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...

There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-Newsclick.in In the past five years, agri workers’ wage has increased by only about Rs.15 per year. For those leaders of the country who are tearing their hair trying to figure out how to get the economy moving, boost growth, increase investment and create jobs, it would be instructive to look at the plight of the largest economic class in the country – agricultural labourers. Numbering upward of 14 crore, they are...

-The Hindu Why did the Union Finance Minister urge industry giants to invest in manufacturing? Is private sector financing at an all-time low? Has government intervention to boost and spend aggressively on infrastructure come at an opportune time? The story so far: Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked captains of industry what was holding them back from investing in manufacturing. She likened industry to Lord Hanuman from the Ramayana by stating...

-The Hindu FTAs are about pursuing economic goals. They should have little to do with achieving social or geo-strategic objectives After hurtling for many months towards finalising the India-UK FTA by Diwali, a substantial trade deal appears unlikely by this deadline. Instead of bemoaning this as a missed chance, it should be taken as an opportunity for introspecting India’s approach to FTAs, particularly with the developed countries such as the UK, European...