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...

-The Telegraph Centre’s vaccine policy advisers earlier this week approved release of intranasal vaccine into the private market New Delhi: Indian vaccine maker Bharat Biotech announced on Tuesday that its intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, approved by the Centre as a booster dose, would be available at private hospitals for Rs 800 plus additional taxes and service charges per dose. People 18 years or older who have taken two doses of Covaxin, Covishield or any...

-Newsclick.in The relatively new and fragile start-up ecosystem is not a solution to the larger problem of pauperisation of the working population of the country. In May 2022, a report in the magazine, The Economist, claimed that “a novel confluence of forces stands to transform India’s economy over the next decade, improving the lives of 1.4 billion people and changing the balance of power in Asia. Technological leaps, the energy transition, and...

-TheWire.in The bargain between companies and their 'employees' must become more equitable. The continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war is raising the fear of an imminent stagflation (a combination of inflation and unemployment led by a low growth). Worldwide inflation numbers are on the rise. Most sources of data are suggesting a higher inflationary regime. In March 2022, the US, the largest economy in the world, recorded a 41-year high inflation of 8.1%....

-The Hindu Policy efforts to formalise the economy will have limited results as the bulk of informal units are petty producers Since 2016, the Government has made several efforts to formalise the economy. Currency demonetisation, introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), digitalisation of financial transactions and enrolment of informal sector workers on numerous government Internet portals are all meant to encourage the formalisation of the economy. But why the impetus...