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...

-The Telegraph With a per capita income at a whopping $2554, poverty is down; exports are up and GDP is fueled by both agriculture and manufacturing; but the downside is a growing nexus between politics and business There is justifiable pride all around at Bangladesh’s remarkable performance in both the economic and social development dimensions. “Pakistan and India don’t matter. We have done better than both!” The figures speak for themselves. The renowned...

-The Telegraph The November figures stand out vis-a-vis a modest 2.29 per cent in the same month last year Wholesale inflation spiked to a 30-year high at 14.23 per cent in November — a level that hasn’t been seen since India embraced economic liberalisation in 1991. The surge was led by a vault in the prices of food, Fuel and Power, basic metals and chemical products. Inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI)...

-The Hindu Business Line Besides global factors, structural inflation, which is sticky, might be setting in. The RBI should be ready November readings for wholesale and consumer price index, the first at a three decade high and the second at a more modest three-month high, are a cause for concern. They raise questions over whether the Monetary Policy Committee’s projections for retail inflation will hold. A 14.2 per cent spike in WPI...

-Hindustan Times The meat-climate debate is pretty much a red herring for a country like India where meat has a minuscule presence in Indian diets There is increasing realization that meat-based diets lead to harmful emissions. Many scientific studies show the world stands to gain if people either give up or even reduce eating meat. For example, a 2019 article in the Nature journal, citing a report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental...