Is India going to face inflation in cereal prices during the rest of the current financial year? Experts differ on this. An analysis by Nomura Global Economics and CEIC finds that a below normal monsoon does not always translate into high retail inflation in food. Similarly, an above normal southwest monsoon does not always bring down the rate of food inflation. However, some agricultural experts (please click here, here and...
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A 3-day dharna for the rights of the MGNREGA workers begins today at Delhi's Jantar Mantar
-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated August 2, 2022 During and after Covid, NREGA work has been the lifeline for more than 70 percent of the country’s population, when the cities sent back the migrants, it was NREGA that gave them the life of dignity in the rural areas. Many economists have also said that MGNREGA has continued to be the only lifeline for rural workers—one that provides work and...
More »India’s infant mortality rate isn’t a fringe issue -Patralekha Chatterjee
-Deccan Chronicle The latest data from the Registrar-General of India shows that India’s infant mortality rate is 28 (28 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) Infant mortality is the end-result of a whole chain of interlinked ground-level challenges. In a week when the word “fringe” is a headline-grabber, let me start by saying that updates about the country’s infant mortality rate (IMR) is not a fringe issue. It is central to a...
More »Forget minimum wages, MGNREGA workers not even receiving notified wages in many states
Every year in the month of either February or March, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announces the notified MGNREGA wage rates (i.e., notified daily wage rates for MGNREGA workers) for various states and Union Territories (UTs) for the upcoming financial year. The MGNREGA rates are notified every year based on the increase in Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL). Like the previous years, in 2021 too, experts and civil...
More »Reality is stranger than the fad for online education -- most schools lack IT-infrastructure
Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...
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