Population 50 years ago

“Ours is the first village in Siddipet district, with more than eight decades of history, submerged by Godavari water under Annapurna reservoir, which is part of the Kaleshwaram project. I was born and brought up in this village. I worked as private teacher and now stopped working. I had lost three acres to the project and received ₹6 lakh per acre. We bid goodbye to our village on the night of April 19, 2020. Our village was buried on the bed of Godavari,” Kommagalla Ramanji, one of the villagers, told The Hindu. … [Read more...] about 80-year-old village submerged

“PM Modi said we will have millions and millions of people. He thinks we will have 5-7 million just from the airport to the new stadium,” said Mr. Trump, speaking to the press on February 12, a day after the visit was announced. At a rally in Colorado Springs a few days later, Mr. Trump upped his estimate of the crowd in Ahmedabad to “6-10 million people”. The assertion cast a blush on Indian officials making arrangements, who explained that given Ahmedabad’s entire estimated population was 7 million people, Mr. Trump was unlikely to receive the crowds he imagined. Eventually, however, Mr. Trump said he was very pleased with the more than 1 lakh people who attended the joint rally at the stadium and the “hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens who came out and lined the streets in a stunning display of Indian culture and kindness”. … [Read more...] about Trump’s gaffe on call with PM Modi is not a first, but a pattern

Arun Kumar: As Dr. John pointed out, lockdown is needed to slow the pace of increase of the disease. The apex has to be brought down to the capacity that we have and use the time of lockdown to build the capacity for health to cope with the emergency that is going to come. We need testing, more hospitalisation capacity, more doctors etc. Lockdown gave you time only for that. It is not a cure. In the lockdown, production completely stops, demand also correspondingly falls because of income decline. So what you have is a situation where both supply and demand are affected, the economy comes down, and only essentials are produced. In my judgment only 25% of the economy was working, so you had a minus 75% rate of growth, about 200 million people lost work because 94 % of the employment is in the unorganised sector. That completely stopped as they did not have working capital, supplies. So 94% of the workforce has lost employment. Those in agriculture can continue, and in mining and rural … [Read more...] about Can India’s workforce have a safe return to business?

By Nirmal Jain Have you seen the glee in the eyes of politicians when they announce loan waiver schemes for farmers? No prizes for guessing whether their eyes are filled with mercy for farmers or avarice for votes. A few weeks ago, the chairperson of the largest state-owned bank sensibly voiced her concern that the loan waiver could upset credit discipline. Some of the legislators had the audacity to demand her apology for this. For them, we are reminded of Jesus’ last words 'Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing'. But there are many people in the government and bureaucracy who know what they are doing. The smaller issue is that they are making bad banks, worse. The larger issue is if the Indian farmer is destined to live in destitution and die in debt? Let us take the smaller issue first. In theory, the burden of loan waiver is borne by the state governments. Its immediate impact may be a slight fall in NPAs but it does spoil credit culture and makes … [Read more...] about View: Is Indian farmer destined to live in destitution and die in debt?