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The absence of food signifies the stage when a family starts living in absolute poverty. The consumption level comes down to extremes as affordability goes down. With the earnings going down, affordability also comes down to bottom level that leads to falling rate of consumption level which is the yardstick for measuring poverty. As the entire household keeps slipping down, the most painful reality is unveiled. It is the dividing line between the poor and then those that are not poor.

The drop in crude oil prices below the $75 per barrel threshold has raised significant concerns within the oil market, particularly for the OPEC+ cartel, which has been striving to maintain prices near the desired $100 mark. The decline, influenced by a potential resolution of the Libyan political crisis and underlying economic factors, presents a complex dilemma for OPEC+ and poses broader implications for global economies, including major oil-importing nations like India.

The RSS leadership has imparted a new dimension to its protracted battle against Prime Minister Narendra Modi by extending support to caste census at the three day conclave of RSS organisations that ended in Kerala on September 2. With deepening existential crisis and unable to find a viable political device to combat the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi, the RSS leadership has laid the risky trap, of supporting the demand for caste census, to force belligerent Prime Minister to toe its line.

Massive global protests in the last four days of September in all the major cities of the world including New York, Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and finally Tel Aviv against Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rigid attitude to the ceasefire proposal to end the Gaza war, have led to some positive reaction among the leaders of the western nations.

Recent bold attacks carried out by Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) rocked Pakistan. A large number of people and security personnel were killed in the province of Balochistan when separatist insurgents attacked police stations, railway lines and highways, and security forces camps. The assaults were the most widespread and ferocious in years by ethnic militants fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich southwestern province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine.

Farmers have been demanding legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP), but the Centre has announced 7 new big schemes for farm sector worth Rs14,000 crore on September 2. Modi government said that the schemes intended for farmers welfare, but farmers have been saying that their well-being depend on the legally assured minimum price of their crops, which they have been traditionally compelled to sell on very low price, even at below their input cost.

The Maharashtra assembly polls are slated later this year along with Jharkhand. Also the bypolls in 10 UP assembly seats, which will put Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to test, are due. The thing to watch, however, is whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come out of his post-June 4 shell and campaign? Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir poll results will be out on October 8.

The US Presidential election is scheduled for 5 November 2024 while the Canadian elections to elect a new Prime Minister is expected to take place in October 2025. After Kamala Harris became Democratic Party nominee for the President in the upcoming election, Republican Party’s Donald Trump, who was seen as a clear favourite for the top post until that moment Joe Biden backed out and favoured his vice-president for the race, is slowing losing the edge. The competition now seems equal for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The interim Government in Bangladesh led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus has achieved big success in the last few days in persuading the Biden administration to help in bailing out the country’s ailing economy to meet the immediate challenges of the post-Hasina administration.

A basic concept in monetary economics is the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR). Commercial banks must park a certain portion of their deposits with the Central bank of the country. As interest is not payable on the funds so deposited with it, the Central bank could be said to earn an implicit rent on the funds. Banks could have earned an explicit return by investing the money in the money market, for instance.