A Wake Up Call For GOI

The percentage of Indians employed in agriculture has slipped below 50 per cent, says the latest data on employment trends released by the government.

But more worrying for the government is that the rising army of workers freed from the agricultural sector are unlikely to land a stable job in the urban areas.

The data shows a clear rise in unemployment among these workers with urban unemployment rising in the past two years.The lead results released from the 68th round of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows that male unemployment in urban areas has risen to 3.2 per cent. To make up for the lack of employment opportunities women are joining in as workers to supplement the family income (14.7 per cent against 13.8 per cent in the 66th round). So while fewer women in the rural areas compared to two years ago and even earlier are entering the job market, the reverse is happening in urban areas.

Overall unemployment measured by the usual status for both men and women have risen to 2.7 per cent across both rural and urban households, compared to 2.5 per cent in the earlier rounds showing the impact of the lower economic growth in the past two years. The numbers are a worrying sign for the government in a poll year.

As a result the workers are depending more on daily wage and other causal labour to earn their family meal. Measured by current daily status the percentage of unemployed has come down from 6.98 per cent to about 6 per cent. This has also happened as the number of workers available for employment has come down.

The lead results of NSSO show that despite a rise in the number of people in the employment age group, the percentage of them available in the job market has shrunk. From 34.1 per cent in 2009-2010 the percent has shrunk to 33.9 per cent. The same trend is visible when employment is measured by other yardsticks too, the data shows. The data bears out the anecdotal evidence that workers due to a combination of low work opportunities and the prospect of a dole like the NREGA have opted out of employment market, said Pronab Sen, India's former chief statistician and current professor, Indian Statistical Institute.

The rise in unemployment is disconcerting as the total number of Indians now in the workforce has expanded by 14 million to reach 473 million, a growth of 3 per cent in just two years. Yet because of the lack of job opportunities 52 per cent of them are now self employed, the data shows.

Source:-Indian Express.

Foreign assets of Indians climb to $448 billion

The financial assets of Indians held overseas climbed to $ 447.8 billion at end of March this year, amid uncertain domestic economic conditions.

"The Indian residents' financial assets abroad stood at $ 447.8 billion as at end-March 2013 recording an increase of $ 3.9 billion over previous quarter," revealed India's International Investment Position (IIP) report released by the Reserve Bank today.

The direct investment abroad moved up by $ 1.4 billion during the quarter to $ 119.5 billion as at end-March 2013 and other investment abroad (mainly currency and deposits) increased by $ 6.1 billion.

However, reserve assets, which remained the major component of the assets, decreased by $ 3.5 billion to $ 292.1 billion at end-March 2013, the report said.

Overall the Indian economy has witnessed slowdown in recent quarters and grew at a sluggish pace of 4.8 per cent in the three months ended March this year.

RBI said that net claims of non-residents on India increased by $ 27.1 billion over the previous quarter to $ 307.3 billion at end-March 2013, mainly on account increase in liabilities.

IIP statement reflects the value and the composition of financial assets of residents of an economy that are claims on non-residents and gold bullion held as reserve assets and their liabilities to non-residents.

The IIP statement further said the international financial liabilities increased by $ 31 billion over the previous quarter to $ 755.1 billion as at end- March 2013.

Direct investments and portfolio investments in India moved up by $ 8.6 billion and $ 13.9 billion respectively.

Among other investments liabilities, trade credit and currency and deposits (mainly NRI deposits) increased by $ 4.4 billion and $ 3.2 billion respectively.

"Due to rupee appreciation during end-December 2012 to end-March 2013 equity liabilities in $ term revised upwards by $ 2.4 billion," the RBI added.

It further said the ratio of total international financial assets to GDP (at current market prices) slightly declined to 24.3 per cent as at end-March 2013 from 24.5 per cent a year ago.

On the other hand, the ratio of total international financial liabilities to GDP rose to 41 per cent at end of the last fiscal from 38.5 per cent a year ago.






* Source:-Economic Times

Year's Largest Full Moon-2013

Veeriyam:-

 Brings you some of the Awesome Photos taken during the largest full moon of the year 2013-June 23 2013

Jim O'Neil 10 Suggestion for India's Economy

It’s all about productivity. India scores poorly on indexes of economic variables that are critical for economic efficiency -- worse than Brazil, China and even Russia. To change that, it needs to do 10 things:

1. Improve its governance. This is probably the hardest and most important task -- the precondition for the rest. Modi is right: Whoever leads the next government in 2014, India needs maximum governance and minimum government. There is no point having the world’s largest democracy unless it leads to effective government.

2. Fix primary and secondary education. There has been some progress here, but a huge number of young people still get little or no schooling. I sit on the board of Teach for All, a global umbrella organization for groups that encourage the brightest graduates to spend at least two years teaching. Today India has about 350 teachers in these programs. It could do with 350,000 or more.

3. Improve colleges and universities. India has too few excellent institutions. Its share of places in the Shanghai ranking of the world’s top universities should be proportional to its share of global gross domestic product -- meaning 10 universities in the top 500 (it currently has just one). Make that an official goal.

4. Adopt an inflation target, and make it the center of a new macroeconomic policy framework.

5. Introduce a medium to long-term fiscal-policy framework, perhaps with ceilings as in the Maastricht Treaty -- a deficit of less than 3 percent of GDP and debt of less than 60 percent of GDP.

6. Increase trade with its neighbors. Indian exports to China could be close to $1 trillion by 2050, almost the size of its entire GDP in 2008. But India has little trade with Bangladesh and Pakistan. There’s no better way to promote peaceful relations than to expand trade -- and that means imports as well as exports.

7. Liberalize financial markets. India needs huge amounts of domestic and foreign capital to achieve its potential -- and a better-functioning capital market to allocate it wisely.

8. Innovate in farming. Gujarat isn’t a traditional agricultural producer, but it has improved productivity with initiatives like its “white revolution” in milk production. The whole nation, still greatly dependent on farming, needs enormous improvements.

9. Build more infrastructure.Adopt some of that Chinese drive to invest in infrastructure.

10. Protect the environment. India can’t achieve 8.5 percent growth for the next 30 to 40 years unless it takes steps to safeguard environmental quality and use energy and other resources more efficiently. Encouraging the private sector to invest in sustainable technologies can boost growth in its own right.

Courtesy:-Bloomberg.

A GOOD NEWS-SHRINKING INDIA'S POVERTY

Some Relief When country Suffers:
Poverty level in the country may have declined significantly between 2009-10 and 2011-12, the latest government survey on household consumer expenditure indicates, giving something to the beleaguered UPA government to hard sell ahead of elections next year.

Back of the envelope calculations by Economic Times suggest that poverty levels have fallen to less than 25% of population because of a sharp rise in rural incomes and decent performance by the agricultural sector. Adjusted for price rise, the poverty line for 2011-12, based on the Tendulkar committeecalculations for 2009-10- comes to 803 per capita per month for rural areas and 1038.6 for urban areas.

Applying these cut offs to the expenditure estimates released by the National Sample Survey Organization last week shows percentage of rural poor is likely to have fallen to 24.5% in 2011-12 from 29% estimated for 2009-10. The fall in the urban areas was flatter, from 16% in 2009-10 to 15.5% in 2011-12.

"Yes, poverty has declined. But to say by how much I would wait for the Planning Commission figures for that. The purchasing power of people has gone up which shows in the consumption story," said TCA Anant, chief statistician and secretary of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. 
The decline is largely because agriculture sector performed well during fiscal year 2011 and 2012 against a drought situation in 2009. Agriculture sector expanded by 7.9% in 2010 -11 and 3.6% in 2011-12.

"During 2009-10, agriculture performed poorly as it was a drought year. Poverty in rural areas is closely linked to agriculture. Whereas 2011 was a normal year, we experienced high food inflation, which explains high purchasing power with the rural population and hence increase in consumption expenditure," said Pronab Sen, chairman, National Statistical Commission.

Agriculture sector expanded only by 0.8% in 2009-10. Also, rural wages have risen faster than urban wages, due to NREGA, Sen added. More people moving out of agriculture may also be a factor in the depleting poverty in rural areas, Amitabh Kundu, economics professor, JNU suggested.

Share of population engaged in agriculture came down to 49% in 2011-12. In rural areas, 59% of the men were engaged in agriculture as against 63% in 2009-10. The share in secondary activities like manufacturing went up to 22% instead of 19% among rural men.

Similar was the case with rural women. The cumulative effect was that overall wages rose by 29% in rural areas between 2009-10 and 2011-12 against 23% in urban areas. The reduction in poverty also explains the reduction in share of expenditure on food and a similar rise in non-food expenditure. The share of expenditure on food declined substantially from 53.6% to 48.6% in rural areas and from 40.7% to 38.5% in the urban areas. "In 2011-12, rural demand was very robust, which saw many corporates draw up strategies for the rural areas to tap that growing demand," said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser SBI.

Despite the drastic fall in poverty in rural areas, still the average urban monthly per capital expenditure was 84% higher than average rural MPCE for 2011-12. And income disparities in rural areas have risen.



*Source:-Economic Times.

Extend Your Arms

My dear Friends,
A kind appeal to all.We are aware of the disaster happened in Uttarkhand. Near about 50,000 people are stranded.Many of their lives at risk.Our rich cultural heritage is facing a major devastation.We can extend our hand helping along with GOI by donating money.Earlier GOI has announced 1000Cr. disaster package and Rs.144 Cr being released immediately!!!We too can contribute to our nation directly!!! Please find the below link for PMNRF!!! https://pmnrf.gov.in/payform.php!!!Our one day salary donation is not going do a great harm for us!!!!Unite When Nation Faces a Threat!!!!