-Livemint.com As of 31 March, the total outstanding term deposits with banks in rural India contracted by 1.05% to ₹6.99 trillion from a year earlier Every three months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) declares region wise data for term deposits. As of 31 March, the total term deposits of commercial banks in India rose 8.42% to ₹86.4 trillion from a year earlier. Term deposits are money that depositors keep in a bank...

-The Telegraph Poverty research pioneer cites US, UK and EU experience; Niti Aayog vice-chairman disagrees, says there’s no guarantee ‘helicopter money’ will lead to spending Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee has stepped up to the firing line by arguing the government should make bigger direct cash payments under the MGNREGA scheme to help people who have slid into poverty due to the pandemic. The government has already indicated it’s not keen on larger direct...

-Counterview.net A civil society statement, prepared for endorsement from workers’ organisations and concerned citizens by senior economists Amit Basole, Babu Mathews, Gautam Bhan, Jean Dreze, Rajendran Narayan and Ravi Srivastava after several rounds of discussion with trade unions, lawyers and grassroots organisation, has insisted that the Government of India come up with a national relief and recovery package immediately. “Without the direct support of such a package, simply unlocking the economy will...

A recent report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that the countrywide lockdown imposed on 25th March, 2020, which was extended for nearly two months in phases, affected the food and nutritional status of vulnerable sections of the Indian population. It says that a programme like the Mid-Day Meal Scheme covers four-fifth of primary-school-aged children in the country that helps in improving not only nutrition but also...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...