Law of percentages.

"India's retail inflation declined marginally to 6.44 percent year-on-year in February as against 6.52 percent in January, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed." ET. "The high inflation level can be attributed to rising food prices, which account for nearly 40 percent of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket." "India's wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation eased to 3.85 percent in February on an annual basis from 4.73 percent in January, stated provisional data from the Commerce Ministry." ET. The WPI inflation was at 13.11% in February 2022, TIE, so the drop this year is largely due to base effect. "In its February meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI projected annual inflation for 2022-23 at 6.5%," but "The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) that cumulative annual inflation between April 2022 to February 2023 stands at 6.97% right now," PressReader. Also, core inflation, which excludes food and fuel, has been around 6% for a very long time and came in at 6.22% in February. "A year-on-year comparison shows that the inflation adjusted profits (net) of non-financial companies shrank by 22.9% in the December 2022 quarter," wrote Pavitra Kanagaraj. Companies with sales growth of less than Rs 250 million did not see any growth in wages and wage growth fell even in large companies with sales above Rs 5 billion. "The number of middle-income taxpayers in India has declined dramatically after 2018-19, falling 17% in the subsequent two years, from 49.8 million to 41.1 million. In the same period, the number of high-income taxpayers rose 15%, underscoring how the pandemic has accentuated inequities." Mint. Naturally, "India's gross domestic product (GDP) for the October-December quarter moderated to 4.4 percent, the data from MoSPI showed." ET. As households struggle to pay for their expenses, net financial savings have declined to a three-decade low of 4% of GDP in the first half of FY23 from 7.3% of GDP in FY22 and 12.0% in FY 21. The decline of financial savings was broad-based, said a report. ET. Even so, "Companies in sectors such as consumer durables, paints, jewelry, quick service restaurants (QSRs), apparel and footwear have seen a slowdown post the festive season last quarter." wrote Jethmalani, Pengonda & Sampath. "Even as people ate less pizzas and fried chicken, they bought less clothes and lipsticks, too." One reason why the rich got richer while the poor and middle-class suffered is because central banks kept interest rates low which allowed the rich to accumulate assets by borrowing. The Adani Group had a gross debt of Rs 2.26 trillion or $27.3 billion as of September. TOI. More than the nominal GDP of 115 countries in the world, as estimated by the IMF. wikipedia. Lack of jobs for the unskilled labor has forced many to return to low-paying agricultural jobs. "The agricultural sector witnessed a return of 36 million workers between 2017-18 and 2021-22. So pronounced was it that the absolute count of workers in agriculture stood higher in 2021-22 than in 2011-12, a decade ago," wrote Prof Himanshu. So huge has been the rise in the income of the rich that, "India's per capita income has doubled to Rs 1,72,000 in nominal terms since the Narendra Modi-led government came to power in 2014-15, according to the National Statistical Office (NSO)." TOI. The average is getting richer. Obviously, some are more equal.