Trivialising the equality debate
7 months, 3 weeks 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 India’s inability to generate quality jobs, knows that the Congress’s populist trick can gain traction if left unchallenged. Even if India were to implement radical ideas such as inheritance tax, they would not generate the resources needed to pull everyone up to a decent living standard.

India Congress  economy  indias  growth  equality  india  world  inequality  trivialising  debate  jobs  growing  key  economic

History of this topic

The Indian economy is yet to fully escape the state’s shackles
1 month 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
1 month, 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 …

IMF Sees India's Economic Growth and Outlook as Stable
2 months ago

IMF Sees India's Economic Growth and Outlook as Stable

New Indian Express  

India remains the world's fastest-growing economy, with inflation expected to decline to 4.4% in FY24-25. IMF Director Krishna Srinivasan highlights the country's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, including a large and growing population, favourable harvests, and a stable fiscal situation. Srinivasan suggests that the country focus on creating jobs, removing trade restrictions, and investing in infrastructure and education to strengthen its economy …

Towards a less poor and more equal country
8 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 …

Terms of Trade | What explains the disconnect between economic inequality and politics in India?
8 months, 3 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
9 months 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 …

A cap on capitalism: Is it time for India to debate one?
9 months ago

A cap on capitalism: Is it time for India to debate one?

Live Mint  

Growing income disparity in an economy like India, with over 800 million people deemed in need of free food from the government, does not augur well for its developmental ambitions. An income cap could possibly curb excessive wealth accumulation among the ultra-rich and address extreme income disparity. Any drastic measure like the 2016 demonetization to cap income or wealth could …

Growth mania can be injurious to society
10 months, 3 weeks 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, 1 month 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 …

Labour and its discontents
1 year, 2 months ago

Labour and its discontents

Hindustan Times  

There is a widespread consensus that employment generation is India’s central economic challenge. At one level, it can be argued that failure to reduce the employment share of agriculture is India’s biggest labour market challenge. At another, it can also be argued that the quality of non-agricultural jobs, caste-based inequalities in labour markets and a big gender gap in employment …

The moral and intellectual crises in economic policies
1 year, 10 months ago

The moral and intellectual crises in economic policies

The Hindu  

News from Davos and Delhi in the third week of January has framed the moral and intellectual crises affecting Indian economic policies. In the first instance, speaking at a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos on India’s road to a $10 trillion economy, the Chairman of Tata Sons said, “For me, the three things most important are growth, …

The inequality challenge for India@75
2 years, 4 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 …

The cold truth about India’s income inequality
2 years, 11 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 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 …

Equality For One Or For All?
4 years ago

Equality For One Or For All?

Live Law  

'All animals are born equal but some are more equal than others.' In India today, individual markers such as class, caste, political affiliation, religious beliefs, gender identity, food choice, partner preference have become grounds for disqualifying individuals from exercising their fundamental rights as 'equal' citizens. The MD of a leading television news channel was able to get his bail petition …

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