-The Hindu The decennial Census exercise, which was indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be held for the first time both in the digital mode and through paper schedules The Union government has amended the Census Rules framed in 1990 to allow the details to be captured and stored in an electronic format and also to enable self-enumeration by respondents.  The decennial Census exercise, which was indefinitely postponed due to the...

In the absence of income or expenditure-based headcount ratio, the growth in the real wages (i.e., nominal wages adjusted against retail inflation) of the manual workers is considered to be a good proxy to assess the trends in poverty. This is because the manual, unskilled/ semi-skilled labourers exist at the bottom of the pyramid or economic hierarchy, and most of them belong to the social categories Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

-The Hindu Handbook sees prejudices and ignorance or deliberate misinformation campaign on the exercise The Registrar General of India (RGI) anticipates “organised movement” against the decennial Census exercise such as agitation for inclusion of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and court cases against the collection of data for the National Population Register (NPR). The concern is documented in the Census of India 2021 Handbook for Principal/District Census Officers and Charge Officers that has been...

-The Hindu States seek transparency in GST data. GST collections have crossed ₹1 lakh crore in eleven of the last 12 months, with the government attributing the trend to a rapid economic recovery and improved compliance levels, but economists are unable to analyse these tax numbers as critical data points are no longer shared by the government. Until December 2020, when monthly GST collections were released, the official statement from the Finance Ministry...

Media reports indicate that at the start of the southwest monsoon season, lightning strikes caused the death of over 70 people in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on a single day i.e. 11th July, 2021. Prior to those separate events related to human casualty caused by thunderbolts, eighteen elephants were found dead on a hilltop at Kandali Proposed Reserve Forest situated in Assam's Nagaon district on...