The high dropout rates in schools in several states, including Karnataka, during 2020-21, as revealed by data from the Ministry of Education, is a matter of concern when the education sector is considered to be recovering from the damage caused by the damage caused by the Covid pandemic. Karnataka, with a dropout rate of 14.6%, is in the company of states like Bihar and Gujarat, which had dropout rates higher...

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 Hindu Businessline India’s urea production has surged by 25.6 per cent during the first month of the current fiscal to 23.45 lakh tonnes (lt), thanks to the revival of four closed plants in the public sector at Gorakhpur, Sindri, Barauni, and Ramagundam. However, sales were lower at 11.77 lt in April from year-ago, which indicates its comfortable availability as farmers normally rush to store the crop nutrient ahead of sowing...

India continues to maintain its streak of world-beating economic growth after GDP for the March quarter beat all expectations with a 6.1 per cent expansion that helped push the annual growth rate to 7.2 per cent. After this, the Indian economy is now USD 3.3 trillion in size. Asia’s third-largest economy beat all estimates to grow at 6.1 per cent in January-March, the last quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal, up from...

Milk prices are expected to remain high this summer due to tight demand-supply balance and high input costs, said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das at the first bi-monthly monetary policy of 2023 on Thursday. “Milk prices could remain firm due to high input costs and seasonal factors,” said Das. The RBI’s observation comes a day after reports stated that the government was mulling import of dairy products this...