Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THE post-second world war period had seen a spate of welfare state measures in the advanced capitalist countries, especially in Europe, in emulation of what the Soviet Union was effecting.

THERE are two defining and portentous features of the current world economic situation. One, which is well discussed, is the world-wide increase in interest rates in response to the pervasive inflationary upsurge; it would indubitably generate recession and unemployment, which, notwithstanding all protestations to the contrary, is the real objective behind it.

THE triumph of the City of London, the one square kilometre next to Liverpool Street station that houses the citadel of British finance, is complete. Not only did it get rid of one British prime minister, whom it distrusted, in the space of just 44 days, but even got a new one of its choice installed forthwith. Rishi Sunak is being called many things: the first British Asian prime minister, the first Hindu prime minister, and so on. These facts about him however are inconsequential; notwithstanding the hullabaloo in India over his appointment, these facts are mere trivia.

THE Global Hunger Index (GHI) for 2022 has just come out, which shows India occupying the 107th position among the 121 countries for which the index is prepared (countries where hunger is not a noteworthy problem are left out of the index). India’s score on the hunger index is 29.1 which is worse than the score of 28.2 it had in 2014. (The lower the figure the less is hunger).

FOR the first time ever, the annual rate of inflation in the Eurozone, measured by the Consumer Price Index, has reached double digits: it exceeded 10 per cent in September 2022, up from 9.1 per cent in August. Energy and food prices of course drove this acceleration in inflation, increasing by 41 per cent and 13 per cent respectively, but they were not the only items witnessing an increase in the inflation rate. Even if we leave out energy and food, the inflation rate in all other commodities taken together increased from 5.5 per cent in August to 6.1 per cent in September.