REGULARITY and repetition—of returning rains, of seasonal temperatures, of the cycles of life and death—are the essence of agriculture. So perhaps it is not surprising when events recur. In 2007-08, food prices soared. Mozambique and 30 poor countries endured food-price riots. Russia led a procession of grain exporters to restrict sales. And the world had to face up to changes in the pattern of food demand, reversing decades of declining...
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GENDER
KEY TRENDS • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14 • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...
More »The economics of food management by Harish Damodaran
Kaushik Basu proposes a new framework for release of foodgrains from government warehouses. Last year, official food inflation peaked at 21.05 per cent for the week ended November 28. Since then, it has eased — though the year-on-year rise of 10.86 per cent for August 21 is still in double-digit territory. Moreover, in absolute terms, the ‘food articles' index for the latest recorded week, at 303.3, is higher than the 296.1 level...
More »Hernando de Soto interviewed by Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk
Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...
More »Controlling Inflation by Dipankar Dasgupta
The Union budget estimates the nominal rate of growth for the Indian economy to be 12.5 per cent during the current fiscal. While it is impossible to figure out the manner in which this number was arrived at, the government has predicted further that the inflation-adjusted real growth rate for the same year will be eight per cent. Simple arithmetic requires that the difference between the nominal and real growth...
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