-The Telegraph New Delhi: Junior home minister Hansraj Ahir on Tuesday said 47,338 cases were registered in 2016 under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, a 2,000-plus rise over the year before, with disturbing statistics hidden in the details that pointed to a worrying trend. A close examination of figures provided by the National Crime Records Bureau for 2016 by this newspaper revealed that Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 10,426 cases...

-PTI The Centre has allowed states to set up their own insurance companies for implementing Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), a senior Agriculture Ministry official said today. The move comes after several requests from states as well as observations made by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its 2017 report that old crop insurances schemes which have now Been merged with PMFBY, were poorly implemented during 2011-2016. "We have allowed the states...

-The Hindu Why measuring inequality is not the same as measuring changes in the level of poverty in India In recent years, there has Been a lot of discussion on increasing inequality within several countries of the world, including India, particularly after the publication of Thomas Piketty’s book on inequality. It is true that rising inequality has adverse economic and social consequences. The Gini coefficient or other measures of inequality are being...

-PTI Researchers from Harvard and NASA have shown that in October and November about half of all pollution in Delhi can be attributed to agricultural fires on some days Boston: Agricultural fires are to blame for about half of the pollution experienced in Delhi in October and November, a peak stubble burning season in Punjab, a Harvard study has found using satellite data from NASA. Many farmers in northwest India typically burn abundant...

The increase in organized sector employment (i.e. in establishments employing 10 or more workers) in the second quarter was much higher as compared to that in the first quarter of 2017-18. The seventh round of the Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario in selected sectors (as on 1st October, 2017), which was released in March this year, confirms this. The Labour Bureau’s latest report says that during the period 1st April to...