publicly disclose that they have contracted the virus in a statement, the press secretary said she has not had close contact with us president joe biden, or senior staff member since wednesday. saki who is vaccinated, said has symptoms a mild, and she'll work from home until the end of her quarantine period. ah, use a quick look at the main stories the south now and wild leaders of agreed on the need to take action to fight climate change. and to prevent global warming by a no more than one and a half degrees above pre industrial levels, but has been criticism and disappointment. with this final communique for making no commitment to achieve net 0 carbon emissions by 2050. the use of coal was also very contentious. they agreed to stop financing new coal plants, but did not agree to and coal power in their own countries. kimberly how kit has

more from rome. what is, seems to be the real issue with it, is this failure to get a firm date for carbon neutrality. and the language that we're seeing in this final communique that basically says that they've agreed to reach carbon neutrality by around the mid century is what many are saying really lacks ambition. it fails to meet the moment and is going to make the work in glasgow at that you and climate summit so much more difficult. and so there is language here that says that in fact, they have committed to limit and global warming by 1.5 degrees celsius. but at the same time, we know that you're in climate scientists. we're looking for so much more warning that there needed to be so much more an order to avert the climate catastrophes that were already started to cedar, a growing pace around the globe. the focus shifts from rom, now to the scottish city of glasgow for the cop $26.00 climates summit that lead us

from every region in the wall or expect to discuss their plans to cot emissions. now hoping to stick to the target of cap in global warming at one and a half degrees celsius. in all the news today, the sudanese teachers committee is called for strike in all states across sudan. it comes a day off to tens of thousands of people rally to denounce last mondays, military coups. at least 4 people were killed. and the regional government in ethiopia is, am hara province, is calling on all of its residents to take up arms against fighters from the neighboring province of tag ry. now, the tig white people's liberation, found claims to be in control of the strategic town of dessie. but that's disputed by the government in addis ababa. that's it for myself. my team here in london, we will see to morrow coming up next context. india. ah, go where no one has gone before hindered true.

to mean the sounds of law in the whispering. so if you truth will be heard from fronting power with her enlightening the darkness to improve and inspire even if we crime with on our own meet her alone. 2 welcome to context india. i'm famous. those are coming to you from room by and context india. we take the time to deliver a full wall. consider analysis of this country. it's politics and it's people to 4 episodes were taking a close look at what has perhaps been the biggest crisis india has faced since independent corporate panoramic this week we're looking at the virus impact on the

indian economy. the pandemic said almost no country in the world, some weather the better than the other. but the overall impact has been deep and will likely last a while. in india, inequality on unemployment, or at some of the highest level they have been in recent years. i'll be speaking with jen sin home, a member of parliament from the volunteer agenda, representing the central government and professor devonne, vice president of the indian society of labor economics. at the close of this week's episode will feature an excerpt from a piece of pen demagogue music created through the covert month of this week. the artist drill, featuring a rapper from south india. ah, i want to place before you 2 faces, the theme. do the economy on the left is what became defining images of the 1st

wave of colbert in india. in 2020 labourers rendered jobless over night, leaving cities and walking hundreds of miles back to the towns and villages. casualties of a sudden stringent look down on the right, some of the richest people. as the world grappled with a pen, demik, india added to 38 billionaires to it's 2021 which list 2 sets of images to very different realities. but one story that just mean equality and india exacerbated by the panoramic during the been to make unique when you became absolutely obscene in this country. this is part of the global strip. but in india, the super rich, i did an enormous feature there. let me just give you a few data points just man of this, the dream. okay. sure. money was making so much money every 2nd that an informal sector worker would have needed 3 years of work to make the amount of

money that location money in one ticket. so it's really obscene and i would say more to the number of 1000000000 us it federal and shortly. and the impact on the vehicle segment is also in government as a result, this challenges. but as far as my analysis is, there may dowdy be of in leaving. well, the billionaire is because of increased valuation in the stock market. but for the weaker section, it has been a german and government who hits millions of schemes, has tried to support the bottom step of the population. and we are looking into it . the gaping inequality isn't in the are not new. the result of decades of economic problems. but the virus has aggravated each and every one of these condition. let's talk about some of the big ones, starting with employment. at the end of the 1st year of the panoramic 2020 figure

compiled by the international labor organization showed that india as unemployment rate was at 7.11 percent highest. the country had seen in the last decade, and the 2nd wave of corporate exploded. in april 2021. jobs took another massive hit according to the center for monitoring and economy within the 1st half of the year. more than 95000000 people fell into unemployment. but it wasn't just the numbers that were significant. it was that kind of jobs being lost. let's take the case of april 2041, 3400000 salary jobs are lost to be approved. 2020. what, what were they? they were mostly medium as small as get into praise, the shutting down. and as they were shutting down, their salaried employees were losing jobs. now those people are not going to get them very easily back. whereas if you are pushing a cart, it could be a carpenter, it could be a vegetable selling woman. it could be a person who's doing a gig in a,

in the modern economy. all these people, when the unlocking happen though and back to work, got law of ages, but they were back to work. not like the salary people who were hit pretty badly. so it's very difficult for salary people to get their jobs back. and that's a severe structural hit. now, the policies announced by the more the government to shore up the economy, appear sizable vis. hookey argues to b, i may say caught the name is camara. e. he odd. mom needed her partner headline program often in but bought us a self reliant india. stimulus package consisted of 3 installments of government id amounting to a total of $14.00 trillion trophies, approximately $193000000000.00. nearly 10 percent of indian 201920 g d p.

in addition, they've been specific measures targeting the for the bundle programs enabling access to caching as well as food green. while the monetary, some of the official announcements have been staggering, disbursement of actual money reached the hands of those who needed the most as raised questions. if you're looking at these notional numbers and they will also get to, i think during the bend to make it would have been important to me miss much more in eric gosh, transfers or delicately boosting up the health infrastructure. when they're also other brought you know, one of the problems is that it docs off investment in boosting the social infrastructure through the participation of private sector. it sounds good, but if you'd just announced a package image,

you're giving you don't want the resources for the private sector. it would end up again lining the pockets of religion and creating some grand for infrastructure for them to be but, but will not be that. there are 3 important elevation, an ottoman never part of one large location was do the work segment in the bottom. step out the population that x one transferred to the far most people who love the jobs and those who need directions, i checked. the 2nd is they are, we are one is being given and supported to the agriculture economy, medium, small and micro enterprises and st renders. and the part portion is about the large industries big corporate exec thought. the ottoman never bought a very, very segregated into these 3 the government programs. notwithstanding

a state of india many less than considerably as a result of corporate 19. ready this is not a phenomenon exclusive to india, but the magnitude of the slide in this country is in a class of its own. ready years of progress, an india had made in addressing mosse poverty, has been robust. do studies that came out in the 1st half of 2021, back out, a report published by the university in bengal. lou showed that in the 1st year of the panoramic $230000000.00 indians were pushed below an owning special of $275.00 . a piece of d as $5.12 had to find them. ignore happened. it had estimated 50000000 indians would have, in fact emerged from under this limit. the 2nd report by washington d. c based pure research center. 2 figures were of particular note, fosters india shrinking middle class estimated to have contracted by 32000000 in

2020. a. bed with a number may have reached the pandemic had happened. the 2nd figure was of india's extremely poor. those living an income of less than $2.00 a day. this demographic is estimated to have increased 75000000 accounting for nearly 60 percent of the global increase of poverty. the 1st year of the pandemic, the pandemic slammed into an economy that was already on shaky ground years before 2020. the crew and virus made a difficult situation much more so, and how they get government addresses. this is something that will be watched around the world. after all, india is home to 17 percent of the world's population. it's the 6th largest economy in the world. and how would fit, have an impact on the global economy? i'll be speaking with jam, sit home, member of parliament with the bar, and the party representing the central government and professional devonne, no to the economist,

and vice president of the indian society of labor economics. welcome to both of you and i thank you for your time. my 1st question missing had the b, j. b has always cost itself is good for business and good for economics. in your opinion, do you believe that the b j b has in fact been good for our economy? the b j. b has been wonderful find as a company and the business sector is booming, despite the good ben demick, the reforms that we undertook. i don't suggest t, the insolvency in bankruptcy court, the monetary policy committee, the social security programs that we implemented, as well as the massive build out of infrastructure, have all made a huge difference. and the net result of all of this has been that we've seen that the corporate sector has flourished. revenues have grown strongly, profits of growing strongly. and of course the stock market is of record highs right now. uh, we have the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world. so this boards extremely

well for the future. and i conclude by saying that india is well on track to achieving as 5 trillion dollars g b. target progressive and you agree that the beeping has been good for our economy . then i agree with the question that is the b g. p has been good for the corporate sector, but only for the corporate sector and not for anybody else in the country. the are that the lowest from 2016 onwards, the noise is g d p. now rate of 4 percent, the highest unemployment in what the, by the us. so now, you know, and then be talk about the good. i mean, there's no kind of development, you know, there's no concept of people where this is concerned and there is no indicator on which india has not fallen in global ranking. your take nutrition, you take hair, education, gender a, what a pollution, but as freedom. now at the global 100 index,

we are even below nick bon and bangladesh, indigo pakistan. so no, really, what is this kind of economic policy? the just focus is on a very tiny percentage of people and forgets the citizens of the, of the country. so i think these are the fundamental issues really, which got it raised by that a nation is growing up, collapsing met, members isn't helping take that back to you. feel research center this year said that india has added $75000000.00 people to it's extremely poor category and be account now for 60 percent of the global increase in poverty. would you say that this inequality is not necessarily entirely a problem of the pandemic? and this is the problem of badly managed economics. i think we have to wait for the official statistics on all of this before we come to any conclusions. the numbers that you're quoting come from on official sources that have yet to be validated

with. and i just wanted, i said, what official numbers would you wait for? because we have to look at the official numbers. we have to see what the world bank, the i m f and others. such are international agencies and our own statistical agencies are seeing before we jump to any conclusions. i'll tell you because i'm a electron member of parliament from the looks of. and my job is to go to our remote villages will do a radius of our country to out of my constituency. that if you look at the benefits that we have delivered in every religion, every house in india, whether it is bank accounts, whether it is water with its electricity, whether it is a rewards, whether it is but the houses. you can see the difference in even on remote villages in the quality of life and in the quality of services that people are getting. right now, you're running the world's largest food distribution program. if you ask yourself that we've been able to provide better higher quality services to the people who

really needed to look with van demick. and even earlier, you'll find that we have been able to deliver these basic services gas and windows electricity bank accounts, far better than any other government in the past. taking the question to professor, they got up, do you believe that the government managed stimulus? well, during a moment of fests, that is supposed to fall. i think we need to argue and discusses debate as economists and of, and we talk about data, i think is a and this is something which is that he man accepted and, you know, talked about tomorrow, but there's the academic world or outside or even within the government is and it is just no date on your day. embittered expedients is very different than the ambivalent expedients which we add. the stock market is knowing indicator absolutely no indicator of growth or development or, or the rights of people or anything. you know,

in the parliament of questions. how many my didn't know data, how many debt student gl they? no data? how many, no giant might it is after the bend to me, no data. these i don't to sponsors, but in the parliament, that is no effort to collect data. a lot of us that it's institutions or individuals or universities or organizations, civil society. we have to fit in the gap and please remember that the pandemic game in a state of vend economy was collapsing. it's very clear that they impact the negative impact of the plan to make is not so much of the band to make it says, but the policy response, or the lack of hope on this, he just wants to compassionate and antiquity policy response. do what the pandemic has served about the 1st point, the other professor do. andries was that no data has been brenda, utterly untrue. the fact is that of course, prior to it,

all of the official statistics were being released. of course, everything has been delayed because of the course that me, one of the numbers that she ordered, which is the 2nd point i want to respond to, is that the economy was not doing well prior to quote that is also not true. the high frequency indicators were showing very good recovery things are moving along quite well. it scurried that after that very smart to call the dentist going on. so that's why number 2, why see the be ready would be shipped to coffee. that we're almost back to peek over levels. and hopefully once the vaccination, which of course is also proceeding very well, then we will be able to resume our growth. and in fact, i've written several articles on this topic saying that we are likely to see a repeat of the roaring twenties at the source and trio, going professionally on. i'll take that was sent back to you about jaleece schemes being implemented. i think they'll be stick or indicators which we have to see some people's point of view and not kind of business point of view of the court put a point of view to our people,

getting enough food. are they getting enough employment? what are they? the ages have the wages fallen on not fallen. i think these are the fundamental indicators between really need to talk about. now those to minister back it is primarily for the supply side. it's a demand site. it's only demand which can really increase the growth component as well as you keep producing and people don't have the money. so what is being used and what is being purchased now after a lot of appeals by the end, yours and by civil society and human rights organizations, workers, organizations, etc, did a transfer or free food, free in court. okay, i'm seeing this in court. rising wheat was to be given, but in limited quantities in any form they make at some point of time in certain states in particular. and with a lot of conditionality, that is not non justification for thing, getting it back on the trajectory of growth. i totally disagree with that. i'm not a liberal economist,

i don't study what is happening across the country because i'm a politician. i can tell you what is happening in his id, rog and intaquant, because i have visited the speediest towards myself and i have myself given out, you know, rations to people to make sure that this is happening properly. and what i've heard is, by the way, that it's actually going quite smoothly. the governor said, please do more of you know, prevent anybody from getting food grants, mitchell, the food to this is just, you know, let me do the village. did forget to little, just gone to the albany as done to the slums. gonna come, come with me, not as a politician. not as a b, b politician. as an ordinary researcher, it's a different worried mr. somehow, even though we're running out of time, that is something i must ask you and this is about the prime minister scares fund, or the pm cares fund. in march 2020, the government launched a fund as to the sing donations from india and overseas to help in the fight. corbett, after repeated repeated questions,

petitions for clarity in our courts and on various other platforms in, in citizens are now told that the pm cares fund is not a government fund and therefore does not have to disclose the size of the fund or any of its expenditure how is this mr. sin are appropriate in a democracy? logos, it is entirely within the legal framework to establish funds which are not government funds that are in your phones or that are funds of these kinds that can be used for charitable purposes. everything that has been done for pmg as has been done asked for the legal framework that we have in the m cast fund. you see is not an official program. it's hosted on an indian government website. it has the prime minister space on its website. the are prime ministers, the ex official chairman of the fun, the ministers of defense form affairs and finance are the trustees of the fund. the website says it was created by the prime minister's office. how can this not be a government fund? and also, when donations were been solicited into this fund,

the citizens were never told that this was not a government fund, and this will be a private fund with 0 accountability to the public. absolute thing, i have complete confidence that whatever has been done has been done, taking into account all of the appropriate legal protocols and all of the appropriate procedures and requirements off running for this game because i'm sure you know all these have been worked out. but let me give you this, we don't, you don't be, don't know, as general public orders the media, how much money you said this fundraiser. india spend without an estimate calculating. walked, corporate entities had declared their donations into this bond at $1270000000.00 in march last. yup. this was in the 1st 2 months of the fund. would you be able to sell us where this money has been used to fight it and where does the accountability?

so it's not a democracy in a democracy that of various remedies because it is violating a legal framework. then of course, your remedy is in the courts of law. there's another set of remedies which is a political sort of remedies of bitches in any democracies for elections. if indeed, that is not to the liking of the public or india, they can express their views through the ballot box and the content of remedies which is through parliament and fear. very feisty opposition. i'm sure they will take it on the belief that they're not appropriate remedies to dr. chambliss. well, i just like to add something, you know, i think the b m k find, you know that it knocked down. it was declared on the 25th of march 2020, and 26 is, is an elite package. and on the 27th of march is that pm ged. and, and i know on a salad ease in universities and colleges of pensioners, of doctors in the medical institute went on strike against one day being got to be put into the p. m. k fun. i think that the kid is,

is the most perfect example of how india has fallen from a democracy to lord democracy misses and not just on back one point government employees handed in their wages to the pm guest fund. do believe that they dissolve accountability of how that money is being used? well, i also, you know, essentially donated money to the b and guess fund that was done one and as far as i'm concerned, i think the money has been extremely well spent. we have seen the back of it and i believe that it has had a tremendously valuable door to play during the better. have a final question to the 2 of you. we are seeing foster group as of the last quarter and g d, p numbers that did come in is this sustainable and has indian us economy turned a corner is to say, don't, absolutely, it has turned the corner. as i said, we are seeing a very strong issue because you're moving into the brand that are for very awful growth drivers, which is of course,

the fiscal and monetary stimulus that's been applied. it's the export growth. it's the startup ecosystem. and of course, the fact that people are diversifying the supply chain, therefore, what i think is we're going to see very strong, sustainable growth going forward. and that is going to, of course, benefit our workers. it's going to benefit all of us citizens because not just in india, but around the world, you're going to see synchronized, progressive, unseen question to you. do you believe that this growth is sustainable and you believe they've turned a corner for us? yeah, i think the growth is in sectors which you know, they do not provide any kind of sustenance and sustainable livelihood to the people of this country on the sector which has shown some kind of a growth is agricultural. and that is, in spite of the farm acts and in spite of the way that has been good implemented. so now you're in former sectors collapsed your micro smaller units,

which have not got any, even, even in the last budget. there's been no stimulus. in fact, whatever was there as actually been deduced inner this, it don't because been used as good on the game that is developed and the, nor his peers don't ask is directly to beat it says data then girl to does not get good. even today, people are struggling for food. so boy girl is going to come is only been you put money in the hands of people, and that's why we talk about the universe, your basic. and i'm going to limit that. i want to thank all my guests. the giving us time professor devonne and it's just enough. i thank you for your time. thank you so much for speaking with us on context it. and finally that out. a multitude of artists in india who've been creating work through the long months of the pandemic. we wanted to feature some very languages, they work in and the perspectives that they bring this week, the closing for the next up to for wrap, track in family,

one of the languages of south india. title to one of come vidas. it translates to welcome by this, it's been written and performed by a 27 year old, single wrapper and middest. his work is about social justice and deals, especially with the politics of cost in india. this jack is about reclaiming a sense of humanity. miss the crisis of the virus. i'll see you next week on context india. with

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