators of Situation Assessment Survey...

-Livemint.com One of the big drivers of the ruling BJP’s massive victory in 2014 was its ability to exploit inequalities within caste groups to expand its support base New Delhi: When we think of caste-based inequality in India, we typically think of a pyramid where scheduled castes (SCs or Dalits) and scheduled tribes (STs) are at the bottom, other backward classes (OBCs) above them, and upper castes at the very top....

-Times Now News The Prime Minister of India's residence- 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, does not have an electricity meter, reveals an RTI query. The response stated that neither there is a consumption record nor a separate electric meter has been installed for the Prime Minister’s residence. The RTI activist had also sought information about the electricity consumption of the whole Prime minister’s residential complex, for which the result is pending. New...