-Down to Earth A report shows drought-like situation in over 700 blocks of 91 districts of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar & West Bengal A severe deficit in the rainfall during monsoon 2022 has affected Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar. However, state governments have shied away from declaring a drought in the states even though Kharif-sowing was badly hit. Uttar Pradesh government directed a drought survey in all its districts September 8,...

-ThePrint.in Panchayats or local elected governments are supposed to lead socio-economic development but they have no funds to spend as per needs. The growing political importance of ‘good governance’ in politics today brings the focus back on India’s chronic implementation failure problem. It pervades all development sectors like education, health care, law enforcement and infrastructure, but our understanding of what causes these failures is imperfect.  In fact, ‘implementation failure’ is embedded in the...

-The Hindu Business Line  The latest PLFS report shows that urban India has recouped jobs lost during Covid, but there are some structural shifts As Covid wanes, India’s high-frequency indicators suggest that economic activity is normalising quickly, with high-contact services such as trade, hospitality and travel being the latest to revive. NSO’s latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for the April-June quarter of 2022 shows that the growth revival is reflecting in...

-The Hindu How is this initiative different from the MGNREGA for villagers? What are some of the similar schemes being implemented in other States? The story so far: The Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme has rolled out in Rajasthan with the objective of providing economic support to the poor and needy families living in the cities through work to be provided on demand for 100 days in a year. The Congress...

-The Hindu The RBI has estimated a 7.1% inflation rate for the July to September quarter India’s retail inflation touched 7% in August, up from 6.71% in July, fuelled by a 7.62% pick-up in food prices paid by consumers, even as industrial production growth in July had dropped to the lowest level since April at just 2.4%, with output levels dropping 2.75% month-on-month.   This is the eighth successive month that retail inflation...