-Livemint.com Multiple Surveys indicate that we not only missed that goal but our rural economy is in deep distress On 28 February 2016, at a farmer rally in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the government’s intention of doubling the income of farmers by 2022, a year marking 75 years of India’s independence. That it was not just political rhetoric but a real project was evident from the follow-up. An...

- Deccan Herald Covid-19 reverse migration of labour added to joblessness A rise in self-employment and unpaid family labour three years into the Covid-19 pandemic even as wage rates fell is an indication that rural distress has risen, the economist Santosh Mehrotra writes. Economic distress was on an upward trajectory even before the Pandemic and the sudden arrival of millions of reverse migrants in 2020 added to the stock of unemployed people...

-The Hindu Business Line The professor said, ‘Ground realities are very different in India and China’; she also called for ‘greater surveillance and sequencing’ It’s a tale of two different populations and their exposure to a virus scripts a country’s response, and the ground realities are very different between India and China, said eminent virologist Dr Gagandeep Kang. Comparing the Covid-19 situation in India and China, over the last three years, Kang told...

Jharkhand's government schools have a massive teacher shortage, a Survey by Gyan Vigyan Samiti Jharkhand has found. The Survey was conducted in 138 primary and upper primary schools between September and October 2022 to assess their condition after the Covid-19 pandemic. Jharkhand's school system was shut for two years, among the longest in the world. Teachers told the Surveyors they felt that most students had forgotten how to read and...

-The Hindu Business Line Retailers’ Association of India pointed out that the impact of inflationary challenges on the discretionary segment was visible Retailers posted a 15 per cent growth in sales in November over pre-pandemic levels. According to the latest edition of Retail Business Survey released by the Retailers’ Association of India (RAI), this growth was led by segments such as footwear, sports goods and jewellery. The industry body, however, pointed out...