Heena Sharma Blog

As the Narendra Modi -led central government continues to pick pieces in the puzzle to rein in the coronavirus pandemic in India, the economic costs of the nationwide lockdown on millions of poor could be catastrophic. Projections based on a recent analysis by researchers at the United Nations University (UNU) show that, in the worst case scenario, 104 million more people in India could fall below the World Bank-determined poverty line of $3.2 a day for lower-middle-income countries. At present, 60 per cent of India’s population, or an estimated 812 million people, live below that poverty line. In effect, the coronavirus pandemic and the economic consequences of an extended business shutdown could swell the ranks of India’s poorest to 915 million. From 60 per cent, the proportion of people below the poverty line could increase to 68 per cent – a situation seen in the country more than a decade ago. Much of the Indian government’s efforts to mitigate poverty over the years coul...

The rise of automation has so far had a negligible impact on jobs at a global scale, the World Bank chief economist said, despite common gloomy predictions that humans are set to be replaced by machines. While advanced economies have shed industrial jobs over the last two decades, the rise of the same sector in East Asia has more than compensated for the loss, according to an annual report published by the Washington-based international financial institution. “This fear that robots have eliminated jobs -- this fear is not supported by the evidence so far,” the World Bank’s Chief Economist Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg said in an interview.The World Development Report 2019 is the latest in a series of efforts by academics, consultancies and governments to assess the impact of new technologies on employment. Past studies have often forecast automation will destroy more jobs than it creates. In its report, the World Bank instead stresses that the nature of work in the fut...