-The India Forum The government's lack of respect for national surveys on consumption has meant that the door has been opened to preparation of unofficial estimates on poverty made on questionable assumptions. Two such recent estimates highlight the need to resume collection of data to get a true picture of poverty The government of India does not seem to be interested in knowing how many poor there are in the country. The missing...
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Questioning the safety of Aadhaar -Saptaparno Ghosh
-The Hindu Can Aadhaar be the one-stop solution for all identification requirements? Does it safeguard the privacy of its various beneficiaries? The story so far: Two days after issuing an advisory asking people to refrain from sharing photocopies of their Aadhaar Card, the Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI) opted to withdraw the notification. It stated that the action was to avert any possibility of ‘misinterpretation’ of the (withdrawn) press release,...
More »Needed, education data that engages the poor parent -Priyadarshini Singh
-The Hindu What India lacks — and needs — is data which can hold the local vision of education and local actors accountable When the children of the poor cannot read and write, when they do not play and dance in school, can the poor speak and demand change? We gather data on enrolments, retention, learning, infrastructure, and teacher training to understand the state of our public school system. But is data...
More »Forget minimum wages, MGNREGA workers not even receiving notified wages in many states
Every year in the month of either February or March, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announces the notified MGNREGA wage rates (i.e., notified daily wage rates for MGNREGA workers) for various states and Union Territories (UTs) for the upcoming financial year. The MGNREGA rates are notified every year based on the increase in Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL). Like the previous years, in 2021 too, experts and civil...
More »Inadequacies of the Civil Registration System -K Narayanan Unni
-The Hindu Facts do not support the argument that India has a robust system of registering births and deaths The World Health Organization (WHO)’s estimate of excess deaths due to COVID-19 in India triggered several responses. Among them was the response of several State Health Ministers, who slammed the WHO and asserted that India has a “robust, legal and transparent system for data collection and COVID mortality surveillance”. This new-found love for the...
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