-Livemint.com Consumption declined over the period 2014-18, confirming fears that people ended up worse off Various data from the financial to the corporate sector over the last two months are confirming the worst fears of a sharp decline in demand in the economy. With stagnant investment and exports, there are clear signs of a sustained slowdown. Most of this was well known to anybody following the Indian economy, barring the government, which...

-The Hindu Business Line There has been a spike in income inequality in the post reforms period with wealth concentrated at the top deciles India has somehow nurtured a widely shared impression that it has a well established statistical system with reliable databases compiled through effective methods of data collection through its network of central agencies and periodic nation-wide surveys. However, India is one of the very few countries which does not...

-TheWire.in "I think the fact that the whole [NSSO] exercise began with a fundamental premise of keeping it comparable, that has been forgotten." The fierce debate over India’s unemployment figures came to a head last week, when a jobs data report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) was finally made public. This report has been a source of contention ever since two members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC)  resigned allegedly...

-The Economic Times January-March quarter growth may have slumped to 6-6.3% against 6.6% expansion in the preceding one. NEW DELHI: India’s economic growth is likely to have slipped below 7% in FY19, the lowest in the past five years, because of a disappointing fourth quarter. That could prompt a further cut in interest rates by the central bank and renewed efforts by the incoming government to drum up demand and private investment,...

-The Hindu The merger of the NSSO into the Central Statistics Office is a cause for concern The announcement that the government has decided to merge the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) into and under the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has caused both surprise and concern. What exactly the ‘merger’ means remains unclear. Recent attempts to question the veracity of National Sample Survey (NSS) data and the way the issue has been...