-The Indian Express New GDP back series does what the government needs it to — shows that growth during its term has been higher than during the UPA regime. Controversy over the growth performance of the Indian economy took another turn with The Indian Express breaking the story about Niti Aayog not allowing the back series to be announced three years back because it showed a higher growth rate during the...

-Newsclick.in Funding is not keeping pace with demand, and delays or vanished dues are discouraging job seekers in these times of extreme rural distress. Here is a little known but chilling fact about the rural job guarantee scheme, MGNREGS: between April and mid-December this year, about 1.28 crore people who demanded jobs were turned back. This refusal to give work has been happening every year but it has increased after the Modi...

-The Hindu A structural break can be observed in the GDP back series before and after the year 2011-12 India’s national income statistics are under a cloud. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released official revisions of the GDP estimates for the years 2004-05 to 2013-14 in the Manmohan Singh-led government’s tenure. The revisions make the Narendra Modi government’s performance on the economic front appear better than that of its predecessor. In 2015,...

-The Hindu Business Line The sharp cut in back-series growth rates for some years in methodologically unsound. It suggests political interference The recent release of the back series of national income has raised a series of controversial reactions. It is understandable for, the gross domestic product (GDP) numbers and the resulting growth estimates provide analytically useful, more powerful than commonly understood, perspectives encompassing not only economic but also social and political spheres. To...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘GDP growth rates for 2004-11 were bound to come down’ New Delhi: “You can slice and dice the data anyway you want, but India’s GDP growth rates between 2004 and 2011 were bound to come down in the backcasting computation effort,” said TCA Anant, former Chief Statistician of India. When the new base year of 2011-12 came out, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) had documented and recognised that the...