-Newsclick.in Three transformative steps could dramatically change this dire situation – provided Modi Govt. has the will to take them. Wage growth of households has declined from 8.2% in 2012-2016 to 5.7% in 2017-2021, according to a fresh study by a RATings agency. It will actually be even lower – around 1% - if inflation is taken into account. This slowing down of wage growth has happened in both rural and urban...

-The Hindu Q1 surge in private consumption not just a function of pent-up demand but also rising employment levels, it says Demand for work under the national rural employment guarantee scheme hit a two-year low in August, signalling that the recovering economy is creating more jobs in rural as well as urban India, the Union Finance Ministry said on Saturday.    India’s inflation, the Ministry said, is “in control” and expected to modeRATe...

-The Telegraph At present, India has 195 million households with RATion cards (nearly 794 million people), lower than the beneficiaries we intended to target in 2013 Inordinate delays in carrying out the census exercise are depriving millions of Indians who rely on RATions for their subsistence. The exclusion of the poorest from the public distribution system in the pre and post-pandemic years was first flagged by the economists, Jean Drèze and Reetika...

-The Telegraph There has been a pick-up in the prices of vegetables, fruits, eggs, meat and fish and cereals mostly because of erRATic rains Wholesale price index-based (WPI) inflation eased to a 11-month low of 12.41 per cent in August on softening in the prices of manufactured and fuel products even as food items remained expensive. Although WPI inflation declined for three consecutive months in August, it remained in double digits for...

-The Hindu Near-universal social security pensions would be a good start to a radical expansion of public support for the elderly Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since Independence — from around 32 years in the late 1940s to 70 years or so today. Many countries have done even better, but this is still a historical achievement. Over the same period, the fertility RATe has crashed from about six children...