-ThePrint.in The first assessment of 14-18 year olds shows girls abandoning school much more than boys; Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian says he’s worried. New Delhi: For the last 11 years, the Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) on school education showed that there was parity between the number of 6-10-year-old girls and boys who were enrolled in or had dropped out of school. This indicated that girls and boys did equally...

-The Times of India blog With little over than a year left for the 2019 general elections, the Narendra Modi led NDA government has finally remembered the farmers of the country. Last week, finance minister Arun Jaitley said agriculture sector is the government’s top priority in this year’s Budget. This has left many surprised considering BJP had promised to ensure a minimum of 50% profit over cost of production in their...

-The Hindu Agricultural policy should look to address the problem of severe price fluctuations There appears to be no end in sight to the cycle of boom and bust in the prices of agricultural goods. Over the last few weeks, across India the price of potatoes has fallen sharply after a year of bumper production. With the price of a kilogram of potato dropping as low as under a rupee in certain...

-The Hindu Business Line The government must universalise social security pensions for the elderly, single women and persons with disabilities and also operationalise the maternity entitlement scheme at the earliest, says Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi. In an interview to BusinessLine, Khera argued against the use of Aadhaar for authentication of beneficiaries and said it has “no role in plugging leakages or in the identification of correct beneficiaries”....

-PTI The leaders claimed thousands of people had lost their jobs because of demonetisation Trade Unions want the government to allocate more funds in the Union Budget for employment generation and claimed that opening up the retail market to foreign players would lead to further loss of jobs. Though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said suggestions made by TU leaders during a pre-Budget consultation meet last month would be considered, the leaders felt...