In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...

-Hindustan Times Unfortunately, there is no high frequency income or consumption Data for the Indian economy. What we do have is monthly Data for rural wages, which is available until June 2019. On Wednesday, media reports said that India’s leading biscuit-maker Parle Products Private Limited could cut up to 10,000 jobs as “slowing economic growth and falling demand in the rural heartland could cause production cuts”. The company’s flagship brand Parle-G...

-The Hindu In a democracy, it is important for government agencies to disseminate Data in a timely manner After a delayed start, the Southwest Monsoon recently wreaked havoc in Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and other parts of India. In such a situation, a Data journalist would have ideally looked for weekly comparisons of rainfall Data across the affected States to determine when the rains began to intensify; historical Data to determine how the...

-The Hindu In 2018, India failed to comply with multiple requirements prescribed in the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) mandatory for all IMF members Chennai: Even as questions have been raised about the delays in Data dissemination from various government agencies — the most recent Data from the National Crime Records Bureau dates back to 2016 and accident statistics have not been updated since 2015 — a recent report published by the...

-The Hindu Gujarat tops rankings for second time New Delhi: Thirteen of the 27 States and Union Territories have improved their water management practices from last year, an analysis by the NITI Aayog has revealed. Gujarat, though it dropped a point, topped the rankings for the second year in a row with a score of 75 out of a maximum possible 100. Six States did worse than last year — with Delhi, which was...