-News18.com In an interview with News18’s Rupashree Nanda, Dreze, who was a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and an architect of the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), says that there have been no major initiatives in the social field in the last four years, with the partial exception of Swachh Bharat. Government data reveal that the Indian economy is growing at a robust rate but noted economist Jean Dreze believes...

-Livemint.com For the first time during the tenure of the present government, overall inflation of food articles is negative, implying a decline in prices Last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) presented its first forecast for the monsoon this year. The forecast at 97% of the long period average (LPA) suggested yet a third year of normal monsoon rains, following 2016 and 2017. This should have ideally brought cheer to farmers struggling...

-Frontline.in The government ought to have specified its definition of cost of crop production in the Budget to prevent any confusion in the minds of people on minimum support prices. Speaking at the Krishi Unnati Mela 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly complained that confusion was being spread about the announcement on minimum support prices (MSPs) made in the Finance Minister’s 2018 Budget speech. The speech had assured farmers that they would,...

The increase in organized sector employment (i.e. in establishments employing 10 or more workers) in the second quarter was much higher as compared to that in the first quarter of 2017-18. The seventh round of the Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario in selected sectors (as on 1st October, 2017), which was released in March this year, confirms this. The Labour Bureau’s latest report says that during the period 1st April to...

-Hindustan Times An examination of RBI data indicates that peasants turning to construction are increasingly at the same income levels as farming, in probably more challenging conditions. Shifting agricultural workers to remunerative non-farm jobs, is India’s central challenge on the employment front. The construction sector has been a mainstay of non-farm jobs over the last two decades. However, these jobs are increasingly losing their remunerative potential. The KLEM (Capital with a K, Labour,...