-The Telegraph Many families depend on two entitlements for survival: social security pensions and rations from the public distribution system Particularly vulnerable tribal groups, earlier known as primitive tribal groups, are the sort of people you may never meet unless you take the trouble to look for them. In Jharkhand, they live in small hamlets scattered over the nooks and crannies of the state’s undulating forests. Without a purpose and some local...

Passionate about the deepening of agrarian crisis, quite often journalists and media persons cite figures related to farm suicide (as provided by the National Crime Records Bureau) in order to draw the attention of the readers. They do so in the following ways: * Compare the absolute number of farm suicides (viz. suicide by cultivators + suicide by agricultural labourers) across regions/ states for a particular time point or time period...

-The Hindu A structural break can be observed in the GDP back series before and after the year 2011-12 India’s national income statistics are under a cloud. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released official revisions of the GDP estimates for the years 2004-05 to 2013-14 in the Manmohan Singh-led government’s tenure. The revisions make the Narendra Modi government’s performance on the economic front appear better than that of its predecessor. In 2015,...

-Livemint.com An economy’s resilience and sustainability is best measured through its institutional strength The official back data on India’s gross domestic product (GDP), released by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) on Wednesday, runs the risk of denting the market’s trust and conviction in official data released by government agencies. The new data release contradicts the earlier findings of a committee set up by National Statistical Commission to develop a methodology for deriving...

-Firstpost.com Faring last on every quantifiable social parameter in the country, MP’s Alirajpur sees a different style of campaigning. Alirajpur (MP): It is hard to figure as one moves through the lanes of Alirajpur, located in the far west corner of Madhya Pradesh, that it will vote with the rest of the state on Wednesday. There are no political billboards to be seen in the town, no vehicles move around with party flags...