-The New Indian Express In 2017, nearly 40 lakh hectares of agricultural land was impacted because of water woes, resulting in a drop in the area under cultivation for crops. NEW DELHI: With one-third of agriculture activities in India still depending on groundwater for irrigation, the country’s cultivated land is shrinking due to depleting ground water levels and extreme weather conditions. This will impact the agriculture output and may upset the Centre’s...

-Livemint.com One of the big drivers of the ruling BJP’s massive victory in 2014 was its ability to exploit inequalities within caste groups to expand its support base New Delhi: When we think of caste-based inequality in India, we typically think of a pyramid where scheduled castes (SCs or Dalits) and scheduled tribes (STs) are at the bottom, other backward classes (OBCs) above them, and upper castes at the very top....

-Outlook Social security enrolment of workers is not a good measure of how many new jobs are created Employment data has always been a subject of debate in India, more so now that the surge in social security enrolments is ­being cited as evidence to press home that 41.26 lakh new jobs were created between September 2017 and April this year. The Central Statistics Office data earlier this month raises more questions...

-The New Indian Express A recent internal communication between UIDAI officials had pegged that around 1 to 1.5% of all enrolments made in the last seven years have “mixed biometrics” BENGALURU: In February this year, a contract labourer in Raichur got his Aadhaar number after seven years of running from pillar to post. Mixing of his fingerprints with that of his son — for no mistake of his own — had cost...

-Hindustan Times In India, it’s difficult to find accurate estimates of campaign spending. Research also shows that illicit funds are important in funding elections in the country. Despite constant chatter about the massive (and rising) costs of election campaigns in India, there is a dearth of credible data on the actual costs, the sources of support for candidates, and the implications of campaign costs on governance between elections. However, newly available survey data...