channels, several websites and digital platforms all half cemented themselves as leaders in their field. seeking the human story, and striving to speak truth to power. a quarter of a century has passed and what was once described by former egyptian dictator. symbolic as a tiny match box is now a global media empire, and a beacon of free expression in a region that has never needed it more. hum at fun. a da 0 though. ah, up us the out here on al jazeera and these are the top stories world leaders have agreed to end deforestation by the 2030 more than $19000000000.00 has been pledged towards the plan. it is the 1st commitment made at the cop $26.00 climate conference which has begun in glasgow. the united nations secretary general antonio terrace. had a start warning though to the gathered leaders about just what's at stake. our

addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brain. we face a stark choice, either we stop it or it stops us. and it's time to say enough enough of built the lising, biodiversity. he laugh of killing ourselves with carbon. enough of t thing nature like a toilet enough of burning and drilling and minding, go away deeper. we are digging our own graves in ethiopia, rebels from the to gray people's liberation front. so they have joined up with forces from the most populous region. romeo, a t p left as it sees the town of combo chest and its airport in the m hara region . while fighters from romeo say they have seen the town of to me, say both tons, strategic points on the highway to ada sandpaper. rescuers have been working

overnight in nigeria to find people trapped under the rubble of a 21 story building, which collapsed least 3 people are confirmed dead. it is not yet clear what caused the collapse, which happened in lagos. somalis began voting for politicians in its lower house of parliament. the 1st to politicians for the 275 member house were elected in mogadishu. on monday, chosen by tens of thousands of clan delegates. there is separate and voting for the upper house. and then both branches of government will choose the next president vote, counties begun in south africa, local elections. turnouts was low, and it's expected to be the toughest contest yet for the ruling african national congress party. some predictions suggest it will guess get less than half of the vote and may lose control of some of the country's largest regions. the agencies been facing growing discontent of the social inequality in south africa. and that is the, the, could you headlines here on out 0 next the latest edition of context. india

ah, go where no one has gone before had ended. true. will be left behind between the sounds of paw in the whispering. so a few acres of truth will be heard confronting power with courage and lighting the dark shadows to info and inspire even if we crime with reasonable walk on our own unique path. hello. 2 and welcome to context, india and fetus. those are coming to you from room by and context india. we take the time to deliver a full em all considered 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 others. 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 jensen, how a member of parliament from the boss, the agenda party, 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 is 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 all the 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 with 2021 rich list. 2 sets of images to very different realities. but one story that equality in 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 money was making so

much money every 2nd that an informer sector worker would have needed 3 years of work to make the amount of money that notation money in one second. 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. is the result this challenges. but as far as my analysis is, there may daughter be of in leaving when 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 in india are not new. the result of decades of economic problems. 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 when the 2nd be recovered, 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 of a significant. it was that kind of jobs being lost. let's take the case of april 20, 213400000 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, a p, a sizable v. so d r g b i may see caught, the name is camara. e, he ah mon needed her part of the headline program often is but but us a self reliant india. stimulus package consisted of 3 installments of government id,

amounting to a total of $14.00 trillion fees, approximately $193000000000.00. as nearly 10 percent of india 201920 g d p. in addition, they've and pacific measures targeting the poor and the wonderful programs enabling access to caching as well as food green. while the monetary, some of the official announcements had 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 were also not talking to them. and i think during the band 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 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 the lens and creating some kind of 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 fall. 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 steve renders and the part portion is about the large industries big corporate exec. i thought the ottoman never bought

a very, very segregated into these 3 the government programs. notwithstanding a state of india middle class and poor 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 my poverty has been robust. do studies that came out in the 1st half of 2021. back out. a report published by the university and bank lew showed that in the 1st year of the panoramic 230000000 indians were pushed below. an owning special of $375.00 per piece of d. a $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 not happened. the 2nd figure was of india's extremely those living on incomes 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 fed have an impact on the global economy?

i'll be speaking with james said, help member of parliament. the bar jumped up 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 and don's of g s 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 have 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. p has been good for the corporate sector, but only for the god protector and not for anybody else in the country. the or that the lowest from 2016 onwards, the noise is g d p. now rate of 4 percent, the highest unemployment in the by the us, sued. 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. and now at the global hunger index, we are even below ordinate 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 as 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 as to what the 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 now anyway, because i'm a elected member of parliament from the looks of. and my job is to go to our remote villages for 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 are 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 who had been making even earlier, you'll find that we have been able to deliver these basic services gas and windows electricity bank account far better than any other government in the past? taking the question to professor the box. do you believe that the government managed to stimulate well during a moment of press? that is supposed to fall? i think of, we need to argue and discusses debate as economists and of, and we talk about data. i think this and this is something which is very men accepted and you know, talked about to while, but there's the academic world or outside or even within the government is that it is just no date on your day. empirical expedients is very different from the

empirical expedients which we had. the stock market is knowing the k 2 absolutely no indicator of growth or development or, or the rights of people or anything, you know, end up on amendable 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 been to me no data these out on to sponsors, but in the parliament. it is no effort to collect data. a lot of us with that it's into sions, 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 band to make is not so much of the band to make it says, but the policy response of the lack of up on to see, to spawns the compassionate and antiquity policy response to what the pandemic has

served brought 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 put all of the official statistics were being released. of course everything has been delayed because of the course. i mean, 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 to companies are moving along quite well. it school in that interrupted that very smart recovery that was going on. so that's one number to find them. see the be ready would be shipped to coffee . that we are almost back to be covered 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 like you to see a repeat of the roaring twenties of resource entry. going professor. then i'll take that question back to you about judy schemes being implemented. i think the basic

indicators which we have to see some people's point of view and not on the business point of view of the core to put a point of view to our people, getting enough food. are they getting enough employment? what are their wages? had 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 side, 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 of pretty food free in court. ok. and seeing this in court, rising reed 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 known justification for the get to the 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 and has id login into hopkins because i have visited the speediest towards my self 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, of prevent anybody from getting grants, mitchell, the food is it is to, this is just, you know, just leave it to me to will develop did forget to little just gone to the albany as done to the slums. gum gum! come with me. not as a politician. not as a b. b politician as an ordinary. it is a joke. it's a different word, 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 india fight. corbett, after repeated repeated quest, our petitions for clarity in our courts and on various other platforms in, in citizens are now told that the b m. 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 in are appropriate in a democracy? logos, it is entirely or within the legal framework to establish funds which are not government funds that are in your phones or that are funds of video games that can be used for charitable purposes. everything that has been done for pm gears has been done. as for the legal framework that we have in our pm guest 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 fund, 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 being solicited into this fund, the citizens were never told that this was not a government fund, and this would be a private fund with 0 accountability to the public. absolutely, i have complete confidence that whatever has been done that has been done, taking into account all of the appropriate legal protocols and all of the appropriate procedures and requirements off running effect. and that this game, because i'm sure you know all these have been will go. but let me, let me give you this. we don't, you know, we don't know as general public or as the media. how much money is in this fund right now. india spent without an estimate calculating, walked corporate entities, had declared as their donations into this bond at $1270000000.00 in march last year. this was in the 1st 2 months of the front. would you be able

to tell us where this money has been used to fight it and where does the accountability suspended democracy in a democracy that are various remedies that is violating a legal same book? then of course, your remedy is in the course of law, there's another set of remedies which is a political sen, remedies of which is in any democracies through elections. if indeed, that is not to the liking of the public or india, they can express their views through the valid books and the content of nicky remedies which is through parliament anthea will verify your position. 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 p n k find, you know, a dog that it knocked down. it was declared on the 25th of march 202026. is this elite package and on the 27th of march, is that the and get and, and i know on

a salad ease in universities and colleges of pensioners, of doctors in the medical institute went on strike against a one day being got to be put into the p m. k fun, i think that be again is, is the most perfect example of how india has fallen from a democracy to laud. democracy misses and not just on that one point our government employees handed in their wages to the pm cast fund. do believe that they deserve 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 only 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. i 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 we ship to cover you moving into the rolling brandes 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 be you know, very non to 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 your information is collapsed, your micro smaller units, which have not got any, even, even in the last budget. there has been no stimulus. in fact, whatever was there as actually been deduced in this, that don't because been used as good on the game that is developed and the, nor his peers don't ask is directly because his data then girl does not get good. even today, people are struggling for food. so boy girl is going to come is only then you put money in the hands of people. and that's why we talk about the university of basic income. i'm going to limit that. i want to thank all my guests, the giving us time professor devonne, an assistant. ok. 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 to 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, the for wrap, track in family, one of the languages of south india. title to one of come virus. 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. missed the crisis of the virus. i'll see you next week on context. india. with

frank assess is or kiss likely to change, making the hi derek. it's not going to change their behavior. they are going to continue to do what they do and in depth analysis of the days global headlights. inside story on al jazeera, pro democracy activists risking their lives fighting autocracy. i know that i might go to prison. good. so i will join the run and you episode of democracy may be

exposed. the struggle of those who believe democracy is worth dying for. we never know when an opening is going to come. when a fruit vendor is going to emulate themselves and say enough, is enough my life for democracy on how does era ah, the 1st deal is down wild late, is that the you and climate? some it's agree to end deforestation by the year 2030. there's no more time to hang back or shoot an offense or argue amongst ourselves. the one the urgent calls for action had caught $26.00. some of the worst polluters are pushing back. ah.