-The Indian Express GDP growth rates for pre-2011-12 years, making it impossible to compare the new growth data with the growth during the UPA years. New Delhi: From a new gross domestic product (GDP) series to a revised Index of Industrial Production and inflation indices, alongside fresh interventions including payroll reporting based on EPFO data, statistical measurement tools to gauge economic development underwent some change over the past four years. In the...

-The Indian Express The problem is under-employment. It won’t be resolved if the residually-employed are notionally shifted from the informal to formal sector. In an article in January, Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Pulak Ghosh (Ghosh and Ghosh) claimed that seven million new jobs have been created in the formal sector. Their claim is based on the increase in registration under the Employees Provident Fund (EPFO), National Pension Scheme and Employees State Insurance...

-News18.com In an interview with News18’s Rupashree Nanda, Dreze, who was a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and an architect of the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), says that there have been no major initiatives in the social field in the last four years, with the partial exception of Swachh Bharat. Government data reveal that the Indian economy is growing at a robust rate but noted economist Jean Dreze believes...

-Down to Earth Waste pickers recycle almost 20 per cent of India's wastes. Yet they are unrecognised, face discrimination and are not entitled to government schemes India produces about 5.31 million tonnes of waste each year and is facing an unprecedented solid waste management crisis. Coupled with an upward trend in industrialisation, rural migration, spending and an increasing propensity for capitalist consumption, the amount of waste generated in India will continue...

-Hindustan Times The murder of a woman in Alwar points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story on why nearly 200 lakh women have quit jobs All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s income was not enough to educate her children, Tanuja, 15, and Dheeraj, 10, and, so, she took a job at a plastic factory. Not everyone was...