The most important institutions have been and are being undermined with almost no resistance, warns Aakar Patel.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew by 1.4 per cent in November as most components like manufacturing, electricity, mining, primary goods, and consumer durables witnessed a slowdown, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. This is on the base of a decline of 1.7 per cent in November 2020 and before the new Covid variant started impacting economic activity. IIP growth was lower than the 4 per cent expansion recorded in the previous month but was better than a 1.6 per cent contraction seen in November 2020. Separately, rising prices of kitchen staples pushed retail inflation, or rate of price increase, to 5.59 per cent in December 2021, bringing it close to the upper band of Reserve Bank's comfort zone.
The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. The government has, however, termed it a "draft" report, reports Somesh Jha.
Days after the Supreme Court held as "illegal" the extension of ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra's tenure, the Centre on Wednesday moved the apex court seeking modification of its order to allow him to continue in office till October 15 in view of the ongoing FATF review.
Germany grew by a stunning 2.2 per cent in the three months ended June, recording its fastest quarterly expansion in more than 20 years.
'This encourages escapism through the politics and economics of nationalism, made worse by tribalism or nativism, the package accompanied inevitably by the erosion of institutional bulwarks and therefore State capture by powerful businessmen,' notes T N Ninan.
Concerned by GDP slowdown and unrealistic tax targets, the economists urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to implement long-term structural steps like land and labour reforms. Warning against any off-Budget financing the economists said the government should prepare a statement of intent for its social, rural and welfare sector expenditure.
The Seventh Pay Commission had decided to choose the CPI-IW as the index for adjusting inflation for central government employees.
Global forecasting firm Oxford Economics on Monday revised downwards its India GDP growth forecast for 2021 to 10.2 per cent from 11.8 per cent previously, citing the country's escalating health burden, faltering vaccination rate and lack of a convincing government strategy to contain the pandemic. Oxford Economics also said that notwithstanding the likelihood of further mobility restrictions, it expects India's targeted lockdown approach, less stringent restrictions, and resilient consumer and business behaviour to mitigate the economic impact of the second wave.
Declining vegetable prices brought down the retail inflation to a 15-month low of 4.59 per cent in December and within the comfort zone of the Reserve Bank, government data showed on Tuesday. It is for the first time during the current fiscal that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation print is below 6 per cent or in the RBI's target range of 2 to 6 per cent. The central bank factors in the CPI-based inflation while arriving at its monetary policy. The inflation in December 2020 came down from 6.93 per cent in November, mainly on account of 10.41 per cent decline in vegetable prices over the year-ago period.
Between April and June, 186,000 people started work in Britain, of which 145,000 were foreigners and 41,000 were British.
The number of individuals claiming unemployment benefits declined by 32,300 to 1.59 million.
The panel finds 'discrepancy' in the Annual Survey of Industries data.
India's factory output climbed 22.4 per cent in March, benefiting from the base effect of the lockdown-marred month a year back as well as a turnaround in the manufacturing sector, while retail inflation slipped to a three-month low of 4.29 per cent in April. The high positive annual growth in the index of industrial production (IIP) in March 2021 came on back of a contraction of (-)0.9 per cent and (-)3.4 per cent in January and February 2021 respectively, according to the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. This turnaround was led by recovery in the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors.
Lawyers, doctors, accountants and other professional men are also consuming above average amounts of alcohol 20 units a week according to figures from the Office of National Statistics in UK.
Earlier, the CSO in its advance estimate had pegged the GDP growth rate for 2018-19 at 7.2 per cent.
Opener Shubham Rohilla struck his fourth first-class hundred to take Services to 279 for 4 against defending champions Saurashtra
There should have been a focus on sanitation and not on littering or garbage. Absence of sanitation affects the health of children, explains Aakar Patel.
'When you do some job for a few hours, you are hardly earning enough to survive.'
The economy contracted by 1.5 per cent between October and December, more than the quarterly declines seen during the recession in the 1990s. The last quarter decline came on top of a 0.6 per cent slump in the third quarter of 2008. Two or more consecutive quarters of contraction are regarded as a recession.
Going by the latest data, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent for the three months to April.
The Bill states a worker will be paid twice his or her wage if he or she is allowed to work overtime. A majority of workers in India worked more than 48 hours in a week, which is higher than the International Labour Organisation's prescribed time-limit.
The common man in India is bogged down by corruption and there is a need to fix accountability at all levels, the Supreme Court observed on Friday as it dealt with a petition seeking debarment of those against whom charges have been framed in criminal cases from contesting elections.
According to British Office for National Statistics, women in their forties were the biggest losers in the pay divide as they earned an average of 20 per cent less than the men. The findings revealed that female managers were likely to experience an even wider salary gap. Even as women start with earning roughly the same as men the pay divide widens with age after women interrupt their career to have children. Pay gap increases in line with the number of children a woman has.
Jaguar's plan to cut 300 more jobs at its Halewood plant comes at a time when unemployment numbers in the UK have risen to record levels, at 2.38 million.
During the six-month period (April-September 2019), the Indian economy grew 4.8 per cent as against 7.5 per cent in the same period a year ago.
To enable widen the fiscal deficit beyond the permissible limit under the present legislation, the government may have to propose amendment to the FRBM Act in the Finance Bill.
India's GDP estimates for 2020-21 show that the economy is expected to perform much better than earlier projections by different agencies, indicating a sustained V-shape post-lockdown recovery, experts said. The first Advance Estimates (AE) by the National Statistics Office (NSO) has projected a contraction of 7.7 per cent in the real GDP during 2020-21. This was better than the projections by certain international agencies like the IMF and World Bank.
India's industrial production contracted by 3.6 per cent in February, official data showed on Monday. According to the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), manufacturing sector output declined by 3.7 per cent in February 2021. Retail inflation rose to 5.52 per cent in March, mainly on account of higher food prices, government data showed on Monday. The consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation stood at 5.03 per cent in February.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Beside manufacturing, deceleration was also witnessed in sectors like agriculture, construction and electricity, gas and water supply.
Expect a more modest out-turn of around 5 per cent (if not less) because of the longer-term scarring effects of the Covid shock, the sharply slowing growth in the pre-Covid years and some scepticism about the growth-efficacy of some of recent official policy initiatives, explains Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor to the government.
Most of the economic activity in the country had come to a standstill after the government imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown beginning March 25 to check the spread of coronavirus.
A total of 415 million people moved out of poverty in India within just 15 years from 2005/2006 to 2019/2021, the United Nations said on Tuesday, highlighting the remarkable achievement by the world's most populous nation.
This time there has been a rather peculiar criticism of the latest GDP numbers.
Softening inflation, Das said would make available more policy space to the central bank to address risks to the growth going forward.
However, the government has enacted an important change to the fixed-term employment framework that may help companies in handing out contractual jobs to its existing permanent workforce.
'The minute I tell couples to use condoms or suggest permanent birth control, they ignore it or just change the topic.'
India's economy recovered faster than expected in the September quarter as a pick-up in manufacturing helped GDP clock a lower contraction of 7.5 per cent and held out hopes for further improvement on better consumer demand. The gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted by a record 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal (April 2020 to March 2021) as the coronavirus lockdown pummelled economic activity.
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