RajivSpeak

India’s economic growth prospects continue to lead the global stage, but escalating geopolitical tensions are mounting severe inflationary and currency pressures on the nation, according to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Chief Economists’ Outlook published in May 2026.  

A landmark scientific paper published in Frontiers in Science warns that humanity is actively destabilizing the Earth system upon which all life depends, and issues an urgent call for a coordinated global "Nature Positive" (NP) strategy to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

  India's residential real estate market recorded near-flat growth in the January–March quarter of 2026, with sales volumes dipping slightly year-on-year even as property prices hit a historic milestone — crossing ₹10,000 per square foot for the first time.

A major new policy research report published by the World Bank Group has raised pointed questions about India's current industrial strategy, warning that the country's flagship Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme may be working against its own economic strengths — and that deeper structural reforms are urgently needed.

A new World Bank flagship report reveals that  human capital accumulation  in India is being critically undermined by severe deficits in child health, home-based care, and educational quality, with stark disparities linked to gender, birth order, and  environmental pollution . The report,  Building Human Capital Where It Matters: Homes, Neighborhoods, and Workplaces , argues that without urgent policy action targeting the home, neighborhood, and workplace, India risks perpetuating a cycle of low productivity and stagnating economic growth.

In its April 2026 South Asia Economic Update , the World Bank identifies India as the primary engine of regional growth, with the economy estimated to have accelerated to 7.6% in fiscal year 2025/26.  This macroeconomic surge, however, exists alongside a highly fragmented labor market where the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep-seated inter-state wage disparities—specifically between states like Kerala, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh—create a complex landscape for the workforce.

A new working paper by University of Cambridge economist Kaivan Munsh  has revealed how centuries-old social structures both boost and constrain business activity. Focusing on a growing body of economic research, the paper suggests that India's caste system—a network of endogamous communities dating back nearly two to four thousand years—plays a powerful and often overlooked role in shaping the country's economy. 

India faces an accelerating heat crisis that threatens the health, livelihoods, and economic stability of hundreds of millions of people — and current policy responses are failing to keep pace, according to a new white paper published in April 2026 by Harvard University's Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.

A sweeping policy report released by the Foundation for Economic Development (FED) argues that India’s minimum wage regime has become counterproductive, pricing millions of workers out of formal employment and costing the economy an estimated $60 billion in unrealised low-skill exports annually.

 A new report,  Toxic Finance , has sought to expose the critical role of the global financial sector in driving a massive and controversial expansion of the  petrochemical industry  across the United States. The analysis, compiled by a coalition of environmental and human rights organizations including the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and  Break Free From Plastic , claims that banks and investors have provided the vast sums of capital necessary to build over 100 new facilities or expansions, despite significant risks to human health, the climate, and the financial system itself.

A new report published in March 2026 by the  Centre for Financial Accountability  and the Tax The Top campaign paints a stark picture of deepening economic disparity in India, documenting a concentration of wealth that it argues is “comparable to colonial times.” Titled  Wealth Tracker India | Tax the Top. Close the Gap , the compilation presents data from the  World Inequality Database  and the  Hurun Rich List  to illustrate the meteoric rise of the ultra-wealthy alongside the stagnation and debt burdens of the majority.

  A comprehensive new study by environmental research and advocacy organisation Toxics Link has painted a worrying picture of India's fading repair culture, warning that the trend towards replacement over repair is accelerating the country's already critical e-waste crisis.

  India’s residential real estate market witnessed a continued slowdown in the first quarter of 2026, with housing sales across the top nine cities falling below the one lakh unit mark for the first time in over four years, according to data released by P.E. Analytics Ltd (PropEquity).

  India's official GDP figures have misrepresented the trajectory of the world's fifth-largest economy for the better part of two decades, according to a major new working paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). It finds that India overstated annual growth by up to two percentage points after 2011 — and understated it during the boom years of the 2000s.

I was a little amused by the abrupt March 17 resignation of Atanu Chakraborty—a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1985 batch who retired in 2020—as chairman of HDFC Bank. Much of what may have led to his decision to quit this ostensibly high post—actually a non-executive, part-time role—is by now well known. I followed most of it online with considerable interest, partly because I had interacted with him umpteen times during my stint as The Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar from 1997 to 2012.

  Across the West, immigration has increasingly been framed as a cultural threat or a political liability, a stance most visibly associated with Donald Trump but echoed in varying degrees across Europe and other advanced economies. What this debate often ignores is a hard demographic and economic reality: without sustained immigration, much of the Western world faces a shrinking workforce, rising dependency ratios, and long-term stagnation.

On the evening of February 14, after banking hours, I received a strange SMS from Bank of India (BOI)—where I maintain a very small, largely inactive account. I had opened it years ago simply because a branch was located near my home. However, finding their services quite poor, I rarely use it anymore.

The advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) has sharply criticised the  Union Budget 2026–27 , calling it a “budget sans kartavya” that weakens public welfare while favouring private corporations, even as inequality, climate risks and social distress deepen across the country.

​India’s once-unstoppable residential real estate rally has hit a significant roadblock, as new data reveals that housing sales in 2025 plummeted to their lowest levels since 2022. According to the  Real Insight: Residential CY 2025  report by  PropTiger.com , the sector is grappling with a cooling demand cycle that has seen annual sales tank by 12%, dropping to 3,86,365 units from the high of 4,36,992 units recorded just a year prior. 

Findings by two Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, scholars, Sampurna Kundu and Prof Sanghmitra Sheel Acharya, has revealed that despite the efforts of the Reproductive and Child Health Services, that provided free or nominal cost public health services, the average out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) per delivery in public health facilities has increased for many states.