-The Indian Express The Modi government had recently directed all central government offices to introduce Aadhaar-based biometric attendance systems. In what could be a revolutionary step towards monitoring and tracking the work of government officials, the NDA government has launched an "attendance website" to serve as a centralised database for all central government employees. Though the website, attendance.gov.in, is still in the process of being developed, officials said it is expected to be...

-India Today Geography of rice and wheat has been transformed with Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh generating surpluses Almost 50 years ago, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri went on air to appeal to Indians to skip a meal a day. Foodgrain supplies had come under strain after the 1965 drought, and the patriotic ethos cautioned against over-consumption: what you ate left that much less for the rest. Today, it is...

-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set in motion the first major revamp in decades of the archaic labour laws, part of a plan to revive the flagging economy, boost manufacturing and create millions of jobs. Successive governments have agreed labour reform is critical to absorb 200 million Indians reaching working age over the next two decades, but fears of an ugly union-led backlash and partisan politics have prevented changes to free...

-The Times of India   Prem Das Rai, an MP from Sikkim, knew that development indicators from his state were exceptional. But his office didn't know how to showcase them. He reached out to Swaniti, a Delhi-based not-for-profit organization that has been working "consulting style" with parliamentarians. Their portal called Jigyasa aims to answer questions like Rai's. Rwitwika Bhattacharya, Swaniti's founder-CEO, was surprised at what they uncovered. "I always thought that the...

-The Hindu   India could be overstating poverty levels as the private final consumption estimates captured by the National Income Accounts (NIA) is nearly twice as much as the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) estimates for consumption expenditure of households in 2011-12.   At present, poverty ratios are calculated using the NSSO data. The C. Rangarajan Committee on poverty estimation, that will submit its findings by the month-end, is likely to report that it...