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 Many experts, including former RBI governor D Subbarao, have flagged concerns over the privacy aspect of CBDC Mumbai: The RBI on Wednesday said the central bank digital currency (CBDC) will remain anonymous and regulations that are applicable to paper currency will prevail on the e-rupee. Earlier this month, the RBI had begun a pilot for the retail digital rupee after it launched another project for wholesale digital rupee among financial institutions. Many...

-The Telegraph Decision was kept closely guarded to root out the menace of black money, money laundering, tax evasion and other illegal activities: Modi government The Centre on Wednesday defended the 2016 demonetisation policy, saying “the withdrawal of the legal tender character of a significant portion of total currency value was a well-considered decision” taken after extensive consultations with the RBI. The decision was kept closely guarded to root out the menace of...

-Press release by World Bank dated November 14, 2022 NEW DELHI: A new World Bank report estimates that India will need to invest $840 billion over the next 15 years—or an average of $55 billion per annum—into urban infrastructure if it is to effectively meet the needs of its fast-growing urban population. The report, titled “Financing India’s Urban Infrastructure Needs: Constraints to Commercial Financing and Prospects for Policy Action” underlines the...

-The Hindu Being fiscally conservative resulted in a rise in extreme poverty, with there being no signs of any course correction A recent World Bank report, titled “Correcting Course”, captures the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global poverty. The number of people living in extreme poverty rose by seven crore million in 2020, as the global poverty rate rose from 8.4% in 2019 to 9.3% in 2020. This is the first...