-Down to Earth High debts, sexual exploitation, gender disparity, caste discrimination and exclusion from the political process continue to bedevil these mostly Dalit women An eye-opening study released on March 19, 2019, on the plight of rural women labourers in Punjab, has brought to centre-stage, the issue of the failure of India’s political system to deliver after more than 72 years of independence. The document points at the marginalisation of these women, overwhelmingly...

-Scroll.in The health bill from crop burning is Rs 2 lakh crore annually. India’s five-year air-pollution-related health bill from burning crop stubble can pay for about 700 premier All India Institutes of Medical Sciences or India’s 2019 central government health budget nearly 21 times over, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of data from a new study. Burning of crop residue or stubble remains a key contributor to air pollution over northern India, despite...

-Hindustan Times Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday pledged to roll out a monthly income guarantee scheme, if his party comes to power at the Centre, to ensure India’s 20 per cent poorest families make at least Rs 12,000 every month. The scheme would cover 5 crore families and benefit nearly 25 crore people, said Gandhi after the Congress Working Committee cleared the plan that party president described as the “final...

-The Hindu Why the recent undermining of the credibility of India’s statistical output is especially regrettable Over the past two months, Indian national statistics and the organisations that administer them have faced a volley of criticism. In January, two independent members of the National Statistical Commission resigned in protest, over alleged suppression of economic data by the government. More recently, amidst growing scepticism regarding India’s official statistics, more than a hundred scholars...

-ThePrint.in The CAs, led by Manipal group chairman T.V. Mohandas Pai, have labelled the allegations made by the 108 economists and social scientists ‘baseless’. New Delhi: Days after 108 economists and social scientists accused the Narendra Modi government of altering or withholding unfavourable economic data, a group of 131 chartered accountants (CAs) defended the government and questioned the scholars’ political motivations. The CAs asked all professionals to come together to portray the progress...