In what could come as a piece of good news, hunger in India - as measured by the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has come down from 16.6 per cent of the population in the 2020-2022 to 13.7 per cent in 2021-23, the latest report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2024) showed. This means that around 39.3 million people have come out of undernourishment between the two periods, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said on Tuesday.
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
Job opportunities across the country grew at an estimated rate of 2.62 per cent every year, the latest quinquennial (once every five years) analysis by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) showed. The growth of unemployed, at 5.42 per cent per annum, outnumbered the rate of job creation during the survey period between 1999-2000 and 2004-05. Unemployment rate was found to be maximum in qualified graduates in rural and urban parts of the country.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed the ministries and government departments not to duplicate official estimates and sought strict compliance to ensure that data and statistics collected are consistent.
The minister said the international experience suggests that the inequalities tend to increase in the early phase of development.
The Planning Commission pegs decline at 7.8 percentage points between 2009-10 and 2011-12.
The employment rate in the country declined marginally from 39.2 per cent to 38.6 per cent between 2009-10 and 2011-12, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members -- Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
Expenditure on food articles as a proportion of monthly expenditure is decreasing.
The unemployment rate in 27 major cities has declined by two percentage points during 1999-2000 and 2004-05.
Urban India accounted for 26 per cent of the poor in 2004-05.
With a view to removing disparity in minimum wages across the country, the national minimum wage is likely to be raised to Rs 70 per day from Rs 50 at present.
During the five-year period beginning 2000, 12.4 million people were provided employment per year, Union Minister for Labour Oscar Fernandes said quoting a survey carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation.
While the economy has been averaging an annual growth rate of around 8.7 per cent for the last five years, the unorganised manufacturing sector is slowing down.
The wage data from the latest NSS round throw up some really wonky stuff.
A survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation has revealed that 51 per cent or more than half of India's rural households (marginal farmers possessing less than 1,076 square feet of land) have no ration card at all.
Employment in the organised sector has gone down from 2.77 crore (27.7 million) in 2001 to 2.70 crore (27 million) in 2003, Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.
Consumption per capita was 5.6 times less in a month for the bottom ten per cent of the population than the top 10 per cent in rural areas during 2009-10.
The rate of unemployment rose from 7.3 per cent in 1999-2000 to 8.35 per cent in 2004-05, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday. The 11th Five-Year Plan has special schemes to encourage the organised sector to employ more labour and simultaneously, to improve labour productivity in the unorganised sector.
"There are several ways in which poverty can be measured . . . the National Sample Survey is the basis for calculating poverty on headcount basis. However, when minister of state for planning V Narayansamy said 'poverty line is being assessed', there was an uproar in the House and Joshi was joined by CPI-M- MP Brinda Karat, who wanted a satisfactory reply from the minister.
'Parents, students and coaching institutes will find alternatives to cater to the demand.'
Rural Bihar appears to be doing much better than urban areas in the state, if one goes by a recent National Sample Survey Organisation report.
The Indian market remains an attractive place to do business for the nation's entrepreneurs, with 75 per cent of them operating domestically.
The employment rate (number of person unemployed per 1000 person in the labour force) according to usual status was 17 in the rural areas and 45 in the urban locations.
The difference of wages and salaries between rural and urban women employees is of Rs 67.66, Union Minister for Labour and Employment Oscar Fernandes said, citing a report of the National Sample Survey Organisation in the Upper House. The average wages and salaries of rural and urban women employees per day are Rs 85.53 and Rs 153.19 respectively, he said.
According to an NSSO survey, Indians in rural areas spend less than Rs 21 per day, while in urban area an Indian spends about Rs 39 per day.
National Sample Survey Organisation, a division within the ministry of statistics, has been roped in to collect price data for the new series and a dry run is on the anvil in the next couple of months. The new series will have 2004-05 as the base year, as against 1993-94 in the present mode and will reflect a consumption basket that is relevant in today's scenario, thereby making inflation data more reliable. The new series will have 2004-05 as the base year.
It is of course true that a lot of low-income people can indeed afford mobile phones today, as handsets cost no more than Rs 700.
"The report says that per capita consumption expenditure of 18.7 per cent of the rural population and 4.7 per cent of the urban population in the country is less than Rupees 12 per day. It implies that 16.3 crore people in the country spend less than Rs 12 per month representing 14.7 of the total population," Minister for Rural Development Reghuvansh Prasad informed the Lok Sabha on Monday.
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