A recent report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) brings forth the dichotomy between digital divide and India’s transition towards a cashless economy. The rural-urban divide in access to computer and internet is quite stark, according to the report entitled 'Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, July 2017 to June 2018'.   The 75th round National Sample Survey (NSS) report on education finds that...

-The Indian Express Area under paddy stubble burning in Punjab up despite number of Machines almost doubling. Jalandhar: Punjab farmers have sown 4.50 lakh hectares (lh) wheat area this time using Happy Seeders. This is nearly 13% of the total 35.08 lh planted under the rabi cereal crop in the state. Not bad, it would seem, for a relatively new technology, which allows wheat to be directly seeded in combine-harvested paddy fields...

-The Indian Express In Odisha, procurement of paddy during the ongoing 2019-20 Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) is, for the first time, being done from registered farmers only after Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. FIRST IT was fertilisers, where the NDA government made disbursal of subsidy conditional upon actual sales to farmers getting registered on PoS (Point of Sale) Machines in retail outlets. That reform measure — to ensure that the benefit of minimum support...

-The Indian Express Government does well to constitute panel on economic statistics, and even better to include critics on it The Narendra Modi government deserves credit for constituting a new Standing Committee on Economic Statistics “to review the extant framework relating to data sources, indicators, concepts/definitions and other issues” connected with measurement of economic activity. Significantly, the panel is headed by the former chief statistician of India, Pronab Sen, and has at...

-The Hindu This is a watershed moment for the judiciary not to falter and for judges to undo the wrongs of the past The recent enactment of the amendments to the Citizenship Act have left many, and certainly myself, very disturbed. The legislation itself is undoubtedly problematic and is compounded by the linkages with the National Register of Citizens (NRC). I was a part of a People’s Tribunal on the deployment of...