-The Hindu Informal workers continue to bear the brunt of pandemic’s adverse effects, says SBI report Signalling a greater shift towards formalisation of the economy, the share of the large informal sector in overall economic activity dipped sharply in 2020-21 even as informal workers continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic’s adverse effects, the SBI said in a research report. Concluding that the share of the inFormal Economy may have shrunk to...

-Frontline.thehindu.com The RBI’s proposal to loosen regulations for private lenders in the microfinance space will have disastrous consequences for the poor, especially women in rural areas. Microfinance, a category of financial services aimed at serving people from low-income households who lack access to conventional banking credit and services, was originally designed by international finance capital institutions such as the World Bank as an alternative to providing direct concessional credit to the poor—which...

-Hindustan Times According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the number of the employed fell from 399.38 million in July to 397.78 million in August, with nearly 1.3 million job losses in rural India alone. Over 1.5 million people from both the formal and informal sectors lost their jobs in August, reversing some of the gains made in July, as the unemployment rate rose in rural and urban India. According to the...

-TheWire.in The ‘vikas’ train has begun to chug the wrong way, as it were. A worrisome aspect of the Indian economy is reflected in the share of employment in agriculture dramatically rising from 42.5% of the total employed in 2018-19 to 45.6% in 2019-20. This may signify an unusually large movement of labour from industry or services sectors to agriculture. The total number of persons employed in India varies between 400 million and...

-National Herald Of 10.5 crore farmers covered under PM-Kisan, only 2.18 crore farmers received Kisan Credit Card. This means most small, marginal and landless farmers continued to struggle throughout the pandemic During the period of severe economic crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, only 20 per cent of farmers under PM- Kisan have had access to formal credit. Of the 10.5 crore farmers covered under PM-Kisan, only 2.18 crore farmers have been issued...