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...
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Real Wages Declined for Rural Indians in 2022, a Year When the Economy Somewhat Recovered
The year 2022 was supposed to mark the recovery of the Indian economy from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns of the preceding two years. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February pushed up prices of food, fuel and fertilizer worldwide. In India consumer price inflation, which had declined to under 5 percent in the September-November period of 2021, has steadily increased, staying above 6 percent throughout 2022. What happened to rural incomes in 2022? An...
More »Plight of the small peasantry in Punjab is affecting their mental health, highlights field-based study
Door-to-door and village-to-village surveys carried out by researchers of the Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana detected a total of 9,291 suicides that were committed by farmers in six districts of Punjab during the period from 2000 to 2018. Situated in the Malwa region of Punjab, which is known for cotton farming and the prevalence of cancer among its population, Sangrur (2,506) witnessed the highest number of...
More »Are we choosing the right solutions for reducing GHG emissions from the transport sector?
The transport sector is important for the smooth functioning of an economy. The supply chains for various products and by-products (both domestically as well as internationally) can work efficiently only if the transportation of raw materials and inputs, and final goods and commodities takes place without disruption. Due to economic growth, India’s annual CO2 (i.e., carbon dioxide) emission has expanded from 1.19 billion tonnes in 2005 to 2.44 billion tonnes...
More »Low on gluten, Punjab's ancient wheat variety 'sona moti' fetches four times the MSP -Ruchika M Khanna
-The Tribune Chance discovery of ‘sona moti’-- * Known as “Sona Moti”, the wheat variety has low gluten and glycemic content, but high folic acid and nutritional value * This variety is a chance discovery after its seeds were given as “prasad” to Jalalabad-based farmer Virender Mohan Nagpal by Pingalwara in 2014 Chandigarh: An ancient wheat variety, grown in Punjab thousands of years ago, is once again making waves for its high nutritional value....
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