The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth rate in Agri Gross Value Added (GVA) deflator (an alternative measure of inflation) shows a rising trend between 2005-06 and 2009-10. In other words, price rise pertaining to the agrarian sector accelerated during the period under discussion. This particular trend has been observed irrespective of whether one uses the GVA/GDP back-series data (Base 2011-12=100) that was computed by the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog (NITI Aayog)...

-The Hindu If it’s the government’s case that NSSO figures are suspect, what has it based policy decisions on? Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said last week, “we definitely have a data crisis,” and blamed academics for creating a “false narrative”. Yet, at the heart of the data crisis in India is the Central government, which has been holding back important data. Most recently, it did...

-The Telegraph Rahul cited Sreedhanya’s achievement in Wayanad as evidence that the job scheme was working and took a dig at Narendra Modi Kalpetta (Kerala): The first tribal woman from Kerala to qualify for the IAS told Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday that her parents were beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Sreedhanya Suresh said her parents had educated their two children with the money they earned from the rural...

-The Hindu The provision of health, education and public services matters more than income support schemes It is by now close to 50 years since Indira Gandhi brought the idea of eradicating poverty into the electoral arena in India. ‘Garibi Hatao’ had been her slogan. She actually took the country some distance in the promised direction. Though it had not come close to being eradicated in her time, it was under her...

-The Pioneer In the absence of any sunset clause or distinct feature to identify the beneficiaries who succeed in climbing themselves out of poverty, the scheme of direct cash transfer as an income support welfare measure and as a potent tool of empowerment does not sound convincing even on paper Thanks to the proposal for the universal basic income, it has become a topic for discussion as one-fifth population of this country...