-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 Indian Express UP is truly at the crossroads: The state is uniquely poised to leverage opportunities from agriculture and build on the base laid by entrepreneurs, whether in sugar, potatoes, buffalo meat, leather or mentha oil. But, it is equally in danger of being taken back by decades, courtesy leaders with exclusivist and narrow-minded visions. Efforts to market it as an Uttam Pradesh notwithstanding, UP or Uttar Pradesh, is for...

-The Hindu The coaching centres reveal the poignant face of the growing job crisis that confronts small-town India Sarkari Naukri. Government job. These are the two words you hear most often inside Aryan Civil Academy. It is one of many coaching centres that dot the Sigra locality of Varanasi. Sigra is not quite a spiritual experience. In fact, its appeal lies in its disarming celebration of everydayness. It is close to markets...

-The Hindu It poses biohazard & must be treated seriously, say activists Genetically modified (GM) brinjal is being illegally grown in the Fatehabad district of Haryana, according to anti-GM activists. On Thursday, they demanded that the Central and the State regulatory agencies immediately take action to stop the cultivation, investigate the spread of the illegal variety and destroy all such crops, seeds and saplings as dangerous biohazards are entering the food chain. Punitive...

-The Indian Express Rural crisis needs nuanced interventions, not tall promises in party manifestos Farmers were sold a dream in 2014 that everything was going to change. But now they have compelling reasons to feel they were deceived. Party manifestos indicate what the politicians want us to believe. After elections, winners get either selective amnesia (Rs 15 lakh in each bank account), re-interpret promises (MSP at C2+50 per cent), continue to...