Editorial 1: Reassuring resolve: on the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee’s move
Introduction
The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has for a ninth straight meeting chosen to keep benchmark interest rates unchanged as it continues to battle retail inflation that has stubbornly stayed above its medium-term target of 4% for 57 months and is beginning to undermine consumer confidence.
Rationale behind the RBI’s decision
- Inflation risks: There was a room for complacency given the risks that persistently elevated food price pressures posed to households’ inflation expectations and broader monetary policy credibility.
- Elevated food prices: Had not only slowed disinflation in the April-June quarter but had also extended their momentum into July with high frequency food price data pointing to sizeable month-on-month increases in key vegetable prices.
- Headline inflation: Had surged 62% sequentially, while onion had become almost 23% costlier than in June and potato prices had increased 18%.
- Impact on monthly household budgets: Food prices (46% weight) in the overall Consumer Price Index, had the most impact on monthly household budgets.
Monitory Policy Committee Decision
- Majority support: The MPC, which voted by a 4-2 majority to hold interest rates and keep the policy stance focused on the withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation aligns to the target,
- Raised projection for headline retail inflation: In the July-September quarter to 4.4%, 60 basis points higher than the 3.8% pace projected in June.
- Rate forecasting: The rate panel also posited slightly faster inflation in the third fiscal quarter than it had forecast previously, lifting the projection by 10 basis points to 4.7%, which appears reassuring.
Conclusion
In June, vegetable prices had contributed about 35% to headline inflation, to ‘sustain well into the festive season through till early November’, adding pressure on retail headline inflation. Core inflation may also have bottomed out according to the MPC, which flagged the risks of spillover from food prices, as well as the impact mobile tariff revisions may have on broader non-food inflation. Policymakers hearteningly reiterated the truism that without ensuring enduring price stability, growth may at best be tenuous.
Editorial 2: No population Census — in the dark without vital data
Introduction
The Indian decadal Census has been delayed by more than three years now despite several concerns having been raised about the consequences of not having a Census. There is misconception among officials on substituting the Census with alternative ways and means of counting the population.
What is a Census?
- The Census is not limited to offer a population count.
- It includes a wide range of locational, familial and individual information that serves to understand the changing population dynamic in its entirety.
- Limitation of avoiding a Census lies in the reliability of all our large-scale surveys such as National Family Health Survey and Periodic Labour Force Survey carried out.
The need to understand many changes
- Transformational changes: Not only in population count and its composition but also on many other features relating to education, occupation, employment, health (COVID-19) and livelihoods.
- Limiting the utility of a census: There is universal echo on conducting a caste Census to serve political ends more than development planning.
- Census Machinery and delays: The machinery needed for a Census exercise is perhaps quite comparable to that of an election. Therefore, it feels like the Census is being avoided more than being delayed, with undue reasons.
- Avoiding the delay in Census: As with a rapid demographic transition a population Census is more than necessary to reveal these changes along with familial structures, locational distribution and occupational composition.
- Importance of Census Frame: As the surveys carried out will be less reliable and representative which has been the basis of generating a whole host of SDG indicators in case of absence of census frame.
- Important data about Population Prospects reveals: Unique features of population change and good demographic data, which will be of great significance for population giants such as India and China more than for other regions of the world.
- Significance for India and the World: Given that the world population scenario is greatly influenced by Indian population features, it is essential to have the reality of its population features obtained in the Census rather than presuming estimated values based on past trends that depend on projections and extrapolations.
- Need for standardisation at sub-aggregate level: Such indicators pertain to many dimensions that need a standardisation by population count (not only aggregate but also its segmented count by age, sex and many other attributes), that is compromised in the absence of a Census.
The Caste Census cry
- Far cry of Politics: Political masters are engaged in raising the need for a caste Census to serve their purposes.
- Caste Auditing: Caste auditing in India comes at a time when we claim everything to be rosy seems to be out of place and is used to serve the needy primarily left behind.
- Genuine backing with socio-economic date: Case auditing should be backed by a genuine intent of reading inclusion of different caste groups.
- Tangible endowments: are a limited way to diagnose deprivation rather that making an assessment of the intangible domains such as education and occupation. Unfortunately, there is a complete absence of any systematic assessment of mobility.
Conclusion
Keeping the Census at bay is perhaps in the interest of the state to claim progress and betterment basing on numerators alone without its appropriate denominator in the computation of indicators. Hence, the scientific community should convey the need for a Census without any further delay to get out of the illusion that surveys and many other administrative statistics are a replacement for the Census.
