Excess earnings of unlisted companies over and above their interest costs are at a record level. The interest-coverage ratio of 2.94 is the highest going back to 1990-91, according to numbers from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The ratio measures earnings relative to every rupee to be paid as interest on outstanding debt.
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 US Trade Representative noted that India's average applied tariff rate stood at 17% per cent, the highest of any major world economy.
Children below the age of 15 years account for about 10 to 12 per cent of India's overall TB burden.
'It has the potential to sow seeds of furthering discord when the direction of the discourse is aimed at propagating the perceived supremacy of 'cultural nationalism' from a distant past over the prevailing dominance of 'Constitutional nationalism',' argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Economists on Tuesday are not convinced about the latest monthly unemployment data released by the Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE), particularly about the statistics of the rural areas. They asserted that it is difficult to get the real picture of unemployment from the methodology used by the CMIE to get the data. The overall unemployment rate in India has increased to 7.83 per cent in April 2022 as compared to 7.60 per cent in the previous month, CMIE said in its report.
As a well-wisher of the Indian Statistical System and part of the system for more than 37 years, Sunil K Sinha, former DG and CEO of NSSO, offers suggestions to improve data quality.
Personal data of thousands of people in India has been leaked from a government server which includes their name, mobile number, address and Covid test result, and these information can be accessed through online search.
At a time when the government is nudging the private sector to ramp up its capital expenditure (capex), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is poised to kick-start the first-of-its-kind annual survey on the status of private sector capex from next month. "The inaugural edition of the annual exercise will start in October and will be completed by December. "The results will be made public by February next year," said Geeta Singh Rathore, director general, National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), at a data users' conference on Thursday.
The Indian government has advised states to intensify surveillance for respiratory illnesses, including influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illnesses (SARI), following the detection of five human metapneumovirus (HMPV) cases in the country. The decision comes amidst reports of a surge in HMPV cases in China. The Union Health Secretary, Punya Salila Srivastava, chaired a virtual meeting with states and union territories to discuss the situation and public health measures. While there is no cause for public concern, the government is emphasizing the importance of preventive measures such as handwashing, covering coughs and sneezes, and avoiding close contact with those showing symptoms.
The number of people averse to the surveys by the National Statistical Office (NSO) has more than doubled over the last five years between the 75th National Sample Survey (NSS) round (July 2017- June 2018) and the 79th NSS round (July 2022-June 2023), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation MoSPI) said on Friday in a conference organised to discuss the issue of 'non- responsiveness' to its sample surveys. The ministry said that nearly 6.9 per cent people in urban areas surveyed by the NSO for the 79th NSS round did not participate in the exercise, while the number of people in rural India that refused to participate in these surveys stood at 3.9 per cent.
The Prevention of Corruption Act was also invoked as the juvenile is accused of colluding with his parents, doctors from the government-run Sassoon Hospital and some middlemen to swap his blood samples, the official said.
On average, 49 sexual harassment cases were reported every day in 2022.
'Everyone with a low BMI will not get Type 5 diabetes.'
In a statement, police also said in view of the the "deceptive nature" of responses provided by the accused, an application for conducting his narco analysis test was made and it has been approved by the court.
State Bank of India (SBI), in a report on Friday, claimed a significant decline in the headline poverty ratio in rural areas on account of enhanced physical infrastructure, higher consumption growth in the bottom fractile and direct benefit transfers (DBTs).
Goa has the highest number of people who could 'search the Internet for information and can send or receive e-mails and can perform online banking transactions'.
Nearly half of the MPs elected in the 2019 general elections in India were first-timers.
Plumes of smoke could be seen billowing from the spot. A purported video of the aftermath of the explosion also surfaced on social media showing thick dense white smoke.
A report has alleged that personal data of 500 million users of LinkedIn has been put on sale, a charge that the professional networking platform has denied, saying no private member account data was impacted. The report by CyberNews claimed that an archive containing data purportedly scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles has been put for sale on a popular hacker forum, with another 2 million records leaked as a proof-of-concept sample by the post author. This included full names, email addresses, phone numbers and workplace information, among other data, it said. The report, however, did not specify the impact on users in India.
Rajiv Kumar, the 25th chief election commissioner of India, has demitted office after a nearly three-year tenure marked by both electoral successes and allegations of bias from opposition parties. Kumar oversaw the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, among other major elections. During his tenure, he implemented reforms across various aspects of the Election Commission's functioning, including structural, technological, capacity development, communication, international cooperation, and administration. However, he faced criticism from opposition parties and activists on several issues, including the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines, alleged fudging of voter data, and being "lenient" on the ruling BJP. While the Commission responded to the allegations, Kumar often defended himself and the poll authority through poetry. In his farewell address, Kumar expressed concerns about the timing of petitions raising doubts over poll processes and the impact of freebie promises on the fiscal health of the state. He also criticized the practice of showing early trends on counting day by news channels, calling it "nonsense". Kumar's tenure was marked by numerous controversies, with opposition parties and activists alleging bias and irregularities. While the Election Commission defended its actions, the allegations cast a shadow over his time in office.
'In the earlier waves, doubling of cases was happening at an interval of 4-6 days.' 'But in the case of omicron the doubling time we are seeing is in the range of 2-4 days.'
'Mamata needs to address the anger and resentment among various sections of the Hindu community because low-scale communal violence has always paid richer electoral dividends for the BJP.'
Samantha is grateful... Malavika in Mexico... Akshay in Sky Force mode...
'One of the big findings is that younger men seem to have shifted towards the Republican Party.' 'In 2020, about 23% of younger men said they would vote Trump.' 'Now that number is 48%.' 'It is like a 25 point shift, and you don't actually see shifts that big in surveys.'
Jadeja most tested Indian cricketer so far in 2023, 58 samples collected in first 5 months
Of the 230 samples from Mumbai, 228 samples are of Omicron variant, while one was found to be Kappa variant and another XE variant. The condition of the patients infected with the new strains of the virus was not serious, a BMC official said.
India should convert the Trump threat to an India opportunity, re-embracing a more liberal trade regime as a way of reviving manufacturing output and exports.
A key indicator of corporate efficiency may now be better than at any time since the turn of the millennium. The net working capital cycle - a crucial measure that tracks the time a company takes to convert current assets like inventory into sales and then collect the money from customers - has seen remarkable improvement. According to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the average company needed nearly 90 days to complete this cycle in 1999-2000.
Indian companies are generating more cash than ever. The net cash flow from listed firms' operations hit a new high of Rs 11.1 trillion in financial year 2023-24 (FY24), crossing the Rs 10-trillion mark for the first time, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data going back to 1990-91. The FY24 figure represents a 19.3 per cent jump over the previous year, even as quite a few companies are yet to release their numbers.
The labour ministry on Monday rebutted a recent report by Citigroup which forecast that India will struggle to create sufficient employment opportunities even with a 7 per cent growth rate. The ministry in a statement said the report "fails to account for the comprehensive and positive employment data available from official sources such as Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and the Reserve Bank of India's KLEMS data."
'Assuming he has a sensitive bug, which is responsive to antibiotics, it may not necessarily be the worst-case scenario.'
'Obesity, especially central obesity and increased visceral fat due to physical inactivity, along with the consumption of high-calorie, high-fat, and high-sugar diets, are major contributing factors.'
Unemployment rate for persons aged 15 years and above has remained unchanged at 3.2 per cent in July 2023 to June 2024, according to the labour force survey annual report released on Monday. The unemployment rate (UR) is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force. The report stated that while the UR for male has shown a marginal decline from 3.3 per cent during July 2022 - June 2023 to 3.2 per per cent during July 2023 - June 2024, among female it has increased from 2.9 per cent to 3.2 per cent during the same time span.
Is India witnessing jobless growth or is there actually no issue with employment? The real story is between the first two suggesting that though there is sufficient employment, the challenge is to create well-paying quality jobs, says Amitabh Kant.
As many as 290 cases of KP.2 and 34 cases of KP.1, both sub-lineages of COVID-19 that are responsible for surge in cases in Singapore, have been found in India, according to official data.
The NSSO had enumerated 79,306 households in rural areas and 45,374 in urban regions.
108 economists, social scientists said it was imperative that agencies like CSO and NSSO are not subject to political interference.
Employment data are currently estimated once in five years through a sample survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation.
Users of employment / unemployment statistics can enjoy the benefits of -- initially the speed of private enterprise and then, the stamp of official statistics with a hopefully small time lag, says Mahesh Vyas.
