Watch | Amidst Rising Inflation and Poverty, 'Frying Pakodas is Not Employment'

In the face of rising inflation and fuel prices, it becomes important to talk about employment as well as the overall state of the Indian economy.

When asked about the state of employment in India in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his interviewer if a pakoda vendor, earning Rs 200 a day, should not be considered employed?

The truth, according to the Prime Minister, is that "massive people are being employed".

However, this vendor, earning Rs 6,000 every month, would still remain below the poverty line, according to Santosh Mehrotra, a visiting professor at the Centre for Development, University of Bath.

To dig deeper into the Prime Minister's response and to understand the issues of employment, rising food and fuel prices and the economy at large, The Wire's Mukul Singh Chauhan sits down to have a conversation with Mehrotra, who claims that, in the last eight years (until 2020), India's poor have grown by 76 million.

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