A tale of two Indias: Inequality alleviation is a challenge we must tackle head-on
2 months, 2 weeks ago

A tale of two Indias: Inequality alleviation is a challenge we must tackle head-on

Live Mint  

Over the past seven decades, India’s income inequality has transformed significantly, with stark divergences between rural and urban areas. From 1975 to 1995, the income Gini ratio declined slightly to 0.376, reflecting poverty alleviation schemes like the Integrated Rural Development Programme and land reforms. However, rural inequality has risen gradually due to structural constraints and slower policy impact, while urban inequality has experienced sharper fluctuations tied to economic reforms and external shocks. By 2023, the Gini ratios in rural and urban areas converged, reflecting shared recovery challenges and the importance of targeted government interventions.

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History of this topic

India's historic breakthrough: Extreme poverty nearly eradicated, sharpest inequality decline in decades, new study confirms
3 weeks, 3 days ago

India's historic breakthrough: Extreme poverty nearly eradicated, sharpest inequality decline in decades, new study confirms

Op India  

India has managed to successfully eliminate extreme poverty—a development of historic and economic import—confirmed by recent household expenditure surveys for 2022-23 and 2023-24 released by the government of India. Economic growth and welfare schemes: Two key drivers Several factors have contributed to this historic achievement, with sustained economic growth and targeted social welfare programs playing crucial roles. Welfare and social …

Budget 2025: How India's wealth shifted to the pockets of top 1%
2 months, 2 weeks ago

Budget 2025: How India's wealth shifted to the pockets of top 1%

India Today  

To raise the spending power of the middle class, the Centre in the 2023-24 Budget extended full rebate up to an income of Rs 7 lakh, raising it from Rs 5 lakh under the new tax regime. While 57.7 per cent of income is in the hands of the top 10 per cent of people, 65 per cent of wealth …

Where did India's population grow, and where did it shrink?
3 months, 3 weeks ago

Where did India's population grow, and where did it shrink?

India Today  

Over the past three decades, India’s population has experienced remarkable changes, with growth and decline playing out across the country in fine detail. Smaller towns and peri-urban regions — non-urban landscape that surrounds or is adjacent to a metropolitan area — have also grown, reflecting the spillover effects of urbanisation Urban areas have seen significant growth, with large clusters around …

The Indian economy is yet to fully escape the state’s shackles
4 months, 1 week ago

The Indian economy is yet to fully escape the state’s shackles

Live Mint  

Indian citizens are hesitatingly capitalist. For capitalism to work for a large majority of people, you need institutions to encode and enforce the rules, and prosperity to fund the welfare payments required to uplift specific disadvantaged segments of the population. This column, the sixth in the series on the ‘quantity to quality’ reforms required for India to achieve upper-income status, …

India’s Economic Inequality Crisis: How Elite Development Models Failed the Nation
4 months, 2 weeks ago

India’s Economic Inequality Crisis: How Elite Development Models Failed the Nation

The Hindu  

Published : Nov 09, 2024 19:05 IST - 30 MINS READ On June 4, 2005, the venerated business house of the Tatas signed an agreement to set up a steel plant in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. “The major beneficiaries of the government’s largesse”, the Press Trust of India reported at the time, were “big corporate entities like Reliance Industries, Essar Steel and …

Rural-Urban Consumption Dynamics in India
9 months, 2 weeks ago

Rural-Urban Consumption Dynamics in India

Deccan Chronicle  

Over the past decade, India has witnessed a notable rise in consumption spending in both rural and urban areas, indicating a shift in economic dynamics and lifestyle choices. Furthermore, the changing food habits of the Indian populace have contributed to the evolving consumption patterns observed in both rural and urban areas. In conclusion, the equivalent rise in consumption spending in …

India logs fall in inequality between 2011-12 and 2022-23, says govt report
9 months, 2 weeks ago

India logs fall in inequality between 2011-12 and 2022-23, says govt report

Hindustan Times  

Inequality in both rural and urban areas of India fell between 2011-12 and 2022-23, according to a full report on Household Consumption Expenditure released on Friday by the National Sample Survey Office. The full report released Friday shows a fall in the Gini coefficient, a commonly used measure of inequality, for both rural and urban spending between 2011-12 and 2022-23 …

Poverty and inequality debate resurfaces in election season
10 months, 3 weeks ago

Poverty and inequality debate resurfaces in election season

Hindustan Times  

As Indians heads to the poll this season, a new chapter is being written in a very old debate about poverty and inequality in India. This debate has been stirred up by the release of new data from a government- The economist Maitreesh Ghatak spoke about the resurgent debate over poverty and inequality on last week’s episode of Grand Tamasha, …

Trivialising the equality debate
11 months ago

Trivialising the equality debate

Hindustan Times  

That India is among the rare exceptions in the Global South which has embraced privatisation and globalisation without a major economic crisis is a fact often not appreciated enough. Rising capital intensity in most high value sectors has made generating better paying jobs outside farms more difficult today. The BJP, which is clearly aware of the generalised economic discontent over …

Towards a less poor and more equal country
11 months ago

Towards a less poor and more equal country

The Hindu  

In March, World Inequality Lab, a global research centre focused on inequality and public policies, published a working paper titled, ‘Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj’. It states that “the ‘Billionaire Raj’ headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces.” Inequality undermines both …

Turning the spotlight on the urban poor
11 months, 3 weeks ago

Turning the spotlight on the urban poor

The Hindu  

The India Employment Report 2024 by the Institute for Human Development and International Labour Organization poses questions on the trickle-down effect of benefits to the working class in the backdrop of a 5.4% average real economic growth, from 2015-16 to 2022-23. Hence, an analysis of income and employment trends of slum dwellers would reveal the prospects of economic mobility and …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why isn’t rising inequality turning into a poll issue?
11 months, 4 weeks ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Why isn’t rising inequality turning into a poll issue?

Deccan Chronicle  

The view from the penthouse and the pavement is staggeringly different. By 2022-23, the top one per cent income and wealth shares are at their highest historical levels; India’s top one per cent income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil, and the United States, notes the paper, titled “Income and Wealth …

Terms of Trade | What explains the disconnect between economic inequality and politics in India?
11 months, 4 weeks ago

Terms of Trade | What explains the disconnect between economic inequality and politics in India?

Hindustan Times  

The Paris-based World Inequality Lab recently published a paper which claims that economic inequality in India is the highest it has ever been since the British Raj. Even the most vocal supporters of the government or those who criticise the likes of World Inequality Lab paper authors will not argue that inequality has been eradicated like extreme poverty in India. …

Inequality report renews question on growth model
1 year ago

Inequality report renews question on growth model

New Indian Express  

India’s income and wealth inequality has touched historic peaks, making it one of the world’s most unequal countries, according to the World Inequality Lab’s new working paper. Authored by renowned economists including Nobel laureate Thomas Piketty, the report estimates the richest citizens, or the top 1 percent, own 40.1 percent of the country’s wealth and 22.6 percent of the total …

Mint Primer | Mind the income gap: Is India becoming a plutocracy?
1 year ago

Mint Primer | Mind the income gap: Is India becoming a plutocracy?

Live Mint  

Income and wealth inequality in India are at a historical peak with the share of the richest 1% higher than in countries like China and Brazil, finds a new study by the World Inequality Lab. Inequality in India declined post-independence till early-1980s, after which it began rising and skyrocketed beginning 2000s, shows the report titled ‘Income and Wealth Inequality in …

Inequality worsening in India with share of top 1% in total income at new high, says new paper co-authored by Piketty
1 year ago

Inequality worsening in India with share of top 1% in total income at new high, says new paper co-authored by Piketty

Hindustan Times  

The share of the top 1% of Indians in total income and wealth is expected to have reached its highest ever level in 2022-23, according to a working paper published by the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics. The working paper by four economics researchers – Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi – …

India has now officially eliminated 'extreme poverty', American think tank Brookings said in a report
1 year ago

India has now officially eliminated 'extreme poverty', American think tank Brookings said in a report

Op India  

India has now officially eliminated ‘extreme poverty’, which can be seen through the sharp decline in headcount poverty ratio and stark increase in household consumption, American think tank Brookings said in a report. According to Brookings, high growth and large decline in inequality have combined to eliminate poverty in India for the Purchasing Power Parity USD 1.9 poverty line. The …

SBI Research backs NSSO report, credits Modi govt for decline in India's consumption inequality
1 year, 1 month ago

SBI Research backs NSSO report, credits Modi govt for decline in India's consumption inequality

Op India  

On Tuesday, a research report published by the State Bank of India corroborated the findings of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, which was conducted by the National Sample Survey Office. Decadal changes in MPCE show decline in consumption inequality, graphic via SBI Research “Rural Poverty has thus staged a significant 440-basis point decline since 2018-19 and Urban Poverty a 170-basis …

Growth mania can be injurious to society
1 year, 1 month ago

Growth mania can be injurious to society

The Hindu  

The nation’s media, present in full force at the annual conference of the World Economic Forum, dutifully relayed back to India sound bytes uttered by the allies of the world’s giant corporations. Rural wage rates A simple exercise would cast light on how unequal recent growth in India has been. Even for the section of the rural workforce for which …

India among top countries with high income, wealth inequality: UNDP report
1 year, 4 months ago

India among top countries with high income, wealth inequality: UNDP report

Live Mint  

India has emerged among top countries with high income and wealth inequality but the share of the population living in multidimensional poverty fell from 25 to 15 per cent between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the UNDP said in a new report. Despite these successes, poverty remains persistently concentrated in states that are home to 45 per cent of the country's population …

Average household spending rose 3.5% from August 2023 to July 2024, shows govt. survey
1 year, 8 months ago

Average household spending rose 3.5% from August 2023 to July 2024, shows govt. survey

The Hindu  

India’s average household consumption spending on a per capita basis rose about 3.5% in real terms through August 2023 to July 2024 from a year ago, as per the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, and the Centre asserted this signals a decline in consumption inequality as well as a narrowing gap between urban and rural spends. In real terms, the average …

BOOK EXCERPT | Indian cities have a cost-of-living crisis: An extract from ‘The Indian Metropolis’ by Feroze Varun Gandhi
1 year, 11 months ago

BOOK EXCERPT | Indian cities have a cost-of-living crisis: An extract from ‘The Indian Metropolis’ by Feroze Varun Gandhi

The Hindu  

Published : Apr 28, 2023 18:10 IST - 6 MINS READ For most urban Indians, the past few years have been unsettling—we have seen neighbourhoods locked down for months during a pandemic, increasing the daily challenges of earning a living as well as of access to good healthcare and education. Feroze Varun Gandhi’s The Indian Metropolis: Deconstructing India’s Urban Spaces …

How falling farm incomes impact India’s economy
2 years ago

How falling farm incomes impact India’s economy

Live Mint  

After a period of robust crop prices, farm incomes are likely to take a hit in 2023 following a glut in perishable prices and damage wreaked by unseasonal rains. In March, ready-to-harvest winter crops like wheat, chick peas and mustard were damaged by hailstorms and unseasonal rains in several states. But higher prices for rice and wheat are a result …

Claims of spike in poverty in India during COVID-19 patently false, says paper co-authored by Arvind Panagariya
2 years ago

Claims of spike in poverty in India during COVID-19 patently false, says paper co-authored by Arvind Panagariya

The Hindu  

Claims of a spike in poverty and inequality in India during the COVID-19 pandemic are patently false as such claims are based on uncomparable different surveys, according to a paper co-authored by eminent economist Arvind Panagariya. Mr. Panagariya, Columbia University Professor and former Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog and Vishal More of Intelink Advisors, New Delhi have co-authored a detailed paper …

Addressing gender inequalities: India needs bold steps
2 years, 1 month ago

Addressing gender inequalities: India needs bold steps

Hindustan Times  

India, which assumed presidency of G20 this year, has stated that it will prioritise inclusive growth and development, with women empowerment and representation at the forefront of its G20 discussions. This indeed is a desirable objective, given the large gender inequalities that exist in several G20 member countries, especially in India, which also gets reflected in its overall human development …

Budget 2023: ’Rural income growth, women empowerment should be priority’
2 years, 1 month ago

Budget 2023: ’Rural income growth, women empowerment should be priority’

Live Mint  

With global geopolitical uncertainties and the slowing growth of the world economy, it is crucial to address job creation challenges and boost consumer demand in the country. The upcoming budget should be focused on rural income growth and our target should be at least 100% growth in every household income in near future. Through women's self-help groups, millions of jobs …

The perils of undoing the framework of reservation
2 years, 3 months ago

The perils of undoing the framework of reservation

The Hindu  

Early last month, the Supreme Court of India upheld the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act, which had introduced 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections. However, delegitimising caste as a basis for policy is a monumental mistake with real consequences, given the deepening of wealth inequality on caste lines. The latest survey, the All India Debt & Investment Survey released in …

India@75 survey: Indians favour policy push for rural development, govt jobs
2 years, 7 months ago

India@75 survey: Indians favour policy push for rural development, govt jobs

Live Mint  

How should India be governed? Around 53% of urban Indians would prefer a tax cut over cash transfers for the poor; 58% would like the government to be the job-giver compared to 42% wanting it to be an enabler of private sector jobs. View Full Image India's idea of welfare The survey covered 10,271 respondents across 204 cities and towns. …

The inequality challenge for India@75
2 years, 7 months ago

The inequality challenge for India@75

Live Mint  

During the period 1950-51 to 2019-20, for which evidence is available, in real terms, growth in GDP was 4.9% per annum while growth in GDP per capita was 2.9% per annum. This provides a sharp contrast with the period 1900-01 to 1946-47 during the colonial era, when national income growth was 1% per annum and per capita income growth was …

India’s population growth: Is it boon or bane?
2 years, 8 months ago

India’s population growth: Is it boon or bane?

Firstpost  

The greatest growth in population in India, higher than the national average, is taking place amongst the poorest, in the least developed states, amongst the uneducated and malnourished Of the current world population of 8 billion in 2022, India and China account for roughly 2.8 billion, on a more or less equal basis. However, the greatest growth in population in …

How Modi’s India Has Succeeded in Bringing Down Poverty in Rural Areas
2 years, 8 months ago

How Modi’s India Has Succeeded in Bringing Down Poverty in Rural Areas

News 18  

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” This oft-cited quote is attributed to Lord Kelvin or William Thomson, who also theorised a completely new temperature scale. The poverty line has been disaggregated state-wise and separately for rural and urban areas. In one of the most cited essays on poverty, Lipton and Ravallion note: “The highest incidence and severity …

Income Inequality Declined in India During Covid-19, Nation Managed Shocks Well: SBI Report
2 years, 9 months ago

Income Inequality Declined in India During Covid-19, Nation Managed Shocks Well: SBI Report

News 18  

Inequality of Income in India has declined significantly since FY17, while inequality has also declined during the pandemic, according to the latest SBI Ecowrap research report. The decline in income inequality has been significant since FY17, the year of big bang formalisation that started with demonetisation, RERA reforms and GST reform in FY18, said the report authored by Soumya Kanti …

How has India's consumption inequality come down to a four-decade low?
2 years, 11 months ago

How has India's consumption inequality come down to a four-decade low?

Business Standard  

A recently published IMF working paper said that the effect of the subsidy adjustments on poverty is striking. The report claimed that consumption inequality during the Covid-affected 2020-21 in India fell to near the lowest level in the last 40 years, primarily because of free food supply to 800 million people among other factors, the working paper said. However, the …

Number Theory: How rich are India’s richest – and how poor are the rest?
3 years ago

Number Theory: How rich are India’s richest – and how poor are the rest?

Hindustan Times  

The scourge of wealth inequality is a global phenomenon. In a recently released working paper “The sky and the stratosphere: concentrated wealth in India during the lost decade”, we studied the changes in the household wealth distribution between 2012 and 2018. Official data suggests that the Gini coefficient of per adult household wealth in India fell from 0.718 in 2012 …

What should the government do to address deepening inequality?
3 years, 2 months ago

What should the government do to address deepening inequality?

Business Standard  

As the Budget season comes around, we’re again hearing a lot about India’s inequality problem. In the latest round of the ICE 360 Survey 2022, conducted by the People Research on India’s Consumer Economy, it was found that the annual income of the poorest 20% of Indian households -- which was constantly rising since 1995-- plunged 53% in the pandemic …

The cold truth about India’s income inequality
3 years, 3 months ago

The cold truth about India’s income inequality

The Hindu  

The latest edition of the World Inequality Report has confirmed that the world continues to sprint down the path of inequality. “Global multimillionaires have captured a disproportionate share of global wealth growth over the past several decades: the top 1% took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, whereas the bottom 50% captured just 2% of it.” India’s …

Global (and Indian) trends in inequality
3 years, 3 months ago

Global (and Indian) trends in inequality

The Hindu  

The story so far: The World Inequality Lab, a research centre at the Paris School of Economics, released the 2022 World Inequality Report on December 7, 2021. The report has found India to be one of the world’s most unequal countries, with the top 1% getting 21.7% of the national income. The report reveals that income inequality in India today …

India among most unequal nations; top 1 per cent of population holds 22 per cent of national income: Report
3 years, 3 months ago

India among most unequal nations; top 1 per cent of population holds 22 per cent of national income: Report

India TV News  

India among most unequal nations; top 1 per cent of population holds 22 per cent of national income: Report The report noted that income and wealth inequalities have been on the rise nearly everywhere since the 1980s. Highlights India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite, the report said Average household wealth in India …

India Among Most Unequal Nations; Top 1% Hold 22% Of National Income: Inequality Report
3 years, 3 months ago

India Among Most Unequal Nations; Top 1% Hold 22% Of National Income: Inequality Report

ABP News  

New Delhi: India is now among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the findings of the latest report titled 'World Inequality Report 2022'. Stating India's position as a ‘poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite’, the report said the top 1 percent of the population holds more than one-fifth of the total national income in …

India among most unequal nations; top 1% of population holds 22% of national income: report
3 years, 3 months ago

India among most unequal nations; top 1% of population holds 22% of national income: report

The Hindu  

India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with the top 1% of the population holding more than one-fifth of the total national income in 2021 and the bottom half just 13%, according to a report. The world map of inequalities reveals that national average income levels are poor predictors of inequality — among high-income countries, some are …

Asset ownership data a stark reminder of inequality
3 years, 6 months ago

Asset ownership data a stark reminder of inequality

New Indian Express  

A National Sample Survey report on ownership of assets has revealed that about 10% of Indians own over 50% of the total assets, with the skew greater in urban areas. This government survey falls more or less in line with reports prepared by NGOs and other agencies, which have stressed that while poverty is declining and growth opportunities have increased, …

Poverty in India is on the rise again
3 years, 7 months ago

Poverty in India is on the rise again

The Hindu  

India has not released its Consumption Expenditure Survey data since 2011-12. Based on the Tendulkar poverty line, the poverty estimates for 2004-05 and 2011-12 are to be found in the Planning Commission’s own estimates using the CES of those years. Hence, we have extended the 2011-12 poverty line for each State and used the consumption expenditure reported by the PLFS …

India has to come to terms with inequality: Thomas Piketty
4 years, 10 months ago

India has to come to terms with inequality: Thomas Piketty

The Hindu  

If the catastrophic human toll of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was the first wave to strike the world this year, its severe economic consequences – including loss of livelihoods of the poor across countries, leading to massive internal displacement and starvation in many cases – have been the second wave. Generally speaking, one of the themes of my book, Capital …

India’s rural poverty has shot up
5 years, 3 months ago

India’s rural poverty has shot up

Live Mint  

Ever since India moved to a high growth trajectory in the 1980s, poverty rates have consistently declined over time. A Mint analysis of the consumption expenditure numbers reported by the National Statistical Office in a hushed-up report suggests that rural poverty rose nearly 4 percentage points between 2011-12 and 2017-18 to 30 percent even as urban poverty fell 5 percentage …

In India, inequality bigger challenge than poverty
5 years, 4 months ago

In India, inequality bigger challenge than poverty

Hindustan Times  

What if India had just 100 people? That’s how skewed wealth distribution is and, by a wide reckoning, the next big challenge for India isn’t poverty reduction, but inequality. Research points to two specific challenges: not only are the rich consolidating a disproportionate amount of wealth and income, but per capita incomes across states — which should converge, by standard …

India’s growing regional inequality challenge
5 years, 7 months ago

India’s growing regional inequality challenge

Hindustan Times  

On many development parameters, India appears to be almost like a continent, with different states at vastly different stages of development. This has meant that the poorer states are constrained in their ability to raise revenues, and are able to spend much less per capita on investments in human and physical capital compared to the richer states, thus perpetuating the …

Rising inequality is a concern: Manmohan Singh
5 years, 9 months ago

Rising inequality is a concern: Manmohan Singh

India TV News  

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday rising inequality was a concern and the country cannot allow extreme poverty or economic disparity as it is a welfare state. The former prime minister said India was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world today, but the high rate of economic growth had also been associated with rising inequality, including …

How Nehru led to agrarian distress and what could be the way forward for inclusive growth
6 years, 1 month ago

How Nehru led to agrarian distress and what could be the way forward for inclusive growth

Op India  

Historical backdrop and policy impact: In 1947 when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took over reins of Independent India, deeply influenced by Marxist-Leninist socialism, he strived to achieve India’s prosperity by creating mammoth public sector enterprises that were engaged in manufacturing steel to running forcibly nationalised airlines. Moreover, other priority areas like primary education, health provisioning, family welfare, and even rural …

It’s a great leap backward on the employment front in India’s rural areas
6 years, 1 month ago

It’s a great leap backward on the employment front in India’s rural areas

Live Mint  

Shiv Prasad has a plan—one that he feels can change his destiny. “The problem is that we, being part of the government, cannot acknowledge that demonetization seriously disrupted the flow of activity and massively contributed to employment-related problems.” A visit to a government-run industrial training institute in Banda, nestled inside a village named Motihari, is testimony to the utter lack …

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