-Livemint.com Consumption declined over the period 2014-18, confirming fears that people ended up worse off Various data from the financial to the corporate sector over the last two months are confirming the worst fears of a sharp decline in demand in the economy. With stagnant investment and exports, there are clear signs of a sustained slowdown. Most of this was well known to anybody following the Indian economy, barring the government, which...

-The Hindu Business Line There has been a spike in income inequality in the post reforms period with wealth concentrated at the top deciles India has somehow nurtured a widely shared impression that it has a well established statistical system with reliable databases compiled through effective methods of data collection through its network of central agencies and periodic nation-wide surveys. However, India is one of the very few countries which does not...

-The Hindu The merger of the NSSO into the Central Statistics Office is a cause for concern The announcement that the government has decided to merge the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) into and under the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has caused both surprise and concern. What exactly the ‘merger’ means remains unclear. Recent attempts to question the veracity of National Sample Survey (NSS) data and the way the issue has been...

Non-payment of MGNREGA wages on time to workers and non-revision of daily wage rates, among other things, have kept the poor away from the programme in many states. When the notified daily wage rates under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (2005) Act (MGNREGA) for 2019-20 was announced on 26th March 2019, it became clear that the existing wage rates were not revised (viz. as compared to 2018-19) in...

  Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...