Data recap: Farmers’ march, IT jobs, surging travel

livemint.com:

Mint in the week gone by. In response to the revival of protests by farmers, the government had floated a proposal to buy at least five crops over the next five years at minimum support price (MPS). But, farmers have rejected the Centre's offer, and are marching to Delhi again.

Despite high airfares, Indians will continue with their summer travel plans, suggests the latest data released by the International Air Transport Association. Farmers in north India have taken to the streets yet again and are on their way to Delhi to protest, demanding a legal guarantee for MSP among other things. Coming just before the election season, this underscores the delay in fulfilment of the promises made by the Centre during the last round of protests.

The MSP mechanism has been in place for decades, but it has done little to address the plight of farmers. Average farm incomes have stayed low, and MSP hikes have been modest since 2019-20. A total of 1,442 km of highways were constructed across India in January, up 40% from the same month last year.

This was close to the road ministry’s ambitious objective of building 50 km of highways per day. However, overall construction activity for the fiscal year 2023-24 has been sluggish: only 7,658 km of highways were completed till January. With just two months remaining, even a 50-km-per-day pace will end up at 11,000 km, falling short of the full-year goal by nearly 2,800 km.

4.7 billion: That's the number of passengers who are projected to travel by air in the year 2024 globally, up from 4.5 billion in 2019, the International Air Transport Association has said. In India, too, air travel is surging, leading to increased airfares due to insufficient capacity to accommodate the demand. IndiGo,