-Newsclick.in Privatisation of grain procurement and cap on procurement subsidies are among the ideas being floated. Amid a slew of worrying news on the food grain front, the Narendra Modi-led government not only appears to be strangely cool, but it is also throwing up bizarre proposals to change the whole procurement-distribution system. This could be the famous ‘using a crisis as an opportunity’ mode of thinking that has led to catastrophic effects...
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Number theory: Shrinking public sector employment and its costs -Pabitra Chowdhury and Rosa Abraham
-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...
More »Fuelling problems: India’s poor are being forced to return to unclean cooking fuels; here’s why -Seema Prasad
-Down to Earth With LPG prices crossing the Rs 1,000-mark, the poor now have to make unfair choices about their basic standard of life Farm labourer Mahadesha from Karnataka, groundnut farmer R Chandrashekharreddy from Andhra Pradesh, homemaker Geeta from Haryana and slum dweller Naresh from Ghaziabad are facing the same dilemma. The cost of a liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder has crossed over Rs 1,000 on the back of regular price revisions...
More »Public sector banks have ensured financial inclusion, finds a new empirical study
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...
More »Plight of the small peasantry in Punjab is affecting their mental health, highlights field-based study
Door-to-door and village-to-village surveys carried out by researchers of the Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana detected a total of 9,291 suicides that were committed by farmers in six districts of Punjab during the period from 2000 to 2018. Situated in the Malwa region of Punjab, which is known for cotton farming and the prevalence of cancer among its population, Sangrur (2,506) witnessed the highest number of...
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