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...

-The Hindu India’s poor AOI is a stark reminder of the need to attain a key sustainable development goal of higher agri-growth While the overall budgetary allocation towards the agricultural sector has marginally increased by 4.4% in the Union Budget 2022-23, the rate of increase is lower than the current inflation rate of 5.5%-6%. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) report for 2001 to 2019 shows that,...

-Down to Earth Unfavourable, unreliable weather hurt agriculture, in turn pushing food prices our of reach across the world At 14.23 per cent, India’s wholesale inflation rate in November 2021 was the highest in three decades. It did reduce marginally to 13.56 per cent the next month, according to government data released January 14, 2022. But even that is bad news for the Centre ahead of Assembly elections in five states, including...

-MoneyControl.com India has suspended futures trading in seven commodities with immediate effect in its latest move to rein in soaring inflation. The Finance Ministry has suspended trading in futures contracts of some agricultural commodities for one year to reign in inflation. Trading in seven commodities - paddy (non-basmati), wheat, chana, mustard seeds and its derivatives, soya bean and its derivatives, crude palm oil and moong - has been suspended with immediate effect, according...

-The Telegraph The November figures stand out vis-a-vis a modest 2.29 per cent in the same month last year Wholesale inflation spiked to a 30-year high at 14.23 per cent in November — a level that hasn’t been seen since India embraced economic liberalisation in 1991. The surge was led by a vault in the prices of food, fuel and power, basic metals and chemical products. Inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI)...