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...

Contrary to the rising economic distress on the ground since the last few years, the official press release related to the fourth Annual Report on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) at first glance seems to give a rosy picture about the employment situation in India.  Defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force, the unemployment rate in usual status (principal activity status + subsidiary economic activity status)...

-The Indian Express Seema Chishti is a journalist based in New Delhi, who has worked for the Indian Express and the BBC. She is the co-author of Note by Note: The India Story (1947-2017). The emergence of political leaders the world over with a contempt for the democratic systems they preside over, requires a re-examination of the ideas of democracy & representation. This is a necessary preliminary towards salvaging ‘government by discussion’.  The...

-Livemint.com Across big cities and small towns, women have similar personal and professional aspirations as men, a recent survey suggests. Women also seem to have more social ties outside their own communities than men India presents a complex gender paradox to most observers. Women are enrolling in schools and colleges in higher numbers but there aren’t enough of them in workplaces. Women are voting in greater numbers than ever before but there...

-Scroll.in Dealers claimed that government-run oil firms are threatening to block supplies if the information is not provided. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has asked 10 lakh employees at petrol pumps across the country for personal details like their caste, religion and which constituency they are from, NDTV reported on Tuesday. The information is ostensibly meant for a skill development programme, but dealers have threatened legal action, claiming that...