-Reuters Monsoon rains will not be enough to save the country from its first drought in three years, the weather office said on Thursday as it forecast that the El Nino weather pattern should reduce rains again in the second half of the June to September season. India, one of the world's largest food producers and consumers with a population of 1.2 billion, last suffered a drought in 2009, which forced it...
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For real inclusion, agriculture and not just the economy must grow fast
-The Economic Times The latest consumption figures from the National Sample Survey Organisation show that rural consumption grew 18% in the two years to 2011-12. Poverty fell by roughly 7% in villages and 1% in towns. The town-country gap in incomes narrowed. This is welcome but needs to be qualified. 2009-10 was a drought year, depressing consumption and thereby exaggerating the improvement registered two years later. Over a longer seven-year period, between 2004-05...
More »Disparity in income getting sharper, NSSO data shows-Asit Ranjan Mishra
-Live Mint In urban India, the ratio of the top and bottom 10% of the economic group increased to 10.9% from 10.1% Economic growth is increasing the income and consumption levels of the average Indian faster than before, but income disparity is getting sharper, especially in the country’s villages, which may require a greater effort aimed at creating jobs in the non-farm sector in rural areas. The increase in inequality is evident from...
More »Inflation, poor monsoon hit consumption in eastern India-Shine Jacob & Nirmalya Behera
-The Business Standard Consumers say they cannot buy branded FMCG items in mobile phones, customers opt for low-end handsets while retaining brand loyalty Last year, Ashok Das, a farmer-cum-fisherman from the small industrial town of Rishra in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, had promised his younger son a branded television. But last year’s bad crop output and this season’s deficient monsoon made him change his plans and finally settle on a...
More »Old diet, new recipe-Sebastian PT
-Business Today "I want it back," says Sharada Begum. The 67-year-old woman is a member of one of the 100 households of Raghubir Nagar, a resettlement colony in west Delhi, chosen to participate in a pilot scheme that aimed to turn the public distribution system (PDS) on its head. Through all of 2011, these households had Rs 1,000 transferred every month to a woman member's bank account in lieu of rice, wheat,...
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