-The Hindu There is a lack of recent data on the representation of various communities in education and employment The Madras High Court’s recent verdict of quashing the 10.5% special reservation for Vanniyakula Kshatriyas within the overall 20% quota for Most Backward Classes (MBC) and Denotified Communities (DNC) has again highlighted the importance of quantifiable data as a prerequisite for reservation in education and employment. Adopted on the last day of the previous...

-The Hindu ‘It can’t be a business as usual approach’ As almost 26 crore children return to physical classes after 18 months of school closures, a business as usual approach will lead to a deepening of existing educational inequity, warned the National Coalition on the Education Emergency in a report released online on Tuesday. The NCEE cited data from the recent SCHOOL survey conducted in 15 States, which showed that 72% of elementary...

-The Hindu Caste data will help us understand the contours of inequality and craft reasoned and inclusive policies The debate about whether the decennial Census should collect data on caste from individuals who fall into the administrative categories of ‘General’ and ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs) has been argued by public intellectuals, politicians, and government administrators for decades. As the Census currently only collects data on ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SCs) and ‘Scheduled Tribes’ (STs),...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-Hindustan Times There have been growing demands for a caste census with the general census in 2022 since Justice G Rohini-led commission submitted a draft proposal recommending a sub-categorisation of the reservation for the OBC There have been growing demands for a caste census with the general census in 2022 since Justice G Rohini-led commission submitted a draft proposal recommending a sub-categorisation of the reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The...