INEQUALITY REPORT RENEWS QUESTION ON GROWTH MODEL

INDIA'S income and wealth inequality has touched historic peaks, making it one of the world's most unequal countries, according to the World Inequality Lab's new working paper.

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Authored by renowned economists including Nobel laureate Thomas Piketty, the report estimates the richest citizens, or the top 1 percent, own 40.1 percent of the country's wealth and 22.6 percent of the total income. Such wealth concentration is at its highest in six decades, while the income share exceeds those in Brazil and the US. The latest paper is an extension of Piketty's 2014 study, which too pointed out India's income-wealth gap was worse than during the British Raj and how India's 1991 liberalisation helped increase the number of billionaires, which Forbes says grew from just one in 1991 to 162 in 2022. The paper also cites numerous other studies, all of which confirm th