Pavitra Kanagaraj is a data journalist. She uses public and private datasets to cover economy, women, and politics. Prior to HT, she did macroeconomic research at UNESCAP and ERF. She co-founded the Rethinking Economics chapter at JNU in 2021.
Articles by Pavitra Kanagaraj
Number Theory: Decoding the push for a global minimum tax
The Council of the European Union approved a directive to introduce a 15% minimum levy on large multinational businesses to eliminate tax avoidance and end a race to the bottom in corporate taxation on December 15.
Updated on Dec 27, 2022 07:06 AM IST
Dec 16 horror: How courts, cops dealt with rapes since 2012
An HT analysis uses the Crime in India (CII) reports from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to answer these questions in detail in three charts
Updated on Dec 16, 2022 11:49 AM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi
WPI eases to 21-month low of 5.85%
While the numbers point to an ebbing of inflationary pressures, and could result in the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee moving to a neutral stance when it meets in February, the increase in wheat prices could present a challenge in coming months.
Updated on Dec 15, 2022 05:17 AM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi
Number theory: Understanding inflation and the IIP numbers
The National Statistical Office (NSO) released the numbers for Consumer Price Index (CPI) for November and Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for October on December 12. CPI growth fell to 5.88% in November, and IIP contracted 4% in October. What is the larger macroeconomic takeaway of these numbers?
Updated on Dec 13, 2022 10:51 AM IST
Seat share vs vote share: Congress’s victory maths in Himachal
While the Congress’s seat share to vote share ratio has increased significantly from 0.74 to 1.34 between 2017 and 2022, the BJP’s has fallen sharply from 1.33 to 0.85.
Updated on Dec 09, 2022 04:07 PM IST
Number Theory: What do corporate results tell us about the economy?
After bouncing back from the second wave of the Covid-19 in the quarter ending September 2021, inflation-adjusted sales rose continuously for the subsequent three quarters till June this year.
Updated on Dec 07, 2022 02:37 PM IST
Women and the menace of intimate partner violence
The gruesome case involving 26-year old Shraddha Walkar, allegedly killed by her partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala has brought to fore the menace of intimate partner violence in the country.
Updated on Nov 18, 2022 03:28 PM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi
Number theory: Economic importance of G20 as India takes its presidency
At the closing session of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially took over the presidency of the group and promised to make it a “catalyst for global change” at a “time when the world is simultaneously grappling with geopolitical tensions, economic slowdown, rising food and energy prices and the long-term ill-effects of the pandemic”.
Updated on Nov 17, 2022 03:32 PM IST
The challenges ahead of Lula’s 3rd term in Brazil
An HT analysis of Brazil’s official statistics sheds light on these imminent challenges ahead for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Updated on Nov 14, 2022 04:28 PM IST
Number Theory: Is there a China angle to India’s trade deficit?
Numbers from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database for the April-August period show that India’s trade deficit in 2022-23 is the highest even if one were to take out the petroleum product sub-component from the country’s merchandise trade.
Updated on Sep 22, 2022 11:01 AM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
Number Theory: Which are India’s safest (and most unsafe) cities?
The 2021 Crime in India (CII) report published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that Kolkata had the lowest crime rate among 19 major cities in India, and Delhi had the highest.
Updated on Sep 19, 2022 01:41 PM IST
Number Theory: Should India privatise its public sector banks?
Whether or not the government privatises PSBs, private banks have been operating in India for a long time.
Updated on Aug 26, 2022 12:13 PM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
What does the latest IMF forecast mean for the world and India?
The International Monetary Fund on July 26 released an update to the April 2022 edition of its World Economic Outlook
Updated on Aug 01, 2022 12:07 PM IST
Number Theory: The economic legacy left behind by Shinzo Abe
Shinzo Abe’s administration set itself a target of taking Japan’s nominal GDP to 600 trillion yen by 2020. This target has not materialised even in 2022, when Japan’s nominal GDP was 557 trillion yen.
Updated on Jul 23, 2022 04:51 AM IST
Five charts that summarise UN’s population report
India will become the most populous country in the world next year, overtaking China, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in its 2022 World Population Prospects (WPP) report released on Monday.
Updated on Jul 12, 2022 10:42 AM IST
Political economy of inflation across advanced economies
The first of this two-part data journalism series looked at various aspects of inflation in advanced countries and underlined the differences between inflation in the US and Euro area economies. This part will look at the political economy around inflation in this region.
_1653283450507_1657526643454.jpg "In a sharp downward revision from its April forecast of 3.7%, the IMF now expects the US economy to grow at 2.9% in 2022.(Li Ying/Xinhua/picture alliance )")
Updated on Jul 12, 2022 10:22 AM IST
Understanding inflation in advanced economies
Almost all advanced economies in the world are debating with the growth versus inflation question at the moment. While inflation numbers have been breaking records, central banks and monetary hawks are increasing the pitch for more radical monetary policy action to contain prices even if it generates headwinds for growth momentum.
Updated on Jul 07, 2022 01:21 PM IST
Why overturning Roe vs Wade will hurt America
How many women seek abortion in US? What does this rule mean for them? What will be the economic consequences? Is the impact similar across 51 US states?
Updated on Jun 29, 2022 11:29 AM IST
Analysts rerate economy’s prospects despite robust HFI data
Two key economic indicators, monthly Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection for the month of May ( it captures economic activity in the month of April ) and Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing, painted a strong picture of the ongoing economic recovery.
Updated on Jun 03, 2022 05:00 PM IST
Number Theory: Understanding India’s women empowerment, or the lack of it
The NFHS data show that 88.7% of married women (aged 15-49 years) had their say (alone or jointly with husbands) in at least one of the decisions on health care for self, major household purchases, and visits to her family and relatives.
Updated on May 30, 2022 11:49 AM IST
Number theory: Share of meat eaters in India grew since 2015-16
From the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh in September 2015 to debates on providing eggs in mid-day meals in schools to municipalities ordering that meat shops be shut during Hindu religious festivals, meat eating has consistently courted political controversy.
Updated on May 25, 2022 01:04 PM IST
By Pavitra Kanagaraj
Five key messages from analysis of state budgets
All Indian states and union territories have presented their state budgets for 2022-23
Updated on May 23, 2022 11:15 AM IST
Number theory: Understanding India’s trade deal with the UK
The deal in the works, like India’s other regional and bilateral trade agreements is quite ambitious.
Updated on Apr 29, 2022 11:59 AM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi
How the Pakistani economy unravelled under Imran Khan
On April 10, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan stepped down as Pakistan’s prime minister
Updated on Apr 19, 2022 04:10 PM IST
What will India’s employment challenge look like going forward?
Labour markets do not operate in vacuum. They are deeply affected by the demographics of an economy. If the working age population is increasing, it means a growing demand for jobs as well.
Updated on Apr 12, 2022 02:01 PM IST
The numbers behind India and Australia’s $100-billion trade target
The two countries are “negotiating a more comprehensive agreement on goods and services, which may also include movement of skilled and agricultural labourers to the continent”.
Updated on Apr 11, 2022 08:38 PM IST
5 charts which explain the Sri Lanka economic crisis
High inflation and a sharp depreciation of the Sri Lankan currency appears to be the immediate cause of chaos.
Updated on Apr 06, 2022 06:27 PM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
The difference in public and private estimates of employment in India
India does not have official high-frequency employment data, unlike countries such as the US, where statistics on employment, hours of work, overtime work, weekly and hourly income are available every month.
Updated on Apr 05, 2022 07:01 PM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi
Can UP’s economy achieve trillion-dollar target by ’27?
An HT analysis shows that it will take unprecedented economic growth to achieve this target.
Updated on Mar 21, 2022 10:43 AM IST
Key takeaways from the latest SRS data
SRS is the only official source of various demographic indicators in India except the census.
Updated on Mar 15, 2022 06:09 PM IST
Pavitra Kanagaraj, New Delhi