Business News/ Economy / Plain Facts: Best of Mint’s data-driven stories in 2024
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Today, we revisit the biggest data stories featured in Mint’s Plain Facts section through the year. Our coverage spanned politics, economy, business, climate, and health, with our trademark charts telling important stories of the India of 2024. Each hyperlink in this piece leads to the corresponding story, offering more charts and in-depth analysis.
Today, we revisit the biggest data stories featured in Mint’s Plain Facts section through the year. Our coverage spanned politics, economy, business, climate, and health, with our trademark charts telling important stories of the India of 2024. Each hyperlink in this piece leads to the corresponding story, offering more charts and in-depth analysis.
The flips of the poll year
The Lok Sabha elections of 2024, marked by lower voter turnout amid scorching heat, handed Narendra Modi his anticipated third term—but with a weaker mandate. This ushered in India's first coalition government in a decade, going against exit poll predictions. Our special full-page package and data analysis highlighted how a large share of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates secured over half the votes in their constituencies, even as the party faced setbacks in rural India. By year-end, however, it was back to business as usual, with the BJP rebounding strongly in key state elections.
The flips of the poll year
The Lok Sabha elections of 2024, marked by lower voter turnout amid scorching heat, handed Narendra Modi his anticipated third term—but with a weaker mandate. This ushered in India's first coalition government in a decade, going against exit poll predictions. Our special full-page package and data analysis highlighted how a large share of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates secured over half the votes in their constituencies, even as the party faced setbacks in rural India. By year-end, however, it was back to business as usual, with the BJP rebounding strongly in key state elections.
How India spends
The year marked the first official release of a Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) in India since 2011-12. Avoiding tempting but misleading historical comparisons due to significant changes in survey methodology, we focused on the present realities. Even without the need to track changes since 2011-12, our analysis highlighted troubling gaps, including possible poor welfare scheme coverage among the poorest and stark inequality: the top 10% of urban Indians spend ₹16,612 per person monthly—over three times the median. State-level charts illustrated these disparities. We also explored how free welfare goods and services played a role, albeit inconsistently, in narrowing the divide.
Decoding young Indians
Hold that thought on inequality. As usual, we ran our biannual surveys of millennial and Gen Z urban Indians, in collaboration with YouGov India and the Centre for Policy Research. The mid-year round of the survey told us that most (88%) urban Indians identify as middle-class. Even among those earning top-end salaries, the share exceeds 50%. But how much income will make you rich? For over half of the respondents, the magic number is less than ₹1 lakh per month per person. The survey also offered insights into political equations, policymaking perspectives, and the impact of social media on human relations.
India’s growth st-t-tory
India’s economy looks resilient, with a 6%-plus GDP growth rate despite the slowdown. However, there were signs of erosion in optimism among low-income groups amid price rises and lack of adequate job opportunities. Our stories showed how the informal sector shrank, a dip in unemployment was mainly driven by a shift towards agriculture and self-employment, and high interest rates in the US made foreign investments in India less lucrative. The hope hinges on the next wave of consumption boom but it may not be the sole driving force for putting India on a sustainable growth path. That said, as we explained in a piece, India also needs to compute its GDP figures accurately, as revisions in its base year are long-pending.
Political bonds
One of the biggest data stories of 2024 came out of a set of endless tables released by the Election Commission of India in March. The datasets detailed how Indian companies, small and big, had donated to political parties, mainly big, in half a decade of the controversial electoral bonds scheme, which the Supreme Court axed this year. The Plain Facts team and our partners at howindialives.com scoured through the data and found how donors were opportunistic rather than ideologically driven while signing their cheques, and how the scheme ended up potentially compromising corporate governance standards.
Business matters
Our series on the financial health of corporate India made three key findings. First, leaner operations forced by the pandemic may actually have helped smaller firms find their feet. Second, India Inc.’s dull investment mood belies the fat operating cash purse it could be now sitting on. Third, that money is instead helping businesses shake off their pile of debt. Read the three stories for deeper analysis. Our corporate data coverage also put a spotlight on growing pay ratios between the C-suite and employees, in one case being 2,899 times. We also carried a deep dive into the tenure of Gopal Vittal at the helm of Bharti Airtel; check it out here.
The heat is on
Most editions of our monthly wrap of the global economy featured the growing climate crisis: So much of what we hopefully foresee for the world is increasingly coming under peril. Global warming exceeded the dreaded 1.5°C mark nearly throughout 2024. Climate finance stays frosty, and COP29 failed to add hope on the matter, even as tens of thousands died from extreme weather events. Our frequent data dives explained various aspects of the crisis. Read our pieces on heat stress amid the elections, the toll on India’s marginal farmers, sketchy progress on renewable energy targets, and more.
India's nutrition crisis
This year, a large company came under pressure for sugary baby food, another briefly faced flak for the kind of cheese it was (wrongly) accused of using, and a third was ordered to not call its popular children’s beverage a ‘health drink’. The discourse on nutrition is rising, and we have followed the issue closely over the last few years. Nearly 70% of the respondents to our survey claimed they had improved their diets in the past year. But, wait for it. When prodded more, many among those with ‘improved’ habits expressed comfort with frequent oily, fried, or sweet foods. The HCES put the numbers for Indians’ junk food addiction. Healthy food may become trendy, but this ticking time bomb is still alive.
Also read | Diet dilemma: Why India struggles to eat right
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