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...

-Newsclick.in The yawning merchandise trade deficit is occurring not because of any economic boom but in the midst of creeping industrial stagnation. India’s current account deficit for the second quarter (July-September) of 2022-23 has reached a massive $36.4 billion, which is 4.4% of the gross domestic product, higher than at any time in the last nine years. It is only in October-December 2012 that the absolute level of the current account deficit...

-Newsclick.in The deeper rot in agriculture can be overcome through more far-reaching reforms, starting from an overhaul of pre-capitalist land relations and relations of production that continue to shackle productivity and are at the root of aggravating poverty, unemployment and inequality in rural India. It has been more than five months since farmers from different parts of the country began protesting in Delhi. They have been unflinching when it comes to their...

The National Food Security Act 2013 guarantees maternity benefit to the tune of Rs. 6,000/- per child by the Central Government for pregnant women and lactating mothers, barring those who are already availing such benefits while being in regular employment with the Central Government or State Governments or Public Sector Undertakings or under other laws. The NFSA 2013 also legally guarantees free meals for every pregnant woman and lactating mother...

-The Hindu The role of planning and social oversight in the economic development of the State needs to expand further Will the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) be re-elected in the upcoming polls in Kerala, or will the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) return to lead the government? The election results will have a major bearing on the path of development that the State would take in the coming years. While Kerala’s achievements...