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...

-Hindustan Times On November 15, Boston-based health news website Stat News cited official documents that purported to detail a series of problems in how Bharat Biotech’s coronavirus vaccine, funded partly by the government, was approved. The Union government and vaccine maker Bharat Biotech on Thursday refuted a report that alleged rules and protocols were bent during the approval process for Covaxin, but the clarifications served to further add to the questions that...

The transport sector is important for the smooth functioning of an economy. The supply chains for various products and by-products (both domestically as well as internationally) can work efficiently only if the transportation of raw materials and inputs, and final goods and commodities takes place without disruption.   Due to economic growth, India’s annual CO2 (i.e., carbon dioxide) emission has expanded from 1.19 billion tonnes in 2005 to 2.44 billion tonnes...

-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-ANI/ NDTV.com Auto, Taxi Drivers Strike In Delhi: Several unions of auto and cab drivers are demanding that the fare rates be hiked and fuel prices be reduced. New Delhi: To protest against the soaring fuel prices, members of auto, taxi and cab drivers' associations in Delhi have decided to go on a strike from Monday for two days. Several unions of auto and cab drivers are demanding that the fare rates be...