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...

Data indicates that the overall imports from Russia in the first nine months of 2022-23 are already more than the thrice the value in the whole of 2021-22. In the case of petroleum products, this is more than 9 times.  Factly.in Factly.in, using data from the Department of Commerce's Export-Import Databank, has estimated that from April-December 2022, the total value of all imports from Russia was worth $32.82 billion, a majority of...

There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-The Hindu On conservating estimate, exports will cross $750 billion amid global headwinds, said Commerce Secretary India’s merchandise exports contracted 1.15% in August to $33 billion, while inelastic imports of petroleum and coal remained firm, lifting imports above the $60 billion mark for the sixth successive month. The country’s goods trade deficit moderated slightly from the record $30 billion in July, but remained the second highest on record at $28.68 billion, more than...

-The Telegraph The finance ministry has warned that the current account deficit will deteriorate in 2022-23 because of costlier imports and tepid exports on the merchandise account The country’s trade deficit touched an all-time high of $26.18 billion as imports expanded 57.88 per cent to $66.31 billion in June because of a doubling of oil imports and a spike in the inflow of coal, gold, electronic goods and chemicals. The finance ministry has...