Quartz India Easing global commodity prices have begun to reflect on inflation in India, at both the wholesale and consumer levels. Wholesale price rise in April fell into negative territory for the first time since July 2020, to -0.92%, government data showed yesterday (May 15). It stood at 15.38% in the same month last year. The decline in inflation in goods sold in bulk was primarily driven by a fall in the...

Scroll.in Though the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) has refocussed attention on school education in recent years, some fundamental problems continue to plague the system. Despite the constitutional and legal obligations of governments, education budgets have remained modest and woefully inadequate to requirements. While there has been a reasonable expansion of coverage and enrolment in schools, the fundamental issue of poor learning outcomes, especially...

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

Human-caused climate change made April's record-breaking heatwaves in Bangladesh, India, Laos, and Thailand at least 30 times more likely, according to an analysis conducted by a group of leading climate scientists. The study by World Weather Attribution also emphasises that the region's high vulnerability, known as a heatwave hotspot, exacerbated the impacts of the heatwave. During April, parts of south and southeast Asia faced an intense heatwave, reaching unprecedented temperatures exceeding 42...

The Hindu Businessline India’s urea production has surged by 25.6 per cent during the first month of the current fiscal to 23.45 lakh tonnes (lt), thanks to the revival of four closed plants in the public sector at Gorakhpur, Sindri, Barauni, and Ramagundam. However, sales were lower at 11.77 lt in April from year-ago, which indicates its comfortable availability as farmers normally rush to store the crop nutrient ahead of sowing...