-The New Indian Express In 2017, nearly 40 lakh hectares of agricultural land was impacted because of water woes, resulting in a drop in the area under cultivation for crops. NEW DELHI: With one-third of agriculture activities in India still depending on groundwater for irrigation, the country’s cultivated land is shrinking due to depleting ground water levels and extreme weather conditions. This will impact the agriculture output and may upset the Centre’s...

-The Hindu AISHE confirms rising vacancies in higher education New Delhi: The total number of teachers in higher educational institutions in India has come down by about 2.34-lakh in the last three years, as per the All India Survey on Higher Education report 2017-18. Coming at a time when there has been widespread concern over the continuing vacancies in universities, the report is likely to be an eye-opener on the dearth of teachers...

-Livemint.com The prime minister is partly right in the sense that the most authoritative data on employment-unemployment from the periodic NSSO were not available after 2011-12 In an interview given to Swarajya magazine earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented the lack of data on jobs in the country. This was in response to a question on why the economy is not creating jobs. The prime minister is partly right...

-Livemint.com One of the big drivers of the ruling BJP’s massive victory in 2014 was its ability to exploit inequalities within caste groups to expand its support base New Delhi: When we think of caste-based inequality in India, we typically think of a pyramid where scheduled castes (SCs or Dalits) and scheduled tribes (STs) are at the bottom, other backward classes (OBCs) above them, and upper castes at the very top....

-Hindustan Times In India, it’s difficult to find accurate estimates of campaign spending. Research also shows that illicit funds are important in funding elections in the country. Despite constant chatter about the massive (and rising) costs of election campaigns in India, there is a dearth of credible data on the actual costs, the sources of support for candidates, and the implications of campaign costs on governance between elections. However, newly available survey data...