-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...
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Oxfam's Inequality Report Has Big Flaws, But That Doesn't Narrow India's Stark Wealth Divide -Rukmini S
-Huffington Post Global inequality data may be skewed by debt, but Indian inequality really is as bad as it says. Mark Zuckerberg is wealthier than the Poorest 40% of Indians, and Mukesh Ambani is worth more than the Poorest 30% of Indians, a new report by Oxfam says. While Oxfam might be misstating some facts on global inequality, the data on Indian inequality really is that bad. The report, released on Monday morning,...
More »Universal Basic Income For India Suddenly Trendy. Look Out -Jean Dreze
-NDTV A recent headline in Quartz, an otherwise serious media agency, claims that Jammu and Kashmir is the first state in India to "commit to a universal basic income" (UBI). A glance at the original source quickly negates this claim: it is based on nothing more than "seeds of a thought" (sic) from the Finance Minister of J&K about possible cash transfers for a small minority of Poor households. This is...
More »Richest 1% own 58% of total wealth in India: Oxfam
-PTI In signs of rising income inequality, India’s richest 1 per cent now hold a huge 58 per cent of the country’s total wealth — higher than the global figure of about 50 per cent, a new study showed on Monday. The study, released by rights group Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting here attended by rich and powerful from across the world, showed that just 57 billionaires...
More »Niti Aayog calls for review of RTE Act -Yuthika Bhargava
-The Hindu The Niti Aayog has called for a review of the provisions of the Right To Education Act that stipulate that children who don’t perform well cannot be held back up to class VIII. It said the good intention behind the norm is detrimental to the learning process. It has also suggested a system where direct benefit transfers offer the Poor a choice between subsidised purchases or equivalent cash to buy...
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