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 average value of assets (AVA) of the top ten percent of urban households in India is more than seven thousand five hundred times greater than what the bottom ten percent owns. The AVA of the top decile was Rs. 1.5 crores, while the lowest decile owned an average of Rs. 2,000 of assets. The data is part of the All India Debt and Investment Survey - 2019, the survey for...

Editorial team, Carbon Copy  Ongoing shifts in rainfall and temperature caused by climate change are likely to increase the debt burden faced by rural households, particularly of marginalised groups in dry areas, an editorial in Carbon Copy magazine said. The piece cited a study in the journal Climate Change that argues that changes in climate, along with existing socio-economic differences - caste and landholding in particular — will deepen the size...

-Down to Earth Farmer suicides have increased significantly and doubled in some regions where weather extremities incurred heavy losses Farmer suicides in the Nanded district of Maharashtra’s Marathwada more than doubled since incessant rains caused severe crop damage in the region. The suicide cases in Nanded jumped to 26 in August from eight in July, according to official estimates. The total number of farmer suicides reported from the district in 2022 stood at 93...

-Livemint.com Tackle deficiencies of capital mobilization, access to state provisions and women’s participation to boost FPCs across India. In 2017, the Indian government reaffirmed its commitment to reduce rural distress among nearly 93 million farming households through efforts to double farmers’ income. What has been remarkable is the emergence of farmer producer companies (FPCs) as a viable way of supporting this approach. The last two years have been tumultuous. Pro-market legislation introduced in...