A new report by venture capital firm Blume Ventures estimates that one billion Indians, or nearly two-thirds of the country’s 1.4 billion population, lack the income to spend on discretionary goods, making them an unviable market for companies.

India’s “consuming class” comprises only 140 million people across 30 million households and only makes up 10% of the population of the country. It is effectively only as big as Mexico. Another 300 million people form the “aspirant” consumer class, with spending rising due to digital payments.

India’s consumer base is not expanding but becoming wealthier at the top, reinforcing a K-shaped post-pandemic recovery. Income inequality has widened sharply in India over the decades, with the top 10% now controlling 57.7% of national income, up from 34% in 1990. The richest 1% own 40.1% of total wealth, while the bottom 50% share just 6%, according to the World Inequality Report 2018. Read on.

American sarod player Ken Zuckerman died on Wednesday at 3.30 am in Basel, Switzerland, at the age of 72. Fellow sarod player Shiraz Ali Khan confirmed his death in a Facebook post.

Zuckerman, known for cultural crossover projects like the Grammy-nominated Diaspora Sefardi and Indian Ragas & Medieval Song, trained under sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan for 37 years. He initially played the sitar before switching to the sarod.

At 20, Zuckerman attended his first Indian classical concert in Iowa, featuring Khan and Shankar Ghosh. The experience led him to enroll at the Ali Akbar Music College in California, where he became Khan’s disciple. In 1985, he was entrusted with running the Ali Akbar College of Music in Basel.

Zuckerman also contributed to the development of Indian classical instruments, integrating precision tuners into the sarod and tanpura, introducing wooden resonators and creating “Shanti” – an automated tanpura-playing device. Read on.

The Union government has told the Supreme Court that it opposes a petition seeking to permanently bar politicians convicted in criminal cases from contesting elections. The Centre said disqualification periods were a matter of legislative policy and that imposing a lifetime ban falls solely within Parliament’s domain.

The government made the submission in response to lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay’s 2016 petition challenging the constitutional validity of Sections 8 and 9 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Section 8 of the Act states that individuals convicted of specified offences face a six-year disqualification after serving their sentence, while Section 9 disqualifies public servants for five years if they have been dismissed for corruption or disloyalty to the state. Upadhyay’s petition seeks to extend this disqualification to a lifetime ban.

The government argued that the existing provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, were “constitutionally sound” and based on proportionality and reasonability. Read on.

Chandigarh residents have urged Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria to stop the demolition of a section of a wall of the Rock Garden for a road widening project to decongest the area near the High Court. An online petition with over 5,000 signatures has demanded that the demolition be halted, the garden be restored and granted national heritage status, and its forested areas be protected.

The Rock Garden, built by the late Nek Chand Saini using industrial and domestic waste, is a major heritage site and a popular tourist attraction in the Union Territory. Priyanka Saini, Nek Chand’s daughter, said her family was “deeply disheartened” by the demolition.

Officials claim the demolished wall is not part of the garden but encloses forest land. A group of residents organised under the banner of Saving Chandigarh wrote to Kataria arguing that the road widening project violates heritage and environmental laws and urged authorities to preserve Chandigarh’’s planned urban fabric. Read on.

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