-Hindustan Times The headline unemployment rate in the March 2021 quarter was 9.4%. This is the lowest since the quarter ending June 2020, which coincided with the 68-day long nation-wide lockdown which was imposed on March 25, 2020. Could the Covid-19 pandemic have left long-term scars on India’s labour markets? The findings of the January-March round of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), released on November 30, by the National Statistical Office...
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Meeting the IMF, RBI forecast of 9.5% GDP growth this year now a challenge, says Dr Rangarajan -E Kumar Sharma
-Financial Express Dr Rangarajan feels that perhaps we may end the year with GDP growth in the region of 7 or 8 per cent. The much awaited news on the second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers showing a growth of 8.4 percent as compared to 7.4 percent contraction in Q2 2020-21, has come as a dampner. Economists now see serious challenges in India being able to hit the full year GDP...
More »Official data on determinants of fertility has lessons for the misguided electorate
The virility of Muslim men vis-à-vis men from other religious communities have often been used as a political tool and to create a divisive agenda just before elections for getting votes from the majority of the Indian electorate who are Hindus. Instead of focusing on positive agendas like human development, employment generation, and poverty reduction, political campaigns just before the elections oftentimes reduce to mere communal propaganda (when a lot...
More »Farming became costlier between crop years 2012-13 and 2018-19, shows the latest available NSO data
One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...
More »Debunking the myth of APMCs regulating agricultural marketing in a real world
When one of the three farm laws i.e., The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 was enacted last year, it was argued by its proponents that the legislation would allow the farmers to sell their produce (and the traders to purchase that produce) outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committee-APMC mandis after crop harvesting. In a way, that particular piece of legislation was enacted to end the...
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