-The Hindu The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, has been released in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns through sustainable employment’. With rising unemployment becoming a major poll issue, and several political parties proposing solutions for it in their election manifestos, a group of labour researchers have proposed a national urban job guarantee programme for small...

-The Hindu Business Line Kochi (Kerala): The two-day conference on ‘Models for Agricultural Development: Experiences of Farmer Producer Companies’, has called for sustained efforts to strengthen, streamline, support and coordinate Farmer Producer Organisations. The conference, jointly organised by the Department of Agricultural Economics, Kerala Agriculture University and Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (ISAE), mooted a national level consortium to help the FPCs realise their goals and lead the efforts to enhance farmers’...

-Livemint.com * Nearly 67% children in Singhbhum are underweight, the highest in India. More than half are stunted and a third suffer from wasting * In Jharkhand, malnutrition is still an alien concept, and the lack of drinking water, ration or electricity supercedes need for healthcare Singhbhum: In the waiting room of a hospital ward in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, Mukul Kalandiya is carefully holding something that from a distance looks like a...

-Scroll.in They observed that data unfavourable to the government was getting revised or suppressed on the basis of questionable methodologies. A group of economists and social scientists on Thursday urged the Indian government to restore the integrity of statistical organisations as their national and global reputation was “at stake”. Any data unfavourable to the government “seems to get revised or suppressed on the basis of some questionable methodology”, they said, citing some...

-Livemint.com In conversation with Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Neither the Narendra Modi government nor Rahul Gandhi have gotten minimum income scheme right, he says New Delhi: Income support is the big economic idea of the season. While the ruling BJP government announced a limited money transfer scheme targeted at farmers in the recent interim budget, the Congress has proposed to solve the country’s...