-NDTV Supreme Court told the Home Ministry to give wide publicity of the nodal officers' contact details so that Kashmiris who need help can approach them easily New Delhi: The Supreme Court today directed 10 states and the centre to ensure Kashmiris living across the country do not face social boycott, harassment or attacks, days after the Pulwama terror attack. The 10 states are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,...

-Economic and Political Weekly A broad-brush assessment of the public distribution system is presented in six of India’s poorest states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal—soon after the National Food Security Act, 2013 came into force. Important gains have been made, including broader coverage, lower targeting errors, accelerated PDS reforms, and a greater political commitment to food security. In four of the six reference states, the PDS seems to...

-The Telegraph Ads published by AAP about development work in unauthorised colonies, where migrant workers live, have started appearing in newspapers New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal retweeted a video criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently. The song in the video, a parody of a number from Dangal, mentioned that BJP workers beat up Purvanchalis in Delhi and Gujarat. It also alleged that the BJP got names of Purvanchali voters deleted...

-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-The Indian Express My resignation from National Statistical Commission was the last act in a long story of disregard for its reports William Setzer, in the working paper, “Politics and Statistics: Independence, Dependence or Interaction”, published by the UN, lists several possible areas where political interference in official data generation and publication can happen. One of these is the extent and timing of release of data. He cites several examples. Most...