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Member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) Sanjeev Sanyal on Wednesday said that artificial intelligence (AI) will both create and destroy jobs and a lot depends on how it is adopted. Speaking at the Bharat Chamber of Commerce at an interactive session, Sanyal claimed AI will impact highly skilled people and functions will be disintermediated. "There is a lot of noise about AI. A lot will depend on how we adopt it. A debate is going on within the government and the public. If we don't adopt it, we will get wiped out", Sanyal said. He claimed that the existing people in high-skilled areas would be disintermediated while jobs would be both destroyed and created. "One area where AI will certainly make an impact is education," the economist said. Citing an example, he said people will listen to lectures on video-streaming websites and use AI chatbots to answer questions. "So, students would no longer need to go to colleges except for some collaborative work. .
The BJP on Monday rejected the Congress' demand for a JPC probe into Hindenburg's allegation against the SEBI chairperson, saying it is a sham with an eye on weakening the Indian economy and destroying investment in the country. BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad reiterated the party's line that the short-selling firm's charge and the opposition's criticism of the market regulator are part of a wider conspiracy. He told reporters, "After being rebuffed by people, the Congress, its allies and its closest ally in the toolkit gang have conspired together to usher in economic anarchy and instability in India." The 10-year-old rule of the Congress between 2004 and 2014 was marked by several alleged scams, Prasad noted as he questioned why such critical reports were not brought out then. He alleged, "The Congress party leadership is involved in creating economic anarchy based on this fictitious report." He, however, asserted that investors have come to realise the
The Economic Survey on Monday flagged a rise in mental health issues among Indians, calling for a paradigm shift towards a bottom-up, whole-of-community approach to address the problem. Paying attention to mental health in society is both a health and an economic imperative, the policy document asserted while dwelling on the topic in a vast and detailed manner for the first time highlighting the various socio-economic repercussions of the issue. Mental health drags down productivity more widely in the ecosystem than individuals' physical health issues, it noted. Quoting the National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) 2015-16 data, the survey said 10.6 per cent of adults suffered from mental disorders in India while the treatment gap for mental disorders ranged between 70 to 92 per cent for different disorders. Further, as per the NMHS, the prevalence of mental morbidity was higher in urban metro regions (13.5 per cent) as compared to rural areas (6.9 per cent) and urban non-metro areas (4
The pre-budget Economic Survey on Monday underscored the pressing need for comprehensive reforms in India's agricultural sector, citing structural issues that could impede the country's overall economic growth trajectory. The Survey, tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, identifies several key challenges facing the agriculture sector, including the need to sustain growth while managing food price inflation, improving price discovery mechanisms, and addressing land fragmentation. "Despite its centrality in India's growth trajectory, the agriculture sector continues to face structural issues that have implications for India's economic growth," the Survey said. According to the document, policymakers must strike a delicate balance between incentivizing farmers to increase production and keeping food prices within acceptable limits. This dual objective requires careful policy interventions, the Survey noted. Other critical issues highlighted in the report, prepar