-Business Standard The current growth in the Indian cultivator's real or inflation-adjusted income, at about 3.5 per cent, is barely a third of the growth rate required to achieve this goal Earlier this month, the Central government said in a reply in Parliament that it has taken several measures to double farmers’ income by 2022 and that the progress made so far indicates that it is ‘on the right track’. However, a closer...

-The Hindu Business Line Some manufacturers have hiked prices, others await clarity on the situation New Delhi: The fertiliser industry is not hopeful of an increase in subsidies from last year’s level for non-urea crop nutrients despite global prices shooting up sharply. Several companies have increased the maximum retail price (MRP) of fertilisers, while some others are waiting for clarity. The recent farmers’ movement and the farm leaders’ unsuccessful dabbling in electoral politics...

Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...

In the absence of income or expenditure-based headcount ratio, the growth in the real wages (i.e., nominal wages adjusted against retail inflation) of the manual workers is considered to be a good proxy to assess the trends in poverty. This is because the manual, unskilled/ semi-skilled labourers exist at the bottom of the pyramid or economic hierarchy, and most of them belong to the social categories Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 30 January, 2022 The stress on the economy became evident, especially in the aftermath of the raging pandemic from the 7.3% contraction in GDP in 2020-21. The distress faced by poorer households has continued over a period of time with the pandemic acting as a catalyst in increasing the woes of such households. In a latest round of survey conducted by People’s Research on...